It's used to be the case that some companies would squirt epoxy into the USB ports on devices - Doesn't really work any more as many devices no longer have PS2 mouse and keyboard ports.
Um, dude... That stuff may have been sticky, but it sure wasn't epoxy!
I can think of one good use for rear-view cameras... dealing with tailgaters! Imagine being able to record some video of some primo dickbag in his BMW X5, angrily following five feet behind you at 50mph because you aren't willing to go significantly above the speed limit for him. The computer's technology can measure how far away the other car is and overlay it on the screen. Then, hit a button on your dashboard, it sends the video (with a capture of his license plate, if he's got one) off to the police and they mail him a ticket. If enough people catch the same person doing it, fuck'im, take his license away and force him to take the bus.
On a more cheerful note, there is another use that Jeremy Clarkson recently suggested on Top Gear -- looking at pretty girls in the car behind you while sitting at a traffic light. Lech-o-matic!
And while you're watching this record, the car in front of you hits the brakes, and you rear end them.
I'm fairly certain regulations are going to mandate these cameras should only operate while the vehicle is in reverse.
If publishers were smart enough to get in on this, they could be making an absolute killing.
But apparently they aren't. Their loss.
Now that eBook readers capable of color have hit the market, it makes more sense then ever. Colored comics rendered in B/W? Not a fun prospect. But with tablets and color eBook readers on the market, being able to carry my collection around in my backpack wherever I go? Very appealing.
Even though there's hardly digital comics you can purchase, people still take the time to manually scan each comic as it comes out.
For manga, people even take the time to TRANSLATE it before they release it.
Just like anything else, piracy is based on demand, not convienence. People don't do all that work just because its easy, they do it because people want them.
The demand for ebook piracy may increase as people get more and more used to the idea of reading digital books, but wether or not a publisher decides to sell their books digitally would have no bearing on the chances of it getting pirated.
As a comic book collector, I love the pirated comic scans you can find on the web. why?
1) Simplicity in back issues. I have a physical copy of the entire Marvel comics run of Transformers, but going through my boxes, finding the books, unbagging them, reading them, rebagging them, putting them back in the boxes, etc, can be a pain. If I can download a PDF of the entire run, and read them on my computer, that's just great. Did it hurt anyone's sales? No, I already own them, I'm just happy for a different way to access the content.
2) Missed issues. This may seem like theft of a sale, but seriously? I'm a collector. I want the damned book. If I can't get my hands on the physical book for some reason, this is a great stop gap until one of my stores, offline and online, can get me a copy. Even if I'm never able to get the copy (some books skyrocket in price) at least it means I'm current with the storyline, and will continue to buy the title monthly. If I lose part of the storyline, often enough, I'll stop buying the book because I'm losing parts of the plot.
3) Recommended titles. If someone at a shop or show tells me "dude, you gotta check this out," I'm usually fair game. If it's still only 3 or 4 issues in, it's not a problem to buy all 3 or 4 issues. But if it's up to issue 12, or 25, or 50, it becomes unrealistic. If I can download the series and give it a shot, one of two things happen: I either dislike the book, and delete it, or I like the book, add all new issues to my weekly purchases, and then make an attempt to acquire as many of those back issues as I can. Remember, I'm a collector. That means I *WANT* the books.
Basically, I turn to comic scans to keep my interest, or gain my interest. When my interest is kept, I keep buying my weekly books, and both the publishers and the retailers are happy. When I become interested in something new, both the publishers and retailers enjoy my weekly purchases, and the retailer also enjoys additional purchases from their back issue stock. In my case, both the retailers and publishers are more likely to lose my money, had I no access to some of these scans. Is everyone like me? Unlikely, but I can't be the only one.
The barrier isn't technological, it's psychological. My mom has a cable box she doesn't need. The installer told her she needed to get cable. I told her to take it back and demand a refund. She won't. During the 80's, you had to have a box to get channels above 13, because that was the highest a TV could tune. Then the FCC mandated cable-ready TV's, and you didn't need a box at all except for pay TV. There was no education or information given to the public, so a lot of people went through the 90's still believing they need a box, and the cablecos still play on that. The only was to solve the problem is to educate the public, something like forcing the cablecos to hand their customers a pamphlet clearly showing what channels do and do not require a box.
This argument is based on an assumption that is, at least in part, flawed.
My TV isn't state of the art, but it's not that badly dated. Bought it in 2004, 1080i resolution. Cable ready. Which is great, except the built in tuner is analog. Half of the basic cable channels have already gone digital only, so I lose them. Like many "cable ready" TVs, the channels stop around 120. Add the fact that some cable companies are moving channels up into the 200, 300, 400, 500, etc, channels, that means even with the basic cable packages, I'm paying for a majority of channels I can't even watch.
And before you go off on a tangent about those moves being to force people to rent the STBs, I'll point out that the companies I've dealt with (cablevision and verizon) actually used the move to organize the channels, more so than any time I can remember since 1985. It's nice knowing that if I want the "educational" channels, history, science, discovery, etc, are all lumped between 120 and 132.
China is just trying to protect it's citizens against the terrorist and child porn. Sheesh.
Terrorist Porn? Links or it never happened!
It may be a stereotype but if you walk into most comic book/anime stores and look around at the people in them, the vast majority will match up to the stereotype.
Must depend on the store, or area perhaps.
My local comic shop happens to be a music store that started selling comics when digital downloads started crippling their sales. As it is, the wall where the new comic books are displayed are next to the used CD racks. You see a guy (or girl) go down that aisle, and you think you can predict what they're going to buy, by comparing them to these ingrained stereotypes. And yet, I'm surprised (and sometimes shocked) almost every week, when someone I "just know" is going to the used CDs actually starts picking up the latest offerings from Marvel, DC, Image, etc.
Do I see some of these stereotypes there? Sure. But not as often as I see someone you wouldn't assume is a "comic book nerd" if you saw them walking down the street.
How often do you really have to move 100 MB or 2.5 GB of files around?
Every time I buy a newer, bigger hard drive so I can store more porn without deleting the old stuff?
To do nothing is to be nothing.
