I can blame my crappy government for passing stupid laws, and I can blame the U.S. government/lobbyists for strong-arming our jackasses to do so. I pester my friends, sign petitions, send mail, and vote for/against my government, and find plenty of room in my heart left to blame the U.S. government/lobbyists for pressuring my government as if we were a branch office of theirs. I'm an idiot for drinking the Kool-Aid, but Bob's an asshole for pouring it down everyone's throat.

Electing new officials, however, makes little difference. Kow-towing to American interests seems to be a matter of permanent policy. And with the economics involved, that's not likely to change.

Ask when their wives or girlfriends are in the room.

And ... flaming who, exactly? Did someone actually think that we Canadians were going to take umbrage?

Yup, you won't see an enforced ad pop up while using the phone "normally", while running iTunes, or sending an e-mail, or making a call or whatever else is basic on the iPhone. If you see them, they'll be embedded into apps and content you download from other sources. This is a patent that lets Apple say "Here's an easy way to generate revenue from our customer base with your content, and without charging it all directly for the download. They won't mind clicking on an use your stuff. Better than DRM, because even if they send it on to our other customers, the ads go with it." It's similar to the tactic they took when they rolled out iTunes, with inoffensive DRM replacing non-ownership of files by subscription.

And now that streaming services are becoming viable and popular, thanks to increased bandwidth, customer familiarity, and other factors, there's an application for the ad model. Hulu on the iPhone, or similar. Not only will people not mind - they will approve. The feeling, for many, will be that putting up with this will give them what they want rather than not having it at all. To my mind, smart compromise is the best thing to hope for. The realistic alternative isn't no DRM or other restrictions, the alternative is heinous and insidious DRM. That's the industry recognizing, eventually, what the business models and customer bases are becoming. I'm not sure that I'd agree with "dangerous", but I do agree that Apple could pull this off in a way palatable to enough customers that other companies think they'll be able to get away with worse.

This is misleading. These lists are pulled from the XBox Live site. XBox Silver, for free, gets you:

• Free Game Demos
• Movie Rentals*
• TV Downloads*
• Game Add-ons*
• Downloadable Arcade Games*
• Games on Demand
• Avatars
• Avatar Props
• Voice, Text Chat

XBox Live Gold, for $60 a year, adds:

• Netflix (you still need to pay for Netflix, I think - no USA, I have no Netflix)
• Video Chat
• Online Multiplayer Gaming
• Early Access to Content (some demos lauch for Gold members only, for a while)
• Exclusive Discounts
• Xbox LIVE Parties
• Photo Sharing

How much it costs depends on how much you want to do.

Sounds like something Jane Siberry did with her music - first link I found: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/419-jane-siberrys-you-decide-what-feels-right-pricing

Absolutely. I had a friend who only played Dark Elf female characters on EQ. Best butt, was the reason. He knew that was inane, but as long as he had to stare at a cartoon butt, it was going to be one he liked the curves of. Plus the whole "play a female character, get free stuff" thing.

Thanks for writing that, I was discussing this with the gal pal tonight.

It reminded me - the last paragraph in particular - of this article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/oct/06/edwyn-collins-sharing-music

From the Boing Boing article:

No-one can resist the pun, it seems.

Somebody shoot me, eh?

Cover Your Ass.

Easy on a Mac too, but the one-step of the Amazon application is a deft touch.

A few hours a day - not every day, even, he takes a few off here and there - and a little longer on the weekends isn't excessive. Online gaming actually cut down my "lazy" activity time and cut costs. I wasn't plonked in front of the TV (cancelled a few cable packages, rented fewer DVDs), I decided to spend more non-game time away from the computer and/or TV (read a bit more, got out of the house), and on top of all that spent more time with the better half (playing the game together, chatting while we did, etc).

Yeah, sometimes you don't get to play or TV or whatever for a while, something more important is happening. We stopped playing for a few months last time we sold the house, we had work to do when we got home. Online gaming is only excessive when you fail to keep up with life's priorities (job, home, health, family, friends). Ditto any other gaming, TV time, internet surfing, hardware hacking, wood duck carving, drinking, drugs, food, jogging, etc etc etc. It's usually easy to keep it all in balance, and part of what WoW does well is deliver a game that you CAN walk away from, to focus on the important things, and still keep up with the game.

It's not so much that "Casual" gaming is influencing MMO's, as it is that game publishers recognize that a lot of gamers are all adult-like now, and if we can't integrate the game into our real lives, we're not giving them our money. And money - the market - is what influences MMO's.

Great?