sorry, don't have time to RTFA or even all of the comments, but would any of these help in this circumstance?

been waiting for 35 years for someone to get a handle on this.

The difference would be whether you are seeking the information to try to help stop corruption at high levels, or just to get a few more un-educated readers to buy your rag, specifically at the expense of the loved ones.

Not even comparable circumstances.

The idea that you think they are, I find a little scary.

The only thing to do is get a list together of all the people with negative things to say, and send HE a christmas card in their name, so that they can appreciate the true -eh- flavor of HE's writings.

This could be fun.

not as long as the only way I can see them is with flash. Not on my home computers at least. (1 WinXP, 1 Gutsy server, 1 hardy desktop.)

I understand that this is the way things are moving, but I've been around for a lot of years and find standard video/audio formats acceptable, even on the rare occasions when I am limited to dial-up. It might take a couple of minutes to download and avi/divx/xvid/wav, but I would be willing to do that before I will allow any product from Adobe on my systems. (I have no corp/PHB requirements to meet, so I don't really care about anything but security - and games.

(Oh, and by the way, show me a linux install that can play Unreal Tournament [original] on a 1.5g proc/512MB/ATI9200 as well as I can play it with windows and I might convert my last machine. ;})

This makes me a bit different from the targeted customer I know.

I do think it's strange that all these people who would like me to spend money on their product refuse to/don't understand that to present their product to me in a way that I can't use, will result in my NOT transferring funds from my account to theirs. And IF I can't even pull up their website to look at their product, then there isn't anyway I can buy it. It's not that I don't want to, I just can't. It won't be because I don't like their product, it will be because I can't even tell what their product is without third party intervention or trusted review (see below).

I was meta-moderated years ago, received some useful information from the meta moderator that I was unable to act upon for over a year. All the information he gave me (correct, by the way) informed me to a greater extent about the band I was asking about, but their whole website is in flash.

It was almost two years before I could find someone local who had it to listen to the cd, and then buy it.

Waiting two years to get a sale because you don't put your project out in a format that can be viewed by ANYONE with a standard WinXPsp1 install means you lose sales. Maybe not a lot, but mine at the very least.

I just took a break and checked their site again. Can't find it. Even a google search returns no entries on the front page, and a search of my previous slash ID where I posted on it originally doesn't return it either (though my old blog still has it), so it's probably a dead issue at this point. It's a shame, because the song that led me to them became a hit (via another vocalist, who seems to be taking the credit for writing it now - though her Recording company purchased the song.), and I still hear it at least once a day at work on the station playing in the background. I really wanted to hear more of the original artist, but can't find them now.

Shame.

So, anyhow, tell me again how I'm the one missing out? If it's good, I'll hear it somewhere, and want to investigate, but if it's flash I'll never see it. If I can't see it on the internet, I can't buy it because I gave up TV and radio 4 years ago. Can't handle the advertisements. I don't feel I'm missing out on something that I can't view.

So you're going to reach me how? I understand the bandwidth considerations for flash, but I don't have flash.

I'm a person who actually buys cd's of stuff I like, but more and more I have no way to sample stuff to FIND OUT IF I LIKE IT. And if I can't, well, how does anyone expect me to buy it? This is important to me because I DO NOT buy a cd without listening to it first. If I don't like more than half the songs on the cd, I won't buy it. That's the way it is. This same cd is the one I purchased in 2006. I haven't purchased on since because a) I haven't found anything new I like b)I don't even have a lot of leads to new stuff period. It's all in flash. Bye. I'll take my wallet and go elsewhere.

enough. rant over. time to download Virgin Killers, because I saw it here, and liked their other albums, and now I got the itch. But I know I like all of their music I have heard to date, and will probably like that album. If I like it as much as I think I will, I might get off my ass and stop at the music store and buy it. Actually, if it wasn't for slashdot and the recent story about it, I wouldn't have even known it existed. I was actually listening to the radio back in those days. Never heard of them until Rock You Like a hurricane. Suspect that was the first song of theirs to be played on the radio in Idaho.

Give me your audio/video samples in a format I can play, maybe I'll buy it.

But if I don't know you exist, I can't very well spend money on you.

And that would apply to RIAA/Indie/some bumfuck bar band/my sister(who's actually pretty good)/youtube. If I can't hear you, you don't exist to my pocket book.

Can you hear me now? I'm listening.

Wow. Already got it. Sounds good. If I can find it locally, looks like a sale. Hear that you RIAA pukes? I downloaded it from BitTorrent. If I can find it saturday or sunday locally, I will buy it. If I can't, I'll keep my downloaded copy and spend the money on something else.

Put that in your distribution model and analyze it. Your have 4 days to make sure the a copy of the album I want is in one of my local stores, or I WON'T BE ABLE to purchase it. Anyone want to bet on availability. (caldwell, idaho)

Cheers