Sadly, it has been my experience that the kind of people that are easily swayed by their favorite entertainers are usually not the kind of people that would be willing to listen to ANY opposing arguments. I have tried to explain the situation to people using all sorts of different analogies but all they hear is "BIG GOVERNMENT IS TAKING OUR INTARWEBS!".

What I don't get is why so many big businesses (not necessarily "internet companies" like Amazon and Google) have remained silent on the issue. You know that massive B2B e-commerce system that connects you to your suppliers and your customers? It uses the internet. Ever think about how the new FCC regulations will affect you?

As someone who is a customer of both of these companies, I kinda wish they'd spend less time throwing lawsuits at each other and more time providing value to their customers. I'm just sayin'...

I once asked someone about this and how to get around it. Their answer was to take the number of years required in the technology, add 2 and let that be your "years of experience". This will get you past HR and (hopefully) in front of a hiring manager. If the manager points out that your 8 years of Ruby on Rails experience seems unlikely, tell him what you did. If the manager doesn't laugh then you do NOT want to work for him/her.

Which company do you work for? Just curious.

What the hell made Mr. Spiegel of XTS software think that posting this story was a good idea?

If you were one of his customers, how would you feel knowing that the product that you just bought was developed not by the best developers but developers that knew how to play this game? Personally, I would feel more comfortable deploying software if I knew that the developers weren't spending most of their time marketing themselves internally.

Anyone else feel this way?

I agree. To be honest, I was considering buying one a few weeks ago. I understand the issue from the Amazon side, but I would not feel comfortable spending that much money on a device with such strict digital ties to the manufacturer.

The problem that I see is that Amazon has tipped their hand - they not only have the ability to remove content remotely but they also have the will to do it.

Achievement whore checking in.

Oh god my life is so empty...

That was my first thought upon reading this.

I was thinking this exactly. When I upgraded my system last winter I could not find a SLI board that I really wanted, so I was stuck with having to run only one video card.

If Apple were to implement SLI in their Mac Pro's I might dump my PC completely and just get a big, shiny, dual-GPU-having, silver box of HELL YEAH!

They should offer it as one of the few handhelds that let you make your own games and share them with friends. Hell, I dunno, offer a simplified development kit for the price of a game with a way to import your own art and music. Allow people to create their own games on the damn thing. Then, for maybe a bit more money, offer an advanced user package that's basically a simplified SDK.

If they wouldn't try so damn hard to break homebrew apps, I bet people might buy more games. I know for a fact that before the ability to downgrade firmware, people wouldn't buy games because it required an update first.

Open the thing up (except the UMD format -- I'll give them that much to keep), let us make our own games without implementing roadblocks to homebrew, and the thing will sell more.

Oh, and actually release some damn games already.