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Comment News? (Score 3, Interesting) 173

How is this news? I have had a Samsung Precedent from Wallmart (Sprint network, CDMA) for 4 months now... Decent phone... But you have to root it and install custom mods to get full use of it. Stock only hase android 2.2.3 if i remember... I am running AreaRom's 2.3.7 now... So much smoother.

Comment I was (sorta) (Score 5, Informative) 407

I was USAF stationed in Germany. I wont lie.... I download a few things from Torrents... 99.9% of that was TV Shows since it was hard to watch 6 hours ahead (AFN is crap)... Right before i left Germany, i got a certified letter in the mail stating (in german) that i download Bens Fold Five or something. Anyone that knows me, knows i listen to metal.. and metal.. and mostly all metal... Also, they said i downloaded it around 8am on a sunday.... Again, anyone that knew me knows i dont even wake up till noon on sundays... The letter stated that i owed 6000 euro to some lawyer in Munchen. Well, since it came to me and not the base legal office, i ignored it... and left country a few months later (my tour was over)... So, i was never sued by the RIAA directly... but i was told i owed money for a song i allegedly downloaded.

Disclaimer: I am not in the AF... I do not represent the AF.... I may or may not have had a few drinks... and i "CBF"ed to capitalize my "i"s or even use correct grammar... Get over it...

Comment Re:Nice editing, again (Score 1) 106

I purchased a domain name for our WoW guild from Bluehost. They only wanted $56 per year, and gave WAY more then i could ever need for a forums.... Due to suspected botting (i guess they thought we were a scammer?) they had me call to verify my identity. They did not ask for SSN or anything else that really ID me as me. I guess talking to a real person was more then enough for them. On the flip side, I used web.com for my personal space a long time ago... They charge me $19.99 a month (239.88/year) for less bandwidth, less space, less SQL DBs, and 1 FTP account. Where am i going with this you may ask? I have no idea.... both domains were TLD .COM. Just a vast difference in pricing, and the cheaper one seemed to do more to ensure i was real, then the more expensive one.

Comment Internet as Road/Walkway (Score 1) 449

I think Government / User should start thinking Internet as "Road" in real life. It should be a government's job to make sure the road is good, and free for everyone (from tax). No private company should dictate how many time you can walk on the "Road" (Internet) and how popular you're (such as Youtube). If that's the case, then New York City should start charging all retail store or company that attract so much tourist into Manhattan for the "Road" that they maintains.

Comment Re:I don't like it (Score 1) 501

You'll get websites saying you need to download this codec to watch this video, and people will do it. With a standard codec, if a site does that, users can be educated that they shouldn't download ANY codec.

Even if delvers better sound and video? Significantly improved compression?

Closed captioning, secfond channel audio or other benefits?

Tell me why the geek thinks the web should be permenently bound to whatever codec he - and perhaps he alone - thinks is "technologically superior" or "politically correct."

Why there should be no competition, no room for experiment.

Comment Re:Patent risks (Score 1) 421

If I were able to patent math, or a concept, which is too generic for a patent, what is to stop me from suing anyone for doing anything considered "Similar" to said concept? This is the issue. When you get down to patenting 2+2 that means you can stop people from patenting any form of math. See how this leads to a circular argument that only goes down the drain for inventors?

Unless the inventors work for a company with the legal and financial muscle to compete. I'm really jaded (especially in presentation), but the system really is set up so that innovation can be stifled so that large entities who could be destroyed (in whole or in part) by rapid market innovation don't have to worry. I know the system is set up in such a way that it's supposed to protect the very people it stifles from having their ideas stolen instead of bought, but the practice of overly-broad generic patents on basic concepts in many fields has created litigious loopholes which allows the giants to reverse the tables on the small innovator, forcing them to sell the idea or face a patent suit that will bankrupt them before discovery is finished. (Holy run-on sentence Batman!) I don't like that setup, I'd rather let market forces subject only to anti-collusion and anti-price-fixing regulations reach a similar end effect in the marketplace independent of the litigation.

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