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ADSL modem and optical discs
Have gotten ADSL again and life is good.
Got it via OTENET's "onDSL Kit" which also offered an ADSL modem. This one's about a third the size, needs no additional power line (the USB line suffices), and seems much easier to configure than the old DSL modem I had, a Jetspeed 510 model by Intracom: and which I have now put back to its box and am about to attempt to sell via fleamarket.gr... I've already currently holding there two auctions (and found buyers too) for an old external CD-Recorder and a DVD-Rom drive, both of which became obsolete to me when I got an internal DVD+RW drive...
And there's probably a couple more items I am going to try to sell now. An Iomega 100MB Zip drive -- that one's *really* obsolete, I must have not used it for a couple years at least, and I rather doubt I'm gonna find buyers for that one at all. *g* And perhaps I'm gonna sell my old internal PCI 56k Modem too (though I know it couldn't get more than a handful of euros - that's their price nowadays). One way or another, I've already removed it from the innards of my computer and put it in a plastic bag in a symbolic gesture of "I'm *never* going to dialup again." :-D
---
How can intelligent successful people make really, *really* stupid comments, especially as concerns their own field of work? Recently there's been a lot happening in regards to the Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD format war, as regards to the next generation of optical discs, the one meant to replace DVDs. On my part I've not really followed the debate, especially as concerns the "anti-consumer" bias that the Blu-ray format has been accused of having: I've not studied the issue at all. Its main positive points compared to the HD-DVD is the fundamental of allowing more space. And having a prettier name of course. :-) Those series of consonants pretending to be names do need to be put to a slow death, methinks.
But that's not my current point. My current point is that in the midst of all this, Bill Gates comes up with what seems to me a tremendously stupid statement, namely that either Blu-ray or HD-DVD is going to be "the last physical format there will ever be".
*blinkety-blink*
Does Bill Gates really not remember all the similar foolish predictions of this type? Let us mention some of them:
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." - 1943
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." - 1977
"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." - 1876
"Everything that can be invented has been invented." - 1899
And sure enough! Just a month or so after Bill made his statement, we hear of holographic discs due to come out next years, offering several times the storage space of either Blu-ray or HD-DVD and at much greater speeds too. At first holo-discs will be out at 300 GB per disc, and in a few years the company estimates holo-discs offering more than 1TB per disc will exist.
In truth I think that Bill's "everything's gonna be downloaded over the Internet" doesn't give enough credit on how much people *don't* want to be dependent on servers that may or may not exist in the future. People would want to have their own copies of everything they want to see under their own control: which no government bringing forward censorship laws, or company bringing forward copyright laws, could suddenly choose to ban.
(There's a political angle to this, I think, an anti-monopoly angle. People move to web-services, and the danger of monopolies there, not because web services are inherently better, but because it frees them from *other* nastier monopolies. E.g. besides Gmail's other benefits (like the almost complete eradication of SPAM), it also helped free me from the much nastier monopoly of having my ISP, OTENET, also be my main email provider: Now I may choose which ISP I'm gonna want to have without email worries on my mind.
But relying on the Internet to see your movies, not just once when you first get them, but constanly, that's making yourself reliant on a service that may not always be there. People will want them stored at home under their own control)
Though I should probably come to Bill's defense here also -- he possibly (perhaps probably) meant that the Blu-ray or HD-DVD would be NOT the last physical format period, but rather the last physical for *mass distribution* of movies and/or software. If that's the case then it's not the idea of personal storage he's disparaging, but rather the idea of needing to transfer information via transfer of physical objects, a relic of the stone age, obviously. *If* that's what he meant, then it's a much more defensible position. Not sure I'm buying it completely, but certainly defensible.
--
Went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire yesterday, with a group of friends. Long review/commentary forthcoming, almost certainly not today, but hopefully tomorrow, or at the very latest the day after.
Got it via OTENET's "onDSL Kit" which also offered an ADSL modem. This one's about a third the size, needs no additional power line (the USB line suffices), and seems much easier to configure than the old DSL modem I had, a Jetspeed 510 model by Intracom: and which I have now put back to its box and am about to attempt to sell via fleamarket.gr... I've already currently holding there two auctions (and found buyers too) for an old external CD-Recorder and a DVD-Rom drive, both of which became obsolete to me when I got an internal DVD+RW drive...
And there's probably a couple more items I am going to try to sell now. An Iomega 100MB Zip drive -- that one's *really* obsolete, I must have not used it for a couple years at least, and I rather doubt I'm gonna find buyers for that one at all. *g* And perhaps I'm gonna sell my old internal PCI 56k Modem too (though I know it couldn't get more than a handful of euros - that's their price nowadays). One way or another, I've already removed it from the innards of my computer and put it in a plastic bag in a symbolic gesture of "I'm *never* going to dialup again." :-D
---
How can intelligent successful people make really, *really* stupid comments, especially as concerns their own field of work? Recently there's been a lot happening in regards to the Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD format war, as regards to the next generation of optical discs, the one meant to replace DVDs. On my part I've not really followed the debate, especially as concerns the "anti-consumer" bias that the Blu-ray format has been accused of having: I've not studied the issue at all. Its main positive points compared to the HD-DVD is the fundamental of allowing more space. And having a prettier name of course. :-) Those series of consonants pretending to be names do need to be put to a slow death, methinks.
But that's not my current point. My current point is that in the midst of all this, Bill Gates comes up with what seems to me a tremendously stupid statement, namely that either Blu-ray or HD-DVD is going to be "the last physical format there will ever be".
*blinkety-blink*
Does Bill Gates really not remember all the similar foolish predictions of this type? Let us mention some of them:
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." - 1943
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." - 1977
"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." - 1876
"Everything that can be invented has been invented." - 1899
And sure enough! Just a month or so after Bill made his statement, we hear of holographic discs due to come out next years, offering several times the storage space of either Blu-ray or HD-DVD and at much greater speeds too. At first holo-discs will be out at 300 GB per disc, and in a few years the company estimates holo-discs offering more than 1TB per disc will exist.
In truth I think that Bill's "everything's gonna be downloaded over the Internet" doesn't give enough credit on how much people *don't* want to be dependent on servers that may or may not exist in the future. People would want to have their own copies of everything they want to see under their own control: which no government bringing forward censorship laws, or company bringing forward copyright laws, could suddenly choose to ban.
(There's a political angle to this, I think, an anti-monopoly angle. People move to web-services, and the danger of monopolies there, not because web services are inherently better, but because it frees them from *other* nastier monopolies. E.g. besides Gmail's other benefits (like the almost complete eradication of SPAM), it also helped free me from the much nastier monopoly of having my ISP, OTENET, also be my main email provider: Now I may choose which ISP I'm gonna want to have without email worries on my mind.
But relying on the Internet to see your movies, not just once when you first get them, but constanly, that's making yourself reliant on a service that may not always be there. People will want them stored at home under their own control)
Though I should probably come to Bill's defense here also -- he possibly (perhaps probably) meant that the Blu-ray or HD-DVD would be NOT the last physical format period, but rather the last physical for *mass distribution* of movies and/or software. If that's the case then it's not the idea of personal storage he's disparaging, but rather the idea of needing to transfer information via transfer of physical objects, a relic of the stone age, obviously. *If* that's what he meant, then it's a much more defensible position. Not sure I'm buying it completely, but certainly defensible.
--
Went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire yesterday, with a group of friends. Long review/commentary forthcoming, almost certainly not today, but hopefully tomorrow, or at the very latest the day after.
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