So it appears like the US Government wants to fuck up even further are already paltry broaband penetration in this country thanks to an expiring bill. Congress would pass a new bill in its place which would levy taxes on internet access for cable, dsl, and other various means of access the great WWW.
If the moratorium is allowed to expire, states would be allowed to levy discriminatory taxes on digital subscriber line, cable modem, wireless and even BlackBerry-type data services. First enacted in 1998 and renewed after some debate in 2004, the existing law prevents state and local governments from taxing “a service that enables users to access content, information, electronic mail or other services offered over the Internet.”
Each time the bill has come up for renewal, state and local officials have opposed making the ban permanent, arguing it’s best for the policy to stay flexible so states can re-evaluate whether collecting such taxes is necessary for their operations. So far, they’ve won over politicians on that front.
The bill is set to expire on November 1st, and if nothing is done in time we could see net taxes in place pretty quickly. The US already ranks on the lower end of the scale in terms of broadband penetration, speed and cost. Something like this could only hurt it further.
Given different costs of living, the price of an Xbox 360 is not the same in San Francisco and Topeka. How do you deal with that?
Moore: It’s more expensive in Topeka. But we don’t just look at the console cost in isolation. We look at what it takes to be up and running and have the best experience. We call it “TCO,” total cost of ownership.
Now this is pretty interesting to consider. What if Game Consoles were priced according to cost of living in an area. I know some consumer electronics are SLIGHTY adjusted for this, but we’ve never seen it on consoles. The thing is now that console prices are so high there’s a huge difference between the cost for someone. $200 might not be a big deal to anyone, but $400 most likely is, and surely $600 is a big deal to everyone.
So why not adjust the price accordingly, even if just slight. I wonder if sales would increase in areas where it’s typically lower. I mean, cost is already different per region of the world and with a country as big as the US why not adjust cost per region in the country?
Danny Ledonne created the controversion Super Columbine Massacre RPG! The game is sick and twisted, yet somehow it’s brilliant and engadging. Why? It explores the horrible tradgedy from alternate perspectives very much like Film.
People have made films about the Columbine incident and they’ve won Oscars and film festival prizes [most notably Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine - Ed.]. Clearly this is at least in part about the medium chosen and not the content of the work alone. I think, based on the subject matter, a videogame is a unique way to explore the subject in an interactive way unlike films or books. Ours isn’t a culture that has yet viewed videogames as an academic, scholarly, or truly artistic field and instead regards interactive electronics primarily as an innocuous plaything. I think Super Columbine Massacre RPG! challenges this.
I think this is a very good point. It’s a way of expanding our knowledge of an incident as well as applying some personal influence into it while we play the game. That is something that can’t be said for a movie, TV Show, or even a book.
And you wonder why Sega is no longer making hardware? It’s because they tried shit like this. The funniest thinga bout the video (hit the link) is the game shown (Eternal Champions) was one of the first Genesis games to use all 6 buttons on the new game pads. The activator only supports 3 buttons. Whooooops!
…the number one crappiest peripheral ever created. The Sega Activator was an octagonal game controller for the Sega Genesis that used infrared beams to interpret movements. The Activator is placed on the floor, and the player stands inside the octagon. Each face of the octagon corresponds to a direction or button on the Genesis control pad. Breaking the infrared beams activates that button. Every time you restarted the machine you had to calibrate the Activator. This involved having to stand 3 feet away from the device, quite tricky in most kids’ bedrooms.
Business Week estimates Digg.com is worth some 200 million dollars with founder Kevin Rose of TechTV fame worth 60 million. I’m curious what made the site so popular in the first place as there were other similar sites that were launched like Pikuru which never took off. Was it sheer word of mouth? Or did Kevin used his TV personality to promote the site, and promote it well?
BusinessWeek has decided to go a step further, with a cover story on Digg, and the title “How This Kid Made $60 million in 18 Months” (referring to Digg founder Kevin Rose). Forget any buyout, for BusinessWeek, it’s already a done deal: “Sofar, Digg is breaking even on an estimated $3 million annually in revenues. Nonetheless, people in the know say Digg is easily worth $200 million.”
interpret movements. The Activator is placed on the floor, and the player stands inside the octagon. Each face of the octagon corresponds to a direction or button on the Genesis control pad. Breaking the infrared beams activates that button. Every time you restarted the machine you had to calibrate the Activator. This involved having to stand 3 feet away from the device, quite tricky in most kids’ bedrooms.
