Thinking Chaos, Thinking Fences

This is for those who descend into the code
and make their room a fridge for Superman

Saturday, May 17, 2003

Renting DVDs Might Cost More
Via Slashdot:

Flexplay Technologies, Inc, a privately held company based in New York, today announced that Buena Vista Home Entertainment Division of The Walt Disney Company will use its flexible play DVD technology to make movies available to consumers in test markets beginning this August. A Flexplay enabled DVD is similar to a conventional DVD, except that it has a 48 hour viewing window that begins when the disc is removed from its packaging. Consumers will then be able to enjoy the movie as many times as they wish during this time frame. After 48 hours of impeccable play, the DVD will no longer be readable by the DVD player and can then be recycled.

As we know, video stores make most of their revenue from late fees. If the DVD expires, then surely they're going to start charging more to rent the things. It's interesting how technology seems to keep creating and ruining business models (see also Napster) with alarming speed. If the environmental impact could be resolved, this would be a nifty idea.

3:43:17 PM

Mostly Harmless
Back in the early days of PC gaming, text adventures were king. The biggest producer of these games was Infocom. In fact, a while back, I wrote an article about these games.

To my great joy, I recently discovered an online version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy game. It is as entertaining and surreal as the book, and begins the same way, with pathetic Arthur Dent, waking up with a vicious hungover:

2:55:09 PM