On Friday, May 16, 2003, at 02:30 PM, Major Variola (ret) wrote:
[Of course computer tinkerers can't prevent it from rusting, but chemical tinkerers will have fun. Or are inert gasses to be banned under DMCA? Hmmm, a hermetic case-mod..]
I don't know if by "inert" you mean the noble gases, such as helium, neon, xenon, etc., but of course nitrogen will work perfectly well. Winemakers and other foodmakers have inexpensive tools for spreading a nonoxidizing layer across casks of wine, olive oil, and so on. There are so many ways to slow down oxidation and so many ways to speed it up (thus causing the consumer to not get his contractual product) that I cannot see this product succeeding. What happens when a customer takes a product back to Wherehouse or Blockbuster and says "I got it Saturday morning. When I went to watch it Sunday night, the picture was already losing bits and breaking up." Can the store on Monday somehow confirm this, or is the customer just told to go fuck himself? As I said in my last message, will be cool to get one of these on a Saturday morning, accelerate the aging process in trivial ways (hot sun, pure oxygen feed, etc.), and then stand at the return counter yelling in a very, very loud voice "I GOT IT THIS MORNING. IT WON'T PLAY. TEST IT YOURSELF. I'LL WAIT RIGHT HERE WHILE YOU CONFIRM IT. NO, I WON'T FILL OUT A FORM AND WAIT FOR DISNEY TO GET BACK TO ME. I WANT THIS FIXED RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, OR I'M NOT LEAVING. GOT IT, ASSHOLE?" If this is real, this is going to be a bigger clusterfuck than the Circuit City DIVX (no relation to the currently namely DIVX!) was/ I can't wait to game the system and have some righteous fun demanding satisfaction from the yahoos (TM, The Yahoo Corporation, all rights to this word reserved) renting or selling these turkeys. --Tim May