cable torrent
high-speed internet
I got cable modem service last week. This is the first time I've had a high speed connection at my house, and here is what I think:
All in all, it's a good idea. A bit expensive, but these things can be budgeted for.
bittorrent
BitTorrent is awesome. Because the load is distributed evenly, you can get the full use of whatever bandwidth you have.
I love how the program is so minimalistic. Compare to Kazaa, which is a huge executable that only seems to run on Windows. It achieves this minimality by using existing httpd clients/servers to not only deliver the .torrent metafiles, but also information about and links to the torrents in normal text/html.
It's annoying when servers deliver .torrent files as text/plain instead of application/x-bittorrent.
hardware addiction
With all of the crap I'm downloading, I may need to get a new hard drive soon. Right now I have two 30 GB drives. If I replaced one of them with a 120 GB drive, then I'd have two and a half times as much storage. If I had a mobo with more than two IDE channels, I could have more than four devices. But I really shouldn't spend any more money on hardware. Instead I'll spend it on blank CD-Rs.
the urge to game
I read a review of Star Wars Galaxies the other day. Made me want to see the game. Explore it for a few weeks, at least. Their pricing model discourages the casual gamer. It's $12 to $15 per month plus $50 up front for the game. If they were really confidant that the game was fun, it would be $20 up front for the first month and $20/per month after that. If they can keep a gamer for a year they've more than broke even. But $50 is a bit much for a game that I might want to stop playing the first month.
And I'm certainly not paying $80 for the collectors edition since the standard edition is sold out. `
This is a well established business principle. Give away the razor and profit on the blades.
I't just as well that I'm not going to get the game. I'd just have to use windows anyways. And that would be distasteful.