Blog Stuff

Added two new blogs:

Geo - Out from Down Under
http://spaces.msn.com/members/Geoxx1980/

and this one:

Mind of Mike
http://www.mindofmike.com/

Mind of Mike looks like it has something to say and I am looking forward to more hard-nosed posts like this one:

Part of the problem for me, and many other foreigners is the retarded, profit oriented distribution model used by most companies for their international markets. For example, I wanted to buy a copy of half life 2 for PC. When I looked in the stores all I could find was the Chinese version. Completely useless to me. So I went online and tried to order it from Amazon. They would be happy to ship to Taiwan, but when I tried to pay, they informed me that they were unable to ship software to Taiwan because of export laws. This is to say nothing of the fact that all the DVD's I brought from Canada will not play on my DVD player in Taiwan, and conversely, all the ones I have bought in Taiwan, will become useless to me once I go back to Canada.

So, how would a person like me who wants to avoid piracy, legally buy or use these products. Does this mean that because of where I live, I should be unable to legally purchase or use them? After this fiasco, should anyone really blame me if I decided to go to a BT site and download for free what I already own, or spent $50 Canadian in travel fare trying to find legally?

And this is just for the software that actually exists here. Countless games and DVD's don't even get released in Asia, for I suppose many reasons, lack of demand or maybe distribution conflicts, I am not sure. But if I want it and can't buy it, the easiest and most effective way is to just download it. In this way, the companies themselves are making their product so hard to obtain, that piracy is just easier. Not a good way to run a business, especially in the digital age of P2P.

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I've been meaning to put a reminder on the blog, so here it is. If you are a Taiwan blogger and want to increase readership, you might try submitting your link here:

China Blog List
http://www.chinabloglist.org/

Have a happy Chinese New Year! Richard, I owe you a beer for making my day with that tale of right-wing pundit Michael Fumento exposed as yet another ethics-free commentator on important national issues. I guess being right-wing means never having to say you have a conflict of interest.......

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