Hi I use the Richard Wagner screen name after the German composer.
I'm an economist (although not working in my profession as I'm doing other things and writing), used to manage 3 hedge funds and did a stint as a headhunter for MRI. As a hobby I compose 'classical' music. I also make non recourse loans, using stock as collateral, so if you are paid in part with shares, free trading stocks, do not want to sell but need money fast, I'm your guy.
My interest in computing came asa result of my studies, when we had to basically program everything in big iron and the great new thing was UNIX. Started in the internet via the academia.
I'm not a Computer Science genius, just had to use the computers and learned a bit.
I suppose someone with enough money will challenge the RIAA et all. I believe thiese people are putting the nails in their coffin, not just becuae of the bad PR to themselves and the potential legal consequences of acting as an oligopoly (price collusion etc.), also becuase their defense of the staus quo is just simply foreign to normal human behavior.
I supose I am one of those that, for a low yearly subcription (10 bucks or so), would download from them at high 'speed' most of my music and movies instead of relying in having to wait a lot for the completion of a big file (S) and have as an alternative the normal P2P channels as we know them.
I personally bought about half of my music and I share it (I do classical music). I'm looking for rare music and recordings. During the day, I use my cable company as my ISP, but they are throttling my bandwidth, so the connection is a far cry from the advertised (I used to great dld 'speed' wot this connection, sometimes dlds over 500KBS, my uplds always were about 37KBS, now I'm lucky if I get 10K up and 15 up). In my secualr work at night, I have Covad as the ISP, is a 1.5 d/756 up, DSL and I got a max of 200KBS d (probably not many users at that time for that file) and 190KBS up (sometimes I up to 3 ppl with 40kbs and a third with 20kbs).
Covad has in this area, Miami Beach, FL, a 6Mbs dld and 756 kbs up offer, it cost about 120 per month, I pay 56 for my cable, so, I'm considering to go to Covad, even if costlier.
I also do VOIP with Skype and my results are becoming terrible, the cable co have now VOIP which compete with Skype.
I do video conference and not just to watch 700 pounders masturbating on cam, I use this for business, I also do whiteboarding and other stuff that require bandwidth (video, chat, and multiple audio conference and streaming). In addition I've been exposed to what many call extreme tech, as a trader and fund manager connected to prime brokers, banks and others writing and executing algos to make possible thiings that are just too fast for human intervention (and require proper risk management and speed of transaction across the globe, latency can cost you millions if you trade at that level).
Well, this is enough as introducing myself.
BTW it could be a great idea to encrypt WinMX traffic. There many other P2P programs that have something we would love to have here.
May be WinMx is a relic, but, I used several other programs and this one is still the best in my book.
Sorry for any grammar error, I'm trying to find the spell checker, just a great board and I cannot find the spell checker
RW