FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

. . NCIS meets KFB 2 - 2012-0104.1144 [NCIS characters used in noncanon situation without copyright holder permission]

Anyhoo, they saw the dark-grey fur toy tied to the bed. He'd been patiently waiting for the woman who'd rented him to return. When Mistress Mel and the NCIS team walked in, he got off the bed and knelt submissively on the floor.

He saw Mistress Mel and wanted to show himself, but he saw the Masters and knew he wasn't allowed. They'd command him of course, he was just a product. R4G2/KvH23 Roger knelt with his bushy tail curled left as he was taught, his ankles pressing his furry rump, his back straight, his paws palm up on his thighs.

'Roger' held his snout level but his eyes down. He was showing himself to Masters with the proper respectful submission. It was actually his slave collar with the ID tag leashed to a post which held him to the bed.

His partner for the evening had been R4G2/KvH19, the female gray wolf Ginger. He had no idea it was an unusual fur color for a wolf since they'd grown up in Kennel, or the joke about their names. You may not remember Ginger Rogers either. Wiki.

They were still not used to a furry ... thing ... that talked. Gibbs spoke with Mel. If Danielle Roberts had rented the room, and the wolfboy, a month ago, the forensics would be wiped clean by now. But Roger remembered her from the image, and Ginger knew she'd been rented too.

They'd been rented recently by a man who liked watching, and they were just slave furrs, so they didn't mind. A month ago Danielle had rented the pair, and had them show her some things. So where were the pictures she'd taken?

NCIS had searched the petty officer's home on base of course. The former BOQ had been converted for women when the Navy allowed them to serve, and the team had been a bit nervous about searching a lady's garments. Except Tony.

The NCIS team tried to get used to seeing two human-sized unclothed wolves kneeling on the floor. They were actually about five-and-a-half feet tall if they were allowed to stand, but because their legs stayed bent they would stretch higher.

Mel seemed quite accepting of their uh parts showing covered in fur. None of the men cared to look at Roger, but Ginger's curves were quite a distrac- tion. Tim seemed quite nervous, but Abby seemed interested in the anatomy.

Tony, of course, eyed the bitch shamelessly. A domestic dog is a subspecies of wolf, and Ginger was obviously female, so "bitch" is the correct technical term. No insult involved.

Tony's scent changed, and both canids noticed. Roger was pleased his partner had that effect, but kept it to himself. Ginger didn't need to, and her tail- tip began to move slowly. She wanted the Master to look and pet her, and Tony had purposely walked too far from Gibbs for a head-slap.

But work before pleasure, and Tony reluctantly stopped looking at Ginger's furry cleavage. The two wolves remembered Danielle, although mixes usually forgot things a month old, because Danielle had been to Butte quite regularly.

In fact, for over a year now Danielle had been coming here and picking out a furry beast or two to enjoy overnight. Ever since she'd learned of them, Dani had tested their domestic-servant skills.

Various species had obeyed her orders to unpack her duffel into the dresser. They'd help her undress, folding her travel uniform and drawing a warm bath, adjusting the temperature and rubbing her back gently with a soapy washcloth.

A lady could get very used to obedient servants.

* - *

Fade to black-and-white, then go black for commercial. I should probably have written that earlier. As a result of his lechery, Tony DiNozzo took a few vacation days and returned to Butte.

The place was much as it had been before. He liked the fact that there was no kennel smell despite the, uh, product. He was a bit surprised they wanted reservations, not just walk-ins.

The minkboy was scrubbing the floor in the kennel lobby. His dark-brown fur hid his body well enough, although since he was unclothed Tony could see things when the boy rocked forward on his knees.

The beast stopped and knelt up when Tony entered. Minky wasn't trained to help Masters, but he knew enough to show submission. He was still quite young, maybe as old as a human at six or seven.

But of course much stronger. A mix body spent time in a "wet-tank" artifi- cial womb, though mixes didn't know the word. It took six months from the DNA mixing to 'birth' and mixes continue rapid body growth. In another eighteen months, a mere two-year waiting period, a buyer would have a fully-grown fur slave as old as a human at sixteen.

The muscles grew fast too, so mixes were stronger than humans. More useful as labour slaves that way. But the mind never grew, Mel made sure the beasts would stay mentally challenged and therefore submissive.

Tony was more interested in the other mink, but she wasn't old enough yet to have chest bulges. Her hips and rump were nicely curved, and her tail waved as her unclothed body moved back and forth with her floor scrubbing.

Then the doe caught his eye. He'd seen rabbits before, and liked her slight hopping gait. He was a bit surprised when she spoke in a rather assertive voice to command the minks. Tony remembered her leather collar meant she was older, and her Masters gave her rights over the steel-collared minks.

But Master Tony let the beasts work and went to the lobby information desk. The Stag behind it startled him because he was dressed, and called him Sir. He'd begun to expect kneeling and Master from fur slaves.

This Stag wasn't a slave. He was a Furson, someone who was born human but liked animal characteristics. The male Deer had an impressive rack of antlers. He'd had BioSyn Labs stick 'em on, got fur and a triangle bitty tail.

And the hooves. It took a while to get used to cloven hooves instead of flat feet, but the guy did it. Hooves are toenails, of course, and there was a mouse girl on her knees behind the desk cleaning and polishing them. The fur slave was just finishing the first coat of hoof-black.

All the possibilities whirling though Tony's head made him dizzy. All these furry almost-people wearing steel or leather, the fur and nothing else. How was a lecher to decide? Maybe he could try them buffet-style, a little at a time and come back for seconds.

Then Mary came by to talk with Stan. OK, she was a Doe too, but a Deer, not a Rabbit. And he was definitely interested in her tawny body fur, with a hint of fawn spots.

* - *

Mary had been an executive secretary before she saw who visited her boss. She went into Witness Protection when they found out she knew. One of the ways to hide was to Go Furry, so she became a lady Deer. Not even the feds knew what she was now, so no leaks to criminals.

I'm not sure who Stan was. His antlers are sharp, and I'm just a slave fox so it's not my place to ask. I have enjoyed serving him though, and he likes how careful I am with his needs.

If you've never been with a Deer, you should try her. The hooves are quite a conversation starter, the legs are long and curvy, the tail's cute. I like long bushy ones, but they do take some care. And Mary doesn't have to hold hers when she sits down.

Which she was doing now. Stan sat on a sturdy chair, she sat on his lap, the mousie had four more hooves to polish. Stan and Mary long-necked for a while, their antlers clicking softly but never locking. Maybe she was saving it for later, that's their business.

As is the fondling. While Tony wandered around looking at furry possibili- ties, Stan and Mary hugged and kissed. Carefully, as I said. I've seen them a few times when I was in the Lobby presenting myself to a renter, and it's not a secret they like each other.

Tony had some follow-up questions for /los Lobos/ so he asked Stan if they were available. Well as it happened Ginger and Roger were off-site at some- one's bachelor party. Tony was upset to learn mixes did indeed go outside, because Mel and Betty had been so politely sure it never happened.

See, Danielle had rented the wolves about a month ago, but she was killed three days ago now. Tony called Gibbs to let him know the revelation that fur parties did in fact happen.

So Tim got a chance to use some Hot!Tech computers and be impressed again at their speed. He tried to get the furtoy registry to see if it could be forged, but Security denied him.

He tried the usual cracker stuff that broke into Windows machines, but Hot! Tech writes its software correctly the first time, and refused to answer his attempts to connect. There's no law that says internet machines have to answer when you try them.

But Unix and Linux machines have software written by programmers for pro- grammers, and the nerds don't care about security. They think all information should be given to anybody who asks. Which is utter BS of course.

They'll let you keep on trying to log in forever, until you happen to guess someone's password! Windows machines at least have a way to limit login tries, but the admins deal with people who are too dumb to remember the word they made up themselves!

So they usually turn the limiter off. Frankly, if you can't use computers you shouldn't be allowed to try, and if it means you can't get your work done you should be fired and let someone else work. Come back after you've learned!

Hot!Tech requires people to be intelligent. Tough tukus if you aren't. You get three tries to log in, then they hang up on you. Wait fifteen minutes. You get three sets of three tries to get it right, then it won't bother to respond to you. Practically ever.

That's the way it should be. Look, if you go to a restaurant but can't open the door, it's your fault, not theirs. Sure, someone might come to help, but you shouldn't expect it. You shouldn't expect a computer to figure out what you want. It's just a dumb chunk of silicon chips.

* - *

Tim tried to write a virus, which would have worked on the machines at NCIS. But Hot!Tech computers don't have GUIs, won't run EXE files or Word macros, won't let even the owner modify the security. I may sound self-right- eous, but I helped write the Hot!Tech OS, and we've had computers run for twenty years straight! Hot!Tech machines never get viruses, never have system crashes, and the websites have never been offline.

Advert!

So if not even a certified genius geek could break in, Tim was sure no casual forger could either. Or 'accidentally' edit or delete files. Actually Hot!Tech machines don't have a 'delete file' command, they 'trash' stuff instead so it can be recovered.

Once Tim found that, he looked though the trash. The next security block was that users can't erase history, because there isn't any. You can't trace some- one else's whereabouts. No matter how cool a cracker you are, you simply can- not find what isn't there.

Actually Tim wasn't aware that Hot!Tech followed USA Federal law and allowed Federal search warrants. If Tim had known to get one, he could have found the file journal, and known that although nobody can forge the rental data (because Security won't let just any user edit it) or secretly adjust it (because the journal keeps track of attempts) the journal lets you track changes.

Tim would have known Danielle Roberts had been coming to Butte for over a year now and enjoying the fur slaves. And which ones she rented, and she always had them sent to Room 103.

Her photos were hidden only long enough to skip over the next four or five guests until a certain someone who knew where they were picked them up. And Dani had been passing along some rather sensitive US Navy documents to a group she didn't even know existed.

It was because they paid for her clandestine encounters and she thought she was helping her country keep free flow of information. Dani had disliked keep- ing secrets, and it was one of them that killed her.

Fade to B&W, go to commercial. C'mon back, OK?

* - *

Abby Scuito was having a tough day. Because she'd sent the maint tech away, Major Mass Spec was having a major tantrum, and because it didn't pro- cess the forensics, Abby had no results for Gibbs. The graying former Marine was not known for tolerance.

For the fifth time that day MMS was telling her the fur samples didn't match. The team had scoured Room 103 repeatedly, while various humans and furtoys watched, but for some reason didn't find the hiding spot Danielle Roberts had used so easily.

It was mainly because they were all Law Enforcement Officials and had basic- ally the same NCIS training. They suspected they were missing something, and were quite short-tempered about it.

If any had simply thought to bother to ask the submissive living toys who cleaned the rooms regularly, they'd learn what furniture had moved and what stayed put. They'd even know that a certain part of the center torch that made the room look like a medieval dungeon could be moved in a certain intri- cate pattern to allow another certain piece of furniture to slide in on itself.

It would take an unusually crafty fox slave to reveal the truth, and it was so obvious to his inhuman senses he never thought of offering the information. It would be assertive of him to interrupt Masters. And Kevin was a very good, very obedient slave fur.

But Kevvy-boy *was* a fox, and Danielle's body had human and fox DNA on it. Kev was rather kinky even for a slave, because his owner Alysa Benton liked the sly beast spicing up his service. Kev really enjoyed being fussed over, a leather harness with multiple straps over his hindpaws, ankles, shins, knees, lower and upper thighs, hips, waist, ribs, chest, underarms, neck, shoulders, biceps, elbows, forearms, wrists, forepaws.

Whew! Did I forget any body part? Adults, email me for more. Kevin begged Abby to harness him, because he was made to serve women and she scented upset. He suggested the Masters might want femfurs, and suggested a few Mice and Minks that the NCIS team hadn't explored yet.

Or Sally the PumaPard for a bigger toy. There were plenty of Feliform toys to play with, and they all wanted to be petted. It would take quite a while to get through all of them. Ducky whispered to Gibbs and he got Tony and Tim to realise Kev had tried to maneuver them away from foxes. Yet again.

Fade, B&W, commercial, c'mon back.

* - *

Gibbs was getting ticked off as he usually did when the suspects tried to get around him, and Ducky wanted to discuss mixes with the Vet, to sneak a peek at what the beasts could do on their own.

After all, Mel had told Betty to get drinking glasses, and the hall had been clear. She'd have to know to walk to a storage room, get glasses and tray, fill a pitcher from the cold tap, arrange them and walk back without spilling.

She'd done it just like a human restaurant waiter, and Mel hadn't called down for a tray. It was possible they could have set it up earlier, just in case someone asked, but the water was still fizzing from the air added at the tap to make it come out evenly.

Unless they were very good at tricking people. Ducky tended to get a bit paranoid when he knew they were hiding something. He pretended to be absent- minded and ask where the Vet's office was, despite the signs. He wondered if any of the slave beasts could read.

Sandy Kantor was the lady Vet, Albert Rosen the man, her boss. She wasn't in on any secrets, and said yes, the beasts are taught numbers and warning labels. They're domestic servants so they need to know what bottles hold the cleaning solutions.

Ducky remembered that Dani's body had been cleaned before discovery. No skin under her fingernails, no evidence of her killer at all, except for the wide hold-down bruises and that fox DNA he'd had to search rather thoroughly for.

Sandy told Ducky a mix would normally clean a Mistress rather well, because domestic servants often helped bathe them when they were a bit tipsy or had enjoyed another fur beast a bit too much. That beast would be drained too, and ask for help.

So if two wolves were leashed to her bed and Dani was tired, a foxboy could easily roll her to the bathtub and rub her nude flesh with a soapy washcloth. In the beast's mind it was only serving, it wasn't bright enough to know about criminal evidence.

And a washcloth and water rinse would wash away any rug fibers. Of course the beasts kept the playroom clean so no dirt or grit on the carpet, nothing on the Mistress to interfere with her enjoyment. No beast would tie her down without a direct order, and even then it would be for play, not how a beast would be tied.

Ducky sighed. The slave furrs were too submissive, too obsequiously obedient. They hadn't volunteered this information, and Gibbs hadn't thought to order them to answer questions. Even Betty Foxgirl, with her narrow chrome collar stripe showing she was a Kennel Leader had simply knelt and obeyed Mel.

She didn't seem bright enough to follow their line of questioning and offer an answer to a predicted question. That would certainly have pleased Gibbs, and Tony would have sprung at the chance to pet her, fondle her and explore ... oh sorry, remember PG13.

* - *

While Ducky was chatting up Sandy the vet and getting her to let him help with an autopsy of a Clouded Leopard mix who'd gotten a slip to walk around outside and been bitten by a rabid squirrel animal, the CME wondered what other dangers lurked around this wacky place.

Sandy had told Ducky about the Mind Sickness problem. Since mixes' minds were faked to start, and electroshocked to make them work, they tended to be sensitive to brain irregularities caused by edema. Could such a thing on a small scale explain aberrant slave behaviour?

This was yet another of Biological Synthetics Incorporated's dirty little secrets. Ducky tended to go off on verbal tangents barely related to the question Gibbs asked, and Sandy really appreciated that he didn't stop her from speculating about the sickness.

OK, yes. Some beasts had in fact started what in a fully-developed brain would be called obsessive behaviour. They were domestic servants and expected to clean every day, and sometimes ... a mix would keep rubbing the same spot mindlessly, not knowing he was breaking through the wax to the wood beneath.

They were supposed to be too dumb to be obsessive, so it was probably the same sort of mindless rote that an R3 labourer showed. If you didn't train them to pay attention and have an easy way to tell when to stop, you'd have to watch and tell them yourself.

Heck, even animal cats sometimes over-groom and actually rough-lick their own fur down to the skin! If a mix forgot to stop and check, it could easily do the same.

Of course, "who cares?" is the important question. "Who gives a frak?" is another one. The point is, a mix learned to clean a room, and did it without caring why. "A Master told me to" is all the reason they'd need, or expect.

The fact they were destroying forensic evidence would never enter what lit- tle mind a fur slave has. And if they weren't told to check, they could easily clean even a newly dead woman while waiting for her to wake up. They'd be very gentle of course.

Now, a fur slave has better hearing, vision, taste, touch and especially hearing than any human. They'd easily know if Danielle Roberts was dead. But the point is, they wouldn't know it meant they had to stop cleaning and tell a human!

Only if something went wrong, like she slipped off the bed and broke a lamp, would they push the voice plate and beg for a guard. And if the man said he'd handle it, they'd kneel back and wait for a command. Someone could easily commit a crime, and the stupid slave would just watch!

Now, Kev was bright enough to protect his Owner by pouncing in front, and he'd die to protect her. But Mel had purposely hidden knowledge in his mind, and Alysa had trained him. He was one of the few slaves who could generalise.

And foxes are sly enough to have protected Dani. But Roger and Ginger were personal pleasure models who could do domestic work, not domestic servants who knew how to serve in the bed. They honestly weren't bright enough to stop someone from tying Dani down, muffling her screams for help by commanding a wolf to kiss her a lot.

So Ginger obeyed, and Roger licked Dani other places to distract her while the thief rifled Dani and found the secret documents. By the time the Chrome Collar Foxgirl noted the time and entered Room 103, all she saw was the guest Mistress lying nude, apparently enjoying the wolves licking her.

Foxgirl just removed the furr slaves and adjusted Dani for comfort. She was too submissive to bother the Mistress as she slept, and she'd been told to fetch Roger and Ginger and lead them back to Kennel for a group rubdown. It never occurred to the girl that Dani was sleeping permanently.

Fade, B&W, commercial, c'mon back.

* - *

I'd like to tell you more about Tim McGee and Hot!Tech computers, but maybe you aren't interested. Perhaps you prefer to know what Tony DiNozzo thought about the scrub minks. Remember one was a girl. It'd be amusing to make a fur pile and watch 'em squirm around.

Ducky was getting closer with the lady Vet and she was willing to talk with a human for a change. I mean, mentally challenged mixes are fun on their furry knees and all, and they're sized for sex and beg to please that way, but try talking baby to a sex toy and you'll appreciate another human.

Especially a tall, dark, handsome Chief Medical Examiner. OK, taller than Sandy, and he went outside so he had a little tan. And frankly the older man was indeed handsome. Even Sandy's bosses were more business-oriented and thought they could manage any people no matter what the product.

She didn't have to dumb down the science for Ducky. DNA was discovered before the 1950's, just the structure was figured out by X-ray diffraction techs and Watson & Crick. Ducky knew humans shared about 98% of their DNA with chimpanzees.

So it was the other 2% you could fiddle with. It made sense to have DNA sequences stored in taxonomic groups. And the CME knew Linnaen taxonomy, so Animalia Eumetazoa Chordata Vertebrata Gnathostomata were simple enough terms for them both.

Just add DNA sequences in groups, like a cookbook. Mammalia Placentae (or the newer Theria Eutheria Laurasiatheria) Carnivora Caniformia Canidae Vulpini Vulpes was simple enough, and then the species and subspecies of fox NCIS had DNA for.

BioSyn Kennels had code words for their DNA lines, based on when it was sequenced. Ducky's sample had fox and human DNA, so it was Recombinant DNA Level 4, and some ribosome sequences identified R4 Generation Two, with child intelligence.

Ducky was quite impressed with the KawaSuki AutoSynths the company used. Even the USA government hadn't given him or Abby the tech toys to analyse DNA fragments so quickly and precisely, or build the whole strand from data as the 'Synths did. He was almost drooling over the non-USA tech.

The Vets just dealt with the product, but they were scientists first, and wanted to know how mixes were made. Besides, Sandy needed the details to make medicines to cure and prevent sickness. She used the KawaSuki DNA Analysers on Ducky's sample of fox mix.

For example, they'd met Betty Foxgirl. The vet records identified her as R4G2/KvJ31. K is the eleventh letter of the American alphabet, the eleventh R4G2 DNA line. Some kind of Canid. The variant was J, the tenth one. Any KvJ was a gray fox, /Urocyon cinereoargenteus/. And Betty was the 31st Gray Fox made.

So it was easy enough for Sandy and Ducky to explore each other's skills, and while the 'lyser was checking the DNA, Ducky called Abby because he knew she'd be fascinated too. While Gibbs and the field agents were grinding their wheels talking to idiot fur slaves, Duck and Abs were getting the real work done, collecting and analysing forensic evidence.

* - *

Witnesses lie, and their memories twist. You could never get the same story from two different witnesses to the same event. Psych study after study showed the unreliability of first-hand accounts. So why did Gibbs and Tony bother?

Forensic evidence never lies. You may not know why a carpet fiber from say a 2007 Cadillac Seville was found on a body when the prime suspect drives a 2002 Seville, but if you find the car you discover they had the trunk redone. The fibers don't lie, people do. Find the old carpet, you find blood residue even the bleach missed. Arrest, trial, convict.

Abby had been interested enough in petting Betty, and Roger and Ginger. But she was bored without forensics and Major Mass Spec to check up on, so she was quite willing to find the Duck-meister and be duly impressed by Hot!Tech power.

As the 'lyser broke up the DNA strands, it used only part of the sample found on poor deceased Chief Petty Officer Danielle Roberts. All the work that had taken two scientific teams, private and government, to try to analyse the human genome last century, had become relatively quick and less expensive.

Henry Ford didn't invent automobiles, he just mass-produced them cheaper than one-of-a-kind, master-craftsman works of art they'd been before. Get a Ferrari Testarossa, beautiful but bloody expensive. Now you can pick from dozens of makers, thousands of cars.

Black and white photography used to need a room so dark you couldn't see a white piece of paper in front of your face after ten minutes. And you had to dip your hands in poisonous developer, stop bath and fixer just to get one- at-a-time photos from white and black negatives on celluloid.

Developing the negatives was done in a small tank so you didn't have to get your hands wet, but I've done this IRL and the rinse alone took 30 minutes! Then some bright tech and an entrepreneur got together and made a machine to develop negatives, time and develop prints, and it takes less than an hour per roll! You used to need special chemical knowledge, now any Rite-Aid or CVS can run the machine.

Hot!Tech had simply built on previous technology, made it better, faster, cheaper. They did the same for DNA analysis and recombination. Sure it's a different process, but they just needed a research team to figure out the process and automated it.

* - *

Meanwhile, Tim McGee was really enjoying working with a Hot!Tech por- table, and to him the world stopped existing. The portability of a tablet, the convenience of a laptop, the power and storage of a tower.

Basically a tablet with benefits, its Hot!Tech OS didn't need to be updated to do the same work, never went out of date, always had tech support. He'd found one over ten years old, and once he matched the battery charger, it roared to life the same as the new ones he'd seen Mel Thompson use.

The tablet doesn't even try to store user data. That way it can concentrate on running apps. You just need a USB thumb drive for ID and storage, and Tim had one from Mel. It'd work on any Hot!Tech machine, just plug in and go.

Tim was getting used to the simplicity of the Command Line Interface. He was knowledgeable enough about computers he didn't need Windows' training wheels. A few quick words, the machine allowed him to use it; a few more words and a WEP key from Mel, and he was connected to BioSyn kennel's wireless network.

It was all so simple. No damn dialog boxes popping up to bother him with adverts, no stupid 'wizards' to 'help' him get done, it just did the work of connecting him while saying in plain English what it was doing. No tech- nobabble he needed his degrees to figure out.

Why tell users you're getting DHCP and NAT information that he had to stop and remember. Sure the tech was easy for Tim, but just say "I'm getting a net address and permission to use the net". That's what DHCP and NAT do, but isn't it easier to understand 'address' like a house number and 'permission' to use?

It was all so quick and easy it was like a smooth conversation. Tim's favor- ite website popped up quickly after he remembered its name (It's called a URL, a Universal Resource Locator, or a web site address, but it's just a name the computer searches for).

Tim wished every computer simply worked this easily. The tablet had only a touch-screen keyboard, but he saw a docking station and power adaptor. Right next to the tablet charger, ready to use. The tablet slipped into dock and its display showed it had found the hardware, ready for use.

No silly color-coded plugs to struggle with, no interminable 'looking for driver for new hardware' nonsense. All Hot!Tech keyboards work the same, plug in and go. No mouse, no GUI, remember? Display's on the tablet. If you want a bigger one, OK.

All Hot!Tech displays work the same. Simple ones have simple plugs, fancy ones, fancy plugs. They all go in one way, the right way. No damn control panel to fool with. You can if you want extra features, but plug it in and it works, first time every time.

I know what you're thinking. "But Kevin! Microsoft doesn't *purposely* screw things up! The real world just isn't that simple!" Well, you're right. It isn't simple. But Hot!Tech puts all that stuff on a manufacturer.

* - *

They can make a display any way they want. Composite sRGB. Black-and- White video. Low-def, standard-def, high-def, analog NTSC or PAL colour, or something I haven't thought up yet. Composite or component color, YUV or LPrPb color space. Whatever.

*But it has to handle all that within the monitor!* Commercial DVDs take all the tech stuff and roll it up into regions. A Region One DVD plays in the USA and wherever they use the format. All you need to know is, the DVD region has to match the player region.

All the piddling little details like raster lines and lines per inch, horiz- ontal and vertical resolution, analog or digital, what color space or encoding, component or composite video, raw or what decompression to use, stuff the tech really needs just reduced to region number. Simple.

See, the *operating system* doesn't really need to know all that hardware detail. It just needs hardware that talks OS. Windows tries to make their OS talk hardware, and that makes it unwieldy and unstable. If yer old enough, you know MS has been making the same claims (It makes computers easy to use!) ever since frakkin' Win 3.x, and that wasn't a real OS, just an uber-app that used DOS to run your apps and make you think you were getting something cool.

So Hot!Tech made an intermediate 'generic' OS to talk with 'generic' hard- ware that runs the actual stuff. Look, someone made your TV, that's hardware. Someone else made the TV show, that's software. But you don't need to know who made your TV or your show, the TV just plugs into anybody's cable box, which selects anybody's TV show.

You don't have to wait for 'new hardware' dialog boxes, or get drivers, or any of that BS just to plug in a new TV or change channels. So Windows should just let you plug stuff in and have it work. Simple.

I just really feel MS has dropped the ball, shouldn't try to become the standard, they should make MS do it the way hardware makers do things. Use open-source mp3 music instead of making their own wma.

Use open-source mp2 compressed video (what DVDs use, Motion Picture Experts Group Type 2 encoding - MPEG-2). Win plays 'em, why make up their own? For web streaming, use MPEG-4 instead of wmv or the hacked version, DivX.

MS just wants to make a profit instead of making our lives easier.