Posts by Shades

What is it...

...with Renault and their massive arses? Is it a French thing? Actually, I went out with a French girl for a couple of years, she had a fairly big, but perfectly formed, arse so it must be! lol Still, its a good looking car... in black, that yellow would give me a headache!

Cue...

...someone moaning about the screen resolutions/ratio in 3, 2, 1...

Why the hell...

...would you buy one of these when a 500Gb Freecom Mobile Drive XXS, with a "skin-tight" rubber sheath little bigger than the drive itself and in a colour that goes with everything (black), can be had for less?

I've got an old 250Gb version and I'd recommend them to anyone, even if only due to the fact that the rubber sheath acts like one giant foot and makes it damned hard to be pushed about, knocked off or even tipped off of almost any surface without actually having to put in the extra effort to purposefully do so.

I stopped reading...

...as soon as I realised that it doesn't physically connect to anything that could provide force-feedback and "free-floats" in your hands.

The designers really have missed a trick here. If they had of made it a detachable wheel, like in F1 and a few other formulas, with a force-feedback base unit then the wheel could have been used to store your settings... attach it to a base unit and the game automatically changes its settings to your preferences. Would be great if you have a few mates (that also have the wheels) round for a few beers and a "Who's the best/fastest driver" session[1].

My cousin has the right idea... Official GT steering wheel and pedals attached to a specially made wooden cockpit (that you have to slide into, like a real open-wheel racer), with a real bucket seat, in front of a mahoosive TV that basically fills your field of vision!

[1] Using a game, I'm not condoning or encouraging drink driving IRL before anybody says it!

If...

the "sound [is] quite important on a telly" for you then the sound musn't be all that important. Even a £25 2:1 speaker system plugged into a TVs headphone socket* will sound better than most flat panel TV speakers any day. Having that little bit of bass (even if most cheapo 2:1 systems don't go really low), rather than all top and no bottom, makes quite a difference.

If this TV is anything like the LG M227WD (also a 1080p TV/Monitor) then, while the screen is fantastic for the price, the sound quality will be shockingly p*ss poor, requiring something (anything!) other than the panels own speakers (or speaker, as was the case in the aforementioned LG).

* Not the ideal solution but adequate enough for the likes of my ex who just wanted something that sounded better than the built-in speakers but just plugged in with minimal fuss using a connection she understood.

Broadness or vagueness is the key?

"Google (or any search engine that operates an apps platform) should: effectively screen applications to see if they are likely to substantially facilitate or encourage infringement or otherwise designed to facilitate infringement; take down mobile apps where it is aware that they are designed or known to be used to illegally download entertainment content, either via p2p [peer-to-peer] applications or unauthorized lockers;"

A still or video camera app can, if YouTube alone is anything to go by, be used to "substantially facilitate or encourage infringement". How many clips have you seen of something that has been recorded off of a TV screen, footage recorded at concerts or festivals, video of friends in bars/nightclubs having nothing more than a good time, innocent birthday parties with someone having "Happy Birthday" sung to them? Hundreds? Thousands? Well, chances are each and every one of those is infringing somebodies copyright. So if freely available still/video cameras are not substantially facilitating or encouraging infringement then I don't know what is!

Music/video playback apps can play unauthorized copies of music and video files, surely they must be encouraging the further downloading of infringing material.

What constitutes an "unauthorized locker"? One can only assume this will mean ANY locker service, that has not been authorized by the BPI/MPA/PACT; meaning one from which they don't get a cut. Will they be able to stop all services like Dropbox from offering an app, or at least make it more difficult to find? After all, they CAN be used to store and download infringing material because they provide public links.

How broad, or vague, will the definition of a "Search Engine" be? How broad, or vague, will the definition of an apps platform be? Will this, when it suits the BPI/MPA/PACT/Premier League, come to eventually mean ANY site that offers a search facility (after all, that has to have an "engine" behind it) and/or has software that can substantially facilitate and encourage infringment? Will CNet be forced to stop providing links to CD/DVD rippers, P2P software? What about Amazon? They are not, by current definitions, a search engine and they do not have an apps platform (like Google does) but their Android apps market is well known. Will Google have to drop links to Amazon for software they've had to drop from their own apps market?

Any time organisation says rule X will not apply to Y, or defines rule X to cover whatever they need it to at the moment of their choosing, will, sure as eggs are eggs, stomp all over Y with rule X the split second it suits them.

True (sorta!)

But I'm sure companies giving themselves the right to change contracts, in the contracts themselves, pre-dates Microsoft by a long way. I'm equally sure people have been failing to read the T&Cs for just as long too.