* Posts by Andrew Orlowski

1435 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Sep 2006

BBC One and bureaucracy spared in Auntie cuts

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Hmm...

The source is the BBC's Annual Report and Accounts.

Look up the sections for audience reach.

An oldie is discussed here: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmcumeds/515/51504.htm

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: “It should still be possible to run an outstanding broadcaster"

Your numbers are very wrong. Which channel were you watching for your unreliable information? :-)

Old Napster guy’s fan letter to Spotify upstart

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re:

I've never received a freebie from Spotify.

You JOINED THE FORUMS just to SAY THAT?

'Hey, Tories, who knows what a nontrepreneur is?’

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re:

If your 1) was true ISPs would have left the market in 1995. 2) finds you fantasizing.

You do seem in a great rush to get to 3) ... by any means necessary!

Microsoft takes the Android profit, the Wonkas take the pain

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Don't entirely disagree with the assessment, but...

"Far as I am concerned, to a large extent Google mistakenly behaved as if the legal patent system was sane. That was not clever and it was naive. But it doesn't mean it was morally wrong."

Not sure if copying (c) code is immoral, but it's certainly lazy - and definitely avoidable.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: A quick point

More than that but it will be less than $12bn.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Clueless

Oh dear.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: No evidence offered for any of these statements...

1 of your 3 is correct.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Simplistic assumptions

6) was the justification, for sure. But the most popular versions of Android out there will be ones with no upside for Google at all: the Amazon Fire fork, the Chinese forks, etc.

At some point you have to wonder if it isn't cheaper and more effective to do 6) via other means.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Hmm

[citation needed]

Lancs shale to yield '15 years' of gas for UK

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re:

That redefines "bedwetting"

Spotify tethers future to Facebook

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: What do you suggest?

That was directed at the music industry.

But I suppose you can:

a) create a ghost Facebook page and never use it, to join Spotify

b) join another streaming service like Spotify

c) don't join a streaming service like Spotify at all

I get by quite happily with c).

There is more great music around that I have time to listen to, if I really like something, I have bought it within two minutes, and don't have to worry about DRM, lapsed subscriptions, etc.

Brit ISPs shift toward rapid pirate website blocking

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: I may have missed something here but....

No, you haven't missed anything. Any blocking can be circumvented fairly easily by tech savvy people.

The number of people who know how to is small, and will do so is even smaller, though...

EU recording copyright extension 'will cost €1bn'

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Actually it doesn't "cost €1bn"

But then it's Martin Kretschmer.

Apple MacBook Air 11in Core i5 notebook

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Invented resources

What an idiotic comment - and you've made quite a few.

You should apply for a job as a presenter.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Phew...

I hate to break the news, but we're almost out of whaleblubber too.

Big Music trumpets ‘Cliff Richard’ term extension

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re:

Most of the beneficiaries are jobbing musicians.

The law both mandates a set-aside (20pc) for musicians, but also forbids record companies from clawing them back from the performers via deductions.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Nulla Poena Sine Lege

No promise has been made.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re:

Ulysses went from copyright, to out of copyright, back to copyright again when the author's term was extended. I expect this is no different.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Music and the Machine

There is a cost to both. There is a limited social cost to giving EMI long-term exclusive rights over a piano knees-up, but a greater social cost to giving Westinghouse long-term exclusive rights over nuclear fusion.

The costs are then weighed against incentives.

The comparison of the two goes a long way to explain how laws like this get passed. Legislators think people proposing them are either really stupid, or a bit mad.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Optional

A sound recording is one copyright. A composition is another copyright.

Reading the article helps :-)

British warming to NUKES after Fukushima meltdown

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Shoddy

Only a Guardian reader could think that "the original Guardian article" was actually the primary source for an opinion poll.

The Graun did employ the comfort blanket of a "social psychologist" who interpreted the results for us - which is always helpful. And you can't get more patronising than that.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: @Jolyon

That's a very astute observation.

Germany had an election coming up, and so the political elite pandered to what it thought was the swing vote. This was a projection of their fears.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Perhaps

Chortle :-)

This should be a PhD thesis.

"Gender antagonism and nuclear energy: a family perspective"

I doubt the "social psychologist" the Guardian dredged up would want to write it, though.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: It's a simple matter of options

The HRH Prince Charles would count "damage to the economy" as a positive. He's not alone.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Joe Average and his opinion

"What Joe Average 'knows' comes from the media (means: you) which gladly reproduce what is spoon-fed by them by the lobbying industry like to a parrot."

That isn't true any more. The genie is out of the bottle.

Does Cameron dare ditch poor-bashing green energy?

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: In the long run it does matter whether it's renewable

"Synthetic hydrocarbons is a cop-out though... you still need energy to produce those, and that energy ultimately needs to come from non-fossil source."

It's called the sun.

All you need is Algae + Sunlight.

-> Venter

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Re: Haven't we been here before?

"One has to wonder whether it isn't just The Register that is paying for the author's opinion."

We're all in the pay of Big Oil and G... Damn, I've blown it. You have uncovered a MASSIVE CONSPIRACY.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Utter rubbish FUD here

Thanks for joining The Register's comment forums. Welcome!

"The price of energy is set by the market (the real cause of fuel poverty)"

But if prices were left to the market, they would fall, taking people out of poverty. They are artificially high because of the government's policy to bribe (sorry, incentivise!) rent-seeking renewable energy providers. Fuel poverty has trebled.

So your argument is pear-shaped.

"When these fossil fuel based energy source double in cost over the next 10 years, and assuming the figures provided have real factual basis, then you've seen nothing yet!"

Mmm. Homework time.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Details

+1

Wishing more poverty on everyone seems to be really popular with some people. Perhaps they should try and see how many votes it gets?

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Close but no cigar

A decent 7/10 Mike.

Shame about the submarines, but he's got the important things right.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Oh god, here we go again!

"We need renewable energy to secure our long-term energy supply, independently of whether we're producing too much CO2"

No.

"We need cheap energy to secure our long-term energy supply, independently of whether we're producing too much CO2"

This could be synthetic hydrocarbons manufactured locally, shale gas extracted locally, or nuclear hydroelectric and geothermal all generated locally.

As long as they're energy is cheap, it really doesn't matter whether it's renewable or not.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

@nsid - 1) is false

Your 1) is false, energy has increased much higher than the rate of inflation.

Go to the DECC front page, click on Fuel Poverty, and there you are: http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/statistics/fuelpov_stats/fuelpov_stats.aspx

So your "total bollocks" is in fact "total bollocks"

"Wind isnt deliverable hence why its not controlled by the markets, what will become interesting is mass storage of the power made to allow for the lulls when the wind isnt blowing."

This makes no sense. Wind is a market.

As for stored energy, I'm backing Hamsters.

Would you be seen dead with a shopping computer?

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: A few points

Very good point Rick: base porting is difficult and a huge expense. ODMs using a fork will have to address it.

But they might have some help. If Baidu and Amazon devices shift buckets, then Qualcomm and others will be happy to help them out. It might be the new norm - we'll only take the chipsets with a working fork of Android.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: exactly!

See below

Gov removes 'general appeal' rights for accused freetards

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

@yoinkster

>> For every low hanging fruit there's probably 5 hardcore pirates who are already "lost" to the MAFIAA - ie, will never pay for anything ever again <<

If your "5 hardcore pirates" want something badly enough they'll pay to get it. If they were never going to buy it in the first place, they are not a lost sale to the entertainment industries.

Many have twigged (in this thread and elsewhere) that the enforcement measures are leaky and incomplete, they CAN'T and WON'T stop determined downloaders. Eg web-blocking - we all know how to get around it.

But that's not the point, because hardcore 'tards are not the target of the measures. It's the 80 per cent, the casuals who will pay a bit more for stuff, but don't have to today because getting it illegally is consequence-free, who are.

That's the logic. It may be crackers, it may be rational, but you helps to understand it before formulating a response.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Why are you asking when...

... the answer(s) are in the document linked to the article, with a nice flow chart, and everything?

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

It might be a crap bill

And no one thinks it will save the creative industries unless they do a LOT more work with new services.

But a right is meaningless unless it can ultimately be enforced somehow. And creators have rights. Their current enforcement options are an ineffective token gesture, something very few can afford, so they want new ones to nudge people into paying.

"The existing laws are perfectly functional"

Semantically, this makes no sense. Did you mean "the existing laws are perfectly adequate" or "the existing laws are perfectly ineffective to stop anyone taking the piss" - and arrived at that as a compromise? :-)

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Possibly Andrew writing that headline

"Possibly Andrew writing that headline"

Not my headline :-)

"But then this is el reg, where ... anyone downloading anything must be a freetard"

You've made 1,780 posts here (all anonymous), Sir, so you should know by now that is false.

Find the cluestick, find your head, acquaint the two.

Google in freetard-friendly copyright infringement update

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: copying is the natural right not preventing copying

You've changed your username since your last mauling.

Green energy and jobs will cripple the UK economy

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: taxes not always bad

"There isn't a better mechanism than green taxes to correct this subsidy... taxing large scale production and supply of fossil fuels does the job more efficiently than any other approach to ending this subsidy."

[citation needed]

After Jobs: Apple and the Cult of Disruption

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: "Ecosystem"

You have your sites mixed up, obviously.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Academics are not parasites

....so speaks an academic close to government ;-)

Many academics now are, unfortunately, parasitically dependent on government grants for rubber-stamping preconceived social or environmental policies. They are not independent, and are not adding the sum of human knowledge.

Add to that publicity-seeking pseudo scientists with an eye for a press release. The papers are full this junk.

I would suggest you should be thinking about cleaning up your own house. Unless you think an attack on junk science is an attack on you.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: I find this article...

:-)

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Business Model?

Oh, I do. All the time.

I've been on panels and insisted people don't use the phrase, to see what happens. *with hilarious consequences*.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: @Andrew O

manques?

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: TL, NMI (Too long, not much insight)

"What Jobs did well was envision and create an environment around Apple's equipment that made it easier for Apple customers to actually *do stuff* they wanted to do with said equipment".

Too vague, look deeper.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Nobody in business ever used the word "business model"

It's going well. I'm selling two pound coins for a tenner in Shoreditch.

UK could have flooded world with iPods - Sir Humphrey

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Re: Posted Right Here

Well you don't live here and didn't RTFA. If you assertion is true, Sky would have been sued for the PVR, there would be no tape-to-tape machines etc. CBS vs Amstrad in 1988 cleared that up.

It is really fascinating to watch people invent chills and threats that don't exist.

Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

Re: Before that

"but the kind of ecosystem that Apple has built, is very difficult / risky in UK"

The UK has more services than anyone else. The music industry needs to experiment much more, but the ones you describe are plentiful.

Liability for manufacturers was clarified in Amstrad vs CBS in 1988.