Posts by honkhonk34

As a musician (I've done it as a job although nowadays I do it for fun) I find the idea of unpaid work of that kind horrific. I've gladly donated my services as a musician for events for charities, community groups and gigs with great exposure and have always been happy to go to jams (where usually only the house band is paid).

I'm all for personal choice, if any backing musician was offered union rate but said "nah I'll do it for free" then good for them!

But professional entertainment isn't free. Professional accountants aren't free, professional footballers aren't free, professional musicians aren't free. Any one of those groups may include an individual who may volunteer their personal services for free, but no group is free by default.

It seems somewhat shameful to me that Palmer essentially had to be bullied into paying her backing musicians. She's no better than those pub landlord types who expect a professional band to play two hour long sets for a beer each, nevermind the fact that a few beers doesn't even match the cost in petrol to move a band and their gear to the venue.

I can't see the sense in this either.

Even if Facebook developed a completely new hardware line and made it very distinct, the patents held on handheld devices are vague and ambiguous to say the least. The big players in mobile tech really don't want another competitor and they have control of enough IP to ensure it's an uphill struggle the whole way.

But more importantly, I can't see the logical gain Facebook would make from entering the mobile market directly. They run a platform independent online service, they have no previous experience in direct mobile tech, their service is already available on the devices that would become their competitors.

Wouldn't it make more sense for them to throw their weight behind one of the giants like Google, since the potential link up for data mining users would offer them both huge advantages?

I don't approve of the idea personally, but from a business standpoint it would link up two companies who make a lot of money by profiling you and using targeting advertisements.

Surely if you linked google and facebook user data in profiling, you could capture 95% of a user's data available to be mined online. How many people use their PC/Laptop as a "facebook and emails" machine?

That's actually quite scary.

Here we go

...again..

Hold on a second...

Would it be surprising that google's own services appear on the top of their search functions even if the algorithms used to dictate the page rank were completely honest?

By which I mean: when people use google searches, aren't they more likely to use google services?

Here's my example that I'm guilty of. I'll put a street address into a google search, let it autocorrect it and immediately hit "maps" up at the top to view the address in google maps. I'm not actually clicking on the search result, though?

The thing here that's essentially an issue is that finding the answer to a query in google is almost always going to require less clicks/page loads/typing than using another search engine. The integration of their services is something that other sites genuinely can't battle against more than the pagerank stuff, I think...

What's better, Google paying money to NASA directly for use of (presumably empty) hangars, or google paying for access in another private airfield somewhere else? Would the government receive more money in total if Google were somewhere else? I'm quite doubtful.

Google have enough money to build their own private airfield if they want, why do something likely to make them leave? If the point was ensuring they paid a fair amount I would fully back up anyone who questioned it (not because I believe it's inherently nefarious, but because it's always good to check).

Is this just contrariness for contrariness' sake?

The SpaceX guys seem to be hyper-sensitive to the prospective issues that would suddenly appear in their faces if they launched a rocket which didn't make it to orbit. Governments can get away with it on occasion but it'd be pretty bad news for the private sector to have their gear blowing up overhead, if only because it seems like a lot of folk at Congress are itching for an excuse to shoot SpaceX down and a nice spectacular failure would be as good an excuse as they're likely to get.

It doesn't surprise me that their automatic safeties are quite severe sounding in those circumstances, and I'm happy to wait and see a great launch.

Judge Green lights blocks in February, three months later it's processed through the courts.

A week later ISPs put Domain level blocks in place.

Two days later TPB has bypassed these blocks through minimal reconfig or anyone who wishes to bypass the block has looked it up and done so themselves.

I'm not coming down on either side of the piracy argument here, but what a complete waste of court time.

How the hell did the school know it was his account anyway?

Jesus if my school had known the stuff I used to write when I was his age they'd have went ballistic, but they would have found it incredibly difficult to prove any account was tied to me. People do need to remember that in any school or workplace machine that you log onto, all subsequent actions are potentially recorded and known to be you.

not that it excuses the insane behaviour of the school, but why not just post from his mobile? don't all the kids have huge smart phones nowadays? it seemed to be going that way when I left.

You do have to wonder how many times various Sony operated sites and services are going to be hacked before Sony start putting some real money and expertise into their protection. This is getting absurd.

I can't really understand the Steam hatred here!

For one, people buying physical disks only to be told it's got to be installed through steam - you do seriously need to learn to read the instructions on the back of the box if you have a huge problem with steam and want to avoid it at all costs. It's not Steam's fault you don't read the sign on the back stating it's a steam activated game, it's yours.

For two, if Steam dies, you still retain: The game data installed on your machine and your game keys (if you're worried enough about steam to copy your game keys from Steam into a word doc) ; On the off chance Valve don't release a community patch to allow people to play, you have all the required stuff to legally install nocd cracks.

Last but not least: Steam has really beneficial features, it maintains game patching, it has a good community system, it sorts out legacy games to work on newer systems, and it has some mental sales well above and beyond anything you will find in a physical shop.

I just don't get why it's Steam's fault if you don't read the back of the box to see it's a Steam platform game. I sure as hell think Steam is better than 99% of the other DRM options out there - sure no DRM would be nice but unfortunately I don't think you'll have an easy time of it convincing publishers or developers to drop DRM completely.

Games is a tricky one, 'specially PC games. I think Steam as a form of DRM is one I can live with happily because it supplies many advantageous features to me as a user (centralized and well stored game keys! auto patching! best of all: legacy games adapted to work on newer systems without spending two hours looking up advice!)

Here's the kicker; very few PC games have demos nowadays, and I don't blame people for pirating a game on the basis that they want to try the product before paying the full price*. The problem is obviously that by the time people have pirated the game in order to try it out, the principle of buying it if they like it often drops by the wayside.

*Consumer rights for gamers, what a novel idea.

It's a rather large sum of money, presenting it in a way that demeans that seems snide, as commented above.

Also, does anyone know if this money came from Google's usual yearly donation funds or if it was above and beyond their usual donation funds?

If the latter, it's especially snide.

You know, I've always wondered why no bricks and mortar shops have changed to embrace a physical shop to sell digital products; I think I would still have use for a shop where I could wander in with my mp3 player of choice, find music arranged competently* by genre, etc and be able to purchase said music for an appropriate** price, having the transfer to the digital device as part of that process.

I fully appreciate that the concept of multiple devices, formats and connectivity would not be the easiest thing in the world to set up, but I certainly don't think it's insurmountable, indeed you could probably ensure it's largely automated to prevent incorrect file formats being purchased.

*Music shop employees are, on average, quite competent, able to suggest appropriate other artists (if you want) and quite capable of assisting in the buying process, which I feel is sometimes lacking in the online methods of song purchasing we have today.

*An Appropriate price would be say, more than itunes of spotify (since they're running a shop) but less than CD's (as there is no physical product)

You know if something like this was created I would buy things there, just as I do with other music.

I for one genuinely enjoyed GTA IV

And I respect Rockstar for having the courage to make each game feel quite different, considering the underlying idea has basically stayed the same since the original GTA. All the people who decry GTA IV as being boring and too serious and brown coloured would have been screaming rockstar down for a lack of originality had they retained the style present in San Andreas.

The fact that I live 10 minutes away from Rockstar North's offices here in Edinburgh or that I managed to gatecrash their launch party for The Lost and Damned and drank my own bodyweight in free booze does not make me biased!

I for one would pay good money for a Morgan Freeman satnav, for listening to his voice is to listen to golden, liquefied truth.

It's a simple matter of options

Choose one of the following:

1. Retain status quo of hydrocarbon based energy along with a minority of nuclear power and subsidized green power sources. Rising prices will first cause disadvantaged people to go without power or heating, then presumably eventually blackouts, potentially leading to a shortfall in industry and commerce and a ruined economy. (what's left of it) eventually enough green power would become available to meet demand, this may happen over ~50 years.

2. Increase use of Nuclear power, dodging the worst of the price rises as dependency on hydrocarbons will be lower. Limited brownouts or blackouts, less damage to the economy. Nuclear would (I would expect) be phased out to green power or other clean technologies within the ~50 year period. We have a larger volume of radioactive waste which must be disposed of, however we have a stronger economy and higher quality of life throughout this period.

Might get flamed for it but that's the way I look at it.

hmmm,

There has been some speculation that the bid was dropped in an effort to allow News Corp to come back at a later date when this has all blown over and push the bid through; essentially waiting it out until they are in a better position to make and win the bid.

How would OFCOM's decision influence this future potential bid? If they find them unsuitable (which I'd imagine is the public feeling) then how exactly would News Corp make a new bid in the future? and considering BskyB is partly owned by news corp, would it be possible for there be an impact upon their current part-ownership?

I don't know the answers to these questions, however there is indeed potential ramifications for News Corp should they be found unfit, I'd imagine.