Posts by Deano2099
28 posts • joined Monday 9th August 2010 15:50 GMT
Re: eBooks still have to make much progress before I prefer them
There might be no DRM, but I'll bet there's a license I have to agree to that technically means if I did give it away after I'd read it you could sue me. Now, I'm sure you wouldn't, but there's still a principle there.
Re: Why ...
Then don't follow 'average' people. Follow only the exceptional ones. The medium isn't the problem, it's the deathly boring people you chose to follow.
Re: Non-FB user question
"more fool them" - yeah, fools who almost got $10 million from FB to go away...
Re: Evil pirates of the high seas!
Train and car park analogies seem fine to me if we assume an infinite number of spaces.
Actually I've long believed that trains going from A to B with empty carriages are a waste. I'd be all for a system where it was possible to get a free or massively reduced price train ticket by just turning up, but risking not getting on if the train is full. Alas there's the practical problem with this and the parking thing, in that if demand by paying customers suddenly spikes, there's no way to force you off the train mid-journey, or instantly move your car.
Re: @Graham 25
It sounds to me like you do need an Oyster card, actually.
HR drones are human beings too, most of them likely have Facebook accounts that they use. They're also breaking Facebook's terms the second they login with someone else's password. A few banned HR personnel and this will blow over...
Re: Re: Business Model
@AC
Yes, that's the current model.
How's it working out for you?
It's interesting that they went for Newzbin first, which lets face it, as a service that requires a binaries newsgroup sub to launch (which most ISP no longer offer, so is a separate cost) is small-fry compared to Pirate Bay, the far more obvious target.
just a thought...
But with the money saved from having driver-less trains, we could put a police officer that would other be getting 'cut' on every train.
The funny thing is that if this is some rogue annoyed Google employee, it's far more likely to be one annoyed with his useless buses than his 11-year-old opinions on gay people...
Yes but...
They're different crimes aren't they?
If you killed my girlfriend, I wouldn't have her any more. But you don't go around saying "rape is murder everyone, let's just call it what it is eh?"
We've been down this road before, and hence we're now lumbered with the term 'piracy' for copyright infringement, even though it's nothing to do with attacking ships on the high seas. I don't understand this obsession with re-naming the damn thing. If copyright infringement is too many words can we not just have a new one for it? Instead of trying to use other words that mean other things that we still need to use for those things.
Not binary
It's not a binary thing though. No, you won't stop piracy completely. That doesn't mean you can't significantly reduce it.
It's a sliding scale, dropping the price will convert some pirates to customers. The question is exactly where on that scale you make the biggest profit.
Both the music (iTunes) and the PC games (Steam) industry have demonstrated how piracy can be massively reduced by offering a convenient service.
Depends
Depends if the user of the photo is considered to be FB itself, using it for business purposes, or the user of Facebook, in which case it's okay as photographs taken purely for personal use (including sharing with friends) are exempt from the Data Protection Act.
As I understand it...
There's a maximum volume that can't be exceeded. When you're making a drama or whatever, you pitch your regular volume at some level well below that average, so that when a car blows up or someone gets shot or whatever, you can increase the volume so it sounds correctly louder.
When you're making an advert on the other hand, you don't need to be that subtle. You only need one volume so it may as well be the highest one you can get away with.
Of course
Will the new console be more powerful than tech that is seven years old?
Err, yes, obviously.
It might not come with in a mile of whatever MS and Sony do next, but they'll have 2-3 years on them.
This is all fine
All they need to do is e-mail all Twitter users every Monday morning with a list of facts that are under injunction and that they can't tweet about. Job done. No more excuses.
well...
Aren't we all file-sharers though? If you've ever sent any file to anyone else...
TV really is different
Because it's free anyway. Or paid for by a license fee which we're already paying.
Torrenting it is really no different to watching it on TV and going out of the room while the adverts are on. If we could actually measure broadcast ratings accurately there might be an issue, but we can't. As long as anyone selected to have their watching monitored makes sure they have the TV on for anything they previously torrented it really is harmless.
Tax evasion
It's tax evasion, put simply.
Thing is, these companies actually pass these savings on to customers. Unlike the hundreds of other loopholes used for evading tax which go in to shareholders' pockets.
staying purile then
Then along those lines:
If stab someone with a knife, it still isn't legal for the Tesco shop assistant to come over and blunt it for you.
If you run someone over, Ford don't come round and remove the car's engine.
If people commit crimes, like stabbing, piracy, or vehicular manslaughter, there are methods in place to have them legally tried under the laws of the land. You don't get to just bypass the court and punish the criminal directly just because you can.
Likewise if Nintendo want to sue or prosecute pirates they have my full support. But they can do it the same way everyone else has to.
For those supporting this, get ready for a future where if you're caught speeding, Ford remotely disable your car so you have to buy a new one. What's that? You were rushing your pregnant wife to hospital? Tough.
The last update...
Actually the last PS3 update, 3.56, still hasn't been hacked. Yes, someone said they had the codes so it should be trivial and what-not, and then no-one did it. People on the hacked 3.55 have been able to 'fake' 3.56 and so get online without having to update, but no-one that updated to 3.56 is able to hack their console currently.
Not sure it's really about control
Bioware have always run 'official fan site' programs, where they offer the sites extra support and they can claim to be 'official fan sites'. The problem is, you run any advertising on a site about MMOs and you'll almost inevitably get gold selling ads. Which Bioware can't be seen to be supporting.
Unfair
The problem is "everyone should use their real name" is not at all a fair policy. Because John Smith remains essentially anonymous, while Buckminster McOnion is entirely identifiable.
Of course Ryan Air are awful
But worth remembering for an often tiny price they put you in a metal box that *flies* you to a different country. Sure, the customer service is atrocious, the baggage limits are a pain, but it's easy to take for granted the actual transportation bit. Where you're travelling hundreds of miles in a flying metal contraption. For £50.
Posted in Amazon shrinks books with Kindle Singles
Not short stories
These aren't short stories. As has been pointed out, there are plenty of compilations and such where one can buy short stories already. As the article says, "less than 10,000 words" is an acceptable story format already.
These are really more novella length: there are very few places where you can buy novellas these days. Published on their own, you get a very small book that doesn't cost much less than a larger one, so carries a similar price tag, and looks like a rip-off. Collected together, you can only reasonably fit two or three novellas in to a single paperback. Which is a hard sell, as you don't have the variety of a short story collection, nor the focused appeal of a novel.
It's a nice idea.
Posted in StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty
Except
1. It is. Just like a lot of big releases. Don't like it either but you can always wait for a drop in price.
2. No it doesn't. You need to be online once to verify. After that you can play offline. You might lose out on achievements but other than that you can play single-player as much as you like.
3. Err, no. There possibly might be micropayments for premium maps in the future. It's not decided yet. There's no subscription fee, and remember, Blizzard are still running Battle.Net for Warcraft 2, so you can bet on it being supported for a while yet.
4. Yes they are. And locally too. Aces.
5. This sometimes happens if you try to play offline. That's a bug yes, but totally contradicts your point 2)
6. I'm halfway through the campaign and already spent longer on it than to finish DOW2. I'm annoyed the story is split in to three, but I fail to see how this is any different from any game that ends with "To be continued" - in fact I'm glad Blizzard are telling us this upfront.
