Posts by Neil 8 64 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Aug 2010
Saw, you mean?
Yes, I like both of those films. They rate 7.5 and 7.2 on the generally quite critical IMDB so I'm by no means alone.
I think many of the comments about the outdatedness of DNF could and should be equally applied to those films, but it doesn't hurt their objective ratings like it apparently does with the game here.
It's all about your expectations isn't it?
I have the PC version. So far I've played about 30-40 mins and it's been pretty much what I expected. it's been fun so far. I don't feel ripped off and I really don't feel it's a 40% game. I put it in the same category as Die Hard 4.0 or the new Rambo film. It's meant for an audience who buy retro stuff and that includes me. If you know what you're getting yourself into, you'll probably enjoy it.
I was honestly *far* more disappointed to have paid full price for Crysis 2 this year: That has pretty graphics, can be played in full 3D on my TV & got fantastic reviews - but that feels like a very generic & linear shooter to me, which isn't what I was expecting at all.
It's true that the firmware upgrade wasn't compulsory, but if you don't do it then you can't play games online, which is also one of the features people paid for.
So, having paid your money for both features, you're given the choice of losing Unix or losing online games. Making a choice was compulsory.
Weirdly, in the UK you can often get a fairer deal like this with PAYG and avoid getting capped or ripped off with excessive per MB fees.
For example on Three you can pay £10, £15 or £20 for 1, 3 or 5GB (I think). If you use it all before the end of a month, your access stops & you can chose to pay again or not.
I'd happily pay for an un-capped home connection by the GB like this too if I had the option (though the amounts would have to be higher!)
But here's the thing: ISPs and Mobile companies REALLY hate the idea of selling you bits & bytes. They want to sell you internet access *products*. Packages. Deals. 1000 minutes. *Unlimited* data. This way, nobody is quite sure what they're buying or using. Most customers are paying for more than they use, and anyone using more than average is 'not playing fair' and gets beaten up.
I'm pretty platform agnostic in that I've got an iPod Touch, but use a Milestone (now with Froyo beta) as my main phone.
I don't understand why this thing, with a resistive touchscreen, no google apps and no Android Market, no flash, would score so highly: You're getting a crippled Android experience compared to, say, an Orange San Francisco which you can go out & get for £99 from Argos & then never top up again.
It doesn't really compete with an iPod Touch either. You can get the 8gb iPod for a similar price which yes, has half the storage, but has a proper touchscreen and access to the entire iPhone app store.
I have a fair bit of sympathy for the average Joe who paid for a card in good faith that it would be useful to them personally & last 10 years, I suppose.
Ms Epstein, though, doesn't deserve a refund any more than anyone else who bets on a lame horse. She was first in the queue to hand over her rights so she could be the public face of ID cards, and can't pretend that she didn't know the cards were politically unpopular and destined to be scrapped following a reasonably likely change of government.
See it as a £30 donation to our financially troubled government, Ms Epstein.
Great, but it's a UK review: £850 is actually $1,350, while £999 is $1,585 today.
Does it still look as good value for that price?
Or to look at it the other way around, $999 is £630. If it was selling for that price in the UK then it may not have attracted the same comments in the first place...
Business success is defined only by growth, so it's almost inevitable that we'll end up paying more for less where energy is concerned.
I believe we *should* use less energy where we can, but let's be honest - When an energy company encourages you to do it, it's in the hope that you won't notice the unit price of energy increasing quite so much.
The best argument I ever saw *for* this otherwise blatant over-charging was that in reality, we have stronger consumer laws in Europe than the USA. Ultimately, guess who pays for the protection?
A case in point is the PS3 - When Sony disabled OtherOS functionality, here people were entitled to refunds & compensation if they could sensibly argue they bought their device to run Linux.
If your iPod stops working before a 'reasonable' amount of time has passed - i.e. 11 months from now, you get a 'free' repair/replacement in the UK with the supplier (not the manufacturer) being liable. I don't think that's the case in the US, as I understand it.
My final example is where I saw this whole argument in the first place: There was an issue with a particular laptop suffering from dodgy lid hinges after 6 months of use. In the UK, the supplier would be liable for getting these hinges fixed with items of merchentable quality - Much to the surprise of US buyers of the same laptop, who I believe were landed with the cost of replacement.
There are some shaky assumptions and conclusions in there, not least "Any road charging scheme... would involve heavy use of IT".
"Fuel duty" is still a usage-based road charge, just not one that offers much control.
However, the article doesn't talk about whether over 50% of users want the govt to have that extra control, or whether they're happy for the money to be spent on the infrastructure for it.
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