* Posts by Smell My Finger

83 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Oct 2007

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CompuServe France headed for the knacker's yard

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Poor old CompuServe

I have to admit the slow death of CompuServe is a shame. Sure, some of the old CompuServe was hard work, many information services were only available via a character-based console like Telnet but they had a lot of high quality information, premium content and well maintained forums. It wasn't perfect but it valued quality of information rather than the avalanche of worthless tat that makes up 99% of the Internet. You could actually do real research on CompuServe using tools like Lexis-Nexis, it's been a shame our lust for surfing for porn and warez has killed true information providers.

eBay glitch wipes out 11 year-old account without a trace

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Flame

They couldn't care less

"Hi, We're eBay and we are the hegemonic provider of auction services. Yes, we don't give a shit but frankly we're so big we don't have to. Where are you worms going to go? QXL? Don't make me fucking laugh. Just shut up and keep paying your money, there's a good soldier."

That's the really existing marketing place not that made-up-invented-place that only exists in economics books that says economic-Darwinism will eliminate all the shit companies. This is monopoly capitalism.

Galileo slammed by UK politicians

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Flame

What a load of bollocks!

We have the opportunity to have a European GPS system that is more accurate than the US system which is both ageing and we have no control of. It's funny how we can find many more billions to pour in to bollocks like Computing for Health and ID Cards that have almost no merits what so ever and certainly don't fulfil the criteria of being "roads and railways" both of which the UK has a grand record of absolutely fucking up (didn't we sell the railways to a load of cowboys, anyway?). It's amazing how these shitbag politcians suddenly get worried about priorities if it's something they don't want.

Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail strike out Iran

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Re: Let me get this straight

Spot on Rich -- surely it makes sense in the interests of peace and democracy that we keep the lines of communication open and let the dissidents inside the country tell the story their own government won't. The dissidants of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc were extremely significant in making sure the rest of the world knew the real story behind the official lies. Oh, I see now why we want to shut them up then...it's much easier for the West to fabricate its own straw men without pesky Iranians actually telling us what's really happening.

How many $$$s does Apple make from an iPhone?

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It's news Jim, but not as we know it

So a company founded on the premise of making money actually succeeds. Not really news, is it?

Record industry pushes ISPs to cut off file sharers

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Flame

More Reg reader lies and dishonesty

The sense of entitlement from you chumps is just amazing. You have no right to getting any of this material for free. Regardless of how half-arsed these prohibition methods are you have to accept the basic premise music is not yours to pirate, steal, giveaway or share. Please get that through your heads. This property is just not yours - in the name of all that's Holy can't any of you morons understand this? Don't you realise the more you do this the more Draconian the methods become in trying to stop you?

Also stop being blatantly dishonest as it's making me puke blood:

1. You like a fast Internet connection for downloading MP3s of music you have no intention of purchasing.

2. You don't believe that people that produce this music have any property rights

3. The fact you claim to use P2P just for downloading torrents of Linux distros is dishonest - it doesn't excuse the fact most P2P traffic is for bootlegging

4. Your arguments about fighting against the record industry is really just a mountain of bullshit to try and legitimise the fact you're stealing music. You aren't freedom fighters so let me just pop that bubble for you. You're just thieves.

5. Pay up or piss off.

Google funds hold Firefox fate (for sure)

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The two aren't compatible

The fact that Firefox comes out of the box trying to push Google on users has always struck me as antithetical to being open source.

Ballmer: Microsoft will power the mobile revolution

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He might have a point

Despite the vile caricature of Microsoft ("viruses, shoddy code, crashes, lost data") that lapse into dishonest clichés, Ballmer does have a point. To put it another way BlackBerry would be hugely criticised if it was a Microsoft product; it is massively proprietary, BES server is mediocre and the handsets are just pathetic. The difference in software from an ancient 7290 to a Pearl or 8820 is marginal at best. It is absolutely ripe for plundering by Microsoft, Windows Mobile is much more attractive and the BlackBerry OS, they have messaging integration across telephony, email and IM and all they need is a BES type product for the final step. They have a much bigger to hurdle to climb with the networks as BlackBerry is so deeply embedded even though it's not particularly good. I don't know whether the mobile networks would be that happy about offering another messaging product.

The basic problem is that BlackBerry is parasitic from Microsoft's point of view. I think it's a reasonable bet most BES servers are just giving access to Exchange-based email (mine do) so from Microsoft's perspective that's money they should be earning. It must be a bit galling to be losing money to what's nothing more than a facilitator to their own product.

I'm not sure whether going after a consumer product like the iPhone is a particularly good idea. Microsoft must know as well as anyone through the Zune and the XBox you lose millions on these products before they gain traction, if indeed they ever do.

GMail shakes IMAP out of coma

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@ Robert Long

What a truly risible comment about IMAP. POP3 is great - I mean who doesn't love their email being stuck on a single computer? Who doesn't love having to download the entire message? IMAP clearly has no advantages, with my IMAP account I can access it on almost any device from any location with a small footprint and all mail gets filtered/virus checked/spam checked on the server. Let's all hope to God that Rob doesn't fancy a career in IT.

Apple: 1.4m iPhones sold, 250,000 unlocked

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Apple won't be smiling

If the economics of the iPhone dictate it must be locked to a carrier to make money then Apple has no motivation to continue development of the product if they're being unlocked and moved to network where they make no money. I have no idea whether Apple is simply being greedy - locked in phones where they get a bite of income is the gift that just keeps on giving, they'll keep making money long after the device is sold. But if they need this revenue to make the phone affordable they're in bit of a bind as they're being ripped off. Most gadget obsessed people I know who want this kind of device are also greedy, they've got maxed-out credit cards on cupboard fulls of consumer crap, gadgets once used then abandoned, and they really can't afford this kind of thing. They want this on the cheap so they want unlocked phones on cheap, unlimited data contracts that they only get by endlessly threatening to switch networks. Greed is so clearly defined by this device - it's a kind of aspirational bollocks that people keep falling for but never seem to quite grow out of. But the greed is two-way, first there is the greed of the company behind it but then there is the greed of consumers who are living beyond their means, always grasping for more "stuff" whilst not actually having the money to live at this level. The whole iPhone-as-uber gadget is a subject lesson in want over need.

Citrix preaches 'second mover advantage' over VMware

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Another dot com gold rush?

Poor old Citrix has invested in what sounds like another load of snake-oil...

Fasthosts customer? Change your password now

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Re: Web hosting is a low margin business

Having worked at some really big companies my experience has been in branded hardware so perhaps colours my experience of how cheap web hosts operate. I'm well aware that box-stuffing is as old as the web hosting business and Jeff's estimate of about 100 doesn't square with what I've seen of hundreds and hundreds of sites squashed on to cheap 1 and 2U whitebox servers built of cheap components. There is clearly a significant cost implication on web hosts otherwise they wouldn't be massively over-selling their resouces and praying to God no one actually uses anything like their disk, bandwidth of CPU allowance. Anyone serious about a web presence for business needs to realise all of these cheap hosts are building their foundations on sand, for £3.99 a month they aren't getting high spec servers on NetApp or HP StorageWorks storage. Often there getting cheap servers with internal storage that's barely on stage beyond the rubbish PC World sell.

All I know from people who do run web sites is that 99% of web hosts seem to be as rubbish as each other and seem to be largely based on a form of pyramid scheme where someone is endlessly reselling someone elses service. I'm glad I have nothing to do with this kind of tat.

Smell My Finger

Web hosting is a low margin business

When Fasthosts are charging as little as £3.99 a month for 1.5GB of space and unlimited traffic doesn't it occur to anyone for that kind of money you'd need to sell 500 months worth of web hosting to even buy a cheap HP or Dell server. I mean you'd have to sign up for 41 years to even pay for the box it's hosted on. You get what you pay for and costs have to be cut somewhere. It never seems to occur to many people that they're actually not paying enough for web hosting.

RIAA aims lawyers at usenet newsgroup service

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The free music pirates whine again....

I'm amazed this has took so long. Any decent news server carrying the binary groups is absolutely bloated with MP3s (along with DVDs, warez, etc). The same principles apply to NNTP as they do to P2P; artificial arguments about having some kind of imaginary "right" to post other peoples' material is utterly fatuous.

The other argument "Just because you have equipment which *enables* you to do something, does that mean your a criminal?" is the same kind of rubbish. If you are stopped by the Police carrying knives, lock picking equipment, crow-bars, push daggers, certain aerosols and solvents, you can be arrested under suspicion of being equipped to commit an offence, they don't even have to be restricted items like firearms. The law can really only say that it's reasonable you're going to use this for breaking the law in the same way that most of the alt.binaries groups really only have an illegitimate purpose. Of course they can be used lawfully but to be honest I've never seen an MP3-based binary newsgroup that had any legally distributable music in it whatsoever. It's really on how probable it is you're going to commit an offence, most men aren't going to rape anyone in the same most women aren't prostitutes (the fact anyone even cited that as an example is pretty fucking warped anyway).

The idea that we're going to stop buying music because these illegitimate sources are going to be closed down is entirely dishonest. There are dozens of legal sources where you can preview music before purchase whether it's TV, radio, from listening points in record stores where scanning the bar-code from any CD will let you listen to the whole album, from previews on Amazon, iTunes and record company web sites. I would imagine the numbers of illegal downloads that translate into actual CD sales are tiny; anyone that's ever downloaded music will tell you how few CDs they buy. The "I need downloads so I know what CDs to buy" is a dishonest and untruthful scam - who's going to buy the cow when you already get the milk for free?

There is no doubt the music industry is rotten from the inside-out and needs huge reform. The problem is belligerently breaking the law will not advance this process at all. Expecting your music to be free, the implicit demand of every downloader, is also utterly ridiculous. People have completely lost their way in thinking this should be free because they accept it as normal.

Ubuntu goes 3-D

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Give me a break

Alan: Please don't try to categorise people as consumerist sheep because they happen to use Windows and disagree with your choice of OS. Your list of assumptions is crass and thoughtless and you display all the characteristics of a fundamentalist. You could just as easily be categorised as another thoughtless Linux user and in this instance the sheep analogy is probably more apt; the process is reductive and cliché ridden. As he doesn't conform to your world-view he's already "clueless," "ill-informed" but Graham is an "idiot" and they're both "wilfully ignorant lusers."

I mean you're not seriously trying to play the anti-corporate card here, are you? You aren't seriously trying to suggest that you're one of the enlightened, conscientious, culture-jamming, establishment destroying heroes are you? I take it then you don't have Sky telly, don't shop at supermarkets, don't watch corporate media, read corporate newspapers that you really have found the path of righteousness that separates you from the rest of us? Do you really think that using a non-Windows OS really separates you from the caricatured sheep people? Do you really think the Establishment is threatened by you? They're just laughing at your small mindedness and your conformity because you're an authoritarian too, you just want people to do what they're told as well. It's this kind of fundamentalist view of the world is more of a threat to our freedoms that a million Microsoft's.

Microsoft throws unified communications party

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More ignorance runs amok

Poor old "JW" shows he's never even seen OCS. OCS is actually a pretty stable and extremely far-reaching application that can unifiy nearly all communication. I don't think any OSS application exists that can redirect voice calls to voicemail based on my availability in my calendar, it knows when I'm in a meeting or on holiday etc. It integrates everything from web cams to instant messaging to PBXs. No product is perfect but the nonsense posted above is from people that have never seen it. What the fuck a CRM product and a "terrifically stable" desktop have to do with OCS is beyond me.

iTunes battles Amazon with DRM-free price drop

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Let the free music rants begin

There is no "clause in copyright law that prevents parallel importing" - that's a figment of your imagination. The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 doesn't cover this in anyway unless you're infringing copyright in terms of importing an infringing work. There is nothing in law to stop any copyright holder from deciding which territories may or may not get a work and what price they choose to make them available at. Most global companies don't allow grey importing whether it's music, cars, electronics or whatever. In any free market a producer is free to set the price at whatever he or she thinks they can sell something for. The idea that prices globally should be set at one level is absolutely fatuous and is based on the comedic idealism which says prices should be set at what consumers are prepared to pay as opposed to real world pricing that says it should set at the most you can squeeze out of people.

I am still puzzled as to why the better off who enjoy the "benefits" of capitalism are the ones who want some kind of entertainment subsidy whilst seemingly caring not one bit about actually significant downsides of capitalism, who gives a shit about the poor as long you're getting free downloads, eh?

Ofcom: no comeback for TV on analogue spectrum

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Re: Sceptical Bastard

Completely agree - telly is nothing more than a barrel of old toss, fourth rate shite pumped in over more and more channels. We need to do something more than sit about like a lot of fucking cabbages watching this mind-rot come into our homes. You could hardwire the whole lot into my brain in HD with 3D for nothing with a bazillion channels and it'll still all be crap. It doesn't matter how it's delivered, it's the programmes are all that matters. Unless you get past this nauseating consumer gimmickry you'll get the channels you deserve and it certainly answers why it's mostly filled with low-rent shopping channels. The telly industry is fucked.

BBC spreads free Wi-Fi Cloud over iPlayer delay

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Cobblers..

"Given that half the BBC's new media management either used to work for Microsoft (or enjoy giving presentations with senior Microsoft executives) I'd be more willing to believe the pressure is coming from Redmond." Can people please stop posting this unsubstantiated crap that's meant to construct a straw man from a web of nonsense. At the end of the day the BBC has a responsibility to protect licence payers money when their programmes are bootlegged. May be you haven't thought of this but everytime a BBC programme is bootlegged and distributed overseas it's being watched by people that haven't paid a single penny towards creating it. That's just ripping off the license payers. Pay up or piss off.

Smell My Finger

iPlayer = unloved and unlovely

I think the problem with iPlayer is probably even more basic than the fact there will only be limited access for non-Windows computers. Is there really any value in repeats of BBC programmes for up to 7 or 14 days after they were broadcast? In the main it'll endless repeats of non-essential, low quality tripe like Strictly Come Dancing and/or whatever talent show they're showing and that sort of thing. If the BBC really wanted to impress us, why doesn't it start opening its archives for material you really can't see or get anywhere else? They have made some of the finest programmes ever made for television that have vanished forever into their archives. Repeats of rubbish programmes when PVRs, DVD recorders and even video tapes are so widely available seems utterly pointless.

Greenpeace admits iPhone 'compliant' with Euro chemicals rules

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What is Greenpeace?

Isn't Greenpeace really just another lifestyle gimmick? If they had any courage in their convictions they'd be saying that any consumer-led society is gravely incompatible with the environment. Also could they do me a favour and stop stuffing my letterbox full of junk mail bollocks (I'm sure they've "shared" it to other charities too) that is absolutely antithetical to any environmental stance. This white noise about the battery in the sodding iPhone is a puerile distraction.

Google launches YouTube video-blocking contraption

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A bit too late?

Considering everyone has got used to the idea of "free" content from YouTube the horse has already bolted on this one. The problem is people really don't get the "free" idea: Google is raking in a fortune showing the copyrighted material of others, paying them nothing for it. You can't reconcile these two things and if someone is showing your material and making money from your work you're bound to be a bit pissed off. There is actually a strong moral argument to say you can't make money exploiting the work of other people without paying them. You can't expect copyright owners to sit back and allow this to happen, Google are just trying to pre-empt the fact YouTube can either be reformed or be slowly declawed. The whole culture of YouTube has circular dependencies; what's interesting or popular is normally copyrighted, people come to it because they don't have to pay any money and Google pays for it all through advertising revenue it doesn't have to share. Remove any one of those and the whole house of cards starts to collapse. Dishonest arguments about "freedom" just don't wash here, it is abstract nonsense as you well know as fundamentally people just don't like paying for things.

AOL axes another 2,000 jobs

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The business is dead

Unless you have an absolutely compelling offering the closed network is a dead-duck. You can even get Lexis-Nexis on the web these days. This is a classic case of the world changing and the company hasn't. My first domestic Internet connection was through AOL circa 1996 and for what they were, they weren't too bad but I can't help but feel they're still stuck in 1996. I just don't think there's any money in this business any more.

The Pirate Bay absconds with domain name of its nemesis

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These people are idiots

So some gives you a domain where you have no idea how they got hold of it and it's a domain that'll obviously bring attention to themselves. So they're taking a chance this domain wasn't obtained by deceptive or criminal means and receipt of stolen goods was a crime the last time I checked and ignorance is normally no defence in law. The Pirate Bay is a facilitator for criminal acts and taking the piss out of a anti-piracy organisation is profoundly stupid. I have breaking news for them: if they think they can hide under the cover of soverign law whilst allowing people to break the law in other countries they're dead wrong.

Google phone, Google phone OS, Google apps – or just Google Ads

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A lot of assumptions

There seems to be a lot of assumptions in this article. There is no really evidence to suggest that Windows Mobile has failed; most of the best Smartphones are running either Windows Mobile, BlackBerry or Symbian. From what I can see Windows Mobile is doing very well.

There would appear to be key weakness in the strategy here. Google do data over and above everything else. The thing all mobile devices have in common is that data is expensive. Data is also largely pretty slow on most devices - even on 3G my phone is painful to surf the web with. But getting back to the cost. The quickest way to become unpopular is to ramp up someones phone bill on data connections largely saturated with Google's adverts. I can't see how this will ever be popular. Data transfer is expensive, mobiles have tiny screens and tiny amounts of processing power and pummelling them with adverts will just piss users off no end.

You might point to the mobile networks offering the all-you-can-eat tariffs but this is fundamentally flawed. First, if your mobile company's bandwidth is being swamped with Google's adverts they're going to get pissed off with what's effectively subsidising Google. They can't be expected to pay for the data traffic that Google profit from. Conversely if Google do some deal with the mobile networks (and Christ knows how you do this) you then are put in an even worse position; if it becomes financially advantageous for both companies to be making money from mobile advertising they have all the more reason to bombard you with it. Poor users have all most no means of filtering this shite out, mobile clients are tiny and have no ad blocking software.

The problem I think is perhaps more basic. We're bloating data with crap from Google in trying to sell you something when you click on a link or read an email or text. The data is getting bigger, the data you're actually interested in is probably disproportionately smaller than the shite Google is trying to send you. Bloating data would seem to be totally antithetical to mobile use.

We also should be putting the breaks on the commercialisation of data where Google makes money from data it didn't originate. They want to monetise every aspect of mobile communication rather than users getting a modest bill for services they've used. In offsetting your cost for mobile services you're just passing them to someone else. Clearly there is already too much advertising encroaching on your personal space - I don't want Google or their "services" on my phone, thanks.

Oracle readies mega-update patching 51 security holes

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Unhappy

Not surprised

Having had the misfortune to once be a Oracle DBA I can definitely confirm this is Oracle true-to-form. It amazes me how many times Oracle departs from Larry Ellison's "Unbreakable" hype. What I remember about Oracle is they would send out eye-wateringly huge patches with massive prerequisites and complications that would happily slaughter Oracle Applications and databases if you got any part of it wrong. I also seem to remember that Oracle would also slip in missing functionality to applications in to patches and bury the details in the small print. They are an absolutely reprehensible company dealing databases and shoddy applications - they make Microsoft look like the high watermark of professionalism and consistency in terms of patching and maintenance. The misery Ellison's "wretched hive of scum and villainy" has caused me would fill several books.

Ballmer: Google is winning online

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He's not so daft

If Ballmer can play the card of letting become Google of becoming absolutely dominant we'll see history repeating itself. If Google becomes (or has?) the gatekeeper to all the information on the Internet it won't be long before you here cries or having Google broken up. If anything, Google is potentially more toxic than Microsoft as a monopoly, Google controls access to data, it almost monopolises access to other peoples data.

Crudware pusher to pay $25,000 to settle charges

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Oh dear

We had to ban this kind of protocol entering our network years ago when we started getting spam net send messages offering us all the chance of getting cheap degrees. Was a bit funny because the spam was being sent to a university network :)

I knew this would bring out the anti-Windows trolls though, have you chumps any idea how tiresome you all are?

Rockstar to battle BBFC over Manhunt 2 ban

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BBFC have a tough job

By and large the BBFC have been pretty consistent in their decisions. Ultimately they have to abide by the law including the fairly draconian Obscene Publications Act and the Video Recordings Act. These games tend to get into trouble because they lack any serious artistic or dramatic merit, they are implicitly aimed at children and the levels of violence in them can't normally be justified within the context of the game. The BBFC can and do regulate things quite sensitively, in the French file Baise-Moi they removed a sexually explicit rape scene but left in the consensual sex which was nearly all fairly hard-core in nature. They don't just remove things they don't like, the have to abide what the law says is "harmful." There's no point in shooting the messenger.

MP warns against Microsoft monopoly in e-gov services

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Their point is?

The problem is people are excluded society for much more fundamental reasons than this and the government is being a completely disingenuous to suggest otherwise. By far the greatest cause of societal exclusion is poverty and this is a far more fundamental issue than using a bloody Mac or Linux PC. People are excluded because they're poor, because of their gender, ethnicity, sexuality or religious beliefs. The idea that people are excluded because they use a non-Windows OS is simply a sideshow that shouldn't distract us from more pressing issues.

Google's 'Gphone' said to be mobile OS

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No ads for me please

Am I one of the dwindling band of people who doesn't want their life peppered by any more ads? Do I really want to read a text from my wife followed by Google adwords that matches me with Tesco or Asda because she asked me what we were having for dinner that night? Do I really need an advert for Pampers when she reminds me to get more nappies? All Google really want to do is monetise all our communications in as many forms as possible and commercialise all aspects of our lives. Fuck that.

Only Sky can save digital TV

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Absolute nonsense

Firstly if "Only Sky can save digital TV’" then it wasn't worth saving in the first place. The entire premise of digital telly is flawed; we're obliterating the analogue signal so we can pump out more digital channels despite the fact there is not enough content for the existing ones or enough money to go round to fill them all. Any scan of the TV schedule reveals that the digital channels, whether commercial or public, don't have enough programmes to show.

Sky telly has, by any measure been a complete failure. The number of viewers it gets are tiny and the only reason it's viable as a business is due to eye-watering subscription rates. That, and the fact it runs a near monopoly on the content it does provide. Sky pays obscene amounts of money for content it then absolutely monopolises and then just turns the screw on its subscribers to pay for it. Do you really think American tat like "Lost" is really worth $1 million an episode?

The problem is we've lost sight of what TV should be there for, to entertain, educate and inform. It should not be there to fleece the public on phone quizzes, spawn endless derivative formats, saturate us with repeats and low quality formats and handover a huge monopoly to Sky where viewers access to material is gated simply by means of how much they're willing to pay. We have endlessly deregulated and marketised television and the results have been disastrous; TV viewers and programmes have been hopelessly atomised and divided, quality is rock bottom and the biggest loser has been the viewer. People have voted with their wallets and that for most people TV isn't worth much more than their yearly license fee. To destroy the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 group of companies hand it over to a vulture like Rupert Murdoch is beyond stupid.

Facebookers abandon online privacy for virtual doo-doo

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More Social Networking Nonsense

Having tried to use Facebook I still have no idea what it's for. I do know that almost everything you click on wants information from you or wants you do download another IE toolbar (eventually IE will be all toolbars and no browser at this rate). It seems a profoundly dull environment that's constructed around the idea of giving up information to do totally pointless things. I must be a dismal old fart but I just don't see the point of it.

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