Posts by Alistair Young

Economists say P2P file-sharing fuels art

Art?

Of course the entertainment Cartel aren't interested in art, they only care about profit, which is why they've been screwing the musicians and their customers since recorded music was invented. The Beatles comparison was not a very good one either, as no one expects zero copyright. If copyright was a sane length of time, (say 14 years, as US Congress enacted in the original act over there), the Beatles would have continued to benefit from their recorded labours for the life of the band, and then some.

Orthodox Jews tuck into kosher Koogle

@Matt Bryant

My particular scorn for this sort of tosh is not limited to Jews, or Christians, or and other Sons of Abraham. No, I have scorn for anyone who believes any of that supernatural rubbish. Ever read anything about Hinduism? or Zoroastrianism come to that. Hard to believe that anyone can say with a straight face "Yes, I really do believe that Aeshma can be driven away by the recitation of a prayer". Bloody rubbish, the whole lot of it.

Craigslist sues South Carolina attorney general

Politician

Is standing for Gov. Which is why law enforcement officers are not elected in real democracys. What a putz.

Amazon big-screen Kindle sails this week

Dumb Big Publishers

Thanks for the article. In common with other commenters, I am very keen on an e-book reader, but it must be DRM free, and WIFI is a must. The publishers need to realise that their business model will change too, much as the music cartels are finding. Good luck with all that. Corporate greed and ignorance will prevent any of this coming to pass.

Beatles stay off iTunes cos of 'heavy negotiations', man

The wisdom of the McCartney

"I think the majors at the moment, I'm not dissing them, but I don't think they really know what's going on," he said. "With the download culture, they are floundering a little bit."

Er, a little bit? Really? Such insight!

Chinese 419er punts a whopping $8

Great Offer

I had a very similar offer recently, as well as being offered a cut of $8 USD, (10% IIRC) I was assured it was entirely "Rick Free".

Which disappointed my friend Rick no end.

Sequoia attack dogs kill review into e-voting discrepancies

@ Stuart Duel

Stuart,

You make some great points. Here in NZ we copied some points from your system, and it seems to work reasonably well.

However, you seem to have missed the point that the people who make the most money out of the current electoral system are also the ones more or less in control of it, so the chances of any meaningful reforms taking place are nil.

I would never use the term democracy to describe the US system. When the rich rule, its Oligarchy. The ancient Greeks used it, and it worked quite well for them, although most Greek city states had to supress revolts every now and again.

Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 delayed

amanfromMars

It was worth reading all that just for amanfromMars' comments. Fantastic!!

China plans 'deep-sea base project'

@Robert Hill

Trieste is in Italy, not France. It was very nearly part of Tito's Yugoslavia after the last war, but my Grandfather stopped that happening right quick. (Well ok, the rest of the New Zealand Division helped a bit I suppose.)

Microsoft UK cracks another head over grey software

parallel importing

Here in NZ parallel importing was made specifically legal a few years ago, resulting in huge drops in prices for most durable consumer goods. I'm not sure about software (as a standalone product, rather than bundled with a pc), but if you want to buy a TV, for example, there are outlets here that will sell you a parallel imported name brand TV, for perhaps a third less than the "Official Reseller". You just have to make the judgment call as to whether the Parallel importer will be around long enough to honour any warranty. I see ads in the Saturday papers for Ipods at $150 below the usual retail price. The world did not end when the new laws were enacted, despite what the big retailers predicted.