Posts by Brett

Irish ISP Eircom in 'three strike' filesharer crackdown

This doesn't shock me...

We lack any proper infrastructure over here so most people are stuck with Eircom. Personally I feel sickened living in this country virtually anything broadband here is filtered to some extent. So lets see. Eircom has implemented three strikes, Perlico filters our connections for any naughty stuff, 3G is awful most of the time because loads of people use it due to a lack of any proper phone or cable broadband offerings(also no p2p). Any offerings out there use traffic shaping to some degree. Alot of people cant even get 3G because of mountains and cellmasts which are still not enabled. I am connected to a wireless broadband provider in the east of Ireland who dont allow p2p but also havent provided a service in two months (however they are the only way I can get anything and I work as a technician and programmer outside of college). They even banned me for a week for using a http tunnel! The sooner I leave this technology forsaken country the better because I cant see how it can be worse for connectivity, thanks to Eircom being the straw that broke this camels back!

Global-warming scientist: It's worse than I thought

Dont care, dont care

That does it, never looking at another environment article. These guys have no idea what they are doing

Naomi Campbell cuffed in Heathrow Terminal 5

Back to Blackberies

They should put her to work in the baggage area. If she can throw a suitcase like a blackberry the terminal will be working in no time!

Honest to god of all the places she could throw a tantrum she couldn't pick better!

Soot almost as bad as CO₂ for global warming

Wolf!

Is it just me or has everyone heard so many arguments and doomsday predictions regarding climate change that these reports have just become white noise. Right now I am starting to think that the scientists who are publishing this have no idea what is causing global warming and are just plucking things out of the air to blame.

Cant think of a more apt description for this then the boy who cried wolf or maybe the scientists who cried apocalpyse.

I am going to combat global warming the only way I know how and that is simply waiting until the latest enviro-huggy tech is at a price that is reasonable (hybrid cars that dont cost a lifetimes worth of food for a family in a concern ad anyone?) . As regards anything else, the government will legislate or tax and we will obey. So avoid the oh so fashionable eco movement and just sit back and relax. The tech isnt far off with the way oil prices are going!

Terminator Salvation is go for May 2009 release

We must destroy Hollywood!

This franchise doesnt deserve salvation after the last chunk cr*p they released. Isnt it time that terminator films (and the poorly acted tv series) were finally terminated. The first yes were brilliant films but they are killing it now just like the matrix. Can we please have a good classic film that isnt destroyed by sequels because the sequels always end up being what the film is remembered for.

Beeb censors Fairytale of New York

I WISH IT COULD BE CHRISTMAS EVERY DAY!!!!!

Have a satisfactory, non-denominational, capitalist, gift giving season! This Christmas has meant nothing to me so far (last year was really bad but not this bad). Its actually gotten to the point where all the magic has truly been sucked out. Now it just means heavy traffic, obnoxious people and marketing at a level man wasn't meant to endure psychologically. I am looking forward to political correctness bringing in some laws that will hopefully kill it. After all we live in a multi cultural society and it isnt fair to force Christmas on our diverse friends. Or I'll kill someone on the road for blinding me or cutting me up to get presents for little billy and bobby.

Ugly view mars Windows Vista birthday

Not happy to report

I have had nothing but problems with Vista. I tried it for two months to develop an honest opinion. Its takes double the time to boot. I had 1 gig of ram and even though I run my machines lean and mean it progressively slowed down over the two months for no reason even taking into account Superfetch. The constant disk chatter is ridiculous. Readyboost just slows the machine down more. UAC is setup for features it shouldn't be eg wallpaper settings. A number of customers I know from farmers to accountants couldnt use their software which cost inbetween 500 and 1000 euro. Almost all my vista customers had to replace their printers. Win XP backwards compatibility mode for programs does nothing. Lastly file copying times are insanely inaccurate(windows time) and the transfers take far longer than any other system I use.

I have had to resort to Win Xp and I am giving Ubuntu a go because I will eventually need to replace Xp but Vistas not gracing my machines again until these problems are fixed. Considering the cost of it to I simply cannot justify using it and I am warning everyone to avoid it if possible for at least another year and a half. Although they have had a year to fix these issues and not one of these major problems have been fixed or seemingly touched upon. Hate to sound like a Linux fanboy but it is getting even more attractive and a couple of customers have started to ask questions (Bear in mind these people know little or nothing about computers in general). MS needs get their finger out and get to work cause I believe people are slowly waking up and smelling the coffee.

P2P file-sharing recognizes no borders

re:re: How do they know?

Well its not BitTorrent but UseNext do it. Damn handy too I can get around filters thanks to it. Also I have wireless broadband and they block all p2p already but its the only option I have (countryside arrrgh). Dont suppose anyone has any other ideas for p2p on a network like this. Tried http tunnelling. It works with limewire but not bittorrent?

IBM to shove ads onto DVDs

Rant incoming!!!!

I haven't watched TV in 6 months at this point. I get all my TV shows online off streaming sites like Stage6. I couldn't take seeing repeats of shows over and over. Also with Christmas now starting in October I didn't feel like watching two and a half months of adverts aimed at children for the latest Barbie dream home or the present that will make you popular with your family and friends and extended friends etc. I used to get dvds then came the unskippable piracy ads. It might make sense for rental videos but not ones that you have to BUY in order to watch. I now get my films via p2p. We keep getting told their are legal alternatives but they are often locked to ip ranges of different countries or they are so low quality you might as well go to a streaming site (iTunes). Or they are high quality, riddled with DRM restrictions and cost ridiculous amounts of money (more than a dvd) to stream.

So MPAA take heed of my advice, start cutting the bureaucracy and come up with a plausible business model to compete that works internationally and for the love of god ditch the piracy adverts they only annoy and most people aren't going pay one bit of attention to them. You can feed the masses all the bad films you want and they will probably be watched but that doesn't mean they are devoid of neural activity. As long as IT has smart people your multi million (billion?) protection systems are useless.

The music industry is starting to get the idea DRM free downloads and also deezer.com (great site!). Wow what a rant!