* Posts by Mark

13 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Jan 2008

Doctors rally for right to call UK.gov quangonista a 'sh*t'

Mark
Paris Hilton

Coffee?

"No one wishes to curtail doctors' right to free speech. But it is right that, as in any other walk of life, they do so without recourse to unrestrained personal abuse."....

Er..as opposed to the loft circles of the medical profession, in many walks of life particularly in those with exposure to the general public, if you act like a useless wanker then you expect to be called a useless wanker. If you don't your in for a nasty surprise!!

Fuckard.

Paris, cos' she's not called dumb for nothing!

Yoof forum eats schoolkids, spits out ID card robodroids

Mark
Stop

Remember, Remember the 5th of November

'In the end if a million people ignore the law to and march on parliment, what will the government do to maintain power?'....

'New CRB regs produce a nation of suspects'...

'thoughtcrime detected'...

Sounds like a plot from a movie about a dystopian future, ruled by an orwellian dictatorship. That was just fiction and could never happen, could it?

Think tank slams paedophile paranoia culture

Mark
Stop

Not so 'New Labour'...

Occurs to me that this (and the numerous other examples of intellectual diarrhea coming out of government these days) smacks of more like a leftist soviet-style 'grand design' philosophy (or orwellian nightmare, at least this isn't dressed up as 'good for you' though!), than mere 'poorly thought out good intentions'.

'We know better than you, so trust us to do what's best for you comrade!'

It's very clever, but very scary if you think about it (i'm not usually a paranoid, but i'm starting to think i should be!!). Surely this is 'social engineering', in that the end-game from this and similar initiatives will be a society that no longer trusts each other, only interacting with persons on various issues with those deemed 'fit' by various govement departments.

Add to this a government with a database of everyone in the UK, along with details of everything they have ever done, are interested in, who they interact with, where they go and genetic makeup (plus all the other myriad non-commerical, commercial and other information).

I'm off to live in the jungle somewhere me thinks!!!

Overstock CEO offers $75,000 for Wall Street's soul

Mark
IT Angle

and another...

http://www.economist.co.uk/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11591349

Mark
IT Angle

Interesting topic..

Good article..

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/807ad036-4089-11dd-bd48-0000779fd2ac.html

and a very good counter-point

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/080cde2c-3ccf-11dd-b958-0000779fd2ac.html

UK appeal court dismisses mod chip conviction

Mark

@ Frank

Check this out..

http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/tutorials/print.php/3562391

Heaviest Virgin Media downloaders face new daytime go-slow

Mark

Retro

The traffic shaping will apparently throttle your connection to 25% of its normal bandwidth.

I'll be making cups of tea a lot then, like when we used to have ISDN!!

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/internet/traffic.html

The economy: A big Arab did it and ran away, claims PM

Mark
Alert

Magnificent..

How those elected representatives of ours are so intelligent, that they allowed such a fucktard with such a fundamental lack of understanding of global economics to be chancellor.

Retailers risk libel nightmare over 'no-work' database

Mark
Boffin

Good info here..

One would assume the legal situation regarding data on this system would be the same as that regarding references in general:-

http://www.cipd.co.uk/subjects/recruitmen/selectn/references.htm

Nine Inch Nails cracks net distribution (maybe)

Mark
Go

Trent Reznor - A true innovator

As I understand it,Trent Reznor is NIN, that is he writes the music and then creates it by himself, playing all the instruments and mixing the tracks himself. He only 'uses' fellow musicians to play live, where he obviously cannot play all the instruments simultaneously!

His music has always been innovative and to me he seems now to be just as innovative in the way he gets his music to his fans, as he is in creating it.

Some may not of heard of him, but anyone who has ever been to a club that plays 'industrial' type music (e.g Friday's at the Electric Ballroom - Camden) would of been hearing his work since 1988-89. As such much of the promotion of his work has always been 'viral', or in other words pretty much little thanks to his record company.Lots of his work has also been used in film & TV, e.g. Natural Born Killers etc. (check out IMDB), but due to the type of music it is and its appeal.

I think he will be just as successful now as he has been in the past, just with more creative control and seeing a greater return from people who like his music. I think anyone who makes music people actually like, should take note and could do the same.

Lord Triesman on P2P, pop-ups and the Klaxons

Mark
Coat

Economics - Artist Guarantees..

No indeed, nor do I or indeed do most of us.

I certainly didn't mean that artists should have a guaranteed income, items of content should stand or fail on its own merits.

I am simply of the opinion that if no incentive exists at all, that is for example if a band suspects as soon as it has sold 50 CD's or downloads, sales will pretty much fall to zero as everyone has copied and passed the content around, there is no incentive to spend time at something which does not pay the bills.

In this situation creative people would have to make the choice of doing something they love and are good at all the time, or eating and having a home through doing something else and leaving the creative stuff to when they couldfit it in.

The net effect would surely be to reduce the production of content. (Which may or may not be a good thing, depending upon your opinion and who it is mind..lol !!)

Lot of Marks here..cool name!

Mark
Coat

Content v IP

I would disagree and say that the content is most definently the 'Intellectual Property' of whoever produced it and thus, is subject to whatever rights or restrictions the producer deems fit to bestow upon it and the consumers of it.

I certainly wouldn't however expect in any sane world, for my customers to be happy to purchase my content and then be required to repurchase it in a different format everytime they wanted to use it on a different device. I would expect them to do exactly what they have done, give me two fingers!

I think the point of debate is what determines fair use?

Mark
Coat

Simple economics

Long winded, but

IMHO this chap seems to at least trying to be inclusive and does understand the wider implications (which some people seem to be oblivious to) of the need to provide an actual incentive to content producers to produce content (through some form of licencing or another revenue model).

If no one can be assured that they will be reimbursed to some extent, so that they will see at least some return from their efforts (be they uber record company's or small studios, bands, sound engineers and production companies etc.) through some method then a lot (not all) of the content possible simply will never be made.

Where the disconnect between the RIAA etc. and reality exists is that the simple truth is that the whole business model (based on them controlling the dissemination of content) is broken and has been for some time. Instead of engaging in 'protectionist' legal and other actions, the industry as a whole should stop alienating a large proportion of its potential customer base and innovate (as most organisations proclaim to be doing, but few actually are) a new business model.

Perhaps a realistic fee, with a defined percentage going to the artist(s) levied on those who desire it, for unfettered access would be one potential winning idea (as put forward by some).

I do agree that at present, the distribution of monies to actual artists by large record companies is at best haphazard and I completely disagree with drawing a comparison between those downloading content for personal enjoyment and those using it to produce pirated goods for sale

Maybe they need a few more techies in the boardroom :)