Posts by Stephen

Landmark copyright trial against Pirate Bay gets underway

creativity will survive...

"Then to lose control of that work can be quite crushing, and many would consider the risk too high, to bother."

there were no labels or studios when the first cave paintings were made... nor the first songs.

labels and studios have had a good ride over the last few decades screwing artists and making ungodly money doing so.

most intelligent artists knew exactly what they were getting into and did so anyway.

now it's time for the labels and studios to take the same kind of responsibility... it's not their right to make money as they have, it is a privilege we have given them. they seem to of forgotten that... and the internet is allowing people to remind them who is really in charge here.

it's just a shame they have, as so many people point out, turned a blind eye to the future and wish for the very profitable days gone by.

when the brake system in your car begins to fail, pressing them harder will help in the short term... however if nothing new is done, eventually they give out entirely and you lose control.

Fraudsters cream opposition in cybercrime wars

Online child abuse?

has someone developed a way to smack people over the internet and i missed it?

or is this the kind of abuse where people just have their feelings hurt?

i was really hoping for more info on that one...

paris because i'd like to abuse her online...

Gears of War grind to halt

@frymaster, meat is murder...

from the cow's perspective... and DRM is malware from the user's perspective.

it was put best by Paul: "If it's designed to get in my way, not help me, I don't want it on my computer."

Yes, this implementation was meant to stop people from cheating online (Epic's bugs are enough they don't need people making new problems).

however time and again it ends up punishing the legit user...

somewhere along the line big corporations stopped giving the consumer what they wanted, and started telling the consumer what they could have... and that is not the nature of business.

it needs to stop, or many more people will, like me, become disenchanted with the idea of owning (oops, licensing) things...

US prof undermines foundations of Aussie firewall

great... more censorship...

when did censorship become ok?

if pedophiles can't get their fix in front of a computer, where do you think they will go? playgrounds, neighbors, schools...

if only i could get high from looking at a picture of pot...

PS2 the most played console of 2008

i wonder...

does the fact that the ps3 is the only console without any backwards compatibility have anything to do with why it is so low?

does that also make it that much worse that it's below the original xbox, and barely beat gamecube (wii is 100% bc with gamecube)...

iPhone 3G unlocker released on schedule

@ac

it's funny you claim others are wasting their time, with an extremely insulting and ignorant comment on a news site... at least their contribution to the net is useful... fucking twat.

@ el reg

cowards...

Viacom to remove Time Warner's Spongebob Squarepants

12:01pm EST

channels still intact...

meh

i was surprised to find out most of the channels i watch are owned by viacom...

TWC will lose me as a tv customer if my service is interrupted, there is always the cheaper directTV or torrents if it comes down to it... i never liked the company anyway.

Microsoft eyes metered-PC boondoggle

it will never work like that...

ignoring the fact that users will be paying for something they already physically have...

compare 80 cents per hour of browsing to 10 cents for a single text message via AT&T.

no one actually pays that unless they underestimate their usage for the month.

they would sell packages for roughly $20/month unlimited browsing, $40/month for unlimited Office, $80/month for unlimited gaming... add in the "new every 2(or 3)" that attracts most people to free phones and leasing cars, and the majority will see it as a deal.

AT&T punts $99 iPhone

i called att

i checked the site and it's showing me a $100 off graphic.

$99 - $100 = free

the nice lady that answered, wasn't really informed. she did however read me an email saying that the iphone is not sold for any less than $99...

i'll keep digging, i was going to get a blackjack II refurb for $40 and it disappeared the day after i got money in my account to order it.

i will post what i find here...

ok...

i called again and got a more informed person...

the graphic i'm seeing says "save" not "save an extra" like the screen grab in the article.

she said that the usual discount for a refurb iphone is $50 (from $199 to $149), and it will return to $50 on the first.

so no iphone under $100... count the fact that you can't remove the $30 a month data plan, and the iron fist control over apps that apple insists on, and it's still not worth it.

Indulge your fecal fantasies with a doll that craps

@ Brian

Krang, but did you have his giant robot body? how about the pizza thrower? and the turtle van?

detective don was my fave variant.

i didn't much care for leo or raph. who needs a know it all leader and an arrogant prick...

Web more popular than sex, says Intel

the best part...

is that those figures are almost inverted when it came to a big screen TV...

Dell battles HP to trash Mother Earth

meh

the idea of saving the van miles is a bit flawed...

shipping companies are always trying to shave time and fuel, given the chance they will do so.

i imagine that sending a van out of it's normal area to pick up the second stick would of actually cost more time and fuel, read: more money.

Brits decline to 'think outside the box'

touch base?

i heard the phrase "touch base at the end of the day" almost everyday at my last job. i suppose my boss could of chosen some long winded "proper" way to say it, but the idea was communicated and that is all that really matters in communication.

i for one am grateful that people don't quote jabberwocky more often, now there is some nonsense.

Regulators back Bell Canada choking indie ISP traffic

yeah

you know what really causes network congestion? users.

get rid of em all and your network will be free of all that nasty traffic that creates congestion...

or you could get a clue and just give people what they want, an honest service.

Servers buckle as Congress rejects $700bn Wall Street bailout

throw money at it, it will fix itself...

address the disease not the symptom...

the market is crashing itself, don't try to stop it.

best case scenario after a bailout, you get a lame version of exactly what came before and hopefully it won't crash.

best case scenario without bailout, the market eventually fixes itself and is actually healthy... but who really wants a healthy market?

Toshiba tools up for movie download future

um

some people seem to be missing the kiosk aspect.

the movies would be downloaded in a store, so people's home connections are irrelevant.

pirated 1080p downloads (using x264/ac3 codecs) are currently between 8-12gigs depending on length. if pirates can do it, so can the industry.

i would use it to rent movies if it were comparable in price to a video store rental, however not if it has the standard 24hr digital rental lifespan...

'Series of tubes' senator indicted for false statements

i'll take what he got....

from CNN:

"In the indictment, Stevens is charged with lying about receiving gifts worth more than $250,000 from Veco, an Alaska-based energy company on whose behalf he intervened in Washington."

"The indictment says the home improvements provided by Veco and its chief executive officer, Bill Allen, a "personal friend of Stevens," included a new first floor, a new garage, a new first- and second-story wraparound deck, new plumbing and new wiring."

it's not the paltry sum most of you seem to think...

Judge grants Viacom 12TB of YouTube user records

silly gootube, piracy is illegal

@ steve

last time i checked, judges interpret the law... police uphold it.

@ heystoopid

the entire log would be relevant to the case, since they are trying to show the amount of piracy taking place.

As Gates strides into the future, we wallow in the past

sheeple

i think you are all missing the point.

be jealous of his success or money all you want, but you cannot deny that his drive (call him ruthless if you will) for success is a big part of the reason computers are as common as they are today.

if apple products were so much better why did they fail so miserably? if linux is so good why does it still sit in obscurity to the avg person? the answer is simple, they didn't (and in linux's case still doesn't) have it right, microsoft did.

no none of them are perfect or feature complete, otherwise innovation would be non-existent. people vote with their wallets, and no matter what anyone says microsoft obviously won the majority.

i would hate to think what the internet and the tech industry as a whole would be like without bill gates. who knows, maybe you all would still be ranting on a BBS...

North Carolina targets WTF licence plates

some missing info

i live in NC. the plates are generated with a 3 letter prefix, a dash, and a suffix of 4 numbers.

NCDMV personalized plate checker / preview:

https://edmv-sp.dot.state.nc.us/sp/PersonalizePlate?serviceType=EXP

i don't think they banned WTF, they just offered to replace auto-generated plates with a possibly offending prefix. nothing about this seems mandatory.

AT&T brainstorms Time Warner-like bandwidth cap

they tried it here years ago

i left the service when they started trying to charge me $15 for every gig over 20! the "Xtreme" package they were pitching ($99/month) was still below the 52 gigs a month of transfer i averaged.

the business class service offered, had no limits (aside from speed obviously). they wanted me to pay $500 for a tech to come out and set it up, HA!

after a 2 or so years of getting adverts from them claiming "we want you back", i looked again and they had changed all the policies that made me leave.

the market is a different place now. the people who policies like this will hurt ,have no real recourse.

they have pretty much said it themselves, they are RAPING the "avg user". they don't need or want the people who made "broadband services" anymore than a pipe dream, excuse me tube dream...

Interstate web host foils gonzo porn baron Max Hardcore

gah

this is just wrong.

watch out gay porn... there are plenty of homophobes that are "offended" by such material.

i guess this what happens when the intolerant are the majority...

you'd think after all the wars and terrorism people would stop trying to force their views on the world and just live their lives as they see fit, but no... they are "compelled".

Hacker demos Symbian security switch off

if only...

"The iPhone stopped people doing what they wanted, so the security crumbled; Symbian generally lets people do what they want, and that's most likely what is keeping it secure."

if only all industries could figure that one out... consumers would be happier and let go of their cash easier.

Safari practices self-love, claims code monkey

really?

do people really get upset about "vulgar" code comments?

i find expressing my frustrations keeps me from wanting to act on them.

i'd rather some coder gets it out in code, rather than take it to his supervisor or family...

Japanese woman moves into bloke's closet

@ Anony

the guy was only 1 year younger... my fiancee is one year older than me.

so then yeah, i guess so.

is it so hard?

she couldn't of offered "services" in exchange for living space?