Posts by The Indomitable Gall

Top 10 Kindle books outsell dead-tree versions 2-1

You're the odd one out then.

Notice that the *top 10* ebooks are outselling physical books.

It's the inverse-long-tail effect all over again. They said mp3 downloads would widen our musical tastes, and that music would have a longer "shelf-life", but in the end, we found that more people were just buying the latest big thing.

Same here with books -- everyone's buying the latest and greatest, and the out-of-print buyers are a minority.

Is it simply that the internet isn't good for (oh irony!) browsing books or is it that the infinite supply means you never pick up an alternative when the item you were looking for isn't in stock?

Either way, freedom seems to mean discovering less.

Ofcom caught between picts and luvvies on 600MHz

BBC Alba

"BBC Alba reckons the spectrum should be given to BBC Alba, at least in Scotland - as if the Gaels aren't getting enough of subsidy for a Gaelic-language TV station."

Well they aren't. BBC Alba can't afford to make dramas and they only get a couple of hours of original programming a week, and that programming will be on two or three times in a week.

"The Gaels" are quite explicitly not being subsidised as the BBC Trust have set audience targets of about 3 times as many as the number of Gaelic speakers in the world, and the channel can't be received by half of the people who *do* speak Gaelic, because it's still not on cable or Freeview

A friend of mine used to work in Gaelic TV production, but she's now moved to an English-language production house where her colleagues are absolutely stunned by the pitiful budget she had to work with in her last job.

They've done great things with the money they've got, but the channel is still drastically limited.

There's a tendency to talk about budgets as though they should all be proportional -- well they can't be.

Just as children use more of the schools budget than adults, and people with dry skin are more of a burden on NHS dermatology budgets than people with healthy skin, so Gaelic is a more expensive proposition for TV than English, because the market is smaller, and they don't make Gaelic soaps in Australia or Gaelic sitcoms in the USA. BBC Alba is a public service broadcaster, and public service broadcasters live off public money. Simple as that.

Why would they?

Smartmetering operates perfectly well over existing mobile networks. Dedicating a whole band to smartmetering would mean unnecessary work in repeating the coverage of the existing mobile phone networks.

Wholesale SMS prices are negligible (whereas consumer SMS is the most expensive data delivery mechanism known to man).

Judge tosses lawsuit from copyright troll

No, it doesn't mention that.

It doesn't mention that because it is not a legal argument. I do not have an automatic right to publish unsolicited adverts for anyone.

It's a moral argument, and incidental to the legal one.

Equality Act causes logistics nightmare

Right, that's it: I'm an ethnically-Irish male lesbian.

And as I sincerely doubt there any ethnically-Irish male lesbians in the majority of public sector organisations, they're all going to have to offer me a job, or they won't be being equal.

Fantastic!!!

EU to lift flight ban on carry-on liquids

Examples...?

"It is a major step forward in the fight against global terrorism where liquid is increasingly becoming a common tool for terrorist use and we are proud to be able to contribute to the national security."

What terrorist incidents have occurred using liquids?

Genuine question.

US raygun jumbo fluffs another test missile-blast attempt

Yeah, check it, blud.

Yo man, dis ICBM I has got is da bomb. Check it, it's well blingin -- it like solid gold man. See dat America? She is gonna be like soooooooooo jealous when she sees ma ICBM. She gonna be like "wow, man, you is like cool man".

Surface melt

Even the best mirror in the world would melt pretty much instantly due to the power of the beam.

Refractive coating?

If your countermeasure is to block the tracking laser, the question is whether a matt coating (diffuse reflection) is more effective than using a refractive coating simply to disperse the specular reflection.

With a highly specular material (gloss black) the tracking laser would have to hit it damn near perpendicular to get a reflection. A clear, highly refractive coating would narrow the margin for error quite considerably.

An ICBM in flight is going to present a truly perpendicular surface to a jumbo jet for at most a fraction of a second, at only two or three points on its flight path, before the end of the first stage.

Sony hits stop on Walkman tape players

Err... what?!?

"@"a tradition that has lasted longer than any of the intervening recording formats"

Accelerating technological change means we will see shorter life spans for products."

That's entirely beside the point. The text you quote refers to the tradition of dire warnings on loss of hearing and wandering into moving traffic. Your response makes no sense.

Does... not... com... pute....

Nigerian airline ticket fraudster gets 8 years

Hmmm....

"Ademola Ismaila Adegoke, 43, a Nigerian-born resident of Accra, Ghana, was jailed for 102 months on Friday after he was convicted of using stolen credit card numbers to steal more than $400,000 from US citizens. Adegoke, who agreed to pay $696,026 in restitution, pleaded guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in July."

Surely agreeing to pay that much restitution lines him up to be done for further fraud? I seriously doubt he got the extra 300K by any more legitimate means than the 400K involved in the case....

Vulture 1 rolls out of fab bunker

We'd better hope...

We'd better hope it falls apart shortly after release so that we actually get to see it. That thing reaching Earth intact would be a real culinary millinary moment, and what's the point of it when (to use the popular vernacular) "pictures, or it didn't happen"...?

Facebook comes down hard on Faceporn

To be fair....

To be fair, the porn industry is well-known for playing off other people's trademarks. The fact that Hollywood generally leaves them alone is no real excuse.

And considering the minor role face plays in porn, it's not hard to twig what they're up to.

Wikileaks outs 400,000 classified Iraq War docs

According to the internet...

According to the internet, the Americans think this is an "Arabian proverb". Personally I think they fell for it, hook line and sinker.

Mobe operators foresee SIM-based contactless payment

Fork!

It's a classic fork (in the chess sense, not the source code sense). Use a pocket protector to prevent fraudulent contactless payment snooping and you don't receive incoming calls. Be open to receive incoming calls and have your data exposed.

If we need contactless tech, it should be possible to shield it when not required.

Vulture 1 sprouts wings and a tail

Judging by the colour....

Judging by the colour, Stelios is getting as stingy as O'Leary....

Cameron cocks up UK's defences - and betrays Afghan troops

As a Scot...

As a Scot, I can sympathise. We have our own parliament with its own budget that keeps getting the rug pulled out from under it by another bigger parliament that changes its budget all the time.

No cuts in Afghanistan.

To be fair, nobody asked Cameron *how* he'd avoid cuts in Afghanistan. His strategy is quite simple: he's reducing the number of blades!!!

Futuristic Judge Dredd smartguns issued to 101st Airborne

Trademarks...?

I don't think Elmer's Products Inc, owners of the X-Acto precise craft-knife trademark will be best pleased. But of course the Pentagon is above petty laws, isn't it?

Provincial outrage over BT's broadband upgrade race

Re: Sigh - let the flaming begin

I'm going to try to avoid this being a flame, and try to stay rational.

The internet has in the last 10 years turned from something cool to part of the fabric of consumer and business life.

The internet was supposed to free us rural folk from the need to all migrate to cities when we grew up. I grew up, I migrated to a city. I would love to go back home, but the infrastructure just ain't there.

Leaving rural areas on dial-up is like giving them cycle paths instead of roads and saying the cost of their choice to live in the countryside is that they can't get access to fast transport. It's the country dwellers who need cars most, and it's the country dwellers, without access to the bright lights of the west-end party scene and close access to offices etc that need the internet.

The Western Isles were so badly served by BT that they had to develop their own too-clever-by-half wireless system that 8 years in is badly outdated, underspecced and riddled with faults. And not yet finished.

BT are a business, but they are also a monopoly, particularly in the sort of places we're talking about now. Capitalism abhors commercial monopoly. Socialism abhors commercial monopoly. It's time to nationalise the internet.

Microsoft's fear of an OpenOffice

Interesting video.

The whole argument in favour of MS Office appears to be:

It's easier for new users... because they've used it elsewhere.

It's easier if you're sending out documents... because the other guy probably uses it.

It's easier if you're receiving documents... because the other guy probably uses it.

It's easier if you used to use MS Office... because your files were written in MS Office.

In summary:

Use Microsoft Office: it's not open or compatible with other products, so you've got no choice! Bend over, assume the position and prepare to receive 6 inches of pure monopoly.

Spanish fascist decries Franco Eurovision slur

True, but...

...there wouldn't have been an "other side" if the Falange hadn't outsted the democratically elected government, in order to defend "traditional Spanish values" from the Spanish people, who didn't actually hold them to start off with.

If it wasn't for the war, the craziest nutters in some of the fringe anarchist groups would never have gained prominence, but when it comes to shooting you neighbours, being an amoral self-serving b*st*rd is a useful qualification.

PARIS radio chap slips into safe sex outfit

Ah boo...

And here I thought it was going to be a post-watershed A-team-esque condom-as-waterproofing jury rig.

Great white sharks menace Blighty

Meanwhile, in the Truro WeightWatchers committee room...

"They don't like human flesh as we are not fatty enough"

Hey guys, I think I've got our next poster campaign -- "shed that sharkbait".

Microsoft confirms Russian pill-pusher attack on its network

Reason? Reason?!?

There is nothing unreasonable about ill-informed internet ranting -- it is our human right to make broad sweeping judgements without full knowledge of the facts.

We thank the great demigod Berners-Lee for allowing our opinionated pub politics to be spread with the whole wide world. I will now sacrifice a mouse in his honour.

(Oh wait, someone's already nicked my mouse and reception have no spares...)

Jobsian fondle-slab in SEXY FILTHGRAM CRACKDOWN

Would that be...?

Would that perchance be a "veil of tiers" then?

Amazon shrinks books with Kindle Singles

Language change.

This is a demonstration of linguistic evolution in action.

Remember that what you call correct, the generation before would call an error.

Wouldst thou prefer that nothing change?

Not a new idea, though...

Some of the independent e-publishers already have a good line in short stories for sale individually rather than in collections.

It's a natural evolution in the market as (as Amazon said) the industry's previous love of novels and collections was mostly led by printing formats and pricing, and producing an efficient and profitable format, much the same as music albums vs singles.

Just as music downloads have meant the unbundling of the album into singles, the ebook was always going to lead to the unbundling of anthologies into individual stories.

Spycam school to pay damages for kiddie snaps

Agreed^2

Quite right. Suing the public purse is pointless -- prosecute, or at the very least sack and ban from ever working with children again.

Facebook introduces one-time passwords

Johnny 5 need input...

...like in what country?

I doubt the number will be same worldwide....

Cambridge chap's todger topiary gets the chop

Could have just...

He could have just trimmed the b*ll*cks back a bit and claimed it was a New York fire hydrant.

Germans radio tag ID cards and phones

Rock and a hard place...

Clever evil plot by some shadowy cabal, or badly thought through incompetence...?

If you have an RFID tag on your ID card, you but it in a wallet that blocks radio waves when you don't want it read. If you put your mobile in a wallet that blocks radio waves... well, I think you see the problem.

Legendary steampunk computer 'should be built' - programmer

Absolute opposite of OO....

The point of OO is that the operations are intrinsically linked to the objects operated upon and the results of the operation. Lovelace was pretty much declarative, borderlining on functional, in her approach to programming.

Canada prostitution laws pulverised: politicians apoplectic

Out of where...?

Given the record of public figures, I have to ask who put them there, and whether they were paid for this service or not....

Ireland gives Google traditional pogue mahone greeting

Busoms?

Why are you showing us pictures of blokes backsides if you have pictures of hibernian bulgarian airbags? Hand them over!

Artist crafts Kevin Bacon bacon bust

Is it just me...

Is it just me, or does that look more like Patrick Swayze? What's his 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon?

Virgin Media introduces P2P throttling

The point of net non-neutrality...

The academic justification behind a non-neutral net is that certain applications require extremely low lag (eg streaming media, VoIP) and certain applications don't (eg bulk file downloads). The ISPs are only doing what the universities have been proposing since the 90s.

Net TV to consign Net Neutrality debate to dustbin of history. Why?

Who pays...?

Well, in the end, the consumer pays.

If content providers have to pay extra for end-user delivery, they add it to the bill and it comes out of the public's pockets.

If you doubt this, consider mail order. The suppliers pay the cost of delivery, but there's that little entry "P&P" on your bill -- they pass the cost on to you.

But unlike Sky, the Beeb can't just arbitrarily up it's income to compensate for increased outgoings. In the old days if I wanted info from the BBC I was invited to send them a stamped-addressed-envelope, which in the old days we abbreviated to SAE. That way they were able to send me their content without receiving money (not allowed) and without incurring unacceptable costs.

Let's call my ISP fees my new "SAE".

Star Wars set for 3D rehash

Because...

Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill are too old now.

And because Lucas cashed those chips in when he allowed a bunch of cheap hack paperback writers to create a series of follow-on novels. And a bunch of cheap hack comic writers to create an independent series of follow-on comics. And then allowed the cheap hack comic writers to rewrite the cheap hack paperbacks into one single continuous comic-book "canon", involving characters from the films who weren't even in the films.

With this deft move, he made it impossible to write new films that wouldn't p!ss off the fanboys who'd bought into the cheap hack sci-fis, and writing films based on the cheap hack fiction would result in something even less appealing than the prequel trilogy.

No cassette required: ZX Spectrum games on the iPhone

Hang on....

Isn't everyone always complaining about how the price of games never drops? Well when I was buying games for the C64, the budget titles went for 3.99, and full price titles 12.99, so yes, prices have dropped. £1 is, was and always will be, practically nothing.

ACS:Law's mocking of 4chan could cost it £500k

Hmmm....

I'm reminded of a certain XKCD strip:

http://xkcd.com/591/

Copper prices push cable thefts to new high

Do we need any more justification...

Do we need any more justification for a national fibre network? Let's free ourselves from reliance on overpriced nickable copper and replace it with cheap glass.

Microsoft adopts invisible mobile pitch

Lots of info on the home screen?

Nope. There's still curvy edge blue boxes with a lot of padding inside and out. Reduce the chrome, increase the content.

Nutter repairmen scale 1,768ft TV mast

You know...

The copyright owner has withdrawn that video from circulation. You may not be hosting it, but still....

UN appoints alien liaison boffin

Operation global barricade

A series of strategical shrapnel explosions in the upper atmosphere should produce a layer of high-velocity space junk that would slow them down while we prepare our response. Which would probably be a genetically engineer supermosquito with genetically re-engineered malaria.

Mozilla Labs dreams of projected keyboard phone

Concept phone?

It looks like concept *artwork* to me. A concept phone would be something I could hold in my hand.

Give me 25 minutes with a pack of Crayola and a ream of A4 and I'll deliver you loads of "concept phones"....

Keene USB FM Transmitter

mini-CD

"The Keene USB FM Transmitter comes with one of those godawful mini CDs to run the Windows installer from, but thankfully, you can download the software from the product web page"

Well you must be a slot-loader man then.

Seriously, what is wrong with a mini-CD? So many hardware items have a smaller footprint than a full-sized CD, so including a full sized one means more wasted packaging, and fewer in the same space in the warehouse, delivery van and shop.

Besides, if nothing else, the mini-CD is the perfect "hi-tech" prop for cheap sci-fi. You get something that looks advanced (because it's smaller) but you get it from a normal shop at normal prices. Everyone's a winner.

Google cools data center with bottom of Baltic Sea

Mummy's gone to Iceland...

Why isn't this happening in Iceland? They got massive big hydro dams generating enough electricity to make them one of the most important aluminium smelting nations on the planet, even though electricity is a rubbish power source for aluminium smelting.

Those dams don't just supply power, they've also got some incredibly massive heatsinks behind them that stay at extremely low temperatures for fresh water all year round thanks to a combination of altitude and latitude.

Iceland's in the EEA, but not the EU, which is probably quite useful in terms of regulatory approval vs regulatory interference.

It might seem a bit remote, but it's pretty well cabled up, connecting with Canada, Greenland, the Faroes, the UK, Denmark and Germany. That gives it reasonable access time to both North America and Western and Northern Europe.

There's a lot of potential there for back-ends and backups, as well as dedicated services.

School caretaker jailed for fitting up colleague

Hmmm....

Now this Weiner guy definitely needs banged up -- his actions were dispicable and criminal -- but I'm a bit wary of the posession of images charges here. Isn't that legislation aimed at paedos? But no-one's suggesting for a minute that this man is a paedo.

Also, the clearest sign of a witch-hunt mentality is when people accuse others of being witches just because they don't like them.

Facebook on the blink for second time in two days

Network probs...?

When I tried to connect it reported a DNS error, so I'm not sure the scepticism is really justified.