Posts by Glyn 2

Cracks show in music industry over P2P enforcement

@AC Time for Industry Change (again)

They're ripping us off with the false division of the world into DVD regions.

They're ripping us off by charging more in the UK than elsewhere

They're ripping us off by charging way too much to everyone regardless of where they are (how can a DVD be worth £25 one day then 3 months later it's £2)

Why should MP3 downloads be any different ?

And why did Lily "The talentless tart should be left in a sack of Bream to die" Allen think she's got the right to say anything on the subject,?

Google Maps Monopoly board folds under server strain

Reset???

So people are complaining that other people got to their desired spot first. So what, if everything gets reset someone else will more than likely get what you wanted anyway.

Apart from me, I'm buying the whole of Stoke, 3 million should cover it and give me 2,999,997 in change

Super-soldier exoskeletons ready for troop tests in 2010

Pickup

He who has the most Toyota pickups and AK47s shall win the war.

AK47 can be built and maintained anywhere there's a machine shop.

Toyota pickups can be dropped in the sea and filled with sand still function.

All this tech is just so amusingly pointless

I suppose you can have someone in this to trigger IEDs, running with a big wheelbarrow with the bucket upside down to contain the explosion. Other wise this is another in a long line of epic fail.

Met: We shan't scrap Form 696

@Grease monkey

For proof (it it t'were needed) see the sticker you have to put on a parcel to send it abroad.

Question "What is in the parcel?"

As long as you don't answer "A bomb", you're fine

You can see this thwarting terrorist plots across the globe

X-Men helmsman to fly Battlestar Galactica

Complete reimagining???

The way they're talking only about the original series. Have they not realised a tv series has already come and gone that reimagines that?

Ridley Scott signs up to direct Alien prequel

why

@RMartin - that's what I thought, maybe these critics aren't too bright...

The AvP films are set in the near future with Lance Henrikson as the man who's used as the template for the droids. So if you take all Alien based films as canon, then they've already shown that humans and Xenomorphs have met.

The AvP comics were great. Good stories, characters and settings. They should have lifted one of those stories for the films which are set in a similar timeframe to the Alien films.

As to the question of “why bother with the human element at all?” the Transformers film has humans in which are the centre of the story not the giant talking robots. Like Moviebob on escapist.com says (top reviewer, he rants a bit :) Godzilla has humans to speak and add plot elements, which you don't need when the stars talk and have personalities all there own.

<heretical ranting spoiler alert>

Personally I don't know why they're bothering. Alien is dull. Nothing happens for 45 minutes and not in the tension building way, in the watching-paint-dry way. Ship flys over, they land they find a seat, he looks into an opening, no-one is surprised when something jumps out. They go back to the ship, they eat, they die. Even the bit with Tom Skerrat in the tunnels isn't tense as the woman getting all upset is hilariously bad at acting.

A bit like the Harry Potter 6, a decent Hitchcock style director could have pumped the tension up to the max, instead we get things happening which we really don't care about.

Aliens is a joke as a film. It makes Commando look like a serious study of battle tactics. I can't take that much American macho BS. "Get away from her you bitch"....oh please

Aliens 3 had the best actors in, which is damning with faint praise I know, playing parts you could believe in at least. That the characters knew from the outset what was coming gave more tension as they actually had the ability to *look* scared.

Alien 4 was bad in every single way humanly possible

Hain breaks ranks with Cabinet over McKinnon extradition

job

Why has no-one offered him a job hacking computers, I thought this was standard procedure for a hacker this dangerous ? :S

From tracking sex performance to tracking sex offenders...

@AC Moaner

If she isn't, you're not doing it right

Hollywood demands shuttering of Pirate Bay

Pointlessness

This is amongst the most pointless things in the known universe. Napster, kazaa, morpheus, they've shut them all down and another has popped up instead to take up the slack. A quick search will show you a load of torrent sites, the Man is just fixated on PB at the mo'. They should try to work out a legal way of doing it or forget about it and stop giving PB the oxygen of publicity. My Mum's heard of piratebay even though she hasn't got a clue what a torrent is :)

What's the cost/benefit analysis on this?

On the downside of all this legal gubbins

- $$$$$ spent on lawsuits and investigations and what not

- Some people don't go to see a film/don't buy the DVD/CD

- Shut PB down and another will just take over, wind all this up and start again

- Millions of people watching the 10 o'clock news hear about somewhere you can get films for free

On the upside

- People who don't have a desperate desire to see a film/listen to a CD download it then like it so much they buy a legal copy

- People get introduced to material they wouldn't normally see

- People don't waste money on stuff they don't like, so, as they're confident with there choices, they spend more than they would otherwise have done

Most people obtain a copy of a film from the bloke in the pub/someone at work/someone down the market which are all physical copies imported illegally from the far east manufacturing plants from the master copies.

Downloaders may proportionally get a lot, but half the housewives in the country getting robin hood (richard armitage makes it worth the price of entry alone apparently) on DVD from frank down the pub is going to take a sizeable chunk out of the profits. And you don't have to wait for it to download, worry about getting caught or wonder what the hell a tracker is or that you'll get a virus.

The reason cinema audiences are going down is because it's so expensive and the stuff they're making is rubbish. 10 years ago you'd go to see a film if if it looked "alright <shrug>" now why should I when it costs £20 (for 2 people and car parking) and in 3 months it'll be in the bargain bin in asda (other supermarkets are available)

The only films I go to see in the pics are ones which require big screens, the one's with explosions and/or spaceships and even then I'm more choosey. The new terminator film 4 or 5 years ago I would have gone to see even though it didn't look great. Now I think, why waste the cash when it doesn't look that good.

Same with CDs, I've bought so many rubbish ones over the years with one song on I like or by someone who's other tunes I liked, so I'll get this one, "it's bound to be good if the last one was", etc.etc.etc.

Now I only buy CDs I've listened to a few times but I buy a lot more. We're all winners, I've got a better music collection and the bands I like have the cash to make more decent records, while the bands who're "meh" or "alright if I'm in that kinda mood" "Must try HARDER" as Mrs Meallor used to say

eBay revenue shrivel hits nine month mark

@Scott 9

Totally agree

The last 6 auctions I won turned out to be shops in disguise all of whom shafted me for one reason or another. The negative feedback system doesn't work as let's face it who reads it and ebay only has one resolution policy, "return all of it to get your money back, but not the cost of the original P&P or the return P&P"

Had a guy send me an incomplete lot from america, the lot was marked as complete, sent an email to check as some bits weren't in the photo's and it arrived with 2 bits missing and from the email conversation I had, he'd never had them but chanced his luck. If he ordered the bits from someone else and had them delivered to me, total cost to him $6. Ebay wouldn't have him doing this and said to get any money back I'ld have to ship it all back. Being as I spent $40 on shipping fees which I wouldn't get back and I'd need full insured carriage as the guy was about as trustworthy as an MP's expenses claim, cost about ....$40 then that means I get to pay $80 to have nothing and he gets away with it.

Why have different options asking why you're complaining, it they're only going to have one option to resolve it? I suppose cause they don't care about individual buyers and spending more than 2 minutes trying to sort out the shysters

That'll be why I haven't bought anything in ages then ;)

Name of the conartist seller available on request :P

Metallica sticksman gloats over Napster downfall

@wudders

Yes, you are

As for magnetic dirge, if you fight through all the mixmastermeisterness you find tunes(in the loosest possible sense) that meander aimlessly. If they'd made each song 2 1/2 minutes long, they'd at least finish, as they are wander prog rock fashion all over the place baring no relationship to the actual tunes after 2:30 on the display.

It's awful yet still not as bad as nickelback's last one which every review I read described it as an "abomination against music and taste" and I have to agree

@AC

Yes it is illegal but for those of us without friends it's a way of trying out bands we've either heard of or heard about without paying big money for a CD to get home and find out it's carp.

If I like it, I buy the CD, if it's bad I delete it (why take up the hard drive space). After ages of buying CDs to try only to hate them I'd not bought any anything for years, I'd got walls of stuff I disliked/hated/were meh which either ended up down the charity shop or in the bin.

Since downloads, starting with napster/kazaa where you can suck it and see, I bought the CDs I liked, I even downloaded some of those selection box type collections of the type "if you like that try this". And not just big stars, it lets you hear local tiny bands from around the world that otherwise you wouldn't have been able to appreciate.

I've got a shopping list now of stuff to buy and come payday my bank account will take another hit. In a way if it all got stopped I'd be richer :)

Yes, there are people who never buy anything but on the whole it would appear that musicians have made money out of me and many others that they otherwise wouldn't have and got fans from around the world that make it worth coming from Australia to the UK to tour.

My personal recommendation for a band you should listen to is called Surge, a rock/metal band from Islamabad, Iran. I know, rock music in Iran, what a concept!!! It shows you the aspects of a country the media outlets and governments don't. Destroying preconceptions and spreading universal love, isn't that what music is for after all?!?!? :)

You can download 2 of their songs for free from http://www.surge.com.pk/v1.0/home.html and I never would have heard of them without free downloads.

download

I know several people who downloaded their albums just because they kicked up a stink. As for listening to them. The last 2 were so bad it's a wonder they sold any copies!!!

Vulture Central plans Brit-Yank dictionary

@Hobgoblin

You can get Hobgoblin in Seattle???

I can't even get it in my local !

How about waggledance, piddle in the hole or the oft lethal Old Tom?

Route/Route

There's a thought, why do Americans call the road "Route 66", "Root 66" yet when following a "route" they follow a "rowt"?

And can we have a pronuncation guide for them?

It's always annoyed me that they can't pronounce things correctly but my recent phonecall to the xbox number had me incensed

The website is "xbox dot com" not "xbarks darrrttttt carrrmmmm"

And "herbs" is pronounced "herbs" not "Erbs" with a harsh "E"

And it's "carib-e-an" not "carib eon"

And it's...

And it's...

@Tawakalna

You're from Stoke too then

Oz cops turn to wardriving to fight Wi-Fi 'jackers

@Bumpy Cat

When my mates mum had broadband first installed, they never secured it and the bloke next door used it to download his kid pix

This and all your suggestions are crimes that can be prevented (or at least your alledged involvement with them) by securing your wireless and as lots of people don't know about it.....