Posts by Rubyatwork

story gone

But what are we rating?

I've often felt that people use the ratings system to rate the topic, not the writing. I've seen some short, perfectly innocuous articles, with none of the Reg's usual snark, getting really bad ratings for no obvious reason. I assume people are voting down because they don't like the subject of the article, rather than the way it was written. Shooting the messenger, in other words.

So, please clarify for once and for all, are we rating the writer or are we rating the topic of the article?

It's official: IE users are dumb as a bag of hammers

Opera increase

Why have Opera users become so much smarter in the last five years? Does the mere act of using Opera increase your IQ?

Met arrest alleged Lulz hacker

Are we sure it's Lulzsec?

I assumed the arrest was that guy Ryan Cleary who was associated with Anonymous rather than Lulzsec (though I suppose he could be both). Why is everyone automatically assuming it's someone from LulzSec? Am I missing something?

Amazon heralds unstoppable rise of the e-book

Not always Amazon's fault

Amazon isn't always to blame for the ridiculous pricing of some ebooks. Where an ebook is priced higher than its print counterpart, it will invariably say underneath "This price was set by the publisher". The publishers are trying to bring back the Agency Pricing model, though I believe this was recently referred to OFT for review.

Perhaps some sunny day in the near future, the gov will cut VAT on ebooks to 5% or zero, and the publishers will realise that they're going down the same well-trodden path as the music industry and get their act together. Yeah I know, I'm a dreamer!

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

Book availability

The greatest thing about the Kindle is that you can read a review of a book which takes your fancy, and be reading the novel itself a minute later. It definitely encourages more spontaneous purchases (as my bank balance can testify).

Like Heyrick above, I've also bought often from Amazon marketplace and those sellers are great for finding out-of-print or hard-to-get books that catch your eye. I really hope that publishers will take these ebook sales figures to heart and start re-releasing older or obscure novels that are no longer freely available (and at a reasonable price, please!) Beyond the cost of initial conversion to digital, what do they really have to lose? Having said that, it's not just older books that have a problem with availability. A certain fantasy novel being released next week will be hardback only. The ebook will not be available for another year, until the paperback is released. Jeez, publishers, get it together!

Apathy kills Google's new-age Wave

Needed integration to work

Wave's biggest problem was that you needed a separate login. If they had rolled out Wave as a feature of Gmail, it might have taken off. It was too much hassle to keep track of email logins and Wave logins and separate conversations in each.

Steve Jobs talks Flash, 'lying S.O.B' devs, sex, and Gizmodocrime

Steve's sex life

Steve's sex life is good because he's getting f*cked good and proper by Google.

Fifty Strikes and… we'll tell your Mum

Re: Where Is

I believe at one point the Looney Party promised free biscuits for the unemployed. Now that's a vote winner!

British laggards told to embrace their digital futures

You must have a Facbook account?

From the front page of their web site:

"on the internet we are operating in both a public and a private space and our personal data is increasingly accessible to many people and organisations. The electronic footprint of our personal data is almost impossible to erase and very hard to keep control of."

And then they ask you to take a quiz on Facebook?? WTF? Do they really think the average Luddite has a Facebook account? What a waste of time.

LHC dimensional apocalypse from midnight: Your thoughts

Soup

If the world's going to be turned into planetary soup, perhaps it will be like the famous Soup Wells of the The Clangers, and the alien being could be the Soup Dragon.

This could solve world hunger you know. I say bring it on!