Posts by Mike Landers

How to be a failure at Guitar Hero III

The problem with...

...Outrun 2006 Coast to Coast is that it inaccurately simulates the experience of driving several convertible Ferraris.

The problem with Grand Theft Auto is that it doesn't show enough of the hard work involved in apprehending violent criminals, especially, for instance, the sheer amount of paperwork involved.

The problem with Guitar Hero III is that it tries to be a frickin' game for people to enjoy, not, as you appear to want it to be, an unapproachable fretwank fest for musos.

Beeb censors Fairytale of New York

Horse. Stable door.

Only 19 years worth of exposing our kids to the word "faggot", then.

Wikipedia COO was convicted felon

When it comes to working there

I suppose it brings a whole new meaning to the Wikipedia tag "citation needed".

Kylie wraps herself round Dalek

@Tom

"the new series daleks are bigger than the old series ones"

No. The old series ones are just *far away*.

"much bigger than I’d expected."

It would be. Kylie is only three foot nothing.

Microsoft squeezes out early release of 2007 Office SP1

Drop the attitude at the door

The Ribbon is excellent. It took me a day to get used to it and it really does make it much, much quicker and easier to use Office apps.

Unfortunately this comes at the cost of speed - Outlook especially is much slower and less responsive.

All those moaning about it - especially the things about document compatibility, hey, Office Logo | Word Options | Save | Save files as. If I can find that in about three seconds, maybe people should try a bit harder instead of bringing pre-existing bias to the party.

Zep fans warned off touted tickets

Lottery for the proles...

Whereas as if you are a celeb, like Kate Moss or Cat Deeley you can bypass all that pesking lottery and "buying" business and just hang around for the publicity.

Nokia N81 8GB smartphone

Good review

I picked one of these up about a month ago for free. Have to agree with much of the article, the keys are a bit fiddly (even the normal keypad, which feels very flat). However, I've got it downloading podcasts via home Wi-fi which was a cinch to set up.

Overall, you could do better than this phone, but you could do a whole lot worse.

CBS to Pirate Bay: 'You're ok by us'

That word...

"F-15 Strike Eagle"?

Buffy mastermind returns with new TV series

@Scott

But Firefly had Kaylee.

Firefly was awesome, possibly the best 14 episodes you could ever wish to see. If Whedon manages to hit anywhere near the kind of heights that "Out of Gas" hit, then maybe this new series will be amazing.

Then again, Fox will dump it faster than anything - I'm sure they've got him signed purely to keep him out of the hands of the other networks.

TV-Links man was arrested under trademark laws

What if...

Just wondering whether TV-Links linked to content on Google Video or YouTube. Considering lots of companies have a presence on there, it would be an interesting argument to say that TV Links can't link to video X which is ours, but can link to video Y on the same site, because it is ours.

RIAA aims lawyers at usenet newsgroup service

@Michael Fletcher

---

They're mostly my recordings or recordings made by friends or colleagues of mine. A lot of them are songs, some are sound effects, some are individual elements of either.

None of them have had their rights assigned to the RIAA.

---

True. But isn't it true that if you play a piece of music that you wrote in a public place, then the PRS will want money from you in order to "recompense the artist"? And if you are the artist in question, and not a member of the PRS, that is just tough, pal, hand over the money?

These people simply want to own music, in whatever way, shape or form it takes.

Road pricing 'back-burnered' by Brown gov't

Stop me if you've heard this one before...

ID Cards?

"It is not the department's intention, at this stage, to take the separate powers needed to price the national road network."

The killer bit is the "at this stage". Presumably that was written when the bloke writing the policy on road pricing was on a tea break or something.

iPhone variants on the way?

Is the Pope Catholic as well

So.. basically this is some bloke saying "new product will have revised version at some point in the future"?

I wonder how much he gets paid, and whether I can have his job.

Exploding curry menaces 747

Choice of words

"But this unfortunate incident has left us with egg on our faces."

With fried rice, presumably.

Says something for Club Class in-flight catering when the staff would rather have a microwave curry....