Posts by Strange Fruit

Microsoft devises new way of making you feel old: Windows NT is 25

Re: NT4 uptime measured in years

"Last reboot was 203 days ago to replace the motherboard."

Trigger's broom?

You wanna be an alpha... tester of The Register's redesign? Step this way

Less images on homepage

Can I add another vote for less images on the homepage. Reading on iPad, I get ~16 headlines on the existing layout and only 6 on the new, leading to far more scrolling and reduced ability to scan through the headlines for stories of interest.

As others have already pointed out, the vast majority of the images are stock and add nothing of value to the actual story.

Streaming now outsells downloads – Recording Industry Ass. of America

Re: And who gets the $$$ from this??

Actually for downloads it's nowhere near 90%. Most take around 30% (not much different to physical retailers). Returns from streaming services on the other hand are shockingly bad.

Big Brother in SPAACE: Mars One picks first 100 morons to suffocate, er, settle on Red Planet

"Some of the potential astronaut picks seem to be based on their televisual appeal rather than usefulness as likely colonists."

Only some of them? I assume that was irony

Microsoft's patchwork falls apart … AGAIN!

Re: Improving the stability of PowerPoint

"How is his Lordship?"

"Stable"

"Dead is stable"

thankyou Sir Terry

Apple preps to DUMP crappy, sluggish iPhoto FOR GOOD

Re: I've had a look at this

I hope they don't do this with Logic, but to be fair, us musicians have been alright so far. i was worried when Apple bought Emagic. It proved to be unfounded. I was worried when Logic X arrived, but that seems to have been unfounded as well. It seems to be an area where they've managed to avoid screwing up so far.

Breaking news: BBC FINALLY spots millions of mugshots on cop database

Re: False positives?

Ignoring the moralities for the moment, if the automatic matching comes up with 1 true positive and 199 false positives then it's not going to take long for a pair of human eyeballs to narrow it down a lot further

Sony Pictures struggles as staff details, salaries and films leaked

Re: Is this Sony ``rootkit'' Corporation?

@MJI 'No that's the music division'

Maybe so, but if Sony Corp wants to take the profits then they can damn well take the flak as well. Branding works both ways.

Musicians sue UK.gov over 'zero pay' copyright fix

Re: Want their cake and to eat it

The problem with this is that it's (mostly) not a contract between artist and society. It's a contract between major label and society. As soon as an artist signs to a label then they no longer own their own work (much like any job). The major labels are big companies with big overheads who are trying to maintain their share price. They are in the business of continuing their business model for as long as they possibly can. The big label model is dead, they just haven't realised it yet so are trying to carry on with business as usual.

Declared interest: I am one of the directors of a small record label. I do not agree with the the position that format shifting is wrong. It should not be illegal

Re: Compensation has already been paid

The cost of a PRS licence to play music in a workplace is a fair trade. You also have the choices of no music or employing a bunch of minstrels to play for you all day, every day. Nobody forces you. If you don't want to pay it then do without music.

Re: So how does Amazon "autorip" get away with it?

If you'd looked the following day it would have been different. Amazon use very dynamic pricing on music

How to run a big web music biz (Spotify): Grab more cash from fans, sink deeper into the red

Re: Stakeholders delight - not

Google already have moved into streaming. See for example this Reg article

It's 2014 and people are willing to blow $6.8m on things like Z.com

Are domain names worth much at all?

At a client's the other day and witnessed him going to his desired site by typing facebook into the google search box. The Android browser also encourages this by scrolling the address bar out of view as soon as it loads. How many non-techies use the address any longer, particularly when browser writers are all combining the address field with search?

Apple pitches record labels on cheaper music service

Unfortunately the streaming fee goes to the label, then the artist gets a percentage of this so if the label's receipt goes down then so does the artist's. The songwriter will still get their full normal royalty though.

Will GCHQ furtle this El Reg readers' poll? Team Snowden suggests: Yes

Re: Poll? What poll?

Oops. Correction. 'Reading this one with cookies blocked'

Poll? What poll?

Ah there it is. Made the mistake of reading this one on an iPad.

In other weirdity I read chatroulette in a french accent and thought it was some reworking of Scrodinger

iWatch 'due November'... Y'all know what time it is? Now you do

When Apple is the subject, the term 'Analyst' appears to be a synonym for 'rumour-monger'

In space no one can hear you scream, but Voyager 1 can hear A ROAR

"That won't happen until it passes the last of the comets influenced by Sol's gravity. "

Umm.. Surely everything in the universe is influenced by Sol's gravity. It's in the nature of the beast. By that measure it'll never leave.

Indie labels: 5 reasons why we're hauling YouTube before Euro antitrust watchdog

Re: Message for the labels

This appears to be underway. The discussion following the contract posted on Digital Music News has one poster (representing Red Dragon Records) referring to a service they're close to launching. We'll see how much traction they can get after launch

Users folder vanished after OS X 10.9.3 update? Here's a fix

This is getting worrying

I handle a lot of audio and video data. I use the file system to keep stuff organised. Apple seem to be increasingly trying to take that control away from me. Logic X now puts project into 'packages' which are really just folders, but with the useful added feature of not being searchable (yes, you can open and search them, but the contents won't be indexed on a global search). Seriously, who in hell thought that that was a good idea?

I can see that the 'technologically ignorant user' is a good sector to design for, but they appear to be applying too much of that approach to their professional market as well and it's starting to make life difficult.