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Comment Control freakery stopping a good thing. (Score 4, Interesting) 151

Because of the control freakery that Amazon "needs" you can't actually read a book in it. I think Amazon and Google should get the support on this font super quick.

I am a big user of Amazon e-books and not having the ability to change the fonts kind of defeats a major selling point over old paper books. If Amazon started doing this I suspect they would be repaid several dozen times over with people who appreciate it.

I think users should be allowed to choose their own font. So what if it looks totally crap. Its personal preference and it doesn't affect anyone else. Let the "Marketing" droids go swivel.

BTW,I am a bit pissed because I never knew my reading was difficult until I used this font. It's kind of a realisation! And someone is trying to stop me being able to do things better.

I also understand that Amazon etc are working on licencing it, but if we could change our own font, we wouldn't have the issue.

Comment They have already been tried for their "crime" (Score 4, Insightful) 114

They have already been tried in the UK court and lost most of what the gained. It is a bid unfair in my mind.

Do you think it would be allowed, ie tried twice, once by the US government and then by the UK government if they where in the US. They would probabily get a job offer in the US.

I can't wait for the moment they get a similar issue with a Chinese coder........

Comment Re:I have an idea (Score 1) 159

If you work for a large company, even the IT guys have to abide by the FOCA act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Corrupt_Practices_Act. We spend days (Seriously) learning what we can and cant do, even though we are IT. We don't even speak to customers, sell anything or buy anything and we have it 24/7!

If you get caught, worrying about your employees is the last thing you will be doing.

Comment I can see it now.. (Score 1) 47

As soon as people cant get to the "TPB" there will be a lot of "Well I don't need that 120Mbit connection anymore, take me down to 10Mbit" or "Stuff this, i'm moving ISP" (I realise the same end result, but Joe Average won't until they have moved.)

There will be a big backlash, aimed equally at the idiots in government and the record labels and the ISPs will just be screaming about their butt hurt that no one can be bothered getting the Virgin Media 120MBit/s solution (Not that you get that speed you understand, but the "conditions" are in the small print).

If 70% of the traffic is copyrighted infringing material (Figure i heard somewhere) and is stopped, the super high capacity home connections become pointless if you can't download your treasure.

I also predict the more savvy people will just do as I do and use a off shore proxy.

Comment Old idea from but you can soon make your own cheap (Score 1) 86

As above, this idea was first put onto paper with the set of books How to Steal a continent and was called a creeper box.

I wanted to do the same with a rasperberrypi when they first come out, as it again is dirt cheap and has all the requirements (save a compatable wifi). It has no moving parts, draws a very small amount of power.

The only issue I'd have is could a battery package be made small enough to provide several weeks of uptime without making it huge ?

Comment I bought one. Took it back. Total bag of fail (Score 3, Informative) 141

I bought one. The form factor is lovely, the feel is great. That's where the good stuff ends.

There is no calendar, no email (REALLY, TRULY - not even an app you can download, let alone a Gmail one). If you want to load android apps, you have to install the 2.0 beta (which doesn't include email and calender still in beta release but will in final one in Feb.)

The side load of android apps is poor. The core google apps don't work (at least for me) but then again, I didn't really expect them to.

I had it for about 6 hours and just took it back. If you have a BB then you may get somewhere, without, don't even bother. It will end up a glorified browser.

The app store is also pretty crap. Angry birds is £5 to install if you want it. Android it's free. The number of apps is totally cack. No firefox app, no RDC type connector app, no VDI app.

There are no ports of android underway etc, so you are stuck with QNX and it seems only the BB fanbois love it.

Comment Look at it another way... (Score 1) 576

We all make mistakes. Anyone who doesn't make mistakes doesn't make anything (or so it is said!)

Do you really want to make his life sh1t (and that of his family and 8 week old son) because he didn't hold of sending an email whilst he cooled down. Put another way, hopefully he can learn and move on. Otherwise, he will burden you all and increase the jobless total.

Could he have handled it better. Definitely

Should he have considered the other person before he sent it ? Totally.

Should he loose his income because of a couple of shitty emails? Probably not.

Comment China will be very interested (Score 1) 612

The first thing that crossed my mind was not that they downed it, but wow, the Chinese will be begging to see this thing. Can you imagine this new multi million pound drown, crammed with the most high tech remote control systems and nav systems around in the Chinse hands? Iran needs friends too...

Comment Seriously, am i missing an important missing bit (Score 1) 137

I realise this is as close to "hit the bits" as most people want to get, but there is no mention of non volatile storage on board, ie SD card or similar. I have some wicked ideas and want one, but without storage its going to be a bit limited or some cludgy work round hacks.

If it has got non volatile, user modifiable storage on it (ie no flashing involved) id buy a dozen of these things!

Comment Genie is out the bottle (Score 3, Insightful) 165

At the end of the day, file sharing wont go away. It may well change forms and maybe even go back to sneaker net or "swap meets" but no matter what they do, they won't be able to get back to the 80s revenue streams. (It doesn't help that the music is more crap these days, but thats another argument)

At the end of the day, the world of file sharing has been changed forever by the internet. We can get offshore encrypted proxies for as little as $5.

The other major difference the net has made is that people are better connected and tend to gravitate to like minded people. In the world of instant communication, encryption and dropbox et all, sharing will just mutate into other forms, and groups with similar interests will create their own file sharing platforms and darknets.

Also in my area at least (or my interests) there are more artists giving stuff for free.

The days of mega money from media are gone. All this is akin to trying to put toothpaste back in the tube, it's not going to work.

Comment The cause is fear and.. (Score 1) 495

I can see why this is happening. America used to have quite a bit of manufacturing, shops that employed people on living wages etc. Technical workers that worked in country, and spent their money locally. That money flowed round and encouraged other shops and enterprise. Shops that sold stuff made in the US. It also did fair trade in export and import.

That's all gone now. All the US has is "IP" and "Media" aka ideas, films and music, nothing you can touch. There is now really no manufacturing to employee people - Gone abroad. IT Jobs = Cheaper in India. Local workers? almost slave wages in Wallyworld or Starbucks. Exports of any physical goods is nowhere near what it used to be. Just about everything manufactured comes from China.

Now all shops sell crap mostly made abroad, competing in a race to the bottom to try and squeeze the ever reducing money in pocket from shoppers. Those same shoppers that used to have a job, and pay taxes, but since their job was shipped abroad as it was $8,000 a year cheaper.

If they loose this revenue stream, its over. They have to protect this last thing they have that other people and countries will buy. There is nothing left to make in the US. It still makes it good taxable income for the government. All the "dirty" stuff that makes things got shipped abroad by short sighted fat cats. There is also have defense spending, but same thing applies.

It is in effect the last roll of the dice for the US economy and they are hoping to god these "untouchables" will save them. This should explain why the media fat cats are so terrified of losing the "rights" war. The subscription model is only the beginning.....

In another 20 years I suspect the US (and UK, and Europe) will be entering into what we now class as third world levels of poverty and suchlike. Asia and what we now class as the emerging market will have swapped places with us.

Comment But who would let it out (Score 1) 121

Thinking about this over dinner, I came to a thought about HOW this got put into general availability.

This crimeware kit is like $10,000 a go. If I where the developer, I would be very careful about where copies go and security on the local machine. So either this guy, or his backups got hacked, or the other potential way it got out is through a trusted client or similar.

It would be sweet irony if the malware developer got pawned by another piece of malware, but I guess we will never know.

Comment Typical VM BS (Score 1) 220

I'm sorry, but to us more tech savy folks, a web page or youtube is going to be delivered or watchable at pretty much the same speed no matter if you have 10Mbit or 100Mbit, because more than likely I know I could burn 100Mbit (I am on the 10Mbit package atm) quite easily, but what the heck are we going to be able to use to see a benefit in the 100Mbit speed you can buy

Who is going to buy this crud? Sheeples I expect who just see headline speed figures. If I could get 100Mbit I would use it for p2p and giganews ;) I mean, really, what else is there.

Comment Looked like a criminal raid (Score 2) 448

I have to say, I am not impressed by this. At the end of the day, it is a CIVIL matter. From the look of that copper (an employee of the state!) bashing down the door, its the type of thing you see on police camera action.

BTW Sony, kiss my ass with your attempted take downs. Information wants to be free ;) Lets see your effectiveness against TPB

It's available as always from our friends at the pirate bay.

I am going to find out which constabulary this is, and write a letter of complaint of the police using heavy handed tactics in non criminal matters. It's almost as though they are sony's personal army.

Comment So where are all the disks n pirare rejoice posts? (Score 1) 378

For all the talk I have not seen any "pirate breakthroughs" or a ps3 pirate scene with regards to running backups. It has been a few weeks now and if it is so fatally flawed, you'd expect the piracy to be skyrocketing now because no hardware mod required, unless I am missing something?

I realise the people that hacked it are hardcore, in the true hacker sense of hackerdom. Surely there are equally intelligent people who just want "games for free, Dud3". There is at the end of the day a very big financial incentive.

Surely if there was a working 'sploit to enable backups etc you'd expect to see it on "the bay" etc

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