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Comment Re:People really were sued (Score 1) 407

Virgin now have a rather annoying habit of killing all of my torrent uploads. Unfortunately I didn't notice until 35GB or so of Tvtorrents credits had run dry.

In my defence I had a few legal files being shared too, which makes it an outrage rather than an effective way of preventing distribution of copyrighted material.

Comment Re:It's funny watching the europeans say it's noth (Score 1) 1205

I never claimed to have an absolute solution to the problem, I was highlighting some factors that should be taken into account when addressing the issue.

Reducing the amount of fuel needed is surely a great objective for any solution to a FUEL NOW based problem. No amount of aggression on your part will change the fact that you have no birthright to cheap fuel and the tone of your response seems to be that it's the world's fault for not creating a method by which America can continue to consume fuel at a rate that suits its angry internet commentors.

If you're looking for someone to uncork the moon and a load of oil spills down into your fuel tanks, you might be out of luck. Magic solutions do not exist to these continent wide problems and suggesting a reduction in the amount of fuel needed over a period is far more constructive than shouting that I didn't create an immediate cure all for a problem an entire nation walked into. We didn't make your lifestyles unsustainable.

If you think it's costing too much to fuel your big red pickup truck, I'd point you towards current Oil company E+P spends as a justification for price increases and the cost of bunker fuel for the international shipping community for the reason everything else you use is going to go up in price (although nowhere near as big an impact in environmental or cost terms as the price of the fuel in the truck taking that stuff to your local store, unless you live in one of those sensible communities that is close to a reasonable rail or water transport hub, not stuck in the middle of nowhere accessible only by road).

Comment Re:It's funny watching the europeans say it's noth (Score 1) 1205

The US is not Europe. There is greater distance between our population centers and most of our workers commute longer distances.

Part of the problem.

Increasing fuel costs are not something we can survive. Wise american politicians are taking it seriously... foolish ones are not. The public are fickle... and if irritated will turn on anyone they perceive as guilty. Such is the nature of politics.

Can't survive in your current state.

Further, high fuel costs make everything more expensive. It makes food more expensive, it makes raw materials more expensive, it makes everything more expensive.

Unless you reduce the need for them to be transported long distances

The net result of all that is that we're going to have to charge more for everything. That means the international cost of many goods will go up.

See above

It should be noted that the trigger for the arab spring was rising food prices also related to fuel prices. Because of these fuel prices the cost of grain will keep going up which means we could get some very large famines throughout the third world.

This is not a minor issue. Fuel prices are high in europe mostly because of taxes... not the actual price of the fuel. When the actual price goes up it will force the european system to increase subsidies to industry to offset those costs... or suffer even worse economic problems.

Europe's economic problems are not due to high fuel prices.

Comment Re:let's normalize and remove taxes from discussio (Score 1) 1205

The trend is towards getting oil from offshore/deeper reserves involving more complex engineering and equipment. The cost of recovering oil is going to increase because of this. You'd be just as well of complaining that people have used up too much oil in the past, it'll get you just as far towards a solution.

Comment Re:Gas Prices (Score 1) 1205

Can I offer...

4) Reduce subsidies to haulage firms to reduce the negative impact of trucks on the road and spur the industry to look for less fuel intensive, more environmentally friendly ways to transport goods and develop all industries closer to strong rail/sea links where possible.

Comment Re:$5? that's nothing (Score 1) 1205

In Europe we already pay around €1.60 per litre, which is almost $9 per gallon. Get over yourselves America. You are 4% of the world population using 25% of it's oil. There's your problem right there.

Well, our 4% of the population has the largest GDP per capita than anyone else in the world. In other words, yeah, we use the most energy, but we also produce the most stuff with that oil.

Well, our 4% of the population has one of the top 20 largest GDP per capita in the world. In other words, yeah, we use the most energy, but we also pay less developed countries to produce loads of stuff and pollute their countries whilst we grow a huge service industry and drive around a lot with that oil.

Fixed it for you.

Comment Worst. Video. Ever. (Score 1) 500

Opening shot - draw a circle around a guys face.

What is this? Is this a security check? Or were they just trying to highlight that guy for no apparent reason? I'll remove that.

Second move -

List of boxes in an order you set with all sorts of stuff going on in them. There is a hideous amount of wasted space here, why do all of these things need different boxes? For those messages, what is wrong with having a notification on a taskbar saying you have an unread message? It's a waste of space. I'll remove that.

Clicking on paragliding video -

Wheres the middle step? What if I don't want to watch a paragliding video? How is this any better than having a desktop shortcut to a video folder? I'll remove that.

Vague social networking/Nasdaq shot

People/What's new/ Me is all very well and good if you can integrate Facebook, where everyone is actually updating. Last time I used an MS social network was by accident when I checked an old hotmail account to get some very old login details and windows live showed me the 4 updates from one person in the past 3 years on the Live network. Even if you can integrate working social networks, it looks like a crappy way of interacting with that network, I'll remove that.

Games

Sure many people will welcome interaction with Xbox live and as an Xbox gamer myself I'm all for spending hours playing Skyrim. But I can get all of that info every time I turn on my Xbox. My Xbox is where I'll go for that information. If it's an integration of PC and Xbox gaming then crack on, I won't use it as I don't use a PC for gaming much above humble bundles. I'll remove that.

Photos

Ah it seems you have developed a way of sharing photos. Shouldn't find too much competition there. As it is my phone automatically uploads all of my photos to G+ where I can then share them straight away. I'll be removing that. (I think all of the exclamation marks here are a sign of the target audience.)

Where are we meeting?

I travel a fair amount for work, I have never had to google coffee to find a nearby place to meet a colleague. Day to day, this won't be used because people know where they meet, they met there last week and the week before that. If I was in that situation 10 minutes time I would do the following. Windows + R - www.google.com - my location/what I want to do. This doesn't seem like any more work than the Windows 8 guy is doing and if I was in an IM with anyone It'd be in google chat anyway and I'd be much closer to google maps because of that. I'd also be on Chrome, a browser I chose because I don't trust MS's not to completely bone every computer on my home network. I won't be using this.

Opening Files

Unless the trick here is that Windows 8 magically picked out the various files this guy needed for this meeting, there is no trick here at all. All you are displaying is a system to look at the files you have. Stop the press. I'll be keeping that in, because I need it and expect it to be there. It is to me essentially what an OS is. If you could do away with the flashy opening and minimising stuff that'd be great (you too, OSX).

Closing Shot

3 lovely devices all running an operating system designed to work on only one of those devices.

There is a very good reason this video is so fast paced, it's to stop you from actually thinking about what's happening on the screen at any moment and realising it's all been done before or is pointless.

TLDR - Windows 8 - SHINY! FAST! COLOURFUL!

Comment Re:Might work as a tablet OS... (Score 1) 500

>I will be curious to see how quickly Microsoft can get adoption of Win 8 tablets, though.

This. I just see it as a natural step in following Apple towards a more unified looking platform across mobile, desktop and tablet. I'd welcome an out of the box tablet that could handle light business and still do the normal browsing/media basics. I currently have an android phone, linux/win 7 laptops at home and a macbook pro for work. I'm a prime candidate for a company to make a decent solution to bridge all of the devices (google is well in the lead here). I tried an ipad a year or so ago, but it was turd. Even for the lightest of business applications it didn't make any sense, transferring files was a pain and almost every app lacked the option to change the settings I wanted to. It was a glorified mobile TV for watching iPlayer and every now and then I'd go for a wander online with it. Anything more than 10 minutes and I'd be back on the laptop, typing on a tablet is a bitch.

I'd snap up a well executed, unified, cross platform experience with more flexibility than Apple's current range.

Comment Re:Lovely and Intuitive? (Score 1) 500

I can't remember the last time I took much notice of any flashy graphical interface updates, and do my best whenever I get a new windows machine to make it look as plain and boring as possible. I almost feel sorry for Vista and Windows 7, because I ran straight to the settings and got rid of as many bells and whistles as I could. I want a clear desktop, a taskbar and easy method to switch between open windows (Swift middle finger to my work macbook pro, still can't fathom cmd+tabbing, so I just attached 2 monitors and use a different screen for everything I'm working on) and I don't mind little memory exercise to get my programmes open. If I can get past all of this nonsense everyone is complaining about in Win 8 (no judgement here on the merits of the complaints) with the windows and r keys then I'm happy.

On a side note, I was disappointed when I dumped Mint onto an old laptop and gave that a whirl. I'm not at all a fan of that interface, this could be down to my unfamiliarity with package based installation though, I found that all a little frustrating.

Comment Re:Just make it clear: is it an ad or not? (Score 2) 183

The problem I see here, if I accept that this was not a commercial move by Slashdot, is that this product is nothing new. I've no particular need for such a product, I do travel by plane frequently and am happy to stick everything in a bag. Despite never having a desire nor a need for a product like this, I am well aware of the existence of such things, and have been for some time.

I don't often see videos on Slashot, and more often than not reviews seem to written and they tend to be about about books that aren't of interest to me. That's fine, a bit of exposure for a book that could be useful to those above me in the geek hierarchy is very healthy. Why waste time making a video review of something that has been around for an age and is just another player in the geekwear market? If your aim was anything other than wanting to heat up your office, I'd say you've failed.

I have no issue with video reviews and could accept a review of a novel, interesting product, but this is neither of those things. I come to slashdot to read what's new in science and tech and to read what the generally articulate community has to say. I like to learn, hear others opinions and every now and then I'll make a comment. I do not come here for reviews of existing, established products in established markets (I'll make an exception for retrospectives of established game changers and their impact, this can lead to an interesting debate).

Give me a review of something revolutionary, something that might change my working practices, even just something new for me to chew over. I don't care if they've paid for the ad (although I'd like you to be up front about it if they have), I just want the product to be interesting, clever, new or any other word you can't use to describe this jacket. You wouldn't post a review of year old tech, so why an old jacket?

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