Slashdot Mirror


User: iainl

iainl's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
2,936
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 2,936

  1. Re:seriously. on Best and Worst of 2005 · · Score: 1

    You say that, but I bet that in at least one of them neither Mario nor Link drive a car through an open-ended cityscape shooting at cops.

  2. Re:It can be... on Britain to log all vehicle movement · · Score: 1

    You're joking, right? Isn't 35mph in the outside lane getting you killed in short order?

  3. Re:But I like my microphone! on Digital Content Security Act · · Score: 1

    Yes. Along with any other mechanism that would achieve the same result.

    The bill really is that zealous.

  4. Re:Speedtraps on Britain to log all vehicle movement · · Score: 1

    Do you seriously find the traffic so bad you can never do above 70mph for more than 15 seconds at a time on the motorway? Because they're talking about placing them every quarter-mile.

    I know the western section of the M25 is bad in rush hour, but it's fine on a Saturday morning.

  5. Re:worse than nothing on Britain to log all vehicle movement · · Score: 1

    I think you're absolutely right that this will do little to help catch criminals in the act.

    What it _will_ be useful for is in situations after a major incident, where you're examining the evidence from a crime that has already happened. Hopefully, you can eliminate the real owner of that numberplate from your enquiries pretty quickly (their car still existing will be a big clue). At which point, you can track back through the data until the point where the suspect car appears from thin air. Hopefully (though it's not foolproof; the criminals might have transported it there in a lorry or something) you'll find that another car that arrived in the area and 'disappeared' from the network shortly before. Given that these things are supposed to match your car type to your plate, it should round down the cars in the area, too.

  6. Re:Why? on New Consortium to Push UDI and Include DRM · · Score: 1

    And the answer, is... ...RTFA. The summary, as so very often, is completely misleading. This isn't a Unified DISPLAY Interface at all, but a Unform DRIVER Interface.

    So it's a list of standard API calls that devices should support to communicate with the screen (among other things that you might want computing devices to communicate with. There are UDI specs for SCSI and a stack of other things too). Including (the one bit the summary did get right) having a uniform call to turn HDCP on or off.

  7. Why? on New Consortium to Push UDI and Include DRM · · Score: 1

    So this is to be a new, "Unified" display interface that is compatible with HDMI.

    So, umm, HMDI with a differently-shaped plug, then?

  8. Re:DMCA on Xbox Modders Charged Under DMCA · · Score: 1

    I can just about agree with that argument when it comes to downloading crap from the net. But these people were actually handing cash over to a shop for the service. You can't use the "but I only took the illegal software because it was there; I wouldn't have bought it if that was the alternative" when you ARE paying money for it.

  9. Easy - MS don't hate their customers on Why You Can't Buy A 360 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Last time Microsoft released an XBox in the UK, they had to drop the price by £100 after only a month or two, because no-one was buying them at £300.

    As you can imagine, this somewhat annoyed the people that bought them at the higher price.

    Microsoft would much rather have shortages at a price they plan on sticking to for at least 6-12 months than annoy their most valued game-hungry customers.

  10. Re:Try ripping 5000 discs. on CD Ripping Services Compared · · Score: 1

    Do you spend a lot of time sat in front of your machine while doing something that doesn't hog all the CPU (i.e. not playing games)?

    Because the getting the discs off the shelf and putting them back parts obviously still need to be done here, and you probably shouldn't trust most of these companies to do a better job of tagging than iTunes does (which is a pretty good job, to be fair). At which point it's only a question of whether packing them all up and taking them to the post office, as well as unpacking them once they come back, is less or more effort than switching window to see that everything looks right every couple of minutes before going back to what you were doing.

    Yes, I'd quite like my 1000+ disc collection to be on my drive without any more effort as well. But these services seem to involve most of the effort of what it would take to do myself anyway.

  11. Re:Cost effective - hire someone else! on CD Ripping Services Compared · · Score: 1

    Other than the part where you grab the disc off the shelf and insert it in the player at the beginning, and take it out and put it back at the end, the process is either automated (the actual rip and conversion) or I'd want to check myself (that the tagging is how I'd want it).

    Furthermore, grabbing the disc of the shelf, putting it somewhere, then taking it back to the box and onto the shelf again, is something I'd need to do if I was packing the discs up to go get ripped elsewhere.

    All in all, this looks like more effort (you've got to visit the post office with a heavy pile of 1000 CDs) rather than less to me.

  12. Re:BMW Philosophy. on Steam Hybrid Car from BMW · · Score: 1

    Actually, the 3 series outsells any range that Ford or GM produce for the UK, too.

  13. Re:Volumes of Data on EU Approves Data Retention · · Score: 1

    But you're _always_ going to pay for it, one way or another. The only question being asked here is if you pay as an ISP subscriber or as a taxpayer.

  14. Re:You can burn it to CD within iTunes. on Apple Holding Back the Music Business? · · Score: 1

    If you want to experiment, I'd recommend you download and install iTunes, and they just "purchase" whatever Free Download Of The Week is to test if you're happy with it all.

    Admittedly, buying a track you know well enough to compare to the one you already own is only a buck, and so not the most expensive experiment in the world, but you can't beat free.

  15. Re:You're kidding, right? on Apple Holding Back the Music Business? · · Score: 1

    Hey, just because your taste in music is different (I'd say "shit", but I do understand that my hatred of that band puts me in a minority) don't blame everyone. Warp, Domino, Wall Of Sound, Cooking Vinyl, Ninja Tune, One Little Indian, K7 and loads of the other labels they have signed up have scored genuine chart hits. Sancturary are the largest "independant" label on the planet.

    They sell music in high-quality LAME VBR mp3s that sound far better than either the AAC or WMA formats offered by the main download channels, and even FLAC if you're someone with space to burn.

    The fact that they've not got the DRM-paranoid nutcases at EMI onboard doesn't mean they aren't "real".

  16. Which law are Sony breaking today? on HD Era Doesn't Start Till Sony Says So · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Wait a sec, can we just get this clear?

    Is Sony DELIBERATELY MIS-SELLING consumers TVs which claim to be HD Ready but can't display a 1080p picture?

    Or is Sony DELIBERATELY LYING to consumers when they claim that an output at 720p or 1080i is not HD?

    Because I'd quite like to know whether they are breaking consumer law, or merely slandering Microsoft.

  17. Re:Not that bad... on Apple Holding Back the Music Business? · · Score: 1

    I'd be surprised if it only sucks 0.44% more than last quarter, actually.

    In the UK at least (I don't know the US market that well, so someone might have to correct me), all you can expect to see on the shelves in the last quarter for the most part are compilation albums from bands looking for a quick cash-in with present sales. Compilation albums are royally wrecked in the iTMS setup, though, because you can buy the individual tracks you like at any time after the albums they were originally on get added.

    Also, despite some advertising, people would rather give actual hardcopy CDs to each other as presents than just iTMS vouchers. People have been buying CDs to give for Christmas, but you don't buy tracks from iTMS in November to give as a present in December because that isn't how the system is designed.

  18. Re:Pathetic on Behind the Scenes of Narnia's Special Effects · · Score: 1

    The Witch is the Devil, the Lion is God.

    I think that pretty much gives you all the answers Lewis felt you'd need.

  19. Re:Lots of talent involved . on Behind the Scenes of Narnia's Special Effects · · Score: 1

    I just love the way you've been modded 'insightful' for that.

  20. Re:What the-- on PSP Still Struggling For Notice · · Score: 1

    I _think_ I've found the source of the error. Sony have indeed sold 1.6 million PSPs to date. This year. In Japan.

  21. Re:Handheld market is totally different on Miyamoto Hints At Second Revolution Secret · · Score: 1

    One small thing - if Animal Crossing is the big reason you want a DS, I'd recommend getting one now. DS games don't have region-locks on them, and the US release of AC came out yesterday. Mine is winging its way across the Atlantic from Movietyme as I type, and there are several other places (videogamesplus.ca is recommended) you could try if Movietyme don't ship to the Netherlands.

  22. Re:I tried telling a karaoke executive drm sucks on NYT Opinion Piece on DRM And P2P · · Score: 1

    Hence "to my knowledge". I wasn't aware they had, and in my stumblings around the net I've never found a track available for download at greater than CD quality. If you know better, then that's great to know.

    Not that I then have a way to get the sound from my PC to the amplifier, but that's just my problem.

  23. Re:When will the rest of the world sign on? on Apple Adds New TV Shows To iTunes · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I don't remember paying an extra surcharge on DVDs here, so I fail to see this being any different; Apple should be in the clear.

  24. Re:I tried telling a karaoke executive drm sucks on NYT Opinion Piece on DRM And P2P · · Score: 2, Informative

    "Not that it will ever happen in our lifetime for audio files, but there will be some advancement in audio that will only be avaliable on DRM, it's only a matter of time."

    It already happened; the copy protection on neither SA-CD nor DVD-A have been broken to my knowledge. Certainly I've never seen illegal download versions of them. However, the majority of people have decided that the music they can already play (whether that be purchased CDs or mp3 downloads) is "good enough", and the formats have been pretty stillborn.

    But then, my system isn't exactly the worst I've ever heard (NAD player, Pioneer amp, Celestion speakers) and I think my CDs sound perfectly good enough as well.

  25. Re:It's about time on First RIAA Lawsuit to Head to Trial · · Score: 1

    Which is why, silly people, everyone should just use one of the five unsecured access points that can be reached by your machine to download anything questionable, and not your own network.

    Not that I'd do such a thing, obviously.