What follows is a deconstruction of the arguments being used by governments and the “creative” industries with regard to sharing over the internet and download culture.

1. “The internet and downloading is going to destroy creativity.”

Now take a step back…. And listen to what you are saying. You propose that sharing is going to destroy creativity. I’ll let you think about that for a second. You propose that the single most facilitative sharing tool ever created by man is going to destroy creativity. Do you know how ridiculous you sound saying that? You don’t? OK, well you sound like an idiot. I don’t feel the need to linger on this any more, a monkey could win this argument, lets move on.

2. “The artists suffer when people share on the internet.”

The sycophants are out in force complaining that the artist will suffer if downloading continues. “Scouting For Girls” I’m looking in your direction. Let’s examine this. First lets look at the word artist. Using the word “artist” in the same sentence as “Scouting For Girls” is a misnomer if ever there was one. That is the crux of the problem. Will real, true artists stop making art if they don’t think they will make any money out of it? No. They will continue to be compelled by something far greater. Will people who want to fabricate cheap copies of the creative process, homogenise it, neuter it, and then exploit it for maximum return suffer? Yes, absolutely. Good.

3. “The fans will suffer.”

You hide behind the fans. You say things like the fans will be the ones that suffer if downloading continues. This seems like something of a paradox. Aren’t the fans the ones doing the downloading? Is anyone making them do this? No. So they must be doing it because they want to. Barring a few masochists over there spanking each other people generally don’t inflict harm on themselves without a very good reason. At the moment, fans have all the power. They are the arbiters of who gets what. This has never happened before. You want to remove this power post haste. Riddle me this, when has removing power from a large (organically) democratic collective and placing it in the hands of an elite of entitled custodians ever benefitted the majority? I’m waiting.

4. “For God’s sake you wordy prick it’s illegal!!”

Now we’re getting somewhere. Here is where the chrome is exposed. Laws exist for a reason. But that reason seems to have temporarily eluded you. Let me give you a quick refresher. Laws exist to dictate what is commonly acceptable behaviour within a society. A consensus if possible, a majority if not. Elections (and the democratic process) use the same system. So laws reflect the people that they govern. This is why the Romans had different laws from the Greeks who had different laws from the Chinese who had, you get the idea. With this kernel of truth cosily stowed let us take a look at sharing on the internet. The law says it is illegal, but a vast majority of people do it. Just like they used to swap cassette tapes. It really is very simple: When a law dictates that almost all of the people that it governs are criminals, the law is wrong. The law no longer reflects and serves the people and should therefore be changed.

Yes I know that it will be a painful transition, great change always is. But change will continue like a Toyota Prius whether you are screaming and stamping on the brake or not. As Mr. Bruce Lee so succinctly put it: “Be like water and you’ll be fine our kid.” I’m paraphrasing obviously.

Now that I’ve cleared that up for you all you can all get back to looking for jobs in the banking sector.

Peace love hugs and kisses,

Ian

I rationalised over and over again. After all having access to things like directional maps would allow me to dispense with the notion of a TomTom. I could just get the TomTom app. I could also dispense with the need for a mobile broadband dongle, I could tether my MacBook Pro straight to my phone using the unlimited data offered with the pricey mobile contract. Unfortunately my worst fears as to the business ethics of those that operate mobile telecommunications here in Britain were proved correct. Boy is it horrible to be so right.

I’ve had contracts before with most of the main protagonists, I’ve always had that weird feeling. It’s what I imagine exiting a particularly murky swamp to discover that you are covered in leeches must feel like. To extend the metaphor, O2, ill contented with syphoning the cash from their customers in the usual manner have decided that their current operational conceit is taking far too long and have endeavoured to suck the iPhone fan-base dry. I just can’t understand it. We’re talking about a demographic of technologically informed, enthusiastic and solvent users who have already been sold on the dream of an iPhone by the manufacturer. All that O2 need do is price their products sensibly, avoid public faux pas and play Santa to Apple geeks everywhere on June 19th. Only a moron, or collection of morons (mori?) could turn this unassailable position into a fail. I mean, none of their competitors have the product, it’s a home run by default. So what did the O2 management do? The unthinkable, they angered geekdom with their blatant profiteering. The first sin they committed was to anger existing iPhone customers with their upgrade policy. Never come between a geek and his latest bit of tech!

The molten lava that was spewed as the news of the O2 upgrade policy broke may have disfigured O2’s image permanently, at least with this demographic. Their “It’s not us it’s Apple” defence fell on deaf ears. This is hardly surprising, many Apple zealots would rather take an iMac to the head than entertain the idea that Apple had committed a transgression against them. The second of O2’s cataclysmic misjudgements was the decision to charge exorbitant fees for tethering. This one is irredeemable. Truly it feels like having that shiny mountain bike delivered on Christmas morning, only for stinky Timmy who lives down the road to break in and steal it while your attention is diverted making eggnog. (Don’t fret it’s not a true story.) Talk about deflated. What makes the tethering situation worse is that O2 won’t admit what they are doing. They are hiding behind the argument that tethering will overload their network in some way, and that they need to charge a ton of money to prepare for the deluge. This is absolute bunk. A megabyte is a megabyte, downloaded to an iPhone or a laptop. That megabyte is free through the phone but if I want the same information delivered to a different device I have to pay again? Please.

Imagine you’re in a pub. Being a gentleman of the ale, you buy a pint. After hanging around at the bar for a few minutes, you decide to take your pint out to the beer garden. It’s a nice day. But wait, as you approach the door you sense that something is not right. There is a sign by the door to the beer garden….. And a man. The man is taking money from people. As your proximity to the sign increases you can make out what it says: “Beer garden beer consumption £3.” “But I’ve already paid for my pint” you reason with the stony faced man that is taking the payments. “If you want to use your beer outside, you’ll have to pay for it again he exclaims.” You leave the pub feeling insulted and never come back. You tell everyone that will listen about how much of a rip off the pub is. They like being ripped off as much as you, and they don’t go there either.

But what if you really love that pub? What if you can’t live without it’s beer garden? (For those that are slow on the metaphorical uptake the pub is the iPhone and the beer garden is WIFI tethering.) Well I’ve done a little bit of research, and I’ve found out a couple of things that you might be interested in learning if you still want to brave the sharks of the O2 waters and buy that iPhone 3GS.

The first thing that you should know is that if you want to use tethering, but don’t want to pay O2 a minimum of £15 a month extra for the privilege you can. In order to achieve this feet you need to step over the line. You need to Jailbreak your iPhone. With the phone Jailbroken a myriad of tethering options surface, the most notable being PdaNet. Tethering for free accomplished. Of course there are risks to going the unofficial route, I recommend researching the subject thoroughly before making the decision for yourself.

The second thing you can do (At least if you are a new customer) to reduce the cost of purchasing an iPhone on contract with O2 is to use an internet cashback service such as TopCashback. For those unfamiliar with the concept, they work like this: You go to the cashback site. You register. You check to see if the product or brand that you want is available through the site (O2 and the Carphone Warehouse are available on TopCashback) You check to see how much money you will be entitled to and then if you are happy, click on the link to take you through to the relevant site and make your purchase as normal. Your transaction will be tracked by the cashback site, and you will receive a balance on that site for the transaction. Carphone warehouse looks like the best bet, offering up to £45 cashback on a mobile contract.

Lets hope that O2 see sense and rectify their barmy pricing policies for the iPhone soon (unlikely). Apple do not escape without some blame in my opinion, and I would like to see them open up the availability of the iPhone to at least one other mobile network provider in the near future. A little competition might keep both parties honest. Here’s hoping.

Odo the security chief from Start Trek: Deep Space 9

Next up, the former worlds highest skydive of 31 KILOMETERS done in 1960, thats in space (and therefore technically makes Joe Kittinger the first man in space)! He reached around 600mph due to the lack of atmosphere, taking 3 hours to reach this altitude in a helium balloon. Its only been attempted once since by an ex SAS soldier turned stunt man and he only went 5000 feet higher with modern technology in 2007!

http://www.101greatgoals.com/videodisplay/2424757/

Yes its back! You many have already heard they are filming a new six-part series coming in the autum .

Have you noticed they seem to be bringing all the old comedies back. Its the BBC’s own stupid fault. They decided to drop shooting stars, red dwarf and other great shows choosing other badly written sitcoms to replace the comedy. My Family is a good example with Bafta winning amazingly good actor Robert Lindsay running around like an idiot. OK My Family and other sitcoms are bearable at the start but that’s not what I expect from the BBC. I want to be laughing my ass off and Vic and Bob are just the ticket.

With the success of the Christmas specials they have decided to give a new series the go ahead. Jack Dee will be a new team captain and seems to suit the show perfectly. Ulrikakaka is the other team captain. It would not be the same without baby George Dawes keeping the scores so I am happy to see Matt Lucas join them.

Now all they need to do is a new series of Red Dwarf for Dave (which is a joint venture with UKTV and the BBC) and good quality comedy is back on the TV. A bit older and maybe a bit senile but still quality!

If you are looking for a way to remove the 3D dock that comes with Leopard then all you need are a few carefully typed Terminal commands.
First open terminal and enter this command:

$ defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES

To change it back simply enter :

$ defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES

Then Type:

killall Dock

Don’t fancy buggering about in the Terminal, then just download the DockDoctor app here and it will do it all for you.

1) This Week In Tech – This is great fun with leo and his guests. If you dont listen to this then you cannot call yourself a proper geek. It keeps you up to date with technology and most of all tells the truth.

2) Adam and Joe Show - Great geeky school boy humor  a very funny podcast from life long friends. They make funny songs on garage bands and laugh about the media, peoples habits and technology and the world in general.

3) Dwarfcast – Red dwarf fans review episodes and get drunk on cider. This is a very odd podcast but so much fun any geek should feel at home. They have a very relaxed style but they sure know what they are talking about.

4) Amiga Round Table – Essential listening for any amiga fan or any retro geek. With great guest and chat this is like This Week In Tech for amiga.

There have been several changes in the rules and cars for the new season including a new system called KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System) which gives 7 seconds of extra power per lap, aerodynamic changes and the return of slick tires. All of these things are designed to make the sport more entertaining to watch by making overtaking easier and the pack run closer together.
I think its still a wee bit early after just one race to say definitively if all of these measures have been a success, but if this race sets the standard for the ones to come then it looks a lot like they have been. The racing was tight, there was lots of overtaking and it wasn’t until the last 3 laps that we knew Button was going to take victory. The race wasn’t decided by fuel loads or pit lane tactics, it was sheer hard work on the track by the drivers battling each other to the end.

The other refreshing change was seeing a top 3 not dominated by Ferrari or McLaren, this time it was Brawn and Toyota (although Hamilton has now been awarded 3rd by the stewards). The Brawn team seem to be going from rags to riches, winning the grand prix only 6 weeks after not knowing if they had the money to even enter a team this year. Good to see that a team with relatively small finances (compared to the big 3 or Ferrari, McLaren and Toyota) can fight with the big boys and win.

The BBC coverage also deserves a mention, with some good punditry (although things did look a little frosty between David Coulthard and Eddie Jordan) and the joy of finally being able to watch a grand prix with no adverts. Good coverage on the TV and as only the BBC can continuing that across on the Red Button, online and on the radio. With all those services they really showed up the failings of the ITV coverage and in my opinion the coverage is worth the cost of the license fee alone. Good old aunty.

Bring on Malaysia in a week.

First off I would just like to take a moment to thank the hundreds of people who took the time to have a look at prototype man. Your feedback is much appreciated!

After listening to your suggestions and having a bit of a re-think I have come up with this final draft for the little fella:

I’d also like to extend a large thank you to Mr. Stephen Fry for extending my quest for feedback to the far reaches of cyber space. He really is a jolly nice chap.
That’s it for now, toodle-oo!

I’ve been working on this little chap for an upcoming web project. I’ve got three slightly different versions now, and I’d love to know which one you prefer! If you feel like helping me out have a gander at these images and leave me a comment telling me which is your fave.

Prototype 1

Prototype 2

Prototype 3

http://www.wefeelfine.org

SoThink Flash Decomplier

The 100 best fonts of all time.

Icanhascheezburger link

AmigaSYS

Anyway this is the guide:
1) Download and install winuae http://www.winuae.net/ then download and install Amigasys 4 http://amigasys.extra.hu/ to the winuae directory.

2) Run winuae and load the amigasys config file and load your roms and start winuae.

3) Install operating system you have a copy of using external cd drive. ( This version was installed using Amiga Os XL – Amithlon)
4) Restart after install and open ‘System’ and then ‘prefs’ select ’screen mode’ and change the setting to screenshot.

If you need to move the screen down then use alt + tab and the asus eeePC utility to 800 x 600

It should now look like this

What a goal

In Search of the Click Track

There’s all sorts of behind the scenes malarkey and photos here.

http://www.questionmarc.co.uk

Notice that Indiana Jones 4 wasn’t even dignified by being mentioned. The worst film ever? Quite possibly.