scumbags – Page 2

PC Gaming and Piracy

A good article on PC game piracy: Anyone who keeps track of how many PCs the “Gamer PC” vendors sell each year could tell you that it’s insane to develop a game explicitly for hard core gamers. Insane. I think people would be shocked to find out how few hard core gamers there really are … Continue reading “PC Gaming and Piracy”

A good article on PC game piracy:

Anyone who keeps track of how many PCs the “Gamer PC” vendors sell each year could tell you that it’s insane to develop a game explicitly for hard core gamers. Insane. I think people would be shocked to find out how few hard core gamers there really are out there. This data is available. The number of high end graphics cards sold each year isn’t a trade secret (in some cases you may have to get an NDA but if you’re a partner you can find out). So why are companies making games that require them to sell to 15% of a given market to be profitable? In what other market do companies do that? In other software markets, getting 1% of the target market is considered good.

This tells me:

Copy protection is worthless and every minute you spend making the most complex anti-copy mechanism possible is a minute you’re not filling your game with awesomeness.
Total user base is irrelevant and you need to think only of the people, in that userbase, who will buy.
I really should consider trying out Sins of a Solar Empire using CrossOver Games

Microsoft’s multi-pronged defeat strategy

Alistair Croll writes about Microsoft for GigaOM. Microsoft is fighting a war â€” one in which itâ€™s being attacked on three sides. … what emerges is the Redmond giantâ€™s three-pronged defense strategy: consumer, enterprise and developer. What emerges is that consumers who have previously been buying nothing but Windows don’t care about what operating system … Continue reading “Microsoft’s multi-pronged defeat strategy”

Alistair Croll writes about Microsoft for GigaOM.

Microsoft is fighting a war â€” one in which itâ€™s being attacked on three sides. … what emerges is the Redmond giantâ€™s three-pronged defense strategy: consumer, enterprise and developer.

What emerges is that consumers who have previously been buying nothing but Windows don’t care about what operating system or productivity software they run.

What emerges is that Vista was a complete mule and we have corporations, including Microsoft, backpedaling away from it as quickly as their stumpy little legs will carry them.

What emerges is that nothing exciting comes from Redmond. Sure – big hoopla about Silverlight (been done) or telescopes (been done) but really, what’s new? A $10000 coffee table to compete with the iPhone? Brilliant. How about something else to cement the fact that you’re burning through tax dollars (via relocation of facilities to other states to avoid taxes in Washington state).

They could have seen these things coming. Look how Apple bungled the music on computers thing. And now they’re the biggest name in that market. Look how long people begged Apple to make a PDA or a phone? They did both and now they’re taking the headlines in that market. Microsoft is the epitome of “Not Invented Here” syndrome, they’re the Typhoid Mary as well as the decomposing body. Build your new infrastructure on Microsoft technology and if you succeed, expect to get Zuned.

Donâ€™t write off Microsoft: We were here once before, when Netscape was going to put the company out of business. But Gates issued an edict, the company turned on a dime, and a few years later IE was the dominant web browser.

Which is, of course, complete tosh. Netscape was never going to put Microsoft out of business because people still needed desktop PCs to run Netscape, desktop PCs running Windows. What put Netscape out of business was canny business deals (which turned out to be illegal) and making Netscape’s revenue source worthless (by releasing a free browser that was “good enough”).

Microsoft didn’t turn on a dime, they ‘bought’ a browser and screwed over a startup company or two.

Microsoft bores me and not even Scoble’s tears can make me look at them with anything but a jaded and cynical eye. Hear that, Microsoft, you’re yesterday, you’re last week, you’re nineteen-ninety-fucking-seven. Just bloody die already, will you?

What we ARE good at.

So while we Northerners might be shit at blogging (as evidenced by our complete lack of talent at the Irish Blog Awards), we’re pretty much in the top-5 for self-hatred, hatred of neighbours, hatred of foreigners, hatred of animals and hatred of things we don’t even know about. Judging by the young trees that line … Continue reading “What we ARE good at.”

I guess not. I mean, we’re a country of idiots as it is. We trumpet our great successes as something to be proud of. Our dead shipbuilding industry built the most famous wreck in the world which, of course, sank on the maiden voyage. We express our pride at an Ulster son who spent more time behind the bottle than on the pitch. We have one of the highest incidences of genetic dysfunction in the West due to having a low population who tend not to breed outside of their social groups (and woe betide any taigs and huns who get it on together). And now we’re the racist capital of Europe.

A few years ago, at the tme of the Holy Cross Bomb Blast, one of the commenters on the BBC ‘Have your Say’ section of the web site, made the following poignant remark.

It’s about time we built a high wall around
Northern Ireland and put up a sign saying
“Do not feed the animals”

To be honest I can’t disagree. Walking the streets near my home, it feels like 20 years ago because the people of Ballyholme can’t be bothered picking up after their dogs in the morning. I mean – nothing to me is worse than picking up after my own dog but we do it because we think of the consequences. When using the canteen at work, I notice the number of people who don’t bother cleaning their cups or who have emptied the remnants of their breakfasts and lunches into the sink (and these are meant to be educated people). It surprises me that there are such a number of animals in this country that they cannot even take pride in the areas they have to live and work in.

I’m sick of Northern Ireland. Deeply, viscerally sick of everything this country has made. Of everything this country has become. We inherited this mess from our parents and from their parents and it falls to us to try and make things better.

We’re completely outnumbered

That’s the unfortunate truth. For every individual that can see the problems we face, there are ten who don’t give a fuck, and worse, a hundred who are causing them. My own guilt at not doing enough is beginning to eat at me. But what to do and where to start and how to fit that in with a day job, a night job and a family.

Which is exactly part of the problem.

Scum are everywhere. Agreeing with Twenty.

Twenty Major on the problems with kids today. They shoplifted, they drank cider, they smoked John Player blue, they wore pants too short from them and those squiggly jumpers you used to see in Dunnes Stores and they got up to no good. They sniffed glue and generally made a nuisance of themselves rather than … Continue reading “Scum are everywhere. Agreeing with Twenty.”

Twenty Major on the problems with kids today.

They shoplifted, they drank cider, they smoked John Player blue, they wore pants too short from them and those squiggly jumpers you used to see in Dunnes Stores and they got up to no good. They sniffed glue and generally made a nuisance of themselves rather than being a serious threat. And remember, none of these lads had much to do. It was a time of four channel (if you were lucky) TV and days and nights spent out of the house because going out was all there was to do.

Kids today do have it easy. I am a grumpy old sod but I wasn’t allowed to monopolise the TV with my videogames (and yes, I had an Atari 2600), I didn’t get a computer until I was 11 (and yes, I was one of the lucky ones) and I got more than one lecture about spending too much time in my room. If I threw a tantrum, you can be pretty sure I’d have my butt tanned.

I’ve seen screaming tantrums from children (my own, others) because they were told to turn the TV off or because we’ve arrived at some childrens entertainment venue and they’re closed for lunch. My daughter has a whining moan noise when she doesn’t get her way but that can usually be cured by telling her to stop making that noise. My son can be boisterous and violent but he’s a young lad, there’s no actual malice in there. Compare this to others: I spotted some little gobshite entreating other kids to kick a cat outside a school while his parents watched. In Tesco, I saw a kid who must have been 10 years old punch his mother in the face because she said No. On the Lisburn road, two young lads walked down the road and picked fruit from the front of a greengrocer and walked on. The grocer ran out and the two, in broad daylight, challenged him. What could he do? Him against two young aggressive lads? By the time the rozzers got there they’d be long gone.

Now I understand that Twenty Major is a comedy satire. But there’s realism in them comedies. So buy the book but don’t read it until you know where your kids are.

According to Western Digital, you’re a dirty, no-good thief.

Yes, it’s time to stop buying anything to do with Western Digital. They think we’re scum. One of the world’s largest hard disk manufacturers has blocked its customers from sharing online their media files that are stored on networked drives. Western Digital says the decision to block sharing of music and audio files is an … Continue reading “According to Western Digital, you’re a dirty, no-good thief.”

Yes, it’s time to stop buying anything to do with Western Digital. They think we’re scum.

One of the world’s largest hard disk manufacturers has blocked its customers from sharing online their media files that are stored on networked drives.
Western Digital says the decision to block sharing of music and audio files is an anti-piracy effort.
The ban operates regardless of whether the files are copy-protected, or a user’s own home-produced content.

Nice of them to be considering our feelings on this.

Alexander Ross, a lawyer claims:

“The reason for a lack of standards across the industry is that there’s no such thing as the industry,” said Mr Ross.
“There is Steve Jobs and Microsoft and the two titans are at odds with one another. Between them they rule the market.

That’s utter bollocks, Mister Ross. There’s all sorts of standards for video, there just aren’t standards for DRM. From one point of view that’s a bad thing because we then have to have deals made across the industry but from another point of view it’s a good thing because it prevents one company from controlling the market – something no-one wants especially when one of them is a convicted monopolist.

Boycott Western Digital. You know it’s the right thing to do.

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