So it would seem that the British government is looking again at reviving its ridiculous scheme to disconnect web users who download music via peer-to-peer file sharing systems. Our already (mostly) useless ISP’s who already struggle to provide reasonable services to their users are now going to be charged with the additional duty of ‘policing the Internet’!ith
Apparenly its got nothing to do with Lord Mandleson have a meeting with David Geffen, Music Exec and media mogul, who do they think they are kidding, really?!
So great, some Amer-ee-can git with a few quid has ‘words’ with our Secretary of State and suddenly the whole UK government is on one to bust the evil Internet Pirates.
Really, why are our government so concearned with helping Geffen and his rich buddies continue to line their pockets? Everyone knows that musicians make most of their money doing tours etc and actually make very little from album and single sales. Honestly, I really dont want to hurt the musicians. I love music and I think theres some really great tallent around at the moment, but please, dont put some up-and-coming nobody artists on the tv to try and convince us how much we are hurting them with our evil downloading ways. These nobody artists pedling this corporate crap dont fool anybody and more to the point for them, make themselves look like complete assholes.
Well hopefully, knowing our current government and their history of crazy plans and gimicky ideas, it will fizzle out. If not, theres always newsnet.
So it would seem that the British government is looking again at reviving its ridiculous scheme to disconnect web users who download music via peer-to-peer file sharing systems. Our already (mostly) useless ISP’s who already struggle to provide reasonable services to their users are now going to be charged with the additional duty of ‘policing the Internet’!
Apparenly its got nothing to do with Lord Mandelson have a meeting with David Geffen, Music Exec and media mogul, who do they think they are kidding, really?!
So great, some Amer-ee-can git with a few quid has ‘words’ with our Secretary of State and suddenly the whole UK government is on one to bust the evil Internet Pirates.
Really, why are our government so concearned with helping Geffen and his rich buddies continue to line their pockets? Everyone knows that musicians make most of their money doing tours etc and actually make very little from album and single sales. Honestly, I really dont want to hurt the musicians. I love music and I think theres some really great tallent around at the moment, but please, dont put some up-and-coming nobody artists on the tv to try and convince us how much we are hurting them with our evil downloading ways. These nobody artists pedling this corporate crap dont fool anybody and more to the point for them, make themselves look like complete assholes.
Well hopefully, knowing our current government and their history of crazy plans and gimicky ideas, it will fizzle out. If not, theres always newsnet.
I finally ordered our new media centre last night! Here’s the spec:
Hiper HMC-2K53A-A3 slimline barebones chassis, inc PSU, VFD, Motherboard with onboard sound and onboard HDMI graphics, and a Vista Certified Remote
AMD Athlon 64 5200 CPU
Kingston Value 2GB RAM
I’ve got SATA hard disks knocking about at home which will be the last component needed.
Im planning on using Vista Media Centre on this box, along with the excellent MyTV plugin from senseit.
My eldest daughter has started developing an interest in using computers and the Internet. She quite often asks to play games on one of her favorite websites on my laptop.
This has started becoming a more regular occurence, so I decided that I would re-instate an old laptop that I had lying around and set it up for the kids.
The machine is quite old so wouldn’t be particularly speedy running Windows, so an idea struck me, I could install may favorite linux distro of choice, Ubuntu; not only would this run better on the old laptop but would also give my kids a different view of computers than most of their friends will get just using Windows.
I’m hoping that giving my kids this different view of computers will help them have a better understanding of computers in the future.
One of my problems with computing in schools is thatfor example, kids arn’t taught how to Word Process, they are taught how to use Microsoft Word, this goes for using the OS itself as well.
I’m a realist enough to know that this is the way things are due to Microsofts Dominance of the market, but I’d like my kids to be able to have a different perspective on how computers can be used
I’m no Microsoft hater, I’d just like my kids to make their own decisions on these things and by giving them a choice, I hope enable them to do that.
Just a quick note about my websites gallery. I’m using Alex Rabes’s NextGen Gallery, its one of the best gallery Plugins available for wordpress, and he’s just release his latest version which is fully Wordpress 2.7 compatible.
In addition to that I’m also using an addon to NextGen Gallery Called NextGen Flashveiwer. This addon, created by Boris Glumpler allows NextGen Gal lery images to be displayed using some cool flash effects from Airtight Interactive.
Anyway, they are doing another live tour next year and I’ve managed to get some tickets!
The reason im so excited about it is because its not just a stuffy orchestra playing the same songs as on the album. The live show features 2 orchestras, a classical orchestra (strings, wind, brass etc) and a modern band featuring drums, electric guitars keyboards and so on. The show also uses the latest technology in the form of huge holograms, massive screens showing projected CG images of the Martians etc; and at one point the lower a 50 foot martian fighting machine down onto the stage!
To get a better idea, head of to the Official Website and check out the pictures and videos from the previous tours.
So its finally happened, we’ve managed to secure a house in Newport. The current place is rapidly becoming to small for the expanding familly, so we’ve been on the lookout for a 3 bed place for a while now. Finding somewhere in Newport os very difficult at the moment, theres not much out there, so it was a case of jumping on this one as soon as we could!
Its going to be different not living in Ventnor anymore, but the benefits masivly out-weigh any cons.
After a long exhaustive search I’ve finally found a new ISP.
On my search I’ve basically discovered that UK DSL is going to pot.
Firstly theres no such thing as a truly uncapped service, fair enough I can live with a cap as long as its decent.
Secondly, many ISPs are living in some sort of dream land. Pulling pricing numbers out of the air and changing these numbers all the time to attract new customers etc, rather than looking ahead and developing some viable long term pricing structures.
Thirdly, the way things are going, the UK is going to end up with only 3 or 4 ADSL ISPs. Tiscali have just brought Pipex, who recently brought F2S, Nildram, 123reg Domains and a horde of various other copanies. Sky have just bought easynet and we all know the debacle that was Orange buying Freeserve.
To that end I’ve decided on an Enta Reseller called ADSL24. Enta are one of the only ISPs who have developed consistent and sustainable pricing, its true they arnt the cheapest, but at least u know the pricing and service are going to stay consistent.
Thats about the best you can hope for these days.
