Tag Archives: technology

Songwriters Guild Joins MPAA and RIAA in call to steal our freedoms

Posted by drahkar on

Once again a group is calling the US government to carve our personal freedoms and liberties like a Thanksgiving Day turkey.

‘What am I talking about?’ you might ask. Well I’ll be happy to explain. Ars Technica recently published that the Songwriters Guild of America is calling for FBI investigation of all potential piracy crimes because they investigate ‘lesser’ crimes like Bank Robbery. That’s right. Apparently robbing a bank is not nearly as big of a deal as downloading a file off the internet without putting an bit of money into someone’s pocket. I don’t see why I never saw it before.
Continue reading →

Hypocrisy 2010!

Posted by drahkar on

I like to scan across the Internet and see whats going on now and then. This morning I came upon an article that just made me shake my head. The article was ‘Why I Regret Buying an iPhone’ by Don Tennant. In this article Mr. Tennant goes on a preaching spree about the horrible practices of Apple suppliers in China, strong arming and threatening it’s employees, sometimes to the point of death ([Foxconn employee Sun Danyong] leapt to his death from his 12th-floor apartment window a few days after he told his superiors that one of the 16 iPhone 4G prototypes which had been entrusted to him had gone missing.) and how they are such a security tight group in the states, its likened to a form of business gestapo. (“You may want to know about their Worldwide Loyalty Team,” Tom told me recently in an email. I read what he had to say. It felt like a description of the Gestapo, without the torture and killing part.) The problems with his viewpoint are many, but I’m going to focus on three core ones that bother me the most.

Continue reading →

StarCraft 2 News Updates

Posted by drahkar on

Doing my daily scan of news across the board, and I came across this article on ArsTechnica about StarCraft 2.

The first thing to know is that I’m not a avid news watcher for upcoming games. I don’t actively review them for anyone, though I’ve thought about adding a section specifically for that here. Still might happen in the future. I do, however, feel the need to comment on game news I read when I think there is a point to be acknowledged that nobody is really commenting enough on. That is the case here with StarCraft 2.

I’m an old player of Starcraft. I enjoyed the first game a great deal and it’s expansions. As a matter of fact, I though they were so well done for their time that I still, on  occasion, load them up and play them.

That being said, following the news on the sequal has been interesting. First off we have the fact that it has taken them a really long time to get it made. A really long time. We’ve gone through several interations of the Windows Operating system since the last release of Starcraft.

Second, in all that time of development, somehow they have concluded that they don’t need to keep support for LAN games. This mindset truly baffles me because one of the largest group of people who played Starcraft was people who regulary played at LAN Parties. Starcraft was a staple game for them and everyone had a copy. So if that was they case, what would bring a company to the decision that slapping those fans of the game int he face would be a good idea? Unfortunately I don’t have an answer to that.

As it stands, I’ve seen the three ‘Battle Reports’ for the game and seen the screenshots. It looks like a solid RTS game. I’m hoping that the storyline from the single player can hold muster with the rest of it.

Podcastig Functionality Reviewed

Posted by drahkar on

Well, I sort of expected podcast implementation to be somewhat more difficult. Granted I still need to finish working out how the meta tags play into it correctly for things like iTunes, but I’m not overly worried about that part. At least the functionality on meta tags is rather straightforward. Unlike Meta Tags, finding any really good information on podcast creation that doesn’t involve ‘Oh hey, our software can do that! Buy it!’ can be a little difficult.

I’m not sure If I’ll set up a permanent podcast. I don’t currently have anything I would need to do one on. But its been interesting experimenting with the setup.

Perhaps a reader might have a suggestion on something we could put together a podcast on. Any ideas on something you would be interested in listening to?

Let me know.

When new hardware met bad marketing

Posted by drahkar on

So I’ve noticed a trend in recent years. This trend is to create these new and amazing bits of hardware that are, for the most part, just advanced versions of existing equipment. And then price them at absolutely obsurd prices. A prime example of this is the NEC CRV43. Why is that a prime example of what I’m talking about? Because none of the technology used in that monitor is new. The only interesting point is the fact that its a 43″ widescreen monitor. Even moreso the 43″ is solely in the width portion of the monitor. Not the whole monitor.

Continue reading →