Author: Alasdair

The Wrong Kind Of Snow

Posted on by Alasdair

In case anyone’s wondering where the link posts have gone, you can blame the FBI. No, seriously. During a raid on a data centre, some incompetent took a server they had no legal right to take (an action for which they will obviously bear no public scrutiny, because that wouldn’t be fair), and the knock-on effect is that it’s killed my link posting until one of the services that runs it if firing on all cylinders again.

I have been trying to formulate a response to this that isn’t just spitting with inarticulate rage at anyone who lives in the US, and is therefore complicit in the criminal activities of their law enforcement agencies, but of course, that’s the anger of powerlessness talking.

My next step is obviously some kind of terrorist action.

Links for Friday June 10th 2011

Posted on by Alasdair
  • Apple’s iTunes in iCloud ‘won’t launch in the UK this year’ – Telegraph
    I am spittingly furious about this. Fucking PRS shitehawks, screwing the consumer once again. I have bought and paid for my music. There is absolutely no reasonable argument that says I should not have access to it wherever I damn well please, because shockingly, it is *mine*. I have already paid their members what they are entitled to when I bought the fucking stuff, and I find it infuriating that they somehow believe that they have the right to get in the way of my use of their product past that. (Why yes, I do really, really want iCloud.) It's not as if it's remotely meaningful – I *can* (and do) already do everything iCloud will let me do, just less conveniently. Yet PRS want someone else to give them money in exchange for making my life more convenient a third party making my life. They very embodiment of the standard music industry practise of getting between artist and consumer and making things worse for both while skimming the money off the top. How is that related to what their artists do? PRS are playing territory marking office-politics type games on matters that are unrelated to the actual rights in the music, and everything to do with ownership of products. What's next, are they going to GPS tag all my CDs, to make sure I don't carry them outside my house?

Links for Thursday May 19th 2011

Posted on by Alasdair

Links for Wednesday May 11th 2011

Posted on by Alasdair
  • Why I have left Twitpic, and why you should too.
    If you are a photographer who likes to maintain any kind of control over the licensing of their images, or even if you just don't like corporations whose default assumption is that they should have all the rights to do as they please forever and ever, including profiting off their users creativity without sharing that profit with their users, you should probably stop using Twitpic.