- MCP server with stdio transport for local use - Search episodes, transcripts, hosts, and series - 4,511 episodes with metadata and transcripts - Data loader with in-memory JSON storage 🤖 Generated with [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code) Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
1520 lines
66 KiB
Plaintext
1520 lines
66 KiB
Plaintext
Episode: 969
|
|
Title: HPR0969: The Crivins Audiocast
|
|
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0969/hpr0969.mp3
|
|
Transcribed: 2025-10-08 05:51:39
|
|
|
|
---
|
|
|
|
¶¶
|
|
This is Michael. I have decided to listen to a podcast that he has about three programs.
|
|
This is the one of Kevin and Gordon, on the east side of Engelska.
|
|
The one with Skotska accent.
|
|
Podcasts are...
|
|
Crevans brought to you by Hansen Studio. We don't do DRM.
|
|
Hello and welcome to season 10, episode 1 of Crevans.
|
|
Otherwise known as episode 10 of Crevans.
|
|
It's a common mistake to make with a lot of podcasts these days.
|
|
They're all going...
|
|
They're seasons. But anyway, we're on episode 10.
|
|
And as usual, this is actually a more regular episode that's myself.
|
|
And Kevin, again.
|
|
Hello, hello, and how are we doing out there tonight, Gordon?
|
|
Yeah, I'm all right.
|
|
It's an interesting Wi-Fi stories.
|
|
We won't...
|
|
We won't bother people about it.
|
|
So, we're going to start off...
|
|
I'm going to use all sort of news and then a discussion and things.
|
|
So, the first story was something that I saw last week.
|
|
I think it was last week.
|
|
And I just thought this was brilliant.
|
|
It's a brilliant idea.
|
|
It's...
|
|
Someone has made a version of Tron, a little game Tron, that's made entirely in JavaScript.
|
|
It's something like 200 and something K.
|
|
It's tiny.
|
|
It's genius.
|
|
It's just brilliant.
|
|
I found it rather hard because I'm not used to keyboard controls.
|
|
And it's quite fast as well for the small screen.
|
|
But I just think this is genius.
|
|
And they did a version of Tetris before that.
|
|
And they're really in JavaScript as well.
|
|
So, yeah, I thought I would have been mentioning that to start with.
|
|
Yeah, it's a nice wee topic to start with, actually.
|
|
I didn't notice it.
|
|
It's an identity that people were talking about.
|
|
But I kind of logged in.
|
|
And they would have to be through it.
|
|
And I'm seeing all this, you know, 200 bytes.
|
|
And 140 bytes and one would take.
|
|
Are we talking about that?
|
|
I actually thought it was a talk about retro gaming.
|
|
So, to be honest, I didn't realise it was actually talking about tiny games that I don't know just now.
|
|
So, you actually went and tried them, but didn't you?
|
|
I haven't tried them yet.
|
|
Yeah, I tried Tetris.
|
|
And the way they've done it, unless I've just not played along enough,
|
|
it's all a little pound cymbals or harsh cymbals.
|
|
That's what's fallen down as a blocks.
|
|
And you get a single block and it's on or the two blocks,
|
|
which is two side by side.
|
|
But you can't seem to...
|
|
There's no other advanced shapes.
|
|
I've none of the analysts for like L shapes and things.
|
|
So, it's not really that time consuming.
|
|
You can't put them around or something.
|
|
So, it's not great, but the throne one is actually quite impressive.
|
|
The black screen with a white line that moves rather fast.
|
|
Considering the size of the screen you've got to play with.
|
|
And you die if you have the edge.
|
|
But yeah, the idea for what they did was they said,
|
|
they had to be sort of a competition or sort of...
|
|
Yeah, I suppose it'd be a competition to see who could create a game
|
|
and the least lines of code.
|
|
And I just thought that was a genius for what they've managed to do with that level, you know?
|
|
Yeah, excellent.
|
|
I'll need to have a wee look at that.
|
|
Hopefully we'll be good to see if they actually have more of these released.
|
|
It's amazing to see what people can actually do with just such a little amount of code.
|
|
It's utterly brilliant.
|
|
The one thing I'm assuming with Tetris is the old tune we love so much.
|
|
Now, I'm assuming they had that down to our T.
|
|
Yes.
|
|
Yeah.
|
|
The bush.
|
|
There's no audio at all.
|
|
And any of these...
|
|
I don't know if I'll do it.
|
|
It did not come through for me.
|
|
But no, there's no audio.
|
|
It's just a little bit of code.
|
|
Yeah.
|
|
It's good.
|
|
I mean, it does show you what is...
|
|
Actually, you could see yourself spending a bit of time in the Tron one just to pass some time.
|
|
Tetris is more of an experiment.
|
|
But Tron really is worth checking out.
|
|
And we'll put the link in the show notes and then you'll find a link to Tetris and that there as well.
|
|
Chances are they'll probably do a lot of stuff that's quite kind of cool.
|
|
But yeah, it's cool.
|
|
Oh, yes.
|
|
Always nice to have a wee bit of past time.
|
|
And I must admit, I'm one of these guys that see if anybody ever sees identical.
|
|
I've written a new app to a new game for the Android phone.
|
|
But it's not on the market yet.
|
|
So I want to try it.
|
|
I'm like, yeah, me, me.
|
|
So I've got a bunch of these half-finished games on my phones.
|
|
They argued.
|
|
I like them just to try it.
|
|
Just something different.
|
|
Oh, and on to our next wee bit here.
|
|
And there's one's regarding Wi-Fi.
|
|
Now, I don't think you can get too many hardcore,
|
|
just regarding, or stressy, open-source unfriendly than Texas, a state of Texas in the USA.
|
|
They seem to not be too keen to take up the Linux cores.
|
|
And a while ago, they were trying to have a real campaign to more or less tell people
|
|
it was going to be illegal to have open Wi-Fi.
|
|
And if they were unprotected, then, you know, they were breaking the law blabla.
|
|
They would just scale monthly.
|
|
There was no law.
|
|
It was just utter nonsense.
|
|
And after a group kind of set up saying, this is no law,
|
|
trying to become a bit more public.
|
|
They suddenly realized that we're back in town.
|
|
However, on one of the news articles we've got today,
|
|
the Australian police don't seem to have learned from their mistakes.
|
|
And they are doing the same thing.
|
|
So the official announcement is,
|
|
Detective Superintendent Brian Hayes said police have identified a large number
|
|
of homes and businesses within the Great Brisbane area with wireless connections
|
|
that are not secure or have limited protection.
|
|
These people may as well put their bank account details, passwords,
|
|
and personal details are billboard at the side of the highway.
|
|
Now, this is just utter nonsense.
|
|
Personally, I do have my password, my network password protected.
|
|
But to go to that extreme, you just scare monger as utter nonsense.
|
|
Struth.
|
|
This is basically a copyright thing.
|
|
The authorities through lobbying by the RIE and MPAA and all of that,
|
|
they basically want to avoid any possible loophole that,
|
|
at the moment, if you've got an open Wi-Fi and you get some copyright infringement notice,
|
|
and you say, well, look, my Wi-Fi is open.
|
|
It could have been anyone.
|
|
They don't like that little loophole.
|
|
That's why they're determined to get people to effectively make it a social taboo
|
|
to have your Wi-Fi open.
|
|
And then the step further to that is actually make it illegal.
|
|
So that's an offense in its own right.
|
|
That means that anything that happens on that connection,
|
|
they've got someone to go and slap the handcuffs on.
|
|
That's what it's about.
|
|
That's a hard sell to say, or it's for copyright infringement,
|
|
it's for the multi-billionaires in Hollywood that want this to happen,
|
|
especially since Hollywood, when my geography is not that great,
|
|
but as far as I was away, Hollywood is not an Australia.
|
|
It could be wrong, but it's not an Australia, it's an America.
|
|
So they're using all sorts of obscure tactics to try and get people to do that.
|
|
The thing is though, as much as they are square tactics,
|
|
there is also an element of public service to this.
|
|
A lot of computer users, especially home computer users,
|
|
they are technically clueless.
|
|
I mean, they know how to use Word, they know how to use Facebook and things like that,
|
|
but they're technically clueless.
|
|
I mean, how many times have you seen, have you heard of people who install a peer-to-peer program?
|
|
And then they don't realise they're shamed and tired, they're an entire PC,
|
|
rather than just one folder, because they don't know any better.
|
|
And that's how you find things like blueprints for military helicopters
|
|
because some contractors install the peer-to-peer program
|
|
and share the whole fucking hard drive.
|
|
So it's things like that, and people don't necessarily realise
|
|
just how open the networks are and how open their security is.
|
|
So, I mean, they could do it in a different way.
|
|
They could actually go through the educating route rather than the skirmongering route,
|
|
but the skirmongering route is all about copyright infringement and big Hollywood.
|
|
Yes, and yeah, I personally don't think there's a problem
|
|
with trying to encourage people to have wireless passwords,
|
|
but like you said, there's a right way to do it and there's a wrong way,
|
|
and I think this whole way about it is, it's just bullying tactics
|
|
and, you know, we've come back to this a few times,
|
|
but it's like that a courtroom star,
|
|
or, you know, the more you tighten your grip,
|
|
the more star systems fall through.
|
|
And the more it becomes a point of principle after a while,
|
|
the more people say you must do this.
|
|
Then, you know, something that could be a very reasonable request,
|
|
you're going to get people saying, well, wait a minute,
|
|
it's my freedom, I'm going to choose.
|
|
So just because of the way you're looking at this,
|
|
I'm going to say no, which at the end of the day
|
|
could actually be in theory that the person who's doing that,
|
|
who's consciously saying no to this,
|
|
could actually be creating themselves a bit of a security problem,
|
|
not as far as them, okay, they're not going to be prosecuted,
|
|
but it may well be everything that could be on their system
|
|
could be got to by a decent hacker.
|
|
So the other thing that they're trying to take a clamp down on as well
|
|
is that cafes and pubs and things like that,
|
|
anywhere that offers free Wi-Fi as an incentive
|
|
to drop people in and spend time having a coffee
|
|
and a burger and stuff like that.
|
|
And they're trying to clamp down on that for the same reasons
|
|
because of basically copyright infringement,
|
|
they're basically saying that they need to be able to track
|
|
everyone who uses that network and what they download.
|
|
And it's hard to monitor someone
|
|
if they can just join up enormously and then disappear again.
|
|
Yeah, did this not happen in the UK recently?
|
|
This is not going to be a president,
|
|
because they tried to arrest or tried to charge a guy who owned a pub
|
|
about downloaded copyright.
|
|
And it actually went quite far, but then they said,
|
|
well, wait a minute, this is an open network.
|
|
Anybody could have done this.
|
|
You can't blame the guy who owns the pub.
|
|
Wasn't this not kind of a big spark of all this talk?
|
|
Yeah, these issues resonate all around the world.
|
|
It's like little sparks that appear in different countries
|
|
and different examples.
|
|
And you're right, that was one of them,
|
|
the pub owner, who was targeted for that.
|
|
There's a joke, basically, it's a joke.
|
|
And from one walk of life from publicans
|
|
to truck drivers next.
|
|
Now, I want you to have a think
|
|
and I'm talking about taller listeners here.
|
|
The next time you download something illegally,
|
|
you download copyright material.
|
|
You are putting the poor truck drivers out of a job.
|
|
But it makes me sad.
|
|
It's just depressing me.
|
|
Yeah, this was a brilliant headline from TechDoc.
|
|
Wanted the truck driver who lost his job due to file sharing.
|
|
And that just caught my eye.
|
|
It's like, what the hell?
|
|
And basically, it's the eighties again.
|
|
Alcoholics are not, no, sorry, hang on.
|
|
The recording industry are households of America.
|
|
And the music and motion picture are households of America.
|
|
One of their, I think it was the MPAA.
|
|
They're not sort of known for dealing with reality.
|
|
And they went on, the guy went on some show in America.
|
|
Some TV show.
|
|
And they tried to spin it as,
|
|
it's the average person.
|
|
The industry is not just the big megastars at the top.
|
|
The big earning megastars.
|
|
It's a whole, you know,
|
|
a lot of different people who have jobs in the industry.
|
|
And they tried to liken themselves to protecting the interests of
|
|
the teleassessants who sell you popcorn at the fucking cinema.
|
|
Not sure quite where they get royalties for movies from.
|
|
And they don't even pay the fucking actor's royalties,
|
|
let alone people who serve popcorn at the theatre.
|
|
In this case, it was a, it went,
|
|
it mentioned a truck driver who delivers like the goods,
|
|
CDs and DVDs and that type of thing to the store.
|
|
And losing his job due to piracy.
|
|
That was the latest hook on this.
|
|
I mean, the Chinese hoops all the time.
|
|
And ticked up was basically saying,
|
|
we want to find this guy.
|
|
If I have this person, should I say,
|
|
we want to find this person and talk to them.
|
|
We wanted, who is this person?
|
|
Get them to get in touch.
|
|
We want to talk to them.
|
|
So if you know of this truck driver who has lost the job due to file sharing
|
|
that it's been referred to,
|
|
please get in touch with ticked up.
|
|
They would love to contact them.
|
|
Yeah, it's now that my last Kleenex is used up and, you know,
|
|
and I now realize that this fictitious driver doesn't actually exist.
|
|
I feel a lot better now, yeah.
|
|
This is a turn nonsense.
|
|
They're taking the moral ground just by saying, of course,
|
|
well, you know, if you do this, then it's not, you know, Tom Cruise
|
|
or anybody else who is way up there,
|
|
you are affecting their own people.
|
|
You know, I mean, they're basically saying, you know,
|
|
your granny is going to suffer because you downloaded that new album
|
|
and you did not buy it from the shop yet.
|
|
It's another nonsense.
|
|
I mean, really, this goes back to, this reminds me of,
|
|
I remember a while ago, they were trying to say that if you bought DVDs
|
|
from the, well, as we well know with the kind of local markets,
|
|
the Barras, if you bought them from then, of course,
|
|
that, you know, you were immediately funding major terrorist organizations.
|
|
I actually going to be in the Barras, you probably isn't too far wrong,
|
|
but for quite a few, they were talking about, yes,
|
|
your fundiness and your funding that.
|
|
And then they did that absolutely awful knock-off Nigel advertising campaign.
|
|
I mean, that was laughable.
|
|
That actually made me want to go out and download copyrighted stuff.
|
|
It was just awful.
|
|
Do you remember that one?
|
|
Yeah, I mean, first of all, for anyone who is ever thinking of visiting
|
|
Scotland for a holiday or something,
|
|
you've got to go to the Barras in Glasgow,
|
|
make a day out at the weekend, one weekend,
|
|
to go to the Barras.
|
|
It's a fantastic place.
|
|
It's huge.
|
|
It's absolutely huge.
|
|
It's a huge, free market.
|
|
And the banter is brilliant.
|
|
It's brilliant.
|
|
I've been there a few times.
|
|
And, yeah, a thorough way to enjoy it will be out.
|
|
But, yeah, there is a lot of play, a lot of stalls.
|
|
You can never remember where the Barras,
|
|
because you go there one time,
|
|
and then a week later,
|
|
half of the stall owners have changed,
|
|
and it's different people.
|
|
But you could explain the illegal nature of a lot of the stuff they're selling
|
|
and getting busted even things like that.
|
|
But, yeah, they are a joke.
|
|
And it's a usual OTT scare stories,
|
|
because they don't really have a solid label,
|
|
a legitimate thing from the consumer's point of view.
|
|
They don't have the moral high ground,
|
|
so they have to try and do something else to get the message across.
|
|
And that's why they usually link it to anything from all the buzzwords of the day.
|
|
Terrorism, you know, human trafficking, gun running,
|
|
you know, drugs muggling, you know,
|
|
anything that you'll, any bullshit that you're likely to believe,
|
|
essentially, is what they'll try to link it to.
|
|
And they just go over the top.
|
|
I mean, it's the same with when they try to do stuff to quote,
|
|
educate, unquote, get against drugs.
|
|
You've got a referred madness.
|
|
One talk of a joint,
|
|
and you suddenly go mad and kill everybody.
|
|
No, that doesn't happen.
|
|
This is the problem.
|
|
When they go so over the top,
|
|
it becomes a joke.
|
|
And the people who are doing it already,
|
|
or who have tried it,
|
|
they know it's complete box.
|
|
And it's just, it's so far removed from reality that it is a joke,
|
|
basically, it's a joke.
|
|
If they played it a lot more,
|
|
a lot more closer to reality,
|
|
then they might get people buying it,
|
|
but they don't,
|
|
because they don't really have the moral case to be able to do that and sell it.
|
|
Just going back to the bar as part,
|
|
I would like to say any listener,
|
|
if you knock it down weekdays,
|
|
it's not open and it's not really the type of day you'd want to visit
|
|
unless the market was on,
|
|
and get down there early for, of course, the best bargains.
|
|
So, I'm not exaggerating.
|
|
If you go kind of one o'clock after lunch,
|
|
forget it,
|
|
most of the places I've been closed down by then.
|
|
So, you want to get there as early as you can.
|
|
Right, and now from one bit of moral high ground to one part where they're definitely
|
|
not going to be taking the moral high ground,
|
|
where, of course, Microsoft are up to the little tricks again,
|
|
and they're ensuring that the European Parliament does not accept,
|
|
or does not adopt open source software or open source solutions,
|
|
because they have started to hand out free licenses for Microsoft programs.
|
|
Now, the FSFE, that's a free software foundation for Europe, that is.
|
|
There have been urgent people,
|
|
urgent members of the European Parliament not to accept these,
|
|
basically, because Microsoft just does not want to lose out in the customs,
|
|
and it's even just going to be to the case of,
|
|
right, we'll hand you some free licensing, blah, blah, blah,
|
|
because they know fine well,
|
|
that it is going to be effort,
|
|
it is going to cost money,
|
|
or goes non-costening for the software,
|
|
it is costing money to get all this new system,
|
|
put out new programs, obviously, need training.
|
|
So, Microsoft, they're doing their usual tactics.
|
|
They will try absolutely anything to make sure open source
|
|
does not get into any form of public,
|
|
any form of public computing,
|
|
if it gets any form of publicity,
|
|
it just does not want it to happen at all.
|
|
Yeah, it's mind share, it's about what you know as well.
|
|
So, if they've got governments and institutions,
|
|
I mean, whatever government uses,
|
|
that essentially leads what businesses use,
|
|
because they need to take the right with government.
|
|
I mean, imagine the UK government decided that,
|
|
we're going to use open document format for document files now,
|
|
and you know, we're going to use a proper standard.
|
|
That would force Microsoft to,
|
|
well, first of all, I would force them to send in the shelves,
|
|
and send them to do exactly what we're talking about here,
|
|
it's giving away free licenses and saying,
|
|
no, you can't have that.
|
|
And, you know, the whole poison campaign,
|
|
you know, open source is insecure and blah, blah, blah.
|
|
And if that failed,
|
|
it would force them to add in their ability
|
|
in Microsoft Office to support ODS,
|
|
which they really don't want to do,
|
|
because they want people to use their own standards.
|
|
And it's all about walking, basically.
|
|
If there's a bridgehead opened up
|
|
with stuff like Libra Office or even Linux or BSD,
|
|
but especially Libra Office,
|
|
it's about what people know.
|
|
They use at home often what they use at work.
|
|
So if people get used to that at work,
|
|
Libra Office, and they say,
|
|
oh, it's free at work.
|
|
I can get the exact same thing at home,
|
|
and it doesn't cost a bean.
|
|
I mean, the chances are they'll install in windows,
|
|
but that's not the point.
|
|
And that digs away the whole mindset of,
|
|
you've got to have Microsoft Office
|
|
to do proper office stuff.
|
|
If you're finding that at work,
|
|
at a government level,
|
|
that you don't need that,
|
|
then it starts to corrode the actual older walking,
|
|
and the whole bigger cards is vulnerable.
|
|
Yeah.
|
|
Do you ever listen to the podcast,
|
|
the Open Take Exchange with Darylinen Mark?
|
|
I've heard Darylinen Mark doing a few episodes
|
|
or in half of public radio,
|
|
but I've not actually heard their show in the run, no.
|
|
Well, they were talking about this,
|
|
this exact thing,
|
|
and no, this is what I want to be very careful here, right?
|
|
Please, Microsoft lawyers,
|
|
I am going to hear, if you're listening, right?
|
|
This is not a case for legal issues,
|
|
but I'm only repeating here.
|
|
What they've actually been talking about
|
|
was that in Africa, especially,
|
|
because there's a lot of corruption
|
|
in government anyway throughout the whole continent,
|
|
then any country,
|
|
pick a country in Africa,
|
|
any time the government,
|
|
pissy, right,
|
|
would go in with open solutions.
|
|
Darylinen Mark had said,
|
|
you know, it was actually scary,
|
|
immediately,
|
|
Microsoft would back,
|
|
whoever was the rival.
|
|
Now, it didn't seem to matter to them,
|
|
what exactly they were,
|
|
what exactly they stood for?
|
|
I mean, literally,
|
|
the rival could be saying,
|
|
right, we stand for cannibalism,
|
|
you know, we're the cannibal party.
|
|
It didn't seem to matter.
|
|
They were just literally saying,
|
|
right, there you go,
|
|
if you say now,
|
|
you are going to use Microsoft products
|
|
and only Microsoft products
|
|
when you get into office
|
|
will fund your campaign completely.
|
|
That was actually a really scary list
|
|
show to listen to,
|
|
that one episode,
|
|
to think just,
|
|
I mean, okay,
|
|
this is obviously reported,
|
|
but to think that they go to that extreme,
|
|
just to kind of keep their product
|
|
in the spotlight.
|
|
To me, there's a worrying lack of morality,
|
|
I mean, where do you stop?
|
|
Yeah, and Microsoft didn't get
|
|
where they are today by making a good product,
|
|
and they didn't get where they are today
|
|
by having some sort of fair competition
|
|
side by side with other products,
|
|
and managed to be the better one
|
|
or the better value.
|
|
They got there because of abuses like this.
|
|
So it's no surprise.
|
|
I mean, it's not so much,
|
|
Microsoft has opted its old tricks again.
|
|
It's just a case of Microsoft
|
|
have never stopped doing these tricks.
|
|
They've passed masters of that,
|
|
they're well entrenched,
|
|
and they do it all over the world.
|
|
They've got whole departments for this,
|
|
all over the world,
|
|
to ensure that monopoly continues
|
|
against the,
|
|
the never ending match
|
|
of open and transparency
|
|
and standard and things like that.
|
|
Yeah, I mean,
|
|
it's no surprise.
|
|
Really, this is nothing new for Microsoft.
|
|
No, not at all,
|
|
but it's kind of worrying
|
|
just the fact of the levels they'll go to.
|
|
I mean,
|
|
but of course,
|
|
you couldn't even,
|
|
I can't imagine that they would
|
|
even ever be a proper report
|
|
on this by a proper news story
|
|
because no doubt they'll be in the back pocket
|
|
and then they'll be there
|
|
trying to discredit the reporter
|
|
or even the channel,
|
|
so that isn't going to happen.
|
|
Now, one of the things
|
|
that has become quite a hot potato
|
|
really of recently
|
|
is bubbling and tracking.
|
|
One of the companies that,
|
|
who have been trying to make it a wee bit easier
|
|
to set,
|
|
I mean, you can set,
|
|
anybody can set the preferences
|
|
on their browser
|
|
with a wee bit of tinkering
|
|
to do not track.
|
|
However,
|
|
Mozilla in general,
|
|
if you go into their preferences,
|
|
it's quite obvious.
|
|
Some of the,
|
|
otherwise it's not.
|
|
But Mozilla been working
|
|
for this for their new
|
|
mobile operating system,
|
|
which is just in the general system,
|
|
wide preferences of
|
|
do not track.
|
|
Now, there's only one thing
|
|
that does concern me about this.
|
|
You can tell,
|
|
and say to your browser,
|
|
to do not track.
|
|
So, in other words,
|
|
it does not get your cookies.
|
|
Excitevers,
|
|
don't get your cookies, etc,
|
|
which means they shouldn't be
|
|
passed on to different companies,
|
|
which, you know,
|
|
should mean less spam
|
|
and blah, blah, blah.
|
|
Right?
|
|
Unfortunately, that doesn't work.
|
|
It doesn't actually
|
|
store up the cookies being sent out.
|
|
It's everything's still there,
|
|
but if you've got do not track,
|
|
then the recommendation
|
|
is that if you've got it set for that,
|
|
that the company does not pass on
|
|
or does not use on,
|
|
in fact, just deletes
|
|
the information tools on you.
|
|
Now, there shall be a bit of a worrying thing here,
|
|
because I've got to be honest,
|
|
companies who do this make money of it,
|
|
why, if they're not,
|
|
if it's not legislation,
|
|
would they even want to not pass this on?
|
|
That is a thing,
|
|
with the internet as
|
|
services,
|
|
our sites,
|
|
they're free at the point of use,
|
|
which the vast majority of them,
|
|
and it is usually,
|
|
more often than not,
|
|
the price to use it free of charge,
|
|
is the fact that your stuff,
|
|
you've been tracked,
|
|
and you've been profiled,
|
|
and advertising,
|
|
and all that.
|
|
So that's usually the price you pay for that,
|
|
to actually use the services.
|
|
And, you know,
|
|
I mean, could you imagine Facebook
|
|
or Google of that,
|
|
not tracking,
|
|
it's just not going to happen,
|
|
because that's,
|
|
that's primarily where they get their,
|
|
they get the fuel from,
|
|
is from users there.
|
|
So you're right,
|
|
I mean,
|
|
if there's no legislation to force that,
|
|
even if there is legislation to force that,
|
|
I doubt any of the companies would actually do it,
|
|
they would do it in PR terms,
|
|
they would,
|
|
they would go through some process
|
|
to do it,
|
|
if they were forced to,
|
|
and then it would be buggy,
|
|
it wouldn't quite work right,
|
|
there would be ways around about it,
|
|
to say that,
|
|
yes, we're not tracking here,
|
|
but we've managed to do it this way,
|
|
and just get around the legislation.
|
|
It's what all criminals do,
|
|
is they'll find ways around the,
|
|
the laws,
|
|
to keep doing what they want to do,
|
|
and the profit from,
|
|
while staying on the,
|
|
on the letter of the law.
|
|
It's a good idea,
|
|
but the fact that the vast majority of the web
|
|
is funded by this type of stuff,
|
|
I don't think you're going to get any buy-in at all
|
|
from companies,
|
|
you'll get a few,
|
|
you'll get some ethical ones
|
|
who would do it
|
|
because they believe
|
|
and privacy and stuff like that
|
|
if people opt out,
|
|
but, you know,
|
|
the vast majority will say,
|
|
hey, fuck that,
|
|
we'll do what we want.
|
|
It's sort of like,
|
|
any kind of self-regulation
|
|
when there's,
|
|
when there's an outcry building up,
|
|
over some industries,
|
|
actions about doing something.
|
|
When it gets to the point
|
|
that politicians are involved
|
|
and start questioning
|
|
the companies and the individuals involved
|
|
and they start laying down hints
|
|
about what they could do,
|
|
usually the first thing
|
|
that comes out of the company's mouth says
|
|
or self-regulation
|
|
will put in these recommendations.
|
|
That's,
|
|
you don't need to bother setting down laws.
|
|
We'll just,
|
|
we'll self-regulate
|
|
all the file
|
|
that the suggestions they make
|
|
are only a fraction
|
|
of what's needed
|
|
and they've no intention
|
|
to go through them anyway.
|
|
That is what it seems to me
|
|
as just another sort of version of that
|
|
as you're right.
|
|
I mean,
|
|
very few companies
|
|
are going to opt in it,
|
|
which means it's,
|
|
it's kind of pointless.
|
|
The only option you've got
|
|
is to try and manually do it
|
|
by,
|
|
what it's disabled
|
|
and third party cookies
|
|
and have them
|
|
go through the various
|
|
hoops to protect yourself
|
|
because no one's
|
|
going to protect you
|
|
for you.
|
|
No, definitely not.
|
|
And to be honest,
|
|
if you're a
|
|
half-savvy tech user,
|
|
then it's not
|
|
really that difficult to do.
|
|
But
|
|
it's one people,
|
|
I feel sorry for people
|
|
who maybe
|
|
those intermediate users
|
|
who, you know,
|
|
they know how they're going
|
|
to edit in preferences
|
|
blah, blah, blah.
|
|
They probably honestly believe
|
|
they're actually disabled
|
|
in it by having this
|
|
do not track.
|
|
But it's just one
|
|
of those things.
|
|
I mean,
|
|
Google and Facebook.
|
|
How much do they
|
|
charge you for using
|
|
their services?
|
|
Monetarily?
|
|
Nothing.
|
|
It's not a paid-for-service.
|
|
They make their money.
|
|
And they didn't become
|
|
two of the biggest
|
|
computer companies
|
|
by doing things ethically
|
|
and having
|
|
absolutely no advertising
|
|
blah, blah, blah.
|
|
They are monitoring you
|
|
ever so closely.
|
|
It doesn't take much
|
|
for you to see.
|
|
Every time you put in a
|
|
search saying,
|
|
we recommend this
|
|
for you.
|
|
You know,
|
|
it's the same with Facebook.
|
|
I remember when I used
|
|
to actually have a
|
|
Facebook profile.
|
|
I would get constant
|
|
adverts for Linux
|
|
system administrators.
|
|
Blah, blah, this.
|
|
And I was like,
|
|
oh, this is just getting
|
|
too annoying.
|
|
But anyway,
|
|
I think we've probably
|
|
finished up on this section.
|
|
That's just actually
|
|
a good timing.
|
|
We've just come up to
|
|
half-hour.
|
|
And we are going to play
|
|
a bit of getting start
|
|
a bit of rock here.
|
|
And this is amity
|
|
and fame.
|
|
Who had a great band?
|
|
If you haven't checked,
|
|
check them out.
|
|
The first album is
|
|
on Jemento.
|
|
And it's called Dinner
|
|
for One.
|
|
The second album is
|
|
available on their website.
|
|
It's called Through.
|
|
I have both of those
|
|
are brilliant.
|
|
And this track is New
|
|
Born Sun.
|
|
Enjoy.
|
|
I have both of those
|
|
are missing.
|
|
I have both of those
|
|
are missing.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I have both.
|
|
I bring me some life and less time.
|
|
I bring some life and less time.
|
|
I bring some life and less time.
|
|
I bring some life and less time.
|
|
I bring some life and less time.
|
|
I bring some life and less time.
|
|
It's our time to go down and shine
|
|
It's our two four and five
|
|
It's our music, our song
|
|
And sure to throw out you will see
|
|
We'll change as fast as you'll be free
|
|
When you accept to share with me
|
|
You'll step in in our choir tree
|
|
We'll change as fast as you'll be free
|
|
Now thank you for trusting my help
|
|
Stand in here and I'll know the time
|
|
Still remember me without my soul
|
|
You'll love so much within you
|
|
You'll come at me again, you'll rule
|
|
You'll come at me again, you'll rule
|
|
When you accept to share with me
|
|
You'll step in in our choir tree
|
|
We'll change as fast as you'll be free
|
|
And we're back
|
|
And even the non-take-a-user, especially in the UK this last couple of weeks
|
|
would have struggled to not notice in the news that a certain franchise that has become quite a regular place on the UK High Street has actually gone into liquidation
|
|
And this is the store game
|
|
Now actually I didn't know this but game is also owned
|
|
Also owns the company I thought was a driver as game station
|
|
So they're actually one and the same
|
|
So now this does obviously mean there's a lot of potential redundancies
|
|
They haven't closed all their stores yet
|
|
They did actually close some very quickly
|
|
But they haven't closed them all yet
|
|
This will leave obviously in a bad climate a lot of people at a work
|
|
But that's not really the angle we're going to look at
|
|
We want to actually just discuss tonight how in fact game made its end
|
|
So do you want to start off with that?
|
|
I've not been a gamer for a while
|
|
But when I was a game was one of the regular places you were going and looking and seeing new releases and sometimes buy stuff
|
|
But game had a lot of issues
|
|
And it seems to be quite a common experience from people all over the country
|
|
And game stores where you go in and they've got a bossate of basically bouncing on people and trying to sell you stuff
|
|
And game, I mean that, that irritates me no end and at any store in regard to what it is
|
|
My bossate is if I want help I'll ask for it
|
|
And I don't want someone to sort of pounce on it
|
|
On me as soon as I come in the door
|
|
But game always do that
|
|
They've got to do it as part of their stuff policy
|
|
So I mean the thing is with gamers
|
|
As chances are most people who go into these to buy games know what and stuff they like
|
|
They are the people that are going to be experiencing it
|
|
And they are the people who are going to be playing the games
|
|
And they are the people who are going to have either played the game at their mates house
|
|
Or they've played demos of it
|
|
Or they've seen reviews
|
|
And they'd basically know what type of thing they're looking for
|
|
They know what type of I mean for a while
|
|
THC were absolutely awful
|
|
Anything they had was terrible, terrible games
|
|
And people know what they want
|
|
They don't need anyone to help sell them stuff
|
|
But game never quite grasped that concept
|
|
Yeah I was back in my windows days
|
|
I was a big user of games as well
|
|
Obviously one of the things that it's a bit disappointing with Linux
|
|
Really the game scene hasn't caused up
|
|
Well it's getting a lot better
|
|
I must admit this mission last year and a bit that it was
|
|
But I remember going into game
|
|
I've been into game once inside became a Linux user
|
|
And I mean talk about the customer who was right
|
|
She was not on the policy this day
|
|
Because I just thought well I wondered if they do actually have any
|
|
I didn't expect there to be a full section of Linux games
|
|
I'd be realistic
|
|
But I thought well they had a game store
|
|
Let's see if they've got any native Linux games at all
|
|
To see if they might have the odd one or two
|
|
And I thought well if they do even if they're crap games
|
|
I'll buy them just purely to show you know to show up and to support for them
|
|
And I went and asked
|
|
I said do you have any games that are native for Linux?
|
|
The first guy asked on the till
|
|
He said what's Linux? What's that?
|
|
Is it a new console?
|
|
I'm not going on my word
|
|
And the other guy
|
|
He said reaction was iconology
|
|
What he said was why would we?
|
|
Linux is a pile of crap
|
|
Well needless to say I never went into a game since then
|
|
So this doesn't make me sad to see game disappearing
|
|
At least one of the things I have found with local game stores
|
|
Not so much the game chain but localised ones
|
|
They will actually at least accommodate you
|
|
And a lot of them will say well we can try and get some in
|
|
If you can tell us a couple of suppliers or makers
|
|
But I could not believe how rude that guy was
|
|
So that was my last experience of game
|
|
It's not just the condescension
|
|
And the pouncing on people as well
|
|
It doesn't work
|
|
It's the whole value for money
|
|
I routinely found that game
|
|
Were rather expensive
|
|
For the games
|
|
Unless it was like the grade A, the brand new releases
|
|
Where they had no choice but to compete
|
|
Otherwise people would go on the week of a new release
|
|
If they didn't compete in pre and price
|
|
People would go to other stores and buy them
|
|
So they had no choice but other than that
|
|
Or they were on the expensive side
|
|
And then they did like pre-owned games as well
|
|
Which a lot of people now are
|
|
Because instead of paying like 45 bucks, 50 bucks for a game
|
|
I think it's going down a little bit now
|
|
But instead of doing that
|
|
They're only wait three or four months
|
|
And then either get it pre-owned or something
|
|
That half the price
|
|
But even that when you trade in a game
|
|
A game there
|
|
They'll give you peanuts for it
|
|
And then when they put their pre-owned sticker on
|
|
It's huge, they put a huge mark upon it
|
|
So that it's only like two or three bucks cheaper than the brand new one
|
|
So there's a huge mark up there
|
|
On stuff that they do
|
|
They're condescending
|
|
They jump on people as soon as they come in the door
|
|
All in all
|
|
It's a whole recipe for a failing
|
|
It's a way not to run a business
|
|
Basically is what games seem to be concentrating in
|
|
And I think what they were going for
|
|
As I mean as you said, you were kind of surprised that
|
|
They owned what youth thought was the rival as well
|
|
I thought they did, but I was too sure
|
|
When they go and buy rival chains
|
|
So that they are the only game, the knowledge basically
|
|
And they are the only game in a short and a short and a run out of time
|
|
I think the logic is, we're a monopoly, we get a monopoly
|
|
That customers will have no choice but to come to us
|
|
And put up with their bullshit
|
|
Put up with those pouncing on them when they come in the door
|
|
Put up with our condescending attitude
|
|
And put up with our high-prite high-pricees
|
|
The problem is they are not a monopoly
|
|
They may be a monopoly as far as independent games
|
|
Stores are concerned
|
|
But they're not a monopoly on where people get their games
|
|
No, definitely not
|
|
And the other thing that was interesting was
|
|
To read when you're talking about
|
|
This was three years ago
|
|
They were recommended
|
|
That group was set up because obviously
|
|
Game have been struggling for a while
|
|
It's not just for just now
|
|
They were recommended
|
|
That in the future, in the next few years
|
|
That you'd see chirping over from people buying physical games
|
|
Like in the box and off the shelves
|
|
To digital downloads
|
|
And they were actually recommended that they should produce
|
|
This and they should produce actually a download store
|
|
And it is also as well
|
|
I'm just reading this here
|
|
For using the game brand to
|
|
Parodigital storefronts on the PC's console
|
|
It's another platform
|
|
So in other words, you could maybe get
|
|
Your game app on the Android phone
|
|
iPhone or on the PC
|
|
Something similar to Steam or Dezura
|
|
But it seems those have been totally ignored
|
|
And in fact, it said
|
|
The CEO at the time
|
|
Was her name Lisa Morgan
|
|
She actually said
|
|
That this was completely unnecessary these steps
|
|
And I mean
|
|
For some people that are in the technology game
|
|
Okay, it's gaming
|
|
But I cannot believe somebody could actually be that blind
|
|
To say no, no
|
|
What we're doing, we're going to continue on with
|
|
Because it's quite obvious
|
|
People are buying less and less physical games
|
|
I mean, all you're going to do is
|
|
Have a wee look at the console industry
|
|
People are buying less and less
|
|
And when people are buying games
|
|
This drives me bananas for one
|
|
The games are getting shorter and shorter
|
|
But they're more concerned
|
|
With getting played over
|
|
Xbox Live
|
|
Or whatever the PlayStation equivalent of that
|
|
Is the PS3 equivalent of that
|
|
It's more online gaming
|
|
It's not as much a physical thing
|
|
It's pain for your download
|
|
Getting it there and then
|
|
It's not so much going and getting the box
|
|
Yeah, I mean, certainly
|
|
When I was a gamer
|
|
And I'm talking about the early days of the PS2
|
|
And that was at a time
|
|
Where console gaming
|
|
Over a network was
|
|
It was a rare thing
|
|
You could buy a modem for the PS2
|
|
But it was expensive and you
|
|
It wasn't really as it had on
|
|
And the Xbox
|
|
I can't remember
|
|
The whole network thing
|
|
Was the
|
|
The exclusive domain pretty
|
|
Almost exclusive
|
|
Of the Windows PC
|
|
Platform and console games
|
|
Hadnt went down that way
|
|
And even as far as
|
|
Delivering games
|
|
Buying the games is concerned
|
|
You couldn't really buy them as
|
|
A download you would buy them
|
|
Because they were so big
|
|
Expensive and it wasn't as widespread
|
|
For regular consumers
|
|
Actually buying a game
|
|
That would take like
|
|
Two or three gig
|
|
Was just a not an option
|
|
A feasible option and people
|
|
Were happy to buy the discs
|
|
The problem that
|
|
I mean this goes to
|
|
Not just gaming but our
|
|
All sorts of creative niches as well
|
|
As if you get the
|
|
Grade A titles, the top titles
|
|
You're being hammered
|
|
By the supermarkets
|
|
So you buy them in and buy the top
|
|
Ten or top 20 games
|
|
Top 20 books, DVDs,
|
|
Blu-rays, whatever it is
|
|
The stuff that's charting
|
|
The stuff that's being push
|
|
Really heavily
|
|
And expected to sell
|
|
By the bucket load
|
|
And the weeks and months
|
|
And it comes out
|
|
They are buying them in so much bulk
|
|
So if you go to something
|
|
If your new game comes out
|
|
You may be able to try it
|
|
And play it in a game to have a quick
|
|
Game of it to see what it's like
|
|
But it may be ten quid more expensive
|
|
There than saying
|
|
That's fine and over it's like now
|
|
I'll go to Tesco and buy it
|
|
And I'll go to Safeway and buy it
|
|
So they've been undercut over there
|
|
As far as the regular games are concerned
|
|
Only niche they've got then
|
|
Becomes the more obscure stuff
|
|
Not being
|
|
Other back catalogs
|
|
Because the supermarkets
|
|
Buy and bulk and expect to sell
|
|
It through and bulk
|
|
And as soon as it
|
|
Tips below a certain sales point
|
|
As soon as it goes out the charts
|
|
They send them all back
|
|
And you can't buy them
|
|
They had only place you've got
|
|
Is the independent places like
|
|
Game
|
|
So that was the physical thing
|
|
Someone who was in charge of a company
|
|
And presumably
|
|
Very well paid
|
|
For that role
|
|
And presumably taking out
|
|
Wards of millions of pounds and bonuses
|
|
For doing such a bang up job
|
|
To not see that the future
|
|
Was online that is
|
|
That is, that is
|
|
I can criminal as far as
|
|
Shareholders are concerned
|
|
That's obvious
|
|
I mean, you don't need hindsight
|
|
And online and getting your content online
|
|
And download it
|
|
And you know, that is
|
|
That is today, that has been today for a while now
|
|
And it's just, it's crazy
|
|
They didn't see that coming
|
|
I mean, okay, you could say
|
|
Well, we see it coming, we don't know
|
|
The like it, but we have to adapt
|
|
Somehow, and at least have a goal
|
|
Try and you adapt it
|
|
We've fighting the fight
|
|
But to just stand up and say, oh no, we don't want that
|
|
It's just sticking your head in the sand
|
|
It's like legacy industry
|
|
We don't want to adapt
|
|
To the way the customer wants
|
|
Because it's not as much profit in it for us
|
|
We would rather force people
|
|
To do it our way
|
|
When they clearly don't want to
|
|
Like I said, I can't get over this from my head
|
|
It sounds like actually
|
|
The company was being run by somebody
|
|
Who wasn't tech savvy at all
|
|
Which, you know, it baffles me
|
|
It really does
|
|
I just cannot get my head around how anybody
|
|
You know, maybe, okay, 15 years ago if they had said
|
|
Well, we don't want to go in that
|
|
And then, you know, five years ago
|
|
Saying, well, you know, I think it's time
|
|
We started moving
|
|
Even that would have been more acceptable
|
|
But we're talking three years ago here
|
|
We're not talking a long time ago
|
|
I mean, my first broadband connection
|
|
Was when
|
|
2001
|
|
It was 2001
|
|
It was the first time I had broadband
|
|
So, I mean, we're talking
|
|
It's eight years after broadband was regular into homes
|
|
I mean, I wasn't the first to get broadband
|
|
I had to kind of wait until I got afforded
|
|
Because it was quite pricey first of all
|
|
So, we're talking about eight years after
|
|
It was the norm in homes
|
|
And this person
|
|
And that's, I mean, Xbox Live
|
|
And all that must have been out by then
|
|
I mean, how could there be
|
|
That blinker
|
|
To say, okay
|
|
How could anybody be so blind
|
|
As to think, no, this is just a passing fad
|
|
People are going to want to come in
|
|
I mean, not even
|
|
With the, just the case of the download
|
|
But even if you want to think about it from the
|
|
What, you know, going green has been very, very much on people's agenda
|
|
Recently, a lot more than this been
|
|
You know, so you're talking, well, there's no physical
|
|
Plenty in there, there's no delivery, there's no
|
|
You know, CO2 might
|
|
You know, so you're talking
|
|
Well, there's no physical
|
|
Plenty in there, there's no delivery, there's no
|
|
Ty ojos, there's no packaging to dispose of
|
|
There's no treatment
|
|
actual
|
|
Shopped to go get it
|
|
You know, I just don't get the
|
|
The blinker'sness of the
|
|
Continuous, I mean hills
|
|
There's no packaging to dispose of
|
|
There's no script to go get it
|
|
You know, so
|
|
guy. You know, I mean, it just seems it was just an utter disaster. I think I would be if I was
|
|
a shareholder, I would want to be going after this day for that for being so short-sighted and
|
|
making so many wrong decisions. And usually when it comes to legacy businesses, they don't want
|
|
to risk anything that might just be an marginal case or an outside horse coming up on the side
|
|
and sort of breaking through the norm. They don't want to risk that, especially if it cannibalises
|
|
their current thing and they're really resistant to adopt anything new. But there's two words here
|
|
that you cannot ignore. You've got iTunes and Steam. I've never used either. But as far as I'm
|
|
aware, both iTunes and Steam are household names, the world over. PC gamers, Windows PC gamers,
|
|
should I say, they love Steam. They use Steam. There might not be much of an alternative. I don't
|
|
know. But Steam is a household name where it's a platform and people go and then sign up with
|
|
their credit card and whatever and download games and demos and add-ons for games and all that.
|
|
It's a platform to get games onto the front of the machine. And then iTunes, backed by Apple,
|
|
created by Apple, where you can have, you can buy music, you can buy videos and whatever else they do
|
|
and have them syncing across to your different devices. They have both been major mainstream
|
|
services for a long time now. They are major mainstream brands. They are Apple, certainly. They're not
|
|
one of the richest or most profitable companies on the planet with more cash than fucking God.
|
|
If they don't have a successful strategy. And that's what it is. They've proven. They've proven,
|
|
along with the Steam, that this is the present. This is what people are expecting. And even
|
|
taking the whole and the app store model as well, that's the same thing. People are now used to that.
|
|
And that's nothing new. So for someone to sort of see these major mainstream things,
|
|
and still not get it, it's just as clueless. Basically, it's like Frank's side bottom running
|
|
the company. But even not getting the future or not getting the present, even, it's not even the
|
|
future. It's the present about how people want to consume content, download TV shows to their
|
|
stream them to their tablets and the phones and stuff. It's not just that. The other thing they
|
|
had, when they tried to get into the monopoly thing, the monopoly angle of we own all of the
|
|
independent retail of all game stores. You see plenty of examples of this where you've got
|
|
like three game stores on the same street. And all of them have worked on a long-term leases
|
|
for the high street. And they're all competing with each other. And all three of them are wasting
|
|
money on a long-term rents and playing staff and paying insurance and all this. So they're basically
|
|
hemorrhaging money because they've got too many stores, basically. The one thing that
|
|
you see me raise a good point there. But the one thing I've just thought about is people do want
|
|
the physical. This is one, you talk about iTunes as well. I don't know why, but it's the one
|
|
area where the music is an advantage over gaming. With music, people do still like to have physical.
|
|
I mean, I must admit, I love to get us a CD by a CD or for band and support them. Or as recently
|
|
actually I bought an LP. But gaming's never had that. Not as far as to my knowledge. Okay,
|
|
you will get some people. I mean, I remember back in the days of the big box games. I mean,
|
|
those boxes came out. There were like two VCR videos put together. I'm just video tapes put
|
|
together. They were huge. And you did get some people who, when they released them as DVD style
|
|
covers, they were saying, oh no, I like the big box games. You did get some people like that.
|
|
But overall, the gaming industry does not get people with that kind of nostalgic thing with a
|
|
coin. I mean, you still do get an awful lot of people, like I said, buying the physical versions
|
|
of music. But that has never ever translated to gaming. Not 100% sure why, but maybe it's just
|
|
the gamers just adapt quicker. Maybe just wouldn't be probably more in the lines of cutting-edge
|
|
technology. Maybe we just don't have nostalgia. I remember nostalgia to us. Maybe it might be
|
|
downloading the ROMs in the 8-minute for the Atari 2600. I'm not 100% sure. But that is one
|
|
place where gaming does not work. So I mean, yes, you could say, well, why do we still have music
|
|
stores? But I think they are feasible. They do work. And as you can see now on the high street,
|
|
well, not new to the high street, but certainly off the side streets. There are more and more
|
|
independent kind of record. I mean, when I say record, I mean, LP shops, springing up.
|
|
I don't think whatever going to get that sadly with the gaming industry at all. I mean,
|
|
I remember back when I started gaming. And when I first started gaming, it was the old
|
|
Sinclair spectrum. I just love going to the gaming shops and used to see wall-to-wall tapes.
|
|
Most of them would screech for 15 minutes and then crash and you'd have to rewind them and play
|
|
them again. But that's not the point. I sadly, I do see that the traditional computer gaming
|
|
store, especially the independent one. I always like the independent ones. That is a dying
|
|
breed now, sadly. I don't think we're going to see them at very much longer. Because of,
|
|
well, I mean, obviously there's a reason for it because the likes of Steam, online gaming,
|
|
when you look at one of the most popular games for current market just now is Minecraft. There
|
|
is no physical copy of it, not a legal one in it, as far as I know.
|
|
Now, well, first off there, I had a point and then I'll come back to that. But on the second
|
|
thing you were talking about, about the independence, actually, I don't know if you could really call
|
|
game independent, to be honest. It is a chain store. There's so many stores all across the
|
|
the Lincoln Bridge of the country that they are a chain store and they're not independent, really.
|
|
No, no, I was actually talking about the independent gaming stores. As a member of those
|
|
wee computer shops, they might have been called, well, there was two here called these store and
|
|
we're computer shop. There was one I used to visit and in Venice, just used to be across
|
|
from the back door of the Cali Hotel and it was called the Inverness Computer. That's the
|
|
kind of ones I'm talking about. There's a lot of these levels. No, no, I agree with you there,
|
|
totally. Game itself was a chain and it was a blooming big chain.
|
|
I know, I mean, to be honest, the two shops you were talking about there were part of the D chain.
|
|
No, I know what you mean. I'm just saying that I think we'd probably wrongly been
|
|
talking about game as independent. I'll just start to mention that. But the thing is,
|
|
there's really, there's always going to be a place for truly independent
|
|
sellers of things like games and books and movies and audio and all of that. Question is whether
|
|
it can survive as a physical thing or not, or whether it really would need to be online.
|
|
Because the one thing that the big stores, as I said earlier, that the one thing they can't do
|
|
is offer a wide selection of stuff. I mean, you go into an HMB store and you're looking
|
|
for some artist's back catalog and you see some album that was out in 1974 and it kind of
|
|
didn't excel that way on. It's almost been on the brink of being deletive,
|
|
being deletive of the catalog, but they still got two copies sort of thing.
|
|
There's always that niche and there's always the value and the staff there having knowledge of that
|
|
and being able to say, oh, we've got almost a collector's thing. There's always going to be a
|
|
value in that, but whether it's going to be a value or profit or there was a physical store as
|
|
another case, likely not. So these independence, there's always value in that. But back to what
|
|
originally was going to say this, but was people are buying something that's different from what's
|
|
on sale. When companies sell, I mean, say it's EA games, when they sell FIFA, they're selling it
|
|
as they're putting, they're telling you the value is in this and this game, you know, in this
|
|
desk and in this box and you've got the only booklet and stuff like that with all the moves
|
|
and stuff like that. That's not what people buy. The people buy something to put in their machine
|
|
and get the controller in their hand and the value is in the experience they have by looking
|
|
at the screen and pressing the buttons and getting scoring goals and setting up goals and stuff
|
|
like that. And most games, if not all games now, you have training levels where it says if it's
|
|
like a first person showing your press squared to docking. So you've got in-game training and a lot
|
|
of people are familiar pretty much with different genres of games anyway. So you can jump
|
|
into a football game and okay, the person, the shoot button might be swattering about, but it
|
|
doesn't take you that long to figure that one out and you can learn on the go. And I mean, for the
|
|
point is you don't pick up the, when you back a game, what, I mean, when was the last time you
|
|
bought a game and said, right, I better read the instructions first. You don't do that, you just
|
|
put the thing in the machine, you switch it on, the controller on your hand and you play.
|
|
So that's, there's no, there's little to no value in the actual, the medium, the physical medium,
|
|
the disc and the Emily card in the box other than to keep it safe and unscratched on a shelf.
|
|
It's the same with that, with a movie, if you buy a blu-ray or a DVD, you don't get any value
|
|
from the physical disc. You put the disc in the machine and you've got your remote to press the
|
|
button and have that movie or that TV show play whenever you want to watch it. And you've got the
|
|
value is in the extras where you can watch them and see how things were made and influences
|
|
and things like that and put on director's commentaries. And that's where the value is, it's not
|
|
in the physical product. You have to be buying a physical product, but you can easily download that
|
|
as long as the actual quality is the same as what you see on the screen and all the buttons
|
|
work the same way, it doesn't matter whether that came from a download on your hard drive or
|
|
whether it came from a disc that you put in the machine, the medium is irrelevant.
|
|
Yeah, I suppose the only way you say the medium would be irrelevant would be maybe with slightly
|
|
older users, but this isn't really that much of a gaming issue to be honest. You know,
|
|
maybe they might not be trusting so much as far as, you know, I want to see if I've paid good
|
|
money for it, I want my physical copy, but realistically that has got to be a dying breed and
|
|
the other thing is you'd have to be a pretty old gamer to be of that mentality.
|
|
And I suppose maybe that's one of the reasons why bookshops are still, you know, they're still
|
|
fairly regular. Obviously a lot of older people still read, you know, but not so much older people,
|
|
I can't imagine that many older people will be signing up for the new consoles from Sony and
|
|
Nintendo, you know, but it's just one of those things. But yeah, there's absolutely as far as
|
|
I can see that there is almost no benefit these days in doing something like in having the likes of
|
|
a gaming shop. Why? Well, for a start, you've actually got to employ people to work there,
|
|
you've got to pay your rates, you've got to pay your rent, you know, you've, you've got to have,
|
|
I mean, you've got to cover not just enough to make money on the game that you bought,
|
|
you've then also got to make enough money so to cover all these other things.
|
|
Now, on top of that, yes, you do have the advantage that you do get someone you're speaking to when
|
|
you go in and it is local, as far as geographically, it could be local and might part of a huge chain.
|
|
But I just don't get where the comparison is for like when you can buy it online,
|
|
where as you said, buy it online, it's maybe 15 quid cheaper, you also get constant updates,
|
|
you know, if there's an update, if there's updates, there's 1.5 whatever, if you bought that,
|
|
chances are you'll get it downloaded, if you buy it in store and then there's an update
|
|
consumption, you've probably got to go on buy the blood thing all over again, you know,
|
|
there's certainly not going to send it out for free. So to be honest, it really is stacked against
|
|
them and this is what I think, you know, gaming apart from maybe a small corner and maybe HMV,
|
|
I think you're always going to have something, some physical because there's plenty too many places
|
|
where the broadband still isn't reaching and reaching very well. I mean, I still know people
|
|
are certain parts, even on the island here, I mean, I get a great connection for the island,
|
|
I'm about seven and a half meg, my connection, but yet I know people are outside of the area,
|
|
they can't connect to broadband at all, so they use satellite and the maximum speed they'll
|
|
get one, one MB, you know, so realistically and they're also very much limited and how much they can
|
|
download. So realistically, it's not an option to download games, you are still going to get those,
|
|
but the more and more time goes on, the more and more things are upgraded, the more and what it's
|
|
just going to become a niche. I mean, to be honest, there's probably not that many consoles now that
|
|
people have that aren't connected to the internet, that aren't getting these updates, that aren't
|
|
playing with their mates online, rather than physically getting the disk and then phoning up their
|
|
mates and saying, oh right, could you, do you want to come around play this game? No, I said
|
|
that'll do the same, right, you know, you fancy, fancy going for a game online, yep, give me two
|
|
minutes to allow gone and that's just the way of the world and we have to move with it, if we're
|
|
in the industry, you can't just simply see I'm putting my head in the sand and do absolutely
|
|
nothing, instead we're going to have to be seeing right, we've got to move with it or we're going to
|
|
die and sadly the latter has happened, you know, I'm, again, it's no loss to me but at the same time
|
|
we've got to think we can't just be that blinkered and say tough it's no loss, it's no error lost
|
|
tough, we are going to, you know, there was a lot of people employed by game, it was a big franchise
|
|
so but they didn't move with the times and they're paying the price of it now. I mean there's all
|
|
sorts of advantages and disadvantages for bricks and more of as well as an online thing, I mean
|
|
some companies can do it where they they have some sort of combination thing whereby you can
|
|
reserve it online or you can even buy it online and go and pick it up in store, there's people who
|
|
go in in store to actually, I mean I do this when I'm looking at things and things in like
|
|
commenting queries, I'll check them out online and I sort of narrow them down and then go into
|
|
the store and actually see them in the flesh so to speak and assuming there's no price difference
|
|
between that and online, I might not even buy them there, I might buy them Amazon, so there's
|
|
that I mean if you're only online then you miss out on that and some people as well is because
|
|
there's also a sort of companies claiming like first sale rights whereby you cannot transfer the
|
|
thing that you supposedly quote bot on quote, if you don't have the physical copy, you can't
|
|
do anything about that, I mean if you go and buy a physical book you can do whatever the fuck you
|
|
want with that, you can you can give it to your mom, your dad, your son, your daughter, however,
|
|
you can sell it, you can you can give it to a charity shop, it's a physical item that changes
|
|
ownership, if you've got an ebook, well that's different you know there's there may well be limits
|
|
on that through DRM or if you lose a copy of it, if you lose your computer or something and the
|
|
you know do you have to go and buy it again, are you allowed to make a backup, so there's there's
|
|
that but yeah I mean there is the idea of the sort of blend on and offline is some companies that
|
|
have happened to that are there's arm but to avoid the whole online thing altogether that's just
|
|
insane, as far as the updates are concerned you're right, I mean if you if you get something
|
|
that's you going to buy it online you will get the latest latest version, might have bug fixes
|
|
or something like that, but that's just the way it is suppose I mean that the other thing that
|
|
that went against game as well was they they had pissed off publishers by their pre-owned stuff
|
|
and because again the first sale thing is that when they sell pre-owned they don't have to give
|
|
any of that money to to the publishers because the publishers already made their profit on the first
|
|
sale and I'm the tonne these bastions of free culture publishers decided to retaliate by doing
|
|
things like refusing to supply AAA titles when they came out, a lot of these big AAA stuff
|
|
it's like movies the the real value to the retailer comes in their initial week of release that's
|
|
when most people who want it and who are going to pay fuel price for it are going to buy it
|
|
and if they are not supplied with it they can't buy it there and so they're going to lose out
|
|
out there as well so yeah that's that's one thing that's that's also counting against them
|
|
yes it is all right and are we about ready to wrap this up and just noticing the times
|
|
are ticking on did we get any more suggestions? Yeah from Phil the bearded gnome
|
|
who were asked about companies that sell one of our sell pieces without without
|
|
one without windows sorry to avoid the windows tax so and he's mentioned I've got a company called
|
|
Cougar Extreme who do that underneath him and so on to that they've been doing a bit of thinking
|
|
on how the site is going and how it can be improved and how easy to do things basically and
|
|
what we used to have was separate sections for recommended links to sites like tect up and all
|
|
that stuff for media for for like podcast and things events like it was them or whatever
|
|
and I wanted to do all that in a fancy way with sort of lists and all that and it's pretty
|
|
that's been that's been a wasted time essentially so what I'm decided to do is actually set it
|
|
up instead I've removed all of that and set it up as a wiki so if you've not got a wiki button
|
|
it's dripples on internal wiki it's quite limited but it's functional and we're using that now
|
|
for lists of things like how to avoid the windows tax companies you can you can support
|
|
and Phil's list is on there we're going to have that for suggestions for topics for
|
|
criminals as well if you've got topics you want to suggest it does mean you need an account
|
|
with the the dripple side is the main unseen studio site to do that and then add your own stuff
|
|
there the other question is the forums are small they are a separate program it's Fox BB
|
|
and my thinking is given the fact that it's that small and we're shurving most things across
|
|
onto the wiki anyway and then if the feedback for individual episodes can go in the comments
|
|
sections for those episodes is there any point in having a forum that's that's the question
|
|
is there any point in having a forum my my instincts are no it's not but you know that's
|
|
that's a question of putting out there if anyone has as a compelling reason to keep it keep the forum
|
|
or to keep the forum as it is or just to do away with it then either side of that debate just
|
|
please let us know and we'll only think about it so yeah I think that's that's it for that
|
|
discussion the main thing is I mean if you're feeling no no we really do like the forums then
|
|
you know let us know with us we don't want to be enraging our listeners at the same time though
|
|
if you do really want to keep the forums I would really recommend you try and get us
|
|
any of your mates to listen to this you know whether their real life mates are virtual mates
|
|
doesn't say it doesn't matter get them signing up and as long as they don't basically their username
|
|
is not the same as one of we guys dense then we're probably going to be quite happy to assist them
|
|
however if your spammers would rather not just close the forums or rather close them on top of you so
|
|
well a big if we're going to flip the birdie to any spammers that are about here I think what
|
|
it happened actually was it was more that when I was thinking about different eye angles for the
|
|
site I wasn't aware of existing services that already did that one initially I'd wanted to do
|
|
logs to list people's when it's user groups and then I realized when I was building the site that
|
|
there's already a site that specializes in that and they do it so much better as they're
|
|
the main thing then then we could ever do it as a little site thing so we thought right not
|
|
going to duplicate that go with that and then I found after that I found that there's also one
|
|
for events which again is much the same thing let's think it's force events I believe and again
|
|
that's their whole that's their host host dick and they do it so much better so it's all these
|
|
little things are building up and I sort of decided look there's no point in having these bits of
|
|
deadwood on the site you know if there are other places are better for them so yeah they want to
|
|
wrap this up then wrap this up with all that yeah we're getting there just one last thing I'd like
|
|
to ask about is just if anybody has an idea for a show or if maybe they're thinking they're
|
|
like to actually start recording and it's roughly along our kind of guidelines which is just basically
|
|
it's a free and open source so really all we're really looking for then send an email to the
|
|
show so that iscrivans at unseenstudio.co.uk and if you want to have a wee discuss about
|
|
if you fancy becoming part of the unseenstudio's podcast network then you are more than welcome
|
|
we're hopefully going to keep this expanding out as well you can follow us on identical I am
|
|
at kevy and garden is at thistleweb we also have one for announcing the shows and that is at
|
|
unseenstudio and I'm pretty much thinking that says is anything else I've forgotten?
|
|
yeah that's it we've got also looking for little surreal intro audio clips if you've got something
|
|
bizarre with the woodcrivans in it it's a little little 30 second clip audio clip
|
|
then please send and commons at unseenstudio.co.uk and yeah that's it so I want to find the song
|
|
for the for the end of the show yes and this is actually no I couldn't pronounce his band's name
|
|
and it's to do like you thought it was to do a Harry Potter song we'll let you do it you far on
|
|
yeah I hope to try and get mumble to the to the front so that I can read it yeah the band is
|
|
diddly's diddly's right eye the song has a dreamcatcher and so it's good night from me and it's
|
|
adios from me
|
|
yeah
|
|
don't sugarcoat it's a better pill take it twice a day and it'll make you ill the needle in
|
|
you're you ragged close so you can see your father mr christopher crow watch but never boils in the
|
|
in the situation don't go running around crazy aggravation how many numbers can you count to
|
|
and not pretty hard it's not often I get to talk this long and I intend
|
|
eat up eat up you were young master the truth is it becoming when you tell me it's some type
|
|
eat up eat up you were young master and tell us something pretty something pretty before she dies
|
|
so please excuse me I'm kind of new just show me the ropes and I will tie up you the minute
|
|
shield that can freeze our tongue so you could never tell me what the hell was wrong I want to kiss you
|
|
then break up the makeup watch rinse repeat until your conscience is clean and you're able to
|
|
see you love me how many numbers can you count to and not pretty hard it's not often I get to talk
|
|
this long and I intend eat up eat up you were young master the truth is it becoming when
|
|
you tell me it's some type eat up eat up you were young master and tell us something pretty
|
|
something pretty before she dies
|
|
you can't just think it says couldn't be anymore
|
|
you can't just think it says couldn't be anymore
|
|
you can't just think it says couldn't be anymore
|
|
you can't just think it says couldn't be anymore
|
|
eat up eat up you were young master the truth is it becoming when you tell me it's some type
|
|
eat up eat up you were young master and tell us something pretty something pretty before she dies
|
|
because I'm a dream catcher I'll take it faster and faster faster
|
|
you have been listening to Hacker Public Radio or Hacker Public Radio those are
|
|
we are a community podcast network that releases shows every weekday Monday through Friday
|
|
today's show like all our shows was contributed by a HBR listener like yourself
|
|
if you ever consider recording a podcast then visit our website to find out how easy it
|
|
really is Hacker Public Radio was founded by the digital dog pound and the
|
|
computer cloud HBR is funded by the binary revolution at binref.com all binref projects are
|
|
crowd-responsive by linear pages from shared hosting to custom private clouds go to lunar pages
|
|
.com for all your hosting needs unless otherwise stasis today's show is released under a creative
|
|
commons attribution share a like the does our license
|