WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net and technology news
by Alan Lenton
Apologies for the unexpected absence of Winding Down last week.
I work for a company called Green Man Gaming which sells digital copies of games, and also buys them back for used sales. Anyway, last weekend we were selling Civilization V at half price for just 24 hours, when suddenly the word got round and we were absolutely inundated with purchasers. I know what you're thinking, but you're wrong, our system handled the load with no problems.
What did happen, though, is that we ran out of activation keys to give to purchasers. Not a good thing. So I wrote to all the people who didn't get a key as their support requests came in, explaining the problem and what we were going to do about it. It's always better to explain what the problem is to people, and what you are going to do to fix it. Bluffing and bull---t merely shows contempt for your customers.
This was Saturday night, and I explained that we would get more keys off the publisher on the Monday, and send them out immediately. Of course, being in the UK, I didn't realize that last Monday was a federal holiday in the USA, and, of course, the publisher's staff were on holiday. Fortunately, come Tuesday the publisher was very helpful and got the keys to us on Tuesday night UK time - during their morning - and we were able to get keys off in the e-mail to all the remaining customers early on Wednesday morning.
Phew! In the meantime, our software is being amended so that if this happens again it tells people what's happening when they get to the checkout, and gives them an option not to continue if they don't want to wait for the key.
Unfortunately, this left me with no time to sit down and write Winding Down last week, and the fallout has reduced the time I had for searching out material for the newsletter this week, so it's somewhat shorter than usual.
Normal service will, I hope, be resumed next week!
Shorts:
You've got to hand it to the US Homeland Security, when they screw up, they do it in style. Earlier this month they shut down 84,000 personal and small business web sites, accusing them of being responsible for child pornography - by mistake! I thought the powers that be over here in the UK were bad, but there is no way we can match Homeland Security at this game.
Homeland Security has finally admitted it made a mistake, but, as far as I can tell, they have not issued an apology, said who is responsible, or even explained how it happened, let alone offered any restitution to those who suffered serious damage to their reputations and financial loss.
I assume that some sort of class action will come out of this little mess, but I doubt if the resulting compensation will come out of the budget of those responsible...
http://torrentfreak.com/u-s-government-shuts-down-84000-websites-by-mistake-110216/
The struggle over your right to own your purchased e-books is only just beginning. Publishers Harper Collins have come up with the insane idea that they are going to nuke e-books sold to public libraries after 26 library checkouts!
I'm tempted to wonder exactly what they were smoking when they came up with this one. If I can figure out what it is, I can make my fortune selling it to World of Warcraft geeks to use before they go off on a raiding expeditions. Still, as author Cory Doctorow points out, that's better than Macmillan, who refuse to allow any of their e-book titles to be available in libraries. Incidentally, all Doctorow's Harper Collins e-books are all available as DRM-free Creative Commons downloads.
http://www.boingboing.net/2011/02/25/harpercollins-to-lib.html
If you used to read Lord of the Rings as a child, then now that you are grown up, you might like to read the other side of the story... Some time ago (about 15 years ago, actually) the Russian paleontologist Kirill Yeskov decided to apply his skills at reconstructing extinct organisms from fossils to Tolkein's magnum opus. The result was an essay called 'The Last Ring Bearer', an attempt to construct the 'real' world setting of Tolkein's epic saga from its myths. The essay (more like a book - it's about 80% of the length of 'The Fellowship of the Ring') has now been translated into English, and is available as a free pdf download (clearly it's not been published by Macmillan...).
I haven't read it yet, but the reviews I've read make it sound rather interesting, so I plan to get it as soon as things at work become a little less hectic. I'll let you know what I think of it when I've done so (alternatively, you could all let me know, if you happen to read it).
http://ymarkov.livejournal.com/270570.html
Do you use Firefox as your browser? If so, when the box comes up on your screen for an update, take it. The latest update fixes no less than 659 bugs - including the one that made Firefox keep eating ever more of your memory, even when you weren't opening new tabs. The new fixes are only in beta at the moment, but I expect that they will be released properly in the very near future. Personally, I have to confess that I gave up on Firefox in the middle of last year and moved over to Chrome. I just got fed up with the bloat and the idiosyncrasies of Firefox. Chrome took a while to get used to, but I really like it - it's fast, lean and loads in a minimum of time.
http://blog.internetnews.com/skerner/2011/02/mozilla-firefox-4-beta-12-fixe.html
http://www.google.com/chrome
Homework:
Ars Technica are currently running a series of extracts from Johnny Ryan's recent book, 'A History of the Internet and the Digital Future'. I haven't read the book yet, but if the extract is anything to go by, it's well worth doing so. The first extract is about the links between the genesis of the Internet and nuclear war. It covers how the RAND think tank came into existence and the role played by RAND. Also mentioned is the abysmal failure of AT&T to understand any non-analog communications! No big surprise there then...
Take a look - it makes for some very interesting reading.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/02/how-the-atom-bomb-gave-birth-to-the-internet.ars/
Geek Toys:
Calling all World of Warcraft geeks. There's a new set of steampunk peripherals out for you to play with! Take for instance the burnished steel 'Cataclysm' mouse. This heavyweight monster will no doubt help any player to deal with unwanted irritations. The matching Cataclysm keyboard is also a pretty massive beast with oodles of soft keys and ability to switch a standard key set for a WoW tuned one with access to large quantities of macros.
All heavy duty stuff for the WoW aficionado!
http://www.reghardware.com/2011/02/16/review_steelseries_wow_peripherals/
For those of you in slightly more reflective mood, how about a peek at the world's largest touch screen? It's at the at the University of Groningen's Reality Touch Theatre. I would want one, except that I've got no idea where I could put the screen, let alone all its supporting machinery. Memo to self: next time you move house, make sure it's big enough for a very large touch screen...
http://www.silicon.com/technology/hardware/2011/02/17/photos-worlds-largest-touchscreen-
powers-up-39746995/?s_cid=144
Scanner:
BitTorrent is to stealing movies what "bolt-cutters are to stealing bicycles"
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/02/bittorrent-is-to-movies-what-bolt-cutters-are-to-stealing-bicycles.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss
What sealed Nokia's fate?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/16/nokia_had_choices_but_couldnt_take_them/
Black ops: how HBGary wrote backdoors for the government
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/02/black-ops-how-hbgary-wrote-backdoors-
and-rootkits-for-the-government.ars/
How my smart phone got me out of a speeding ticket in traffic court
http://skattertech.com/2011/02/how-my-smart-phone-got-me-out-of-a-speeding-ticket-in-traffic-court/
Acknowledgements
Thanks to readers Barb, Fi, Lois, and to Slashdot's daily newsletter for drawing my attention to material used in this issue.
Please send suggestions for stories to alan@ibgames.com and include the words Winding Down in the subject line, unless you want your deathless prose gobbled up by my voracious Spamato spam filter...
Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
27 February, 2011
Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist, the order of which depends on what he is currently working on! His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan.
Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html.
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