slamble

slamble

  • Commented on Service update
    Chalk this Australian up as another one that's interested in hearing your thoughts on the subject; there's very little about it (apart from our turd of a prime minister sticking his oar in, in his typically gauche and overbearing manner)...
  • Commented on Message for GISHWHES participants
    Yes, you're right. There's an implied "if the organisers of this thing have any sort of moral scruples about them" in my comment that should have been made more clear. The whole thing really does strike me as being more...
  • Commented on Message for GISHWHES participants
    I find it very hard to believe that the organisers of this "event" were unaware of the likely impact of their list of items. You're talking tens of thousands of people; there is no way you can reasonably expect them...
  • Commented on A footnote about the publishing industry
    The counter I would make to that is that there is a lot less character and plot development in a typical TV show episode than there is in a novel. If we take Babylon 5 as an example, I would...
  • Commented on Amazon: malignant monopoly, or just plain evil?
    Yes, VLC will happily play any DVD you throw at it, regardless of the region setting; it may take a little time to crack the CSS key, but it will do it. However. There are DVD-ROM drives out there that...
  • Commented on Some news about the Hugo voters packet
    The big issue that I can see with serialisation - and bear in mind that it may not apply to all works, but I reckon it would apply to quite a few - is maintaining internal consistency. Currently, you write...
  • Commented on "Write me something fresh and new, but make it just like the last one"
    "Invisible Sun" sounds vaguely like a sequel to "Iron Sunrise" to me. (We shall now have a moment's silence for the Eschaton series... ;) ) More seriously, it's now at the point where I automatically buy anything with "Charlie Stross"...
  • Commented on Heartbleed note
    It also depends on whether or not OpenSSL actually uses the system malloc. Turns out it doesn't. And that - surprise, surprise - they got it very, very wrong when they tried to implement their own internal free list to...
  • Commented on Schadenfreude
    Re: "Anything Man invents, Man can crack." Sounds to me like something from the Lensman series. I enjoyed reading them when I was a kid, but these days, they really strike me as describing a full blown dictatorship, with a...
  • Commented on Miscellanea
    Key difference: remote landers are, well, remote - they can't be controlled in real time by humans; the time delay is too great (around 8-40 minutes, depending on where the two planets are in their orbits, for a round trip.)...
  • Commented on Introducing new guest blogger: Ramez Naam
    They're available. Search for them on Amazon in the Kindle store, rather than just following the links; Amazon will spit out the version you're "allowed" to buy. Or use the Robot Trading Company links provided by Ramez. However, at least...
  • Commented on Blatant Advertising
    Mind? Mind?! Hell no - whilst I did enjoy Halting State and Rule 43, I'm an absolute glutton for the Laundry (majored in CS in 1997, now a professional sysadmin), and the Merchant Princes was a very interesting read. The...
  • Commented on Commercial interlude
    That reminds me of the Crucible trilogy by Sara Douglass (The Nameless Day, The Wounded Hawk, and The Crippled Angel.) Let's just say that the Roman Catholic Church, in that series, was actually set up to deal with a particular...
  • Commented on Cheap Reads!
    Squeezing suppliers into providing their product at a lower cost is not normally a matter of concern to competition authorities.It is (or should be) when the purchaser is effectively a monopsony, or near to one. There are plenty of examples...
  • Commented on Cheap Reads!
    The thing you're forgetting is that DRM creates an opportunity for customer lock-in. If I buy a reader from Amazon, it will let me read ebooks with Amazon DRM, and ebooks that are DRM free. If I then buy ebooks...
  • Commented on Cheap Reads!
    I'll pay that. But that wasn't my train of thought - rather, I was thinking that with a standalone app on a relatively open platform, the hard part - getting hold of the keys to break open the DRM -...
  • Commented on Cheap Reads!
    Sadly, no. The tool in question works for music, and maybe video, but not for ebooks; that ability was lost somewhere during iTunes version 10 (it's now on version 11.) I'm hoping that that situation will change soon, given that...
  • Commented on Crib Sheet: Halting State
    I'm still waiting for somebody to come out with a second person shooter......
  • Commented on Crib Sheet: Halting State
    I vaguely remember this being touched on, but can't quickly find the reference. As I recall it, Ace didn't print enough copies of Halting State, and - if they had - it might have hit the bestseller charts (which would...
  • Commented on Crib Sheet: Glasshouse
    The world needs more works by Charlie Stross. Whether said works are set in the Merchant Princes, Laundry, Eschaton (yes, I went there), Halting State, Accelerando, or Saturn's Children universes doesn't really matter. But then, I'm a raving fanboy (in...
  • Commented on A message from our UK sponsors
    and when I say it "worked for me", I mean that I now have the ebook in my hot little paws, ready to read. (except for the small detail that I'm currently working my way through the Uplift Exiles trilogy,...
  • Commented on A message from our UK sponsors
    Worked for me. $USD13.80 (which is, when all is said and done, not entirely unreasonable for an omnibus edition that's been edited down) from Melbourne, Australia. As for how friendly Amazon's region restrictions are: suffice to say that I'm seriously...
  • Commented on A message from our UK sponsors
    To buy the Australian version in Kindle form, you need to go to Amazon US. (Hopefully I got Charlie's referral code right - mods, please feel free to edit the URL if I got it wrong.)...
  • Commented on Wow
    This raises an interesting question. Was there anything in Mister Brandenburg's writings about DC-8 lookalike aircraft? My coat? It's the grey one on the hook over there ......
  • Commented on Political failure modes and the beige dictatorship
    Nitpick: Not Mr Packer. Kerry passed away a few years ago; James sold off his media stake and got into casinos instead. As for the rest, justinboden @79 said it better than I could. RDSouth @ 83: I don't see...
  • Commented on It's a Wonderful Life
    Ahh, yes, the USA. Where more money is spent in the health system, for worse results, than anywhere else in the world. Now, that's not to say that the system in Australia, the UK, Norway, New Zealand, and other such...
  • Commented on THE END.
    I'm now visualising a BLEVE (go search for that term on YouTube; I'll wait; fascinating stuff) with a tank of liquid oxygen thrown in for good measure. My brain has shut down. Completely....
  • Commented on THE END.
    In my circles, that's the generally accepted way to congratulate new mothers. Not sure what that says about me, or my circles ... So, Charlie. What figures should I write on this cheque, made payable to you, to be an...
  • Commented on In case you were wondering ...
    I now have this burning desire to know what the novel equivalent of a fully laden road train would be. (No, fat fantasy trilogies - or worse, Robert Jordan's offerings - don't count; they're generally not fully laden.)...
  • Commented on Sitrep
    What, you thought they might try to publish it early?As the saying goes: "Hope springs eternal..." Still, more Stross is always a Good Thing(tm) in my experience....
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