So, I rented a movie a while back... In the Loop, a Uk political satire... I ripped it and sent it back to rental... A month later, sat down to watch it, and bravo, one of few dvd rips which didn't work. So, what did I do? I download it from the torrents.

Just watched it. Utterly superb. Excellent satire. I will buy that from amazon... Because I like to pay towards more of these being made... £4.98 about 2xthe rental price I paid originally...

And yet that would count towards this massive piracy overreaction various groups have...

I wonder if they'll ever admit that some people buy the cd or dvd because they want to pay towards the makers? That sometimes the days of the middleman record companies are going fast.

I doubt that. Won't make a difference...
- posted by John @ 6:44 PM

 
Left the blog for a bit. I sort of decided to take a laid back approach to getting a job. Well, little choice. That and I've got a little side project to mess with...

Jobs applied for this week: about 10. Replies, 2. One was wanting references in advance of interview, which I wont do, because agents have been known to do this to get contacts for more jobs. So this seemed to stop them wanting me.... Another, I had 15 out the 16 skills they required, and I still didnt get put forward for the job.

I think there are a lot of people telling lies out there about their CVs. Has to be done. I've not quite got to that stage, yet.

Still, decided to post humour links. This one is a classic, a lot might already know this:

www.thingsmygirlfriendandihavearguedabout.com





- posted by John @ 5:26 AM

 
Seems as if most of my friends I used to work with are attempting to get out of IT. Various of them are trying to work out alternate careers or exit strategies from current jobs which are being outsourced to India.

Still, had a good day and night out with them. Very nice to see them again, and it is quite sad that the IT industry seems to be so mortally wounded at the moment. Its about the 4th year into a recession, and there are claims IT is improving, but I see none of that.

Jobs seem to exist on places like www.jobserve.com. Well some do. You get occasional replies from occasional jobs. But, they are so tightly specified that they might as well say "must be called Dave and have wife called Sandra". They want someone exactly like themselves but with far more skills.

Theres also a belief that you cannot do something unless you have n years of experience in it. I know over 11 years of C++, but I would not be considered for the very similar language of Java in a job. Oh yeah, and they often want someone with like 15 diverse skills which they cannot possibly be experts in given the age group they expect them to be from.

120 C++ contract jobs on jobserve today. Number I might have a chance of getting? 0.


- posted by John @ 11:59 AM

 
Going down to visit Reading this morning.. Every year a bunch of people who used to work together, but got made redundant 11 years ago, meet up for an anniversary of the redundancy day. Actually, it was May 11th, but we're a little
early this year.... Some people are quite amazed that we still do this, but I guess only a few of us actually travel a distance
to be there. The 11 hours of drinking tends to make us come along...
- posted by John @ 1:25 AM

 
Over the last 2 years, I've been ripping my albums to mp3... It was after I got a 20 gig hard disc player (not an ipod, I just dont get them, I want an external hard disc which also plays mp3s). I did a first pass through my collection of, I'm guessing about 400 CDs, produced 25 gig of mp3s (high quality). This covered the albums I liked, and missed out those second "less good" albums such as the second Portishead album.

In the last 6 months, I've been doing the second pass, doing the albums I've long since got bored with and the less good albums. I'm down to the last 10 cds now, and they are scratched to hell so take a while. Its approaching 45 gig in disc space....

Let me make this clear. This is 45 gig of _my_ CDs. I think I have about 4 downloaded mp3 albums, and I dont think I have listened to one (and two of these mp3 albums were albums I owned, but were too scratched to rip). I think I have about the same copied albums, about 5, and I was one of the people who bought a CD writer when they were 1 speed...

Oh, I forgot, I CD copied about 30 CDs recently. Why? Because I have a CD player in my car.

The record industry maintains that ever CD writable sold is a copy of an album they haven't sold. They are, of course, idiots. They miss out the fact that 95% of the CD-R/RW DVD-R/RWs I own have been used for data copying, and I'm sure I'm not unusual. The CD copies for the car? Well, I guess they expected me to buy them all again, or take the originals into the car and risk losing them along with the price of a broken window as some light fingered person makes off with them.

They maintain we are all thieves. Its not a good market strategy to call your customers thieves and in some cases,
try to sue them. I guess they never really considered that they, in themselves, might be idiots.

What they have missed is _what_ in fact they are selling. They are also refusing to acknowledge that sales are not down. They are selling CDs which actually have VALUE. I can resell my CD collection. I can get a good price for some of the rarer discs. You can't sell CD-Rs, they have no real value. Normal customers understand this, and have for years. Its the reason why we have CDs, and not the cassette or vinyl versions of most of our music.

There are people who pirate. But the record industry were never going to get their money. Its always been that way... Why do they still not accept this?


- posted by John @ 1:31 AM

 
Well, looks like Bush and co are in trouble again. Seems they are worse than Scooby Do and co.....

Will pop back tomorrow with some arbitary subject on my mind to braindump on. Chicken and mushroom pasta in the oven due out in 5 minutes...

- posted by John @ 2:14 PM

 
Well, looks like Bush and co are in trouble again. Seems they are worse than the three stooges...

Will pop back tomorrow with some arbitary subject on my mind to braindump on. Chicken and mushroom pasta in the oven due out in 5 minutes...

- posted by John @ 2:14 PM