Microsoft: Piracy is OK- if you're a Chinaman!!!!!

Now, some of you peeps who are up on the old 'foreign strategic policy trends' malarkey might be aware that one of the major up-and-coming movers and shakers on tha hyperglobalistic world economy front is China!!!!!!!! Steve "Wacky!!!" Ballmer's chums in Microsoft certainly think so- they're selling their software there!!!! Strange thing is that they used to be completely down on piracy, but now they're a little less so- at least in the Far East!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Apparently it's something to do with the main competition to Windows being completely free open source software like Linux, so what better way to compete with it than completely free hooky Windows software?!?!?! Except of course, if nobody actually buys a legit copy, then the whole argument falls down!!!! But then again, it's only Windows we're talking about here, for Cliff's sake!!!!!!!!!!

You may call it a bloody racket, we call it a design feature!!!!!!!!!!

This might make Jeremy Clarkson happy, or all those other funny blokes with whiny nasal voices that present "Top Gear"!!!!! Although I still can't see the point of people going on about "serious" cars and suchlike!!!!!! Or cars that are shaped like a todger!!!!! I mean, I used to drive a car that had a radiator resembling a female furry front-bottom, but I didn't go on about it!!!!!! Not that I need to advertise my magnetism to tha laydees anyway, it was pretty obvious, because it was, like, magnestism, really!!!!! But enough of my hectic sex life, let's get back to tha story!!!!

Anyway, according to this story, you can now make your Reliant Robin sound like a Harley Davidson!!!!!!!!!!!!! No, we don't mean someone's glued Marlon Brando (From "The Wild One"!!!!!!!!!!) to the side of the car!!!!!!!!!!!!! No apparently, it's sensor controlled car radio that supplies some engine sound effects or some such lark!!!!! The inventors, the wonderfully named Jay and Jason Plugge, say that "we found we could make a Ford Escort sound like a Ferrari"!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hmmm!!!!! I wonder if I could get the same technology to make my Skoda sound like a Scud missile?!?!?! That would really put the wind up the promenade next time I go to Margate!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Killing zombies is good for kids!!!!

And we're not talking about viewers of Hollyoaks either!!! I am of course talking about videogames on that PlayCubeStationX Ultra, or whatever they call the consoles this week!!!!!! Oh it wasn't like in tha olden days, when you had an ZX 453543452636562 (Model B) playing "Killer Ampersands"!!!! Those games really exercised one's imagination!!!!!!!!!!! Mainly because the actual graphics and sound were complete shit!!!!!!!! Unless of course you were one of those 12 year olds that wrote 'reviews' of games to "ZxxzZZzap!!!" (Or "Crash!!!", or "GOSUB!!!", or whatever games magazines were called back then!!!!) explaining the completely superfluous plot of the game in great detail, then leaving one line to say: "The graphics are brill and the sound is ace. 8/10."!!!!!!!!!

Anyway!!! According to a group of boffins (Or should that be a "boffinete of boffins"?!?!?! Don't ask me, because I don't know!!!! OK, I'll calm down now!!!!!) apparently playing "Zombie Splatter Mayhem" or such like doesn't turn kids into junior-league fiends!!!!!!!!!!!! Which of course makes perfect sense!!!! I mean, if video games make a kid want to kill someone, what happens when the kid actually attempts it? Does he get out his joypad and try to "special move" his victim to death!??!?!?!?

Somehow I think this is a bit unlikely!!!!

Linkoid!!!

Scientists have found "cosmic polarisation", which is probably not too surprising as this bit of info about 'polarisation' arised at a pole- the South Pole that is!!!!!!!!!!!

Apparently it's called 'Uploadphonix', now!!!!!!!!!

Now some of you are probably all too aware of this thing that's been happening over the past few years where someone takes a vocal from Crap Pop Group A and sticks it on top of the music from Crap Pop Group B, thus making Crap Pop Gramophone C!!!!! In fact, there's been a jolly nice w3sitey called Boom Selection which has charted (!!!!) the growth of this phenomeneonenomom, culminating in the creditable Sugababes cover of a bootleg, which went all the way to the top of the hit parade!!!!!!!!!!

Only problem is what do you call this movement?!?! Most appear to call it "MP3 bootlegs", but other, slightly more fashion-concious folks seem to be desperate to call it somethin a bit more "sexy"!!!! Like, "Bastard Pop" (I can imagine that one being used a lot on SM:TV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and "Byterock" (I ask you!!!!!!!!!!!), but the latest is... "Uploadphonix"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! At least, so says some dude in this article with really big words!!!!!!!!!! Only thing, if he's so clever, how come he's only just found out about something that's been going on for flippin' ages??!?!?!?!?

Bombay didn't "Forget About Dre"!!!!!!!!

Now this a bit of a turn up for the books!!!!! Dr Dre (Which I used to think was short for "Doctor Doctore"!!!!! Like he's a rap doctor that tears up things!!!!!!!!! But apparently I wrong!!!!! Apparently he's not really a doctor at all!!!! It's actually an abbreviated version of his real name, Andre!!!! Followed by a slightly less abbreviated version of his real name, Andre!!!! Erm, where was I?!?!?!) Anyway, he was previously in NWA, (Which stands for Niggas With Attitude and not Norwich Womens Association, which lets face it would be a really silly name for a gansta rap combo, wouldn't it!!!!!!!) and was thus invovled in many of their toe-tapping gramophones such as "F@£% Tha Police", and has since settled into becoming the Tony Visconti of tha hip-hop generation, producing numerous top hit platters by that angry young rappy chappy Eminimienimeineimnem!!!!! And he has some rather stiff views about people who rip off his work on P2P proggies like Gnutella/KaazzazazAAzZA/OpenDonkey/PloppyTrader!!!!!!

So it's a bit of a surprise to see him getting fingered for ripping off someone elses work!!!!! Even more surprising to see it's that stonking Truth Hurts thingy "Addictive", which uses that old tune by Lata Mangeshkar, and then Truth Hurts sings and Rakim raps over it!!!!! In fact, it's actually based on an instrumental track by DJ Quick, so it's not actually a rip-off, but a remake of a rip-off!!!!! Mind you, Dre did work with DJ Quick and Quick gets the producers credit!!!!! It's Lata Mangeshkar (Who's only one of the most recorded artists in the history of recorded music!!!!!) that's not too pleased, and her record company in Bombay (Which is only one of the biggest entertainment capitals in the entire flippin' planet!!!!!!!) are wanting to sue for squillions!!!!!! The bone of contention appears to be that not only was her track ripped off, but Rakim said a naughty word over it!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Argh!!!!!!!!!