World Superbikes 2012 preview
I’ve given my opinion of all the riders on the World Superbikes provisional entry list over at Moto Race Reports so head over and tell me how wrong I am.
Max Biaggi returns for one last year.
Evil Apple’s evil EULA is evil
Apple’s current shitstorm, and I can’t think of a better word, centres around their highly restrictive EULA for iBooks Author. Rather than rehash what everyone else has said, I’ll link to Nameless Horror’s post and move on to my central point.
Apple’s EULA serves one purpose and it’s one that pretty much everyone else is overlooking. With a $14.99 cap and a ban on selling your interactive books anywhere else, Apple have comprehensively killed the $300 text book dead. The price gouging that text book publishers are renowned for is dead if Apple’s new interactive format takes off.
If Apple are evil with this EULA, it’s towards traditional publishers who, when faced with guaranteed sales, have no qualms charging stupid money to a captive audience. That kind of evil I can live with.
5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons has decided to borrow another idea from the software community. After the debatable success of using open-source principles. Wizards of the Coast has decided to turn to the community for suggestions: it’s crowd-sourcing. This is great, right? This will provide the gaming community with a better game, right? Well, hopefully the question marks have tipped you off that I’m going to say no. So, no. This is where Henry’s horse and Wendy’s fruit come in. Bear with me, I will explain those very soon, but first some caveats. read more…
A weekend at work with an iPad
First appeared in issue 2 of Padder, 20th July, 2011.
I have many roles, but one of them is a little more demanding of hardware than the others. For a handful of weekends a year, I turn my talents to the paddocks and tracks of World Superbikes and MotoGP, armed with an iPhone, a brace of cameras and a 3G iPad; I rent massive lenses and face down the fire-breathing machines at the sharp end of the world championships for MotoRaceReports.
Carlos Checa at Donington World Superbikes, 2011
Marco Simoncelli, 1987-2011
Marco Simoncelli died on track today. It’s no secret I was a fan, and I know I was not alone. The world will never see the like again.
