The Nameless Horror

One of the suggestion the document makes is “If an unauthorized person accesses the information, a range of actions might then occur. For example, the file could be rendered inaccessible and the unauthorized user’s computer could be locked down, with instructions on how to contact law enforcement to get the password needed to unlock the account. Such measures do not violate existing laws on the use of the Internet, yet they serve to blunt attacks and stabilize a cyber incident to provide both time and evidence for law enforcement to become involved.” In essence, a pirate commits theft and has to report the theft to the police in order for them to regain access to their computer and likely to pay a fine.

The prime minister’s got to act in the national interest to give the protection to people of this country that they need and deserve from horrible attacks of this kind, and I think the Communications Data Bill could be an important element in that programme.

Minor, and probably fruitless, bit of plugging, but I’m experimenting with sale-pricing MURDER PARK since it’s mostly been very quiet for months. If you’ve not heard of it/bothered with it/gotten round to it, it’s terribly cool, and currently half off at Amazon (linkage: US & UK) & Kobo, and, more interestingly, variable from free to full price direct from me. I’d have loved to do a proper name-your-own price thing with it, but the particular WP plugin I use can’t quite stretch that far. It’s the same package whether you get it for nowt or pay full whack, so knock yourselves out.

What starts the process, really, are the laughs, slights and snubs when you are a kid. Sometimes it’s because you are poor, or Irish or Jewish or Catholic or ugly or simply that you are skinny. But if you are reasonably intelligent and if your anger is deep enough and strong enough, you learn you can change those attitudes by excellence, personal gut performance, while those who have anything are sitting on their fat butts.

Once you learn that you’ve got to work harder than anybody else, it becomes a way of life as you move out of the alley and on your way. In your own mind you have nothing to lose, so you take plenty of chances, and if you do your homework many of them pay off. It is then you understand, for the first time, that you really have the advantage because your competitors can’t risk what they have already. It’s a piece of cake until you get to the top. You find you can’t stop playing the game the way you’ve always played it because it is a part of you and you need it as much as an arm and a leg.

So you are lean and mean and resourceful, and you continue to walk on the edge of the precipice because over the years you have become fascinated by how close to the edge you can walk without losing your balance.

"The Nook thing" being reports that Microsoft are thinking of buying up B&N’s Nook arm and killing the hardware division.

• While B&N’s ebook sales have (presumably) been OK, hardware sales have been less than stellar. Kudos to them for doing it, but the Nook hasn’t made huge waves, except briefly as a cheap Android tablet before the market was swamped with such, and as an ereader-tablet-hybrid producer it can’t compete with Amazon’s financial clout (needed to keep Fire prices low and hardware decent) or Apple’s consumer demand (technically the iPad isn’t an ereader, but if you have one it certainly fills that niche).
• Dedicated ereading devices, with the possible exception of ultracheap original Kindle-style e-ink budget ones, are, and have been for some time, rapidly approaching the end of their consumer lifespan. They’ve done enough to create an ebook market. But now our other devices - phones and tablets - can handle reading perfectly well, as well as doing other things. Now there’s no need to keep producing hardware unless you’re desperately trying to keep your store locked down (Sony, AFAIK), or are trying to break into the full tablet market itself (as Amazon has with the Fire).
• The Nook store is cross-platform these days already. It doesn’t need a dedicated device.
• Microsoft has its own entries in the full-blown tablet market, and even if they’ve bombed (as they appear to), it doesn’t need to try breaking into the market again, and certainly not with Android.
• It therefore makes perfect sense that they’d kill the Nook hardware if they took control of the division. This would not affect the storefront at all. If anything, they’ll broaden it to give them bigger market spread.
• The loss of the Nook hardware would’ve happened anyway, even if B&N stay in business and all is well. They were losing money on them, and dedicated devices for a niche activity are mostly doomed.
• The money will probably help shore up B&N a little, and that’s a good thing.
• The only bit I can’t really fathom is why MS would see an ebook retail front (the part of the subsidiary they actually want to own) as something they’d fork out money for. Yes, they’re predicting a return to profit within four years, but that’s a risky horse to back given the shifting state of the ebook retail market and the amount of cash they’re fronting. Especially when you consider that their core OS business is looking shakier than ever with Windows 8 widely considered a flop. Is it just another attempt, as they’ve done with the Windows software marketplace, to find a way to emulate Apple and become content distributors to reap their 30% ad infinitum?