* Posts by Will Leamon

155 publicly visible posts • joined 17 May 2007

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Google+ offers new 'Ignore' feature

Will Leamon

You gotta know somebody...

That's how I got in. A friend sent me an invite and Google let me walk right in. If you search long enough on the web you'll find plenty of people who will invite anyone.

Digital Rupert’s bumper $545m loss

Will Leamon

Actually

Facebook rather sucks at engaging fans in the music/media/content production arenas. Even today Myspace is a lot better at streaming audio and video which is why it's mostly populated by bands now. Their music streaming widget really is quite nice.

Also to those of you complaining of the awful, awful layout on Myspace pages you can turn that off now. As a user you can tell Myspace to render ANY page in the default format and clear off all the cruft.

Looking ahead if the new company sees Myspace as a competitor to Reverbnation I for one am all for it.

Republican reps push for mandatory gun ownership

Will Leamon

title

There is no cheaper premium then no premium at all. And at today's prices it is insane for a relatively healthy person aged 20 - 40 to pay high premiums for health insurance they will barely use.

The ability to chose (no matter how limited by buses and trains) is important and worth protecting in my mind. As I said before if they want to tax me and then provide a direct service that's a whole other issue. In fact I've always maintained that if the Government requires car insurance they should be the ones to provide it. Make it a part of the sale of the car. That way we don't all have to carry 'uninsured motorist' riders on our car insurance.

From a Social Security point of view I would also like to know how 'less people dying of curable illnesses just because they can't afford treatment' is that much of a benefit. Especially when some of those 'diseases' are things like smoking (which I indulge in) and other avoidable ailments.

P.S. All 50 states require basic insurance on cars. Most also have a car tax every year as well.

Will Leamon

Obama Care not NHS

Oh but I wish it was. Our version is everyone must buy from 'the market' of face a fine. It's ok for the Government to tax me and then DIRECTLY provide a service (e.g. police, fire, what have you) but to simply require something off the market just because I was born here is a bit rich. Tax us all and provide health care? That's something I would at least consider.

This setup though is just a sop to big Pharma and a tax on healthy people. Nothing more.

US Navy's electric plane-thrower successfully launches an F-18

Will Leamon

Oh Dear

Look I'll make this quick - all battles are won or lost by bad tactics. Your tools are only as good as you are.

Wikileaks: Berlusconi useless, Pope Catholic

Will Leamon
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Not that surprised really

I've studied just a little history of that region and wasn't surprised at all by those revelations. Much like christians these guys are Saudis and Iraqis before they are Muslims. There's a history inter-regional strife down there that dates back to at least before Napoleon (that I know of) and would assume probably date back to Rome and before.

And I think the Brits should especially appreciate any attempt to convince two nations you are hostile towards (both culturally and politically) to go to war with each other. Either way you're coming up roses.

So in short not only am I not surprised by their encouragement but consider it incredibly hostile to both the U.S. and Iran.

New RAF transport plane is 'Euro-w*nking makework project'

Will Leamon

titular bits

Please for the sake of humanity could all of you who just come here to bitch about how much you dislike Lewis Paige articles PLEASE STOP READING THEM.

LOST Vulture One PARIS spaceplane FOUND!!!

Will Leamon
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1 cup of title

I can't believe you're going to compare a program that built six shuttles and flew them for 30 years to a program that built one shuttle that flew once and then died in a hanger fire. Sometimes it beggars belief the lengths people will go to belittle U.S. accomplishments. It was a stellar program that will (hopefully) continue on in new ways for another 30 years.

Just with more robots and RC cars. How cool is that?

Will Leamon

Ok I'll bite

So what was the glide ratio on the Buran then?

Will Leamon

Here's your title.

As opposed to all those other space shuttles out there?

The 99p mobile phone: What's the catch?

Will Leamon

Title

As anyone who watched The Wire knows these phones are also very well suited for the art of drug dealing.

Windows 7 'I'm a PC' man quits Microsoft

Will Leamon

title

Yes I seriously look forward to working on hideously complex, nested After Effects projects on my mobile! That's going to be so much fun.

BAM. - WTF?

Ah hell, the guy down the hall just shot himself trying to design a car in CAD on his iPad. What went wrong?

Mac market share slips worldwide

Will Leamon
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Not trolling

But I would like to back this up by saying at my office we are an Adobe shop running on Wintel. This is not some fanboy reaction but our editors and post guys really like the fact that our IT guy can custom build edit decks to their liking in the world of Windows - within budget of course. So we have an ATI (AMD) guy in one office and an Nvidia gal in the other and we can make them both happy. Can't really do our preferred level of customization on the Mac - and that's that.

But we have the hardest time with the interns because they all come out of college with the 'They told us final cut pro was the only editor in the world" line. Sorry kids that's just not the case. Premiere is much hated but it comes with the All Mighty After Effects and Photoshop. So we go with that.

Betfair names its price

Will Leamon
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Addiction

Why is that when something CAN promote an addiction, Puritans always claim that vendors in that area are only in it to support said addictions? It's not like healthy occasional gamblers won't make them far more money in the long run then some fool on a self-destruction kick that'll be in the poor house in six weeks time,

Piracy threats lawyer mocks 4chan DDoS attack

Will Leamon
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+1 Internets

For the Dire Straits quote.

Facebook fone? Feh, says Facebook

Will Leamon

Max Headroom

I just got Season 1 on DVD. Don't know if you're in the states but have a look see and see what you find.

NASA buys cutting-edge Cornish robot

Will Leamon

A lot of Merkins

Are in fact deeply concerned that we don't really build anything at all in this country any more. Hell even Tony Soprano was aware of it. Our cars are made in Mexico and everything else is made in China. We are well aware of this as our trade imbalance makes the news almost nightly now.

One of these days I hope to actually meet one of these Merkins the Brits on El Reg are always bitching about. I seem to be surrounded by oh I guess 300M people but I can't seem to find one Merkin in the bunch.

Oz pedestrians fall to 'Death by iPod'

Will Leamon
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The answer

to that is that I don't want to kill anyone - accidental or otherwise for any reason. Plus I rather like my car and don't want it totalled by one of these zombies.

German kiddies punted porn-projecting pens

Will Leamon

Please allow this Merkin to clarify...

Hitler was not a commie.

There,,, fixed that for you.

Apple TV: Third time unlucky, Mr Jobs

Will Leamon
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Beat Me To It

I too notice that red herring of 'It costs nothing to distribute' on El Reg - in the music threads mostly but here in TV Land as well. Is it just willful ignorance to completely over look the MILLIONS that go into actually MAKING the product?

Why yes, I believe it is.

General Motors bitchslaps Tesla with Range Anxiety™

Will Leamon

140,000

That's the price of a Tesla Roadster and I hear the S is going to be something like 50K. So that's going to rule out most of the world then.

Let's face it you should just add cars with smokes, booze, fatty foods and coffee on the list of things only really, really rich wankers get to have. All in the name of saving the world.

Disney throws $763m at social gaming

Will Leamon

Sports

I think we should consider Disney's ESPN in this a bit more. A game developer is exactly who I would tap if I simply wanted really nifty 'interactive apps' based on sports. The ESPN / Playdom combo could really pay off in a host of Apps that mid-demographic men would use everyday. Couple that with ESPNs already strong host of advertiser affiliations and you could be on track to simply start printing money.

As long as Zuckerberg and Co don't get to greedy that is...

Pirate Party storms out of uber-secret ACTA negotiations

Will Leamon
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Yes Prime Minister

Just saw Sir Humphrey's take on the smoking ban last night (yes I know I'm 20 years late) and was shocked that the Beeb would actually air his argument against it. It was so forthright I almost choked.

Love the show BTW...

Double whammy: The music tax based on deep packet inspection

Will Leamon

Costs and Benefits

An artist should have the right to decide what he gets paid for and how - it's his work. Look at it this way, touring is incredibly hard on an individual and their family. Many, many people will not do it no matter how much money is involved. So you're saying these people have no right to dictate the terms of their own creative distribution?

Apple reckons light shines between iPhone customers' ears

Will Leamon
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One of the things I love about BBT

The nerds don't use macs! I've always laughed at the fact that according to American TV the whole world uses macs. But this is one of the many things that make that show pretty damn credible in my eyes. That and the bit where Wollowitz sells the WoW sword within like seconds of getting it.

Big decisions take data not gut instinct

Will Leamon

Here - have a title

The Deloitte article is all well and good and perhaps better than I would expect from consultants but ignores one crucial element. You have to have absolute faith in the numbers you're using. Any lack of faith, whether from statistical skewing, improper weighting of relevance or a whole host of other problems, will kill the confidence the decision maker has in his numbers. And we're back to good ole human intuition.

Billy Beane's baseball scouting methods only worked because he had a crack number cruncher who gave him numbers he had the confidence to trust and act upon. The doctors in Blink (God I hate that book) got lucky that the tree worked the first few times around and gave them the confidence to rely on it more. That thing about the wine is just nonsense though - but then again most of the Vintner biz is just nonsense anyway so I'll give it props.

I'm afraid I just don't have the same faith in most of the numbers that cross my desk.

'Biggest thing in farming for 10,000 years on horizon'

Will Leamon

It's part of the Burger!

Dude what about the bun! It ain't a burger without the bun!

Google scores major victory in copyright fight with Viacom

Will Leamon

Privilege

"Copyright durations are outrageously long, so much so that they're nothing more than a scandalous abuse of power and privilege"

So what you are saying is that the copyright on the work I pour my heart and soul into is a 'privilege'? That once my work is done it should be yours to trounce, decimate, ridicule and steal without my and my duly appointed heirs having any say in the matter? I think this just stems from a gross ignorance of the creative process, jealousy and quite frankly a mean spirited sense of entitlement. To produce any creative work (even the bad ones) is a tremendous amount of work... let alone something of any value. Just because you lack any ability or sensibility to even try doesn't mean it's not a huge accomplishment on our part. All we, as artists, ask is that we have some say in what happens to our work once it is done.

"No work is truly original, it always has some prior art contained therein"

No one 'owns' culture - not even the vaunted 'public'. Just because an artist kind find inspiration anywhere any time does not somehow automatically transfer ownership to some retarded sense of 'the public'. The only way someone could claim that inspiration is somehow 'stealing' from culture could only come from someone who has never been inspired. This would of course go in line with someone who needed these 'derivative' works to produce anything at all.

"Putting orphaned works in the public domain is opposed by copyright holders on the grounds that these works constitute extra competition."

Orphaned works still have creators. And just because they can't be bothered to spend all day registering with Google and the rest of the bottom feeders does not mean they no longer have any say in the matter. The idea of extra competition is just cherry picking. At the end of the day I don't want the music I produce to appear in Nazi propaganda or a whole host of other affiliations I find odious. Is that asking too much?

"or they must be published by the author, irrespective of how small the print-run is."

Do you have any idea how expensive it is to produce even a small print run of a movie shot on FILM? We're talking about hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. So what you're saying is that if an artist isn't hideously rich then they have no right to own the fruits of their own labor. You freetards are rapidly moving to a world where only Paris Hilton and other vapidly rich people publish anything at all and then only in the name of vanity and narcissism. Why the hell else would anyone publish anything otherwise?

Drinking coffee offers no real benefit, say eggheads

Will Leamon

Blue Mountain Fakery

Is mostly the result of blends. Say 1 Tablespoon of the good stuff mixed with 1 lb of crap and you have Blue Mountain Delicious Blend.

Will Leamon

Dear Lewis

Is the tone of your article perhaps the result of knowing (like I suspect) that there is a war on pleasure coming? That forces who do not understand the value of doing something merely for it's own pleasurable result (whatever that may be) are gathering and wish to use science as there weapon? I believe you do.

First they came for my smokes, then my coffee, when they came for my Rock n Roll no one was left to defend it.

Will Leamon

Really dude?

Blue Mountain here I believe is referring to Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee which comes in bean form and is considered some of the finest in the world by a lot of people. Personally I think it's the scarcity equals value thing but I digress.

FROZEN BEANS. GTFO with that. Cool, dry, drak and preferably vacuum sealed.

Pressurized? God help you if that means a steam driven machine! Trust me you will burn in hell (much like your coffee) if that's what you recommend.

DoJ pokes Apple digital music biz practices, says report

Will Leamon

Clarity

I believe the deal here is that Apple is saying 'Look if you sign this 24 hour arrangement with Amazon we'll lock you out of iTunes entirely. They don't say if it's an entire catalog banning or just the Amazon play but either way it's dirty pool.

In the end though online distribution is such a new field it's about time the DoJ started looking at it even if it's just to stay informed on what's going on. Remember an investigation is in no way an indictment.

Facebook promises simplified privacy controls from Thursday

Will Leamon

Soon enough...

FB will start giving away extra corn farms and other goodies to lure the punters into opting-in. Problem solved, just get on with it.

'Steve Jobs' switches to Android

Will Leamon

Not just smartphones.

The Flash playback on my Samsung Rogue (a 'feature' phone - free with my contract) is just fine as well. It looks like crap in a HT sense but for on the road use it is more than just adequate.

I don't think one phone will ever really 'rule' the market. People are just too diverse for one phone to really satisfy all needs. I think what we're seeing now though is that the iPhone's crowd once seemed rather large and perhaps dominating. But with the passage of time we're beginning to see that it's not that large after all. Hence that bogus 'larger installed base' line. All that means is "We have saturated the market for our product and our competitor's market is growing."

What can Google's tablet deliver?

Will Leamon
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Blip.tv

Blip uses this exact model and while the quality is (perhaps) a little better it hasn't made much of a splash. But you're right - we use blip for the exact reasons you state (it actually offers at least the chance of making money) and it will cross post to YouTube - so no lost market there.

NASA tests amazing bailout rocket which will never be used

Will Leamon

Numbers & Letters

Dear Mr. President,

Do you hear that cheering in the background of this video? THAT is the reason we need manned space flight.

Yours,

Will.

Met terror squad beats all complaints

Will Leamon
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Err I think...

That particular quote is more directly from World Class Wackadoo Jim Jones.

Steve Jobs issues open letter on Flash

Will Leamon

Alternatives

I'll admit I'm getting a little tired of the whole Flash issue these days. What I would like is some input on though is any emerging technologies that do in fact address these concerns. I can't take h.264 seriously because it's a closed format. But does anyone have any pointers to some discussion of anything in the works that could in fact replace Flash in the development sphere? Remember this is not just a video related problem but everything Flash does...

Apple drops HTML from iPhone and iPad

Will Leamon

Good one!

That is all...

Ad broker throws Flash a Jobsian lifeline

Will Leamon

Developers

Just wanted to point out that the developer is still using Flash to author content. That's the part of the chain that makes Adobe money so in practical terms these capabilities will help keep Flash relevant for a little while.

Phorm turns up in Brazil

Will Leamon
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Regulated out of existence?

Really? Where? I get mine just 'round the corner shop. And although it has no positive effect on your society it has a great effect on my society - in that I love'em and can't be fucked to hang out with prudes like you.

Fuck society.

Mandy quango says Apple, Amazon are too obscure

Will Leamon

Torrent

But then you have to know what a torrent is, how to load it into a client and then tell the thing to stop seeding when you're ready. I've noticed most users will throw their hands up if the instructions have more than 2 steps.

No wonder cooking is dead.

Whatever happened to the email app?

Will Leamon
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Amicus Brief

In fact it's the only way to get in touch with my 40 year old sister.

Doctor Who attempted to overthrow Thatcher

Will Leamon

Politics in Drama

You can quite easily keep politics out of drama. I think you might be mistaking this for two other points. 1. Extremely political types read politics into everything or 2. Some folk assume that if a work deals with society it is in some way political. Others of us believe however that society can be so much more than just politics.

As far as Ma Beeb being a leftie org - well bear in mind that artists (especially bad ones) almost always lean to the left.

Politics + Drama = Propaganda.

Too fat to fly: Kevin Smith and OpenOffice

Will Leamon
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Title

Mall Rats.

Spanish city shuns Brit 'Saga louts'

Will Leamon

Helmet Law

That helmet law is Georgia State law not some local thing just for Myrtle Beach. And though bike week is a massive pain it's NOTHING compared to past freakniks or God help us spring break in the panhandle.

Warner Music gives up on free streaming services

Will Leamon
Pint

Ad Supported Radio

In a nutshell - local and regional advertisers get a lot more bang for the buck on conventional radio. If you're trying to reach a small to medium sized, centrally located, audience then commercial radio is far more effective than the net.

Hence Google et al.'s mad race for personal details. They really need to know how to bundle the net into these regional categories to get small to medium sized businesses to advertise with them.

Avatar attracts nine Oscar nods

Will Leamon

A valid title...

And you can see Homer's influence in every story ever told. Influences are not a bad thing. I thought Hurt Locker was a bad story but everything else about the writing completely destroys Avatar.

Transformers up for seven Razzies

Will Leamon
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Bayhem

Personally I wouldn't be surprised if Michael Bay showed up to collect his. And Will Ferrell is almost a shoe-in for an acceptance speech.

US makes travellers go online, before getting onboard

Will Leamon
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Max

I would prefer it if it read 'Are you now, or have you ever been Max Mosley' with admittance barred with a yes answer.

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