Posts by Rampant Spaniel

Religious wars brewing in ICANN gTLD expansion

Re: Perhaps ....

That would explain why they needed to buy so much of it then! Although not their interest in making their own with younger cast members.

Re: This is the internet...

which of course are standing on a giant clamshell ;-)

Re: @Oliver

I thought it was 3 hail mary's and a hand through the candle. Poor bloody doves! At least eat them afterwards. What kind of deviants run around eviscerating innocent doves.

I have to admit my first thought was the same as the OP's, religious folks are claiming sombody else is rewiring minds? Is their grounds patent infringement?

Expert: BA doesn't need permission to google your face

Re: They must have amazing staff...

This is just aimed at first and business, nor sure if it stated that but previous articles did. A few staff do recognise routine travellers but you can tell its genuine (which makes all the difference) and its rarely more than a hello. These poor sods sometims see thousands of people a day, I really don't expect them to remember I can drink my own weight in cranapple juice and pinot gris. (not mixed!). If you fly domestic routes often you will get to know a few attendants and them you, into Europe less, internationally you'd have to fly very often.

That's fine

because I don't need their permission to fly on another airline. I don't want flight attendants trying to flatter me with BS because their company tells them to. They have a tough job, they don't need to have to worry about pratting around trying to act like they know me because of how much I paid for my ticket.

A few klm flights I flew would recognise me if I flew them frequently, but it was a genuine "hello $firstname " and not an attempt to make me love klm. I am sure some folks would like to be recognised and I make no judgement about them, thats fine, I just want to get on the plane, have a meal, some wine, maybe do a little work, maybe rest and get to my destination. I want to be treated with respect, not like a cash pinata by the company forcing their staff to fawn over me like I'm someone they should recognise. Turning your flight attendants into fluffers is a step backwards in customer service (and for your staff who have plenty of work to do already). Flying used to be fun. These days it's closer to a trauma.

Atos IT workers threaten strike during Olympics over 'living wage'

Re: Not surprised they're threatening to strike

Not that I approve or dissapprove of their raise, but I believe the justification was a combination of a longer working day (lines will run later) and holiday blackouts (to help minimise overtime pay).

I could be remembering it incorrectly and to be fair, news coverage in the states is a little shaky on anything foreign (and downright shocking on domestic stuff if you watch fox).

Re: I know it may be hard for you to believe given your own experiences, but bejesus, ...

That culture does exist unfortunately. I remember sitting down to lunch with a colleague and talking about rent. I was paying about 600 a month for a 3 bed semi in a reasonable area, he was paying 115 a month for a council flat (3 bed also). I remember him looking at me like I was an idiot for paying 600 and him saying well why don't you just get a council flat. It was all I could do not to stand on the table and shout because I'm not a thieving little shit. Social housing should be there for those that really need it. Once you earn more you should pay up to market rate depending on how much you earn. There shouldn't be any stigma about using social resources when you need them, there bloody well should when you use them when you don't need them.

Re: 0.5%, *really*?

If you mean me, I was replying to the comment directly above mine about towns being devastated by the loss of industries.

Re: I know it may be hard for you to believe given your own experiences, but bejesus, ...

Perhaps a little dramatic there :-) There is some hope. Having been born in the grim north amongst all the closed pits and steel works there was some hope, a train ticket to somewhere else with jobs. Sad, especially when returning home to see the high street full of charity shops and pound shops, even maccies moved and you know you are in trouble when Brighthouse arrives.

It is grim growing up knowing the only jobs are in the dole office and it isn't the easiest thing to leave family behind and jump on a bus or train, but it beats sitting around waiting for work that never arrives.

Re: Pilgrim?

I had to doubl check I had the right definition of pilgrim :-) No I am not a pilgrim, I worked in the private sector and still performed my job at the company, plus the company benefitted as well as the union. The days of striking down the pit are over. A good union wants the company to make money so it can ask for better pay. We spent as much time working on improving the company as we did staff issues.

I did benefit in many ways, it was a welcome distraction to day to day work, I got to help coworkers and the company etc. I just feel that dues paid to the union are better spent assisting those who are made redundant or in need of legal assistance in tribunals etc, not padding my salary. Sure the 'windows and orphans' fund isn't as heavily drawn on these days, but those dues help people find new work, keep a roof over their heads and fight dodgy managers. That all seems more important to me than me being able to have some more money each month when I already have a normal wage coming in. I guess it's a self respect thing.

Having worked as a manager in previous roles I had a tainted idea of what a union was actually like, it is not some carry on style all strike the minute somebody is asked to do someone elses job type environment, nor is everyone just their to pull two salaries in. Sure there are people like that in life, but not everyone is like that. It was interesting, at times fun and sure it felt good to help people but money isn't everything in life.

Re: 0.5%, *really*?

Firstly, that was a crap situation to find yourself in, that is exactly the time you should be being supported.

The current method obviously doesn't work, the problem was neither did the old system. Unfortunately there isn't a test that gives a 100% accurate yes/no answer to if you are able to work. People know this, unfortunately so do some immoral lazy gits who game the system. Not everyone on DLA is gaming the system, most aren't, but some are.

I have no issues beliving that genuine claims are being turned down, but I also have no issue in believing other folks are swinging the lead. The people to be pissed at are the scum who are gaming the system. If people could be trusted then your word would be all that was needed. However, some winnets on the arse of society think it is ok to lie and steal benefits meant to support people who genuinely cannot work and paid for by taxes paid by those of us that do. I fully support the idea of social insurance, that reality is that a small minority take the piss, but that still has an impact. All that said, any changes should not put at risk those that need help, nor should cutting corners.

As for the Burnley comments, theres a few other places could be added to that list. Whilst we aren't talking everyone, but there are places where it seems socially accpetable, you'll note that in these places going to Asda \ Bargain Madness \ Brighthouse in your jammies is also accpetable.

Re: Pilgrim?

That's a little harsh isn't it? Yes I got no renumeration from the union. I worked in a comissioned environment so I could spare time because the job itself wasn't that difficult to do well, I could hit my max target and spare the time. I did benefit to some degree, from additional training and from helping to develop policy (which I would benefit from). I also went through some consultation periods that didn't result in job losses. I guess I was an idiot for wanting to help people and the company?

Having worked for a union (for free) in a company that did do staff satisfaction surveys my experience is they were a worthless distraction and management spent more time trying to figure out who said what in the verbatim comments. The standard reply to a large number of dissatisfied staff was "well why are they still here". Any dissent over wages was met with "we benchmark well against other companies". Any comments relating to specific managers were "personal grudges and should be ignored".

It was frankly one of the most soul destroying experiences of my life, having encoraged every last person to fill them in. Worked on the results, held sessions with staff (it was hell trying to have no management sitting in on those sessions, and the first question asked was always "who said that") and come up with a series of suggestions that wouldn't cost much but would help address valid issues, to sit down with a bunch of desk warmers and have it all shot down as just spiteful malicous rumblings from the great unwashed.

I have also seen at first hand how they manipulate the figures, either upgrading "no comment / indifferent" to a positive or excluding them. Anything to bugger with the figures.

So by all means put down you are dissatisfied with your wages but you will only be told your compensation package benchmarks well against competitors, although they will include amounts for the pathetic staff gym, amounts for free parking in a crime ridden industrial estate ad nauseum anything to make your compensation look higher. Plus isn't benchmarking wages effectively price fixing?

US ponders fibre link to Guantanamo

Re: So these 169 inmates...

So the difference is the legal definition vs a 'dictionary' definition? Fair enough. Civil war is war, but not covered by the international treaties covering wars?

I agree re the international laws, they are grossly out of date. The lack of clear laws allowed Bush freedom to do what he did. I cannot say I would have done all that much different (and I am not a fan of Bush), I am very glad I didn't have to make those decisions.

In the UK and the USA we have courts and a legal system which are setup to prosecute more typical criminals. I think it likely that a good number of those in gitmo are guilty of offences that should see them behind bars but the manner in which the evidence was obtained (not just torture, but evidence from confidential sources) will probably make convictions in a civilian court difficult. So we try them, some will be set free, where do we send them? I am not trying to advocate any specific course of action, just expressing that it is one hell of an awkward situation with no easy outcomes.

Re: So these 169 inmates...

War can exist between entities other than nation states. Otherwise there would be no civil wars for a start. War is a state of armed conflict between two parties.

Re: So these 169 inmates...

You raise some interesting points. As to whether it is \ was war, war is a state of armed conflict between two nations, states or other parties. Technically it should be declared (Japan I believe did try in WW2 but it took too long to decode and they hit Pearl first), and it should be between lawful combatants.

The rules of war are setup to try and protect innocent citizens (and soldiers with the Geneva and Hague conventions), armies should be in uniform, targets should be military in nature etc. Most of the rules are broken to some degree or another, but largely an attempt is made to follow them.

I think we probably all agree 9/11 was an act of aggression. At what point does it become a war. Both parties do not have to be nation states, so they hit us, we hit them (or the other way around), exactly what you call it only makes a political difference.

The rules of war are setup to protect, but they do not protect those who work outside them, at least not entirely. I believe the detainees were classed as unlawful combatants, a consequence of fighting dressed as and / or amongst civilians. I would be the first to admit this may be a cynical ploy, however, given the US has been left babysitting some potentially rather unsavoury folks who cannot be repatriated (either because they are a danger or because their country doesn't want them back) and we aren't about to let them loose on US soil. I do have synpathy for the thinking that if you fight outside the rules, you cannot claim their protection.

Should they have faced trial by now, yes they should. Is there probably a myriad of complications, not least the issue that not all would be convicted, in part due to the nature of the evidence and how it was obtained. Yes they should face a fair trial, but even if they were found innocent I wouldn't exactly be happy if they moved in next door.

Re: Tumble-dryers...

I can concur, home owner associations are hell. They tend to have a mix of decent sensible folks and outright power crazed loonies with no life outside of pestering others. I had to hosepipe one of the little winnets off our property, they were upset I was checking the air pressure of my motorbikes tyres. Apparently any kind of car maintenance is verboten, no mention of motorcycle maintenance in the rules, but that wasn't good enough. They also tried to fine us for hving the wrong colour plant pots. Sufficed to say, moving is high on our list of priorities.

It is insane that we cannot dry our washing outside given its 80-100 degrees all year round. Apparently they cannot make drying clothes outside against the rules (at least in this state) but they find a loophole, then they bitch about fuel prices. If we stopped wasting it it wouldn't cost so much. Putting in sidewalks so people could walk might help.

Even being smart and recycling waste heat from central a/c units to the tumble dryer and from the oven to the hot water heater would be cheap and effective. Although not approved of by HOA building panels.

It all boils down to wanting everyone else to conform to what a few people want them to be like. They have such narrow views on what is right and whine that anything else affects property values.

Oh we also have to keep our parking area clean but are forbidden from washing it.

Door creaks and girl farts: computing in the real world

Sweet jesus, a consultant with common sense, I'm shocked the others haven't tried to off you yet.

But seriously, you are entirely correct. The points made above about usb to serial adapters and network comms gear are valid, but for the vast majority of folks, especially those the retina is aimed at, they either won't miss the superdrive or will buy an external drive. For those bitching about the size of external drives, whilst you can get 5 1/4 inch sized external drives, you can also get ones that use laptop size format drives making them a lot smaller and usually powered from the usb.

Re: In the real world, doors creak and girls fart.

40 bucks buys a compact external usb dvd writer, 50 bucks buys you a decent external battery for tablets and phones.

Apple made a choice, most likely after considerable research and thought. As much as I dislike them, they have come out with a damn fine product. The choices they have made are not resulting in the end of the world, no puppies have been harmed, if you need a dvd drive, buy an external one. If your phone goes flat carry an external battery. Those of us that actually work in the real world rather than being paid to write about pretending to work in it come across problems all the time, we just figure out solutions. Like how canon's wireless transfer system is expensive and overrated, but wireless usb dongles are cheap and do the job better (wireless live view). Do I berate canon? Does it mean they make crap products? Hell no, just some thought required. Then again, thinking is hard, bitching is easy.

My dad found the Higgs boson! Reminiscences of a CERN kid

Re: Dads are amazing

This is exactly why I have decided to set the bar low for my kids ;-)

Re: Superbowel?

It was quite deliberate and in reference to the distress Americans cause to their plumbing on that Sunday :-)

Great story! It must be an amazing feeling for your father, to have worked so hard for so long on something so momentous.

Coverage here in the states has been rather limited. It rales pales in comparison compared to the triumph of some doped up freaks at the superbowel, a sad reflection on our values unfortunately.

BA staff to google for snaps, dirt on biz-class passengers

Too true. KLM always used to do a good job of recognising frequent flyers just by memory. Mind you, they did most things very well.

Biz MPs gung-ho for 'Google Review'

Oh and there's no improper relationship between MP's and the press! Dave's just doing his best mate old Rupert a solid by legalising his media companies stealing content. It's in no way a thank you for supporting him in the last election. And no, I'm not a new labour fan either, the jug eared smarmy twat was as much Murdochs bitch as Dave. Both should be locked up.

Re: Maybe I'm having a slow day but....

Basically media users (publishers for example) want to avoid having to pay for content (pictures and video) if they can find an 'orphaned work' basically they find a picture or video clip online and use it for free if they cannot easily identify who created it. If the creator finds out they are only able to claim a token fee and cannot stop further usage (so a publisher wouldn't have to reprint a book cover for example, they could continue using the stolen image).

Google wants a similar arrangement for images / video / music as it has for books. It can sell orphaned works, pocket the moolah and if the author ever turns up they get tuppence and bugger all else.

So basically that is the suggestion of the hargreaves review, legalise copyright theft for big business. The big sell was it would make the UK a huge media empire blah blah trillions in taxes and we all get to ride on unicorns round our palaces. Another report suggested that if you stop drinking googles coolaid and do some real maths, the benefits are not there, it would do more harm than good. So another report comes out glossing over all this and saying we can even pick what collour unicorn we want. The govt is basically 'sexing up' a proposal it wants to push through because it owes the murdoch publishing empire some favours.

It is this kind of crap that played a significant part in my choice to get the hell off the sinking ship. It's sad and somewhat ironic that I have more protection for my work in the home country of google than I will in the UK should this become law.

Politicians have been bought as per normal. Your loss, photography is a tranferrable skill and its much nicer working on a tropical beach than bleak North Yorkshire (although the suppin and tuppin is better back home :-) the excolonials have no idea how to make cheese either). This will not promote industry, it will start an exodus of content producers. Kiss goodbye to all that lovely tax revenue.

UK.gov proposes massive copyright land snatch

Are you suggesting Dave owes Rupert a hummer for having nonce of the week support him in the election and is therefore doing him a solid and legalising IP theft for large lazy crap peddlers? How very dare you!

Re: Is it really so bad?

No, no right up until the point somebody wishes to use my work, then I have every right to be paid for my work. Also how do you know how I have spent my money? I'm close to retiring and not half way through my biblically alloted time, so not entirely wasted.

Re: I usually disagree with pretty much everything you have to say

It isn't solely a matter of creators copyright but also the privacy of people that may be in the images. Over the years the odd client has requested limits on how I use images taken of them, including not using them in my portfolio. I respect this and discussing model releases, copyright and print relases are a part of the presales process.

Those clients trust me to abide by their requests. It should not be the case that this can be overridden within their lifetimes.

I have yet to hear of any compelling instance where there was a lack of stock photography but an abundance of orphaned works which was causing the mass drowning of puppies.

My grandfather passed away recently and I produced a book based on his memiors including stock photography. I found everything I needed via agencies at very reasonable prices. Sure I could have bought some postcards off fleabay and scanned them then whined about it being hard to track down the rights owners but frankly, if you don't have permission you cannot do it. You will survive.

The Open Rights Group gets rights wrong again

I don't think it's a politicians foot an intern has to worry about falling in their mouth ;-)

Re: On one hand

I agree, I understand that he is using the logo for a business etc, ideally he should have sought permission. He isn't sticking the logo on a load of merchandise to flog, which is a very valid reason to defend the copyright / trademark.

The failure here is really with the law itself, it is so hard to write legislation that covers grey areas. If you have a copyright or trademark it is wise to defend it, you need it to protect your work and in some ways to protect yourself from harm (i.e. to a companies image from the effects of low quality counterfits, sandisk knows that one). They should have granted him a limited licence, he should have asked, such is life. It's a shame, no malice was intended. Whilst I'm sure he hoped it might sell more bangers it wasn't in the same league as knocking out cheap shoddy merchandise with the logo on it.

Re: Two Small Points.

Correction to #1. Should read so long as you say it loud and often enough.

They don't actually care if they are believed, they know they mostly aren't even when they are telling the truth (it must happen by accident sometime?), they just care they said it the loudest and got the last word in.

Viviane Reding says imitate US and form FEDERAL EUROPE

Re: I want to be like America...

Aye because there's nae European country famed for feep frying everything from Mars Bars to Pizza! :-)

Well put. I just got a serious headache reading the supreme courts verdict on Obamacare, impressive to see Roberts vote for it rather than follow the conservative line.

A federal europe will have a serious issue, most European countries have a top down form of government, whereas the US states devolved certain powers to a federal government, leaving that federal power often having to fight or bribe states to get laws supported. I can see an equally messy future in Europe. A Federal Europe is not a fix, it just masks the problem for a while. They need to actually fix the problems first then perhaps it may work.

Google orders spontaneous support for Parliamentary motion

Thank you for the suggestions! We do add watermarks to images but there is a balance between making them unobtrusive but effective. The worst threat to distribution is facebook. Most customers want images on a dvd as part of the deal. That's fine, I prefer to work that way. However, they then upload to fb, share with friends and the work is all over the interwebs 6 hours later. Again, this is fine, if anything its free advertising. The problem is the work is then orphaned. Any metadata is stripped at some point and I wouldn't watermark a delivered product. Gallery shots are another big problem. If somebody takes a camera phone shot of an image I display, I don't mind much, again free advertising and its not like I lost a sale directly. If they like they buy. My printer makes more profit per print than I do, but he's hella good at his job!

Google wants to be able to monitise googlr image search, they want to be able to sell any image on the internet and sometimes maybe pay a cut to the photographer, the key is they want to sell first and maybe ask later. That's simply not how it works. Clients understand the need for a portfolio, on all but a couple of occasions they are happy to have their work used in that manner (those that said no had very valid security concerns). Prospective cllients take pictures of portfolio album pages to compare photogs, to me that's reasonable. The problem is again that's technically orphaned. When clients trust me with an model release so I can use their images, I have to stand up for them and protect their privacy.

This isn't about what an individual photo is worth or how the dynamic of the industry is changing. It is about subverting copyright for the monetary gain of one company whilst pissing all over peoples right to privacy.

Re: Reverse image search

Potentially they could, it might find it in some cases. Consider this, you go to your local photography studio, you have a family portrait taken (either in the studio or onsite somewhere), you get your print / dvd , the photographer puts up a print at part of their portfolio, somebody takes a snap on a cell phone to show their friends (hey do you like this, thinking of getting one done etc) and now your family picture is out there and not associated with their photographer or you. Now a creative agency finds it via google image steal and you are walking down the street and your family shot is up on a billboard advertising whichever political party you dislike. You have no recourse, you cannot stop it.l

Google has no incentive to make finding the photographer easier. The whole reason they want to do this is because they want to be the one stop shop 'agency' for any video /photography / books / music etc you want. They dont want to have to deal with the rights owners, they dont want them to have rights, they just want to sell stuff they dont own and dictate the other half of the deal. They cannot do it by force so they want to do it by law.

Theres so much BS about how restricted access to orphan works is destroying the very fabric of the universe and is worse than clubbing baby seals. I have yet to hear of a single example where this is the case.

Re: @ Rampant Spaniel

Just an example, but on average over say 20 years, a stock shot (which is often more expensive to shoot then a comissioned shot as it is more likely to be outside your local area) will usually sell for about 25% of the cost it would have been if it had been comissioned (although this depends on use \ licence), so obviously it has to sell 4 times to make the same money. On average, across a lot of shots, they do not sell 4 times, 2-3 maybe.

Purporting to judge an entire industry based on looking to purchase a single image is a little optmisitic :) But thank you for your concern :) !

Re: @ Rampant Spaniel

No photograph is worth a hundreds of pounds? That depends entirely on how easy it is to recreate and how many people have done so. If you don't place that value on that work then that is fine, other people do.Many photographers would have worked with you for free given it was a not for profit project.

For what you mention yes you can get a picture for free from some sources and for very little from others, google the terms microstock and macrostock. The idea being you sell a lot at a low price rather than a few at a higher price. At the cheaper end of the market you do have to make some concessions, sometime it is in the quality (for instance, was the shot you purchased sharpened? was it sharpened correctly for the desired output medium?) and sometimes it is in the licencing terms (some free and cheap stock photography is limited in what you can use it for).

The internet hasn't made professional artists redundant. It has made the market evolve, it has opened up new business possibilities and sure there is a lot of free work out there which does have an impact but it isn't much. The prices for stock and editorial usage are set as they are because they have evolved to that, depending on your usage they can be pretty cheap, even from the big boys. There is plenty of competition that keeps prices keen, although you may baulk at a few hundred to a few thousand for a picture for a book cover, others do not. Notably in the case of books, our clients are other 'artists' who appreciate the value in the work.

So you want a picture, how much is it worth. If you had to have a trained professional with 50k worth of equipment and 20 years experience spend a day taking it, is it worth nothing? If it was worth nothing all you would have is non specific amateur work.

How strict your criteria are is likely to be the defining factor for you. If you simply wanted a picture of say a tropical beach, any tropical beach, you could probably find one for free. Now if you are a putting together an advertising campaign and you have a very specific vision of how you want the shot to look you are going to be spending in the thousands to commission a picture. Why, because you have to take a talented, insured, trained professional, have them scout a location, have them setup a shot including any props and models. lighting, scrims etc, they then have to take the shot(s), usually with the client hovering over their shoulder changing their mind every ten seconds. Then you have to go through post production and deal again with the client changing their mind (oh can you add an island in there, oh I didn't see that high ass cruise liner, can you remove it, can you add more sand please, oh I don't like where that tree move it to the left and move its shadow) and then yes it is worth a few thousand per billable hour (and a couple of days planning and post production that usally isn't billed). It all depends on your relationship with the client and how much you work.

As you say specifically commissioned work attracts a higher charge, you are likely just not used to those rates, stock and editorial rates aren't all that high compared to comissioned work. The difference between macro and micro stock photography (which is significantly cheaper than comissioned work) is in the business model and as mentioned often the quality of the terms of use.

I'm not trying to be mean, just explaining the situation may be different to how you saw it given your limited exposure to the field. Yes the internet has been a boon to some purchasers of content, especially photography, but for those of us willing to adapt, it is also awesome.

Possibly, probably in some cases. Usually where the rights holder is a large company rather than an individual.

As a photographer the google review is bad news. Stopping your work being copied is impossible, be it somebody with a cell phone in a gallery or a screen scrape from your portfolio online. Once that copy is out there (and tbh most of us don't care about a casual copy like that) it's hard to track back to me. Under google rules, a publisher can find my picture, make a token effort to as me for permission, then use it at will with only the risk of having to pay 1-200 in fines, if I ever find out. Oh and I can't stop them even when I do find out. Apparently the only way around this is to submit ALL my work for licencing.

Frankly this sucks. For clients who do not want their wedding / birthday / barmitzvah shots used outside my portfolio, or for me when my work is used by somebody who isn't going to pay a fair amount or worse, an organisation I do not wish to b associated with.

Think how you'd feel if your kids birthday or graduation shots that you wanted kept private ended up on the news or a magazine or in a book? Oh and you can't stop it, you don't get paid and you can't sue me either. Sucks right.

The bottom line is if you don't have permission you cannot use it. I have yet to hear of a single example of where these companies have not been able to publish a book or news story because they haven't been able to get an image. Everything, ever, since cave paintings is available via the liks of getty and similar. There are shots of everything current available via many agencies. They simply don't want to pay a fair price (and the pricing is pretty low, hundreds not thousands, per shot mostly for editorial stuff, depending on how unique and special the shot is), they just want to use google image search and get it for free.

Screen idols: higher resolution means better laptops

Re: Size matters!

Not really. I'm sure if you only use your laptop for watching low res youtube videos of badgers doing the horizontal hooplah then you may not appreciate the benefits of a higher resolution. However, not everyone shares your musteline fetish, some of us do use our laptops differently! Some of us even work (yes that is an o&r in the middle) on our laptops.

Just because you personally would not see a benefit does not mean that nobody would and we must all be cash happy fools, easily parted from our money. I can get my head around the fact the some folks wouldn't benefit from a high res screen, or thunderbold, or a dvd drive etc. I think you'll find what's lacking is your ability to comprehend other peoples needs.

Re more pixels = more light, the area blocked by the grid would increase as a percentage so yes potentially that is valid (depending how far they shrink the transistors), as is the need for more transistors which could use more power.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TFT_LCD#section_2

Has some good pictures of TN screens which should illustrate the point.

As regards who needs more pixels. Need might not be the best word for it. As a photog I would love a 4k 17 inch IPS panel laptop, assuming programs can scale menus etc, leaving content to be displayed at the higher resolution. Long gone are the days of looking at a 6x7cm viewfinder or higher (large format is rarely digital, in medium format the closest is the hassie v system) and whilst the rear lcd's are getting better they are more use for histograms. Shooting tethered in the field can be really useful, especially when your depth of field is in mm and you can't reshoot. A shaded high res laptop screen is the dogs for verifying you got the shot.

Doing your post production with your feet up in the garden is pretty nice as well. Do I need a higher res screen? No. Would it be worth the money, offer some competitive advantage in a competitive industry and make life a but more fun, hell yeah :-) Obviously the same cannot be said for everyones situation. I would have thought dell or someone with a similar sales method would have put higher res screens in laptops as an option. The first one to do it would sell a lot.

If you can get a decent 1080p quadcore ivybridge with 8gb ram, a kepler gpu (for adobes mercury video engine) and an ssd for maybe 1400 usd, you could charge 600 extra for a higher res screen, undercut apple, sell plenty and make money.

Apple have moved first, if nobody else follows they get my money, plenty of others will be doing the same. Hell, a decent camera is 3-8k (you tend to buy 4 of them, 2 to use, 2 as spares), a really good one 40k, plus another 30-50k in lenses, and stills is cheap next to video, an extra few hundred on a laptop screen that will last maybe 3 years (that's pretty good next to a camera body which would have had its shutter replaced probably twice in that time), that's an easy choice. For a home user, it's probably a lot harder to justify to the mrs :-)

Larry Ellison buys island 1000x bigger than Branson's

Remember cpt cook!

Mess with the kanaka maoli and they take your mana :-)

I think the state missed a great oppertunity here to obtain the land and lease it for farming purposes. But instead we get a multi billion dollar metro system and expanded roads if there is a golf course at the end of them.

Given the price of food here, I cannot see how farming wouldn't make money on Lana'i. I know geothermal power is contraversial because of Pele (not the footballer) but it should be considered before windfarms.

You have to go for a walk on Lana'i before sunset, wander down dirt track roads and through unspoilt forrests to truly appreciate how valuable it is to have land that doesn't have a costco and maccy dees every 20 yards. Now if Larry gets rid of the concrete ship wreck I might give him a chance.

Re: I for one

Good!

As an aside, did you see some canuk dumped their boat on front street, we just got rid of the last one. At least it proves canuks can tip something right!

Re: $6500 per acre sounds good to me

They are useless as a commercial interest. They are useful as environmental preserves and hunting ranges.

There is a considerable amount of shorefront, but Lana'i lacks a lot of infrastructure. Outside of the harbor \ airport and town there is very limited amounts of real road. Much of it is dirt track. Developing the island would be extremely expensive but is possible. It is however extremely culturally sensitive. Developers (like the current windfarm plan) tend to make reasoned decisions, then screw up the details. A windfarm is not insane, putting it in the middle of a garden of the gods is. So much of Hawai'i is over developed, only Ni'ihau (which is offlimits to none kanaka maoli), Kaho'olawe (uninhabitable due to extensive bombing), Moloka'i and Lana'i really remain as sanctuaries.

We are not looking forward to this :( Lanai is a beautiful, largely unspoilt paradise with a rich cultural heritage. Now apparently some haole wishes to build a wind farm in the garden of the gods. The only reason this vulture wants the island is to make more money. His only care for culture is how much profit it can make.

How many more iwi will be disinterred to make way for hotels, condos etc. Honestly, consider for a second if I acquired your local church, dug up your kupuna and built a casino on it? How would you feel if your culture was disnified and parodied for tourists. You sacred sites and ancestors desecrated in the name of 'progress'. Lanai had hoped for a benevolent owner.

Visitors come here and they go away thinking Hawai'i is about pineapples, protea and pumeria. All entirely introduced by haole post contact. Hawaiians are doing their best to care for their culture, land and sea after generations of assault on all three.

'Unbreakable' Samsung Galaxy Note II to take on iPhone 5

Re: "By the time it hits shelves, ..."

Whilst most users may not know, google play etc does know and care, people then care when their device isn't compatible.

Releasing more up to date o/s's with some features disabled is beneficial. Simple things like being able to use a front facing camera etc. That isn't really cpu limited.

My biggest bugbear is bloated apps I don't need that cannot be moved to the sd card or uninstalled. Even windows mobile in the 90's supported that. It also didn't take 5 minutes to scan the card on reboot. The amount of junk (think free office, 5 or 6 different google apps) that not only cannot be removed without rooting but that constantly grows is seriously annoying. I don;t want google music or books etc. Get that junk off my phone!

Re: "By the time it hits shelves, ..."

True, but this is to be expected from a company that pays such attention to detail. Seriously, an unboxing experience team? I don't know about others but my unboxing experience lasts about as long as a 12 yr olds first encounter behind the bike sheds. Having been forced to wait 24-48 hours for the courier the box is dismantled, destructions and all, with a fervour only matched by a starved bear attacking a picnic hamper. I do not do waiting well.

Mind you, an indestructible screen, that sounds almost like a challenge. Its a welcome quality but a brave statement to make. I wouldn't say I abuse phones, I do use the heck out of them.

Re: "By the time it hits shelves, ..."

To a large degree it depends on the phone makers approach to design. Approximately every year apple makes a damn fine phone. It comes in maybe 3 capacities but otherwise it's all one platform. They may keep an older model on sale as well. Every year or so ios gets an update. Apple tests this on maybe 7 or 8 (I lose track sorry) different phones and maybe 3 tablets?

Now let's take an android phone and tablet maker. They have to compete against other companies using the same basic os. So they differentiate on hardware and bundled junk. So rather than one bloody good phone and tablet a year, they are making phones for photographers (with insane mp counts, diffraction must be hell on those), phones for music loves, phones for taller people, phones for luddites, phones for people with 6 toes. Then they go and make a tablet for each group as well. Very targetted and specialised phones, that way they can be 'better' for any specific group. This means when a new os is released, instead of opening a drawer and charging 7 phones, they'd have to test it on 30-40 phones and tablets. They'd actually have to build an individual image with the appropriate drivers, bundled software and any additional gui enhancements, then test it, for each product.

It seems like htc has figured this out with the htc one, although they couldn't resist making a few variants. Plus apple has higher profit margins so can invest in supporting older phones, whereas in the android market, where there is considerable competition, it is cutthroat and that would add more cost. I don't like it but that's my guess.

Re: "By the time it hits shelves, ..."

Very well said. MS used to do a half decent job of updating their phones, Apple do it very well (although non core features are sometimes not functional on older handsets, at least the core gets updated). Whilst it is more likely the manufacturers to blame rather than google, it is android and by association google, that gets the blame. Google needs to get its manufacturers by the short and curlies and make sure updates happen. Whilst ios is a little limiting for my tastes (although I acknowledge it is a supurb product) I will be looking very hard at WP and IOS when my next upgrade comes around.

Nothing says **** you like ignoring customers who just dropped a couple of hundred bucks and a 24 month contract on a pretty new phone, to spend the next two years seeing a flurry of newer phones and os upgrades. Not to mention not being able to download apps because your os version is too old. Muppets.

Re: A word of caution

My sidekick 4g lasts about 5 hours, I just carry an external battery. I hammer the hell out of it, video, vnc, email etc. I would happily accept a thicker phone with a bigger battery. Seriously, with the screen being so big an extra 5mm of depth won't cause the end of the world (December apparently, until they find part 2 of the Mayan calendar).

Holographic storage: We're going to do it this time. No, really

Sounds like they have been speaking with the Argyll and Bute councillors. We are going to solve the problem by telling you it isn't a problem. Now time for a payrise and junket to celebrate!

It's always reassuring to know you can change reality by simply ignoring it. I shall attempt this technique with the IRS. Previous attempts to be removed from their mailing list have failed.