Brother Phil

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• Commented on Heavy illegal downloaders buy more music
  I think the affair of Dr Nutt illustrates the British governments opinion of evidence and science. How long before whoever commisioned this poll loses their job for letting the cat out of the bag? Either that, or some NuLabour .ssh.t...
• Commented on UK govt proposes idiotic two-strikes-and-you're-out Internet copyright rule
  I've copied my letter to my MP and the consultation to my blog, if it's any use to anyone: www.culmer.org.uk...
• Commented on Jon Sarriugarte's fire pit kits
  Gas is only greener than wood if it comes from biochar, fermenters or similar sources. The carbon in wood has been there for decades or less, and so has little or no effect on atmospheric CO2 levels. The carbon in...
• Commented on Cab Calloway, Betty Boop and Max Fleischer: "The Old Man of the Mountain"
  These are old favourites of mine, which I discovered via the Vintage Tooncast, or something similar. ISTR a german based internet TV station streaming them as well....
• Commented on Artist takes $190,000 out of bank because they won't give him a mortgage
  I did something similar, back when I was young, and £50 was a lot of money. Lloyds cut my limit, and and wrote to say "we've cut your limit and you're over the new one. PS we're charging you £25...
• Commented on John Keel (RIP)
  @Stygyan Yeah, that's who I thought of too. I wonder if Sgt at arms Keel was named for the author? Phil. -- How do they rise up?...
• Commented on The Chappe Optical Telegraph
  The Murray system sounds rather like being the inspiration for the clacks. The Fifth Elephant has a pretty good write up of it....
• Commented on Tweet (#2246611762)
  The style looks familiar. Is this the person who did the stuff for the A-ha videos?...
• Commented on Review: Kindle DX
  How does it handle multi column PDFs, such as Steampunk Magazine? My Sony reflows these, and breaks them horribly....
• Commented on Fake DHS "photography license" for fake no-photos laws
  if you go to http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/badge.php you can do yourself a Flickr photographer ID....
• Commented on Brit MP saw undercover cops egging crowd to riot at G20
  The only surprise here is that the government haven't slapped a D notice on the story. It was widely believed that the "poll tax riots" were actually a few lads from Special Branch kicking off in front of the TV...
• Commented on Home Office official offered advice and "comfort" to Phorm spyware vendor
  And for crowning chutzpah, Phorm have set up a website characterising the complaints as a "smear campaign"...
• Commented on Shepard Fairey Counterfiles in Associated Press Obama Poster Conflict
  IANAL, but my take on it would be that printing a photo of a work of art to illustrate an article about that work of art would likely be fair use. Archiving and selling copies of that photo separately from...
• Commented on Art film made with satellites videos of solar wind and coronal mass ejections
  Imagine a man going on a journey......
• Favorited Glass jellyfish sculptures on Boing Boing
• Commented on Harry Potter: Zionist Conspiracy to Promote Witchcraft and Satanism???
  @Dinobuddy, A guy runs up to a woman, knocks her to the ground, and starts slapping her. What a lowlife bstrd, huh? How about if I add in the data that a spark had set her clothes alight, and that...
• Commented on Brits: Act now to stop Parliament from gutting privacy protections
  I remember this coming up before, and writing to my MP, who told me that he and the Tory's are against it, but we need a groundswell like the one on expenses. Reminds me of an old joke - what...
• Commented on 15-year-old girl beaten by sheriff's deputy
  @PhilipB Not stupid: arrogant. This sort of thing is coming to light up and down the country, and this is what the evidence seems to point to: as far as he's concerned, the camera doesn't matter, because he's a cop,...
• Commented on Amazon supplier loses warehouse lease, invites the public to loot its books
  I'm with Zio, on both counts. I'd love to make myself a storage box in a book, but I just can't bring myself to cut up even a complete piece of s**t to make one. Maybe I can find a...
• Commented on Videos of near misses with trains
  If I remember the news article correctly, the second one is a reverse cut of the first. I would be tempted to say "Think of it as evolution in action", were it not for the danger to those on the...
• Commented on Dell goes tablet again with the multi-touch XT2
  Having said that, I've just googled "eee tablet", and I see there are one or two. Just need to get them on the radar....
• Commented on Dell goes tablet again with the multi-touch XT2
  What I'd like to see is a EEE tablet - I'm guessing you could hack something out of a Sony PRS700 and a netbook (anyone want to donate the parts?), but it would be slow. A tablet that you could...
• Commented on What Digital Britain would look like if it was based on fact, not special pleading
  "And in other news, Cory Doctorow was today convicted of breach of copyright law, when he distributed his works under a so-called "Creative Commons" licence, banned under the Publishers (Compulsory Registration) Act of 2010. The copyright czar, Lord Carter, said...
• Commented on How to hallucinate with ping-pong balls and a radio
  The other way to try it is to combine the radio & pingpong balls with a strobe. Frequencies in the range from 8-15 Hz or so apparently have interesting effects. A while ago I generated some noise for playing with...
• Commented on EU set to extend copyright on sound recordings -- call your MEP!
  I've emailed a few jouralists about this - might get some response if we're lucky....
• Commented on Beware the clomping of the candy-fueled Chicken Walker
  It's a KID-209. "Hand over the candy. You have 20 second to comply."...
• Commented on The best steampunk goggles you have ever seen (through)
  Want....
• Commented on USB microscopes getting cheap
  At 100x, that's a for engineering or kid's science - lab scopes tend to go in the range 400x - 1200x. I picked up a digital eyepiece from a german company on Ebay a while back. 1.3MP, video at 640x480,...
• Commented on Londoner videos his bullshit anti-terror stop-and-search
  #86, very good point, but one drawback is that those who are doing something wrong get all defensive on you - see the front page of todays Metro for an example. http://img.metro.co.uk/e-edition/An673/Metro20080820/resources/index.htm?referrerUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.metro.co.uk%2Fe-metro Even the pro-fascist middle england mouthpieces can't ignore...
• Commented on Beijing: "Alive in Baghdad" videoblogger among US citizens detained in pro-Tibet protests
  #1, just wait - the way the US government is going, they may get those 10 years yet....