The MPAA didn’t quite like the aforelinked piece on piracy by David Pogue. Ernesto over at TorrentFreak hashes things out:

Pogue notes that none of these titles are available for “rent”. The MPAA on its turn argues that many of the titles are available to “watch instantly online.” So who is right?

Looking at Amazon, one of the most prominent video streaming services, we see that none of the top 10 movies can be rented, backing up Pogue’s claim. In fact, more than half (6) of the titles cannot be watched online “instantly” at all in the U.S. The four titles that are available have to be bought.

The MPAA views video rental as a bell it wish it could unring. Not available to rent? Tough shit.

Peter Kirn found a cool Github project for recording Mac audio:

WavTap, from coder and GitHub user Patrick Ellis of Berlin, finally makes grabbing audio on the Mac work the way you’ve imagined it should work. Hit a keyboard shortcut – ctrl-cmd-space, though that default can be customized – and start recording. Hit it again, and stop.

It’s not the easiest solution for a layman to set up, but it could definitely come in handy. Ryan and I recorded another episode of The Backlot last night, and (off air) we talked a bit about how he has two recordings of the show running just in case something happens to one. A tool like WavTap¹ could simplify that backup recording. Neat.

(via The Loop.)

I know everyone’s talking about Microsoft’s new branding today, but I rather enjoyed this breakdown of Texas Monthly’s new logo.

{% blockquote -TJ Tucker http://texasmonthly.tumblr.com/post/29637106221/a-one-question-interview-with-tj-tucker-texas Texas Monthly Creative Director %} We brought back the fatter ball terminals and added very small ball terminals to the serif of the ‘e’ and the lowercase ‘t.’ We also brought back the curve at the top of the lowercase ‘t.’ The differences may seem minor, but to me, it’s the details that complete the experience. {% endblockquote %}

Austinist had a little fun with the changes, but they look pretty stark if you ask me. Love that lowercase ’t’ and ‘y.’ Details, details, details.

{::nomarkdown}

Leap represents an entirely new way to interact with your computers. It’s more accurate than a mouse, as reliable as a keyboard and more sensitive than a touchscreen. For the first time, you can control a computer in three dimensions with your natural hand and finger movements.

Neat idea, though of course I wonder how many people will sign up to wave their arms around like an idiot in front of a computer. I wonder if this could have some application in the audio/video world. I’m imagining “conducting” an edit or a mix.

You can pre-order one of these now for $70.

George Entenman loves Brett Terpstra’s hacks, but he also hates the confusion (he thinks) they espouse. He wrote a blog post saying as much.

What are the use cases for nvALT, Day One, FoldingText, Octopress, etc? […]

It never fails to amaze me when people spend enormous energy creating software but fail to explain what it does. Go look at Github if you want lots of examples. Why should I waste my time figuring out what your stuff is for?

Ever the gentleman, Brett responded in kind with a thorough post of his own:

…I accept that I tend to gloss over the use cases when presenting new tools. I (usually errantly) expect everyone to just see the practical uses and possibilities without my having to detail them. That’s not always fair, and I accept it as constructive criticism even if it wasn’t meant as criticism at all.

I’ve been using Brett’s hacks, apps, scripts and so-forth for, geez, I don’t know how long anymore. For me, the fun is in finding use cases for his little experiments (and the apps he recommends). That may sound like a waste of time, but it’s just how I work. I like to let my mind wander by solving a problem instead of just falling down some news/kitten rathole. When I have no use for something I just ignore it.

George’s stance kind of bugs me. Why waste my time trying to figure out what an app is for? I think I helped answer that last December:

About a month ago, I tweeted asking if it would be possible to use Screenplay Markdown in Brett Terpstra’s excellent Markdown previewing app, Marked. To my surprise, Brett responded enthusiastically, then Stu got in touch as well. Before long we were all communicating, along with Martin Vilcans, whose command line utility, Screenplain, was the first to turn SPMD text files into formatted screenplays.

Four of us were working on similar ideas, but when we smashed them all together, the result was a use case for what would become a new markup syntax, Fountain, which is now supported by a dozen apps and counting. It was like Tuco buying a pistol.

The social coding that Github¹ promotes has made my life easier and, better yet, has introduced me to some basic programming concepts. It makes for better apps and allows nudniks like me to find use cases for projects that may have gone forever unnoticed. Discounting that impact seems overly cynical.

I get that Brett would like to tame his public-facing work, especially if he’s going to provide tech support on Twitter or via email, but I also hope he doesn’t stop sharing the bits of code he regularly cooks up. More specifically, I hope he doesn’t balk because a use case isn’t universal or immediately apparent. Us plebes will always find something to do with it. Bring it.

Good point over at Goodfil.ms in response to today’s XKCD comic:

Average ratings are, in their essence, an attempt to distil the entire set of ratings about an object (in our case, films), down to a single number. Which seems useful - after all, it saves you so much time deciding whether something’s any good. The problem is that that’s all it’s good for - telling you whether something’s good or not.

Their movie rating system, which uses two axes, stars and “rewatchability,” may be more useful than the alternatives out there.

Dani Brenner for Israel Hayom:

Kfar Kedem site manager Menachem Goldberg decided to equip each donkey with a wireless router, similar to the ones used on public buses. “We have 30 donkeys in our town and we have fitted five with wireless Internet. We will consider whether to equip more as time goes on,” Goldberg said.

And New York still doesn’t have cell service on the Subway. I guess it’s better than strapping routers to the homeless.

(via The Verge.)

Claire Cain Miller for the New York Times Bits Blog:

On Wednesday, [YouTube] introduced a new kind of ad for its mobile site that lets viewers choose whether or not to watch a video ad, and only charges advertisers if the ad is watched.

Finally, YouTube offers ads on mobile. Wait, what’s that?

The new type of ad joins other ads that YouTube offers for its mobile site, including banner ads shrunk for the mobile screen and promoted videos that show up in YouTube search results.

Nice. More shit between you and that video you were looking for.

Michael Ausiello at TV Line:

In a conference call with reporters on Tuesday, exec producer Greg Daniels announced that the long-running comedy will conclude in May. “All questions will be answered this year,” he said. “We’re going to see who is behind the documentary. We’re going to meet some of them… and we’re going to explore [why they were filming for so long].”

This announcement is a long time coming. I’m excited to see how they send off this show that has been a part of my life for almost a decade.

But knowing why Dunder Mifflin is being filmed…that’s a question I don’t really need answered.

(via /Film.)

David Pogue for Scientific American:

Traffic to illegal download sites has more than sextupled since 2009, and file downloading is expected to grow about 23 percent annually until 2015. Why? Of the 10 most pirated movies of 2011, guess how many of them are available to rent online, as I write this in midsummer 2012? Zero. That’s right: Hollywood is actually encouraging the very practice they claim to be fighting (with new laws, for example).

Duh.

(via Daring Fireball.)