(r) = rhapsody playlists, (v) = video, (lv) = "bloody portal wanabes", launch video (ies) = "Internet Exploder sucks, but its required", (M) = 3.x+ Rhapsody Musician Reference, (A) = 3.x+ Rhapsody Musician/Album References, otherwise.. (____) = ____ is what it is.
This site is managed with GVIM, Filezilla and PHP, yeah I code my own stuff..
Due to the nature of this blog, archives have to be provided in seperate locations, to
get back to the most recent blog, simply click on the default link. The site will always
link to the most recent one.
Youtube + Me = Chann3lz, a completely random music video playing jukebox of content, managed by the audience, no registration necessary, all mechanism, no policy..
If you want your own netcast (netcast = podcast, Apple is trademarking podcast), but are not sure how to set one up, get my drop-it-in netcast generator script. Script is provided as-is, use at your own risk, thus I'm not liable if somehow you don't get it to work or it eats your cattle and causes you to lose a bunch of money.
My tutorials require Real Video not because I'm a Real-Rhapsody fan, but because RealVideo happens to be the best format for low-bandwidth tutorials
Rhapsify Everyhit.com looks for albums of a date range precise to a month, providing links to rhapsody-online (and YouTube). YouTubeify Everyhit.com is much better for tracking down music videos to precise songs on "YouTube.com".
BEST WAY TO PERUSE YOUTUBIFIED LINKS
go to url "about:config" in address bar of firefox browser.
toggle 'browser.tabs.showSingleWindowModePrefs' to true (pre 1.5; post v1.5, search Advanced Options )
then middle mouse click on each youtubified search link
click on the videos, bookmark, make into playlists, enjoy..
Alternative Content Discovery:Blogdigger, WebJay Trouble Viewing Videos? You need some Codecs: Matroska Pack (good), free-codecs (works, but it may have a Trojan) Need to convert Media format X to media format Y? Use Mediacoder its a freeware media swiss army knife, that is supposedly open source (its on sourceforge, huh?). Need to convert video formats that Mediacoder doesn't? Use AVS Convert , I own a copy myself, and it lets me do stuff with Quicktimes and WMV's that neither Microsoft nor Apple will permit me (note the site looks kinda cheap, but the program isn't. My most favorite rhapsody playlist:Smooth And Punchy Playlist My most favorite bands (and most played): Level 42 (r), Nik Kershaw, Cock Robin, Double (not played, on my wishlist), etc. My most favorite years (musically):1978 (r), pretty much any year from 1976 to 1989 My most favorite movie (note: works, and could be made on a low budget):Brainstorm Most Favorite Music Video (5/12/07):Brinsley Schwarz - Surrender to The Rhythm..
Why is this page so huge: Google can cache it all, audience is broadband users, I use less than 50% of my quota per month. Your most favorite rhapsody playlist:The Brian Eno Playlist Big application wish: SOUNDBLASTER LIVE! PRESET EXPORT, so I can share with you some of my killer rooms.
Cool way other than Chann3lz for listening to audio.
Bag 'O' Tricks Directory lists tips/tricks and reminders and other stuff I would love to clog my header with.
* - Wikipedia is edited by anarchy, don't use for christian inspiration. Christian Bahai is a oxymoron BTW. *! - I use Zonealarm Pro, which is what that flash demo is demonstrating, ZoneAlarm costs about fifty dollars a
year with updates, but is well worth it, it also comes with spyware weeding software, so there is no need for an application like "Ad-Aware",
"Spybot Search & Destroy" or "Spyware Doctor".
Companies/Organizations I Currently Consider Evil or Stupid:
Why?: Claims to save time and accelerate processing
(10/31/06 4:45 PM): For Those Looking for Halloween Sound Effects, there is an Album called "Sounds of Halloween" on Rhapsody. If you don't
have an account, you probably can take advantage of the 25 song per month deal, or the ten song a month deal with Rhapsody Online__,
and download this album. It is all just one track, an hour long!!
(10/31/06 12:32 PM): Here are some cool products from Tiger Direct (I actually would get these if I had the dough):
For My Girlfriend a Kodak 4 Megapixel Camera, 3X optical Zoom for ~88 dollars!!
For me and my laptop, a USB 2.0 HDTV Receiver!! With remote, ~120 dollars!!
For both of us, a 500 GB, ~250 dollar External USB 2.0 Iomega drive, to backup my pictures and videos I take every
weekend while hiking.
A high resolution LCD monitor, ~250 dollars, to replace the CRT that I'm using too much for Video Games (that 21" CRT
was best for watching movies, but I'm afraid of the X-rays now..). I've actualy already got one of these Viewsonic's. This one is
nicer in that it has that 90 degree (radius monitor) like feature, so you can use it to play "Spy Hunter" or "Pacman" in MAME in
Scan-line simulation mode..
(10/31/06 12:10 AM): Evidently there is a Video Netcast (you may have noticed I changed podcast to netcast, I'm trying to get use
to this..), anyhow, there is a Video Netcast on COIM-OP games, it's quite
interesting, the recent Netcast had a short interview with one of the maintainers of MAME, as well as Pinball and Video Game
collectors, and various coin-op video game enthusiasts. I wonder how many of these guys went to as many arcades as I did as a
kid.. I think I had been to about 50 at least. Maybe I'm exagerating that, but my step father was a Coke & Candy Vendor, and I
used
to get all his "Vending Times" magazines.. I cut them up too.. I wonder what they would have gone for on E-Bay had I kept them
intact.. I was a Arcade Game Freak.. Now I'm just a 3D Game freak..
Let me see ifg I can name some of the arcade game places
I had gone.. Hmmm: In New Mexico: Putt-Putt, Goldmine, Malibu Grand Prix, There were several in Los Alamos (one where La Cafe used
to be, one in the building where the Connoco is in White Rock, Big Cheese Pizza), Devargas Mall Movie Theatre in Santa Fe (this
was
the only place in Santa Fe). There were others but I forgot their names. Ft. Worth/Dallas: Forum 303 Mall Arcade, Chuck E. Cheese
in
various places, Putt-Putt in Hurst (My Favorite in the 80s), Land of Oz (Northeast Mall, best little 80s Arcade, I actually used
to
give guys tokens there just to play games with me, it was a great spot to make friends, it also had a jukebox that one could play
Journey and the like, while playing the Xenon Pinball machine or Galaga, or Asteroids and Missile Command, my memory is so vivid
of
this arcade that I can remember the precise locations of the games and approximate architecture of the room, it might make some
clausterphobic, but it was the right size for comfort), Malibu Grand Prix (in Hurst, and in North Dallas), Arcades at Six Flags in
Arlington. There was many other arcades I recall but forgot their locations.. One I recall was near the River Walk in San Antonio
(where Cloak & Dagger was filmed).. I think if I had saved up all those quarters, I probably could have bought a house by now..
Looking back on it, I don't regret it one bit.. It was a lot of fun!!
It's a little embarassing to mention, I guess just to
know that nobody would know where these places are or would care, probably about how foolish I am here talking about it like it
was
a big deal, but when I was a kid it was a big deal..
(10/30/06 10:09 AM): If anyone is wondering how to get back to the good old days of the 80s arcades, there are two pieces of
software, actually three, that you need to know about: MAME and Visual Pinball Emulator (with VPinMAME). What these programs do is
emulate the hardware that ran games like Pacman, Galaga, Centipede, Missile Command, and so forth.. So what you get is precisely
the game you remembered.. All you need to play the video games is the ROMS (read only memory chips), or the ROM image files in
this
case. Video Games in those days were stored on memory chips that were easier and cheaper to fabricate than regular RAM memory
chips,
and it was in this memory that the games were stored.. So to make a emulation of the game, all that is needed is an emulation of
the
hardware of the game machines, which is completely legal.. But it's illegal (to some small degree) to distribute the emulation
with
the ROM's. So it's up to you to go find the ROMs on the net (not a hard task) and drop the ZIP files into the "ROMs" directory..
MAME is the program you should download.. There is versions of MAME for Linux, in fact some distributions of linux come with MAME
installed, there is versions for the MAC and Windows, there are emulators even for old computers like the Commodore Amiga(w)__.
Now no arcade is complete without the Pinball machines to go with it.. Some years ago I came across this pinball machine
emulator.. The two programs you need to emulate a Pinball Machine are this: the "Visual Pinball Emulator", and a proram call
"VPin
MAME", Visual Pinball Emulator is something like Electronic Arts Video Pinball Construction Set, I had a copy BTW, that was sold
on
the Amiga and Commodore 64. Visual Pinball Emulator is much much much better, in fact it's probably the closest you will get to
emulating a pinbal machine precisely. Let me see if I can locate the binaries for you:.
If you are wondering about the legal aspects of these games, think of it this way, these
games
are not making a comeback, nobody is going to spend ten thousand dollars and up that it takes to restore these games, except for
Ubber Nerds and Donald Trumps. And the console games that are being resold do not match the original arcade games to the degree
that this emulation does.. So there is nothing close to this experience.. The parties involved in creating and selling the games
probably are no longer alive, many companies have been sold, resold, gone bankrupt, etc.. Since the 80s.. Atari has changed hands
several times, Bally no longer sells Pinball Machines, Williams President died years ago and I think Williams is no longer in
business either, Gottlieb doesn't make Pinball machines.. I can imagine that the only thing still being sold now is the branding
of
T-shirts and Collector Memorabillia. Frankly I would love to buy a complete collection of roms for these games and have an
official
copy of MAME that is supported by the manufacturers that made these games, but that's not likely, as sure as we are not likely to
see "Night Flight" in re-syndication..
RANT: It takes the Internet and services like YouTube and Morpheus, and iTunes, to make
content creators realize that they can either harness the power of the net and inspire a market in selling their products, or
their
market will occur with or without their consent.. They need to realize that it's not up to them to decide if their content is
available or not. It is really not fair to the consumers to suddenly not "have the option to buy" available to them.
Anyhow,
some of us just want to bring back the 80s, and one way of doing it is to bring back the games and pinball machines of the 80s.
They were works of art!!
BTW, the program Visual Pinball (Emulator), can be used to make pinball machines that can be played
legally.. So if you are not sure about downloading "Black Hole", "Black Knight", "Eight Ball Deluxe", "Xenon", "Evel Knievel" or
the "Kiss" pinball machines, you can make your own custom pinball machine. There is visual basic files provided with the "Illegal"
games, though, that should help you to learn how to construct the logic for the pinball machine, and possibly to learn hwo the
"VPin Mame" connects to that.. I'm sure it would be quite an exercise for someone's electronics or digital electronics course to
provide as an exercise, making a pinball machine complete with game and score programming on the backend.. Even more so, to make a
actual pinball machine with all the circuitry..
I'm not sure what I did to install the Visual Pinball Emulator, or play these
games, but I did succeed in doing this a couple of days ago, so it does work!!
Just when it comes to the question "are you
legally able to play this game?", just realize that the question is there to protect the creators of the emulator. The pinball and
video game manufacturers probably don't care, so long as you don't go an manufacturer a arcade game machine or sell the emulator
to
Sony Playstation owners, because there is more of a market for 80s arcade games on consoles than on PC's.
Besides you likely
won't find someone downloading roms to MAME on their PS3 or XBOX, not with the ease you have on any other kind of machine. I've
been using MAME since I was in college, I had games running on SGI Workstations when I was making my animations, it's not quite as
much of a time waster as many games sold these days, like 2142.. Better yet these machines were made to be played by more than
one
person.. Like with Joust, you can play against a friend on the same computer. Monster Rampage, you can play three on the same
computer.. There is a MAME emulator called Kaillera that can allow multiple
people to join in on a Internet Sync'd MAME emulation.. This is possible as all computers use time clocks, and the random number
generators and such as often seeded by these clocks, all that one needs to do thus is sync the clocks of games running on multiple
computers and synchronize the joystick and button events, and when they occur with respect to the clock ticks, if you can do this,
you can sync the machines together and its completely possible to play the same game over the Internet, even though each person is
playing in their own emulation.. What the Kaillera server has to do is maintain the synchronization between the game clocks and
the
events that occur, because the logic in the game uses this to determine what will happen in the game. Since the machines are the
same, the ROMs are the same, the input is sync'd to the game clock, it's just a matter of making sure the events occur precisely
at
the right time (don't worry, these emulators can step back and restart the emulation if needed). There are ways that the outcome
can
be matched to determine if the games are syncing correctly. Anyhow, if you want to play "Warlords" or "Gauntlet" with your
brothers
over the Internet, it's possible now..
(10/28/06 2:39 AM): My hosting (phpwebhosting.com) sucks, this is proof.. Well I should have made backups of October, but it's
lost, at least it wasn't the whole site.. I'm backing it up now.. It has a quota.. I was going to upload some new content, and it
wouldn't let me write in my blog (since it is not database driven).. Well maybe I need to get a database driven blog for once..
Well I was able to retrieve some of my blog from Google's cache..
---- BLOG LOST ------
---- BLOG LOST ------
---- BLOG LOST ------
---- BLOG LOST ------
(10/19/06 9:51 AM):
Watchout for the Everready Rechargeable (Colored Green) NiMH (Nickel-Metal Hydride) Batteries.
My
father and I, both have had the Triple-A batteries heat up in our pockets.. I had thought, No, it's not statistically possible
that
the battery could find a connection between two keys on a keyring or a handful of money.. But it is possible. I took out a
Battery
Tester, I put my positive on the Pole of the AAA, or the Nipple-Like part. Then I put the Negative on the Rim near the Pole, it
turns out that on the same side there is both positive and negative connections.. Meaning that if that battery has got one end
touching keys or a coin, it will overheat, possibly burning flesh or worse, exploding.. I've had this happen to me twice with
keys,
and once with pocket change..
(10/18/06 1:17 PM): Installing 2142, took forever for it to decompress the installer, but needs about 4 gigs of space free to do
the install (actually it didn't ask me, I just suspected it would need that amount of space so I cleared off some netcasts, and
made room, I'm butting up against my drive space on a 140 gig drive, I guess I could get one of those half-terrabyte drives for
200
dollars).
(10/17/06 9:31 PM): Evil
Advertisers(w)__,
or Electronic Arts(w)__,
however you like to think of them, are going to start advertising in video games, here is a glimpse of the future of advertising in gaming, well at least in Electronic Arts games.
Hasn't anyone told them advertising is dead? Oh I've got some advertising here, oh yeah, but you don't pay a dime for this site, I
do.. I have a right to that.. But I paid for BF2142, I don't expect to see advertisements in it.. I think if you pay for it, you
shouldn't ge any advertisements.. Just like Cable Television, paid stations should not have Ads.. I think that should be the
default overall.. If you pay for it, you shouldn't have ads.. This should go for DVD's as well.. And CD's.. And..
I'm not
going to boycott EA games, I'm going to boycott the products of those they advertise for.. I will make sure to stay far away from
those products..
(10/16/06 2:47 AM): After looking at the "Lords of Dog-Town__"
documentary, I realized how much "stacy
peralta__"
(if it was call Stacy's work) sugar coated the movie, albeit the documentary jumps on Jay Adams(w)__
lack of success too much.. Listening to an audio book on ADD/HD children, it makes me wonder if really Jay is reponding negatively
to the lack of success, I mean the lack of success can lead to a downward spiral of drug abuse if one hasn't enough victories..
It's human to piss on the ones who didn't take the bull by the horns, but if they were brothers, this wouldn't be the way to
follow
through on a documentary. I mean you don't come away from the film with the idea that these were well connected individuals, but
guys who had become really sick of the past and with each other, kinda like a band that breaks up because the lead singer has
sought a solo career.. Then any attempt to resurrect the magic of the event results in mounds of self-promotion for the more
successful parties.. I mean I hardly ever heard about anyone other than Tony Alva and Stacy Peralta.. I mean when you get more
out
of the movie than the documentary, that's saying something about the quality of the documentary..
(10/16/06 12:40 AM): Newscorp and Warner Communications can go suck an egg.. You Tube is here to stay, if not, it will be in some
form or another, find a lucrative business model and get the freak out of Youtube's way..
It's what people want.. And it's the
future, drop dead!
(10/15/06 1:04 PM): My ABBA(M)_
Arrival CD was getting all scratched up, and I was contemplating getting a "Disk Doctor__"
device to fix the scratches, then I realized that all I need to do is make a copy of the CD on my machine. Because computers have
better control over the CD-ROM heads than a normal CD player, which can only skip to the next track.. The computer has infinite
oversampling and ways to avoid skips.. So I took the CD and made a backup copy from the scratched CD.. Fixed the problem..
Yahooo!!! BTW, though the world has shifted into mp3 players and such, I still prefer the sound of a unencoded CD to an mp3.. It's
only when it's inconvenient to carry around a CD player that I really get aching for my mp3/wma player(s).
(10/14/06 2:30 PM): Sick and tired of "C:\WINNT\system32\wuauclt.exe" wanting to restart my machine nagginly, I finally went into
ZoenAlarm and added the program to "program control", then I told zone alarm to kill the program anytime it appeared. So hopefully
I won't be nagged again.. MICROSOFT IS THE VIRUS!!! that I'm trying to protect myself from.. To bad I've become dependent on one
strain of their virii.
(10/14/06 6:00 AM): What is the secret to PHP's success: Free, Consistent, Constant, Unchanging, Essential, Open Ended, Open
Sourced, Reuseable, and Very Well Documented. Now, what does Zend have to do with PHP? I suppose, absolutely nothing, ZEND = ZEd
&
aNDy. I guess they have something to do with PHP, but the original developer of PHP didn't really know them very well, they came
in
after him.. I suppose I use a lot of what Zed and Andy created, but I hate to hear about certification courses because it means
that someone thinks there is a way to master something, like PHP by taking such courses..No, it's how ZEND makes money off your
butts..The only way to learn PHP is to do it.. End of story..
If you want to program well, take some computer science courses,
or get a degree in computer science, like me.. I can tell you first hand that what did me well was just writing a lot of code in
C,
and realizing that programming is tough stuff.. PHP is like tinker toys in comparison. It reminds me of C64 Basic, in fact C64
basic was harder than PHP.. But it's not how hard the language is, but what it allows you to do.. And I guess that is what people
get the certification for, besides getting jobs.. To be aware of what people expect of someone who develops with PHP.. Well,
though PHP is developed all over the world, there is no real money in using it.. Not unless you can coerce someone into funding
yoru development.. It's really used to make blogs and content management systems.. It's best not to think of PHP as a computer
language, but as a web function glue language. Because the more you elaborate on how your things work, the slower the code.. The
less you elaborate, the faster the code.. So it helps to know of all the precompiled embedded functions in the language. Such as
using Array_walk, than using a While loop with an interator over an array.. I'm willing to bet Array_walk will be faster..
Even the creator of PHP (see Floss show, 10??) didn't set out to create a language, he created PHP to make the web libraries he
was working on, more accessible to people.. The reason I like PHP is that it's simple enough to get real work done, without
getting
caught up in programming language issues that only detract from solving problems. PHP is about using tools in creative ways..
These days functions in PHP are getting smaller and smaller.. Like I have a database library that reduces all queries and database
updates to associative arrays.. I'm probably not making best use of of the databases to reduce them to operations on associative
arrays, but it keeps me from getting caught up in SQL syntax.. Like if I want to search in a database for a row that matches a
name
and address.. I only need to create an associative array with the name and address in it. I can do a find on that, then use the id
obtained from the find to obtain a row from the database.. Or I can use the associative array to apply an update to the row.. All
without writing one line of SQL..
(10/12/06 3:24 PM): PHP's developers suck for specifically one thing.. Magic Freaking Quotes__..
Luckily there was some code to fix it..
(10/11/06 2:05 AM): You know what makes a great combination, Kashi Cinananananamon
Mini-Wheats__
and Ezekial 4:11__
(??) Plain Cereal.. That and some Plain Silk Milk (Soy).. MMMMmmmmmm.. BTW, I am probably the only Meat Eater, that doesn't drink
Dairy.. I prefer Silk__
to Dairy.. It just tastes better.
(10/11/06 1:17 AM): Youtube is screwed.. Google purchased it.. Given what I think is going on at google, that the crap has hit the
fan, and its presidents with it.. This means that Youtube will get disolved into a form of video sales service like iTunes.. Say
goodbye to youtube.. BTW, youtube was purchased for 1.5 billion dollars..
(10/11/06 12:53 AM): I'm doing work tonight, it's coming along nicely.. I wrote the beginnings of a Content Management system, I'm
doing everything, even the roles and flagging of the pages.. It's not super nice, but it's my first CMS.. I used some code from my
blog to make it, so maybe this will make its way back into my blog.. Well maybe.. Anyhow, I was watching CG netcast, it's in a
video netcast form, and done by some guy who is living in Switzerland.. Looks nice.. He did a bit on taking pictures of textures,
which was somewhat informative for me, but a little boring as I have used digital cameras for about 4 years.. My current camera is
a 10x Optical Olympus with a 4 Megapixel capability.. You can laugh at me now.. But, I got it two years ago for 500 dollars.. They
go now for about 300 or less, and even have 6 megapixels.. I'm thinking of getting a higher resolution one, or even splurging for
a
low-end HDTV camera. Anyhow, I'd probably wait until the resolution increases 4 fold, as images are two-dimensional, you won't
notice the difference between a 4 and a 6 megapixel image, while a 4 and a 1 megapixel image are a difference of 1000 pixels in
width and height.. A 6 megapixel is about a 25% upgrade on 4 megapixel in width and height (barely noticeable). So I'm going to
wait around for 16 Megapixel cameras.. They are now at least at 10 megapixel.. I guess I will have to wait a year or two for it..
Don't you wish Moore's law applied to digital cameras? I mean, where is my 128 Megapixel camera? Considering we have 4 gig memory
chips.. You'd think there would be a 1 gigapixel camera by now.. CCD(w)__'s are
Memory(w)__..
I recall a time when there was a program for the Commodore 64(w)__,
that would turn the chip windows into a form of CCD(w)__, then
you could take pictures by collecting charges from the memory's capacitors.
Anyhow, at the end of Mister CG Cast's Video
Netcast I could disntinctly hear a Robert
Palmer(w)__
song in the background.. Wow!! I think it was "Mary and Johnny" or whatever that song is.. It seems that after Robert's death,
there
has been some recognition for his other music besides the obvious selections.. I have his greatest Hits, part 1, that's a good one
to get if you are looking to get some Robert Palmer..
I've got my Sansa M230 loaded up with a book about Hellen Keller(w)__
(who was not blind and deaf all of her life), and some book on ADD people (the Myth of Laziness), someone I know is ADD so I
thought
I'd look into it.. And I got a bunch of Progressive Rock!! Yes!! Rush!! Kansas!! and a bunch of others.. It was a good playlist, I
got from "Rhapsody To Go"..
I finally came up against the DRM on the Rhapsody stuff, it seems to time itself to fail at the
end
of the month, or I guess after 30 days.. I then had to get into Rhapsody and Re-sync, which really didn't take any time.. Anyhow,
I
have some music on my Girlfriend's Sansa, and her's failed instantly, the same as mine.. So it doesn't seem to be limited
according
to when you got the music, but at date boundries.. But that's the cool thing about the service, if you have a friend who wants
some
music, you can load their player with it from the site.. It will fail after a month, but it's a money saver.. She doesn't have a
problem though, it's got an FM radio in it, so worse comes to worse she has to listen to the radio.. But she was a bit miffed by
it.. I said, "yeah that's DRM for ya".
(10/05/06 4:20 AM): Can't get to sleep, I will have to wake up at 6:30, so I gave up and decided to watch more freshmen level UC
Berkeley courses, it's just fun to watch how different paying more for tuition would have gotten me a more entertaining education,
but I remember all this stuff, from
the
CS 61C, I wish I had had this at the feshmen level.. I had to go through Pascal(w)__, Fortran(w)__ and
such before I got C(w)__, and even
in C we didn't talk about Assembly
Language(w)__
much.. I took assembly in my associate degree.. Yeah that's right so I did get it before C.. But C is easier than Assembly.. But
they are doing MIPS(w)__
Assembly which is like much harder than 8086(w)__ which
is what I learned.. But it's still interesting to watch..
Not to say I didn't get a good education, just that most of it was at
LANL__
taking the associates, Main campus UNM__
sucks.. Except when I got the 3D graphics course, and maybe taking OpenGL with Edward Angel__
(he retired, so at best you can get his book.. Hmm maybe he was just on sabatical, I know he moved to Santa Fe, anyhow.. ).
I
also watched the "Physics for Presidents" class and the talk about making an atomic bomb was fairly interesting, they elaborate on
what they found in IRAQ that Saddam was using to create Enriched Uranium.. This stuff I've heard all my life from my father who
was
working on this stuff at LANL (he's been spending this week going through his papers and determining what to throw away).. I'd be
at
home when he was working, and he would come home saying all this stuff that would fly over my head, and mention Uranium
Hexaflouride
and such, and I don't recall what he was doing, but watching this made me feel like I was returning all that language that was
flying at me.. Maybe if I watch the video a few times it will help me understand what my father was doing.. But it was interesting
to watch how they enrich uranium.. They made it sound pretty simple..
That Computer Science guy is on speed or something..
He's
so fast I can barely understand him. Where does he get his energy..
Wow This Video looks old, it's from the 70s, it's Herb Alpert's Rise.. Note, he's the guy that the A in A&M
records..
This is a great Music Video from Kurt Maloo and Double(M)_:
Devils Ball, Double is the Group that made the song
"Captain
of Her Heart (yt)" Popular in the mid 80s. Double may not be together, but Kurt Maloo(w)__
is still around, and I think I heard he released a new album. I had asked to get Double for a Xmas present but nobody listened to
me.. I think I'm going to get a set of their albums this Xmas for myself.
I couldn't wait, I went ahead and downloaded this album, because it is in mp3 format already!! Someone else would
pirate it, but not me.. He made it easy, he has it up there as a paypal purchase, and I love pay pal!! That's my favorite way to
buy stuff.. Instant Gratification.. I told you I would never purchase something with DRM on it, and this is just raw mp3 files..
But buy your own copy I'm not going to give it to you. Smart guy!! BTW, there is software to convert WMV DRM files to mp3 format
anyhow, so why not just put it in mp3 format and have some faith!! I hope he has good results from this method..
Okay here is proof that I got
photos of Julia Roberts, of course you can't see her face.. I was not sure it was her, from where I was standing, but my
girlfriend
was going crazy, throwing up all the sirens, and begged me to take a few shots in that direction.. I was using a 10x zoom lens so
I
couldn't make anything of it from within the viewfinder, as they took about an 8th of the frame, but I walked past them later and
could have got up and close personal shots, I just decided that if it was me and I wanted my privacy I wouldn't want someone
sticking their cameras in my face, so I abstained, but I guess I'm in the backlash stage of not having taken advantage of the
moment.. Oh Well..
I am thinking, hey I could have been the first photographer to take stereograms of her.. I wonder if there
is any photographers that have done that yet.. The only problem with stereograms is that you can see the purportions of people
pretty well, but if she didn't want people to see her figure I could make her look flat).. In any case, a missed opportunty..
However I didn't want to mess with her body guard..
I have about five of these photos.. Since I'm sending my girlfriends
parents copies, I figure I can't really sell them, so I will put them here for free when time comes..
(10/04/06 2:39 AM): This has to be the weirdest band I've
ever seen.. I do recall Foxy's style from their song "Hot
Number (yt)", but I don't remember this song, I certainly didn't think they looked like this, I was imagining an all
black band.. Boy was I wrong..
(10/03/06 9:13 PM): I was listening to Open Source Netcast, and it troubled me a bit.. Because it seemed on the program the focus
was on applying to business the same techniques applied in software, the idea of opening contributions to the world, in effect
lowering development costs by open the problem up to a group of people, around the world. This sounds great to business-types as
they focus more on ROI than anything. Greed inspires them.. They are cautious, but nevertheless greedy.. The problem with greed is
that it can create grid-lock effects in businesses, where everyone searches for the best people to solve a solution, and none ever
getting satisfied, as each are bottlenecked by their greed and not just going for the norm. The good side to outsourcing, is it
helps democratize nations, and levels the playing field, in effect blessing those who have done well with their talents and
driving
those who are inspired to work in the fields to realize what is required, to determine what can be expected, given the worst and
best turnarounds on a solution. I'm willing to bet that it will create more small businesses than large ones, reducing
organizations to service oriented businesses. The companies that will remain big are the ones with unique technologies, but
everything that is non-unique will be reduced to services.. The Unique companies with privately held information will continue to
make more money. I mean this is what you would expect. The open sourcing of busines, or rather outsourcing, can be affected by
factors outside the vacuum of a business pattern, such as disease, wars, psychological health, spirtuality, ethics, and parameters
that business has no control over. I can only speculate.. But many of these parameters, except for disease, rely a lot on how
people treat each other.. To think that how people treat each other will determine the success of the world as a whole.. If people
treat people badly, the system will fail.. But if people treat people well, the system will not fail. But for this to work,
everyone has to have an agreement on how to behave, otherwise it's highly probable it will fail. The drawback to outsourcing is
you can't control these parameters directly, you can easily aid workers with better healthcare, you can't easily boost their
moral,
you can't take them to team bonding activities, its a big question mark what the reliability will be of a worker or set of
workers..
The other concern I have is that in order for everyone to benefit from outsourcing they have to open up their organization's
secret
knowledge to strangers. Furthermore if they can't they have to manage the outsourcers more tightly without enlightening the
outsourcers to their business processes or trade secrets. So what this means is that smaller service oriented businesses stand to
benefit more than large businesses from outsourcers, unless the large businesses are to invest and fund smaller businesses. This
means that the more outsourcers are used, the more big businesses will have to fund smaller businesses, as the one thing you
cannot
have in a outsourcing model is trust. You cannot completely trust the outsourcers.. Well this is a mind blurt of mine, take it or
leave it.. But there is a lot of variables to this and less of them are in the control of men, when outsourcers are involved, but
outsourcing can't be all that bad for business, in the long-term as it leads to democratizing of the world by helping improve
people's well being. But I'm afraid of what the normal working environment will become if people are not treated fairly. As it
says in the bible a fool and his money will part. So don't assume that things will work to the theoretical extent of expectation.
How people treat each other has a greater effect than corner-cutting spending. Hey, I should be the one to speak with all my
suggestions of better players.. But I invest in technologies that I believe to be good, rather than going with the norm. Hey,
things can get better or worse, it's out of our control, and those who think it's in their control are only fooling themselves.
The solution is a macro-concept not a closed-micro-managerial one.
(10/03/06 12:23 PM): Steve Jobs(w)__
is quickly becoming the new Evil Techy, I guess without Bill Gates around, Steve feelslike he can fill the part. Apple is starting
to sue people for the use of the word "Pod" in every use in relation to mp3 files and such.. I got this from Cranky Geeks(w)__..
(10/03/06 1:31 AM): Searching for creative commons licensed music is completely impossible, it makes me think that whoever is
running Creative Commons(w)__
doesn't want to make the process of searching for content easy or streamlined.. It forces those who are just looking for content
in
general, to use in their works, to scour the net and waste time browsing through collections for music. It would put my mind at
ease
if the terms were accurately delineated, streamlined, and made very easy to search in google.. Like if I could do a search for a
word pattern in google, it would take the form "Country Music" "Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License"__,
or even something more concise like "Country" "CC2.5 Music"__..
It makes me think the guys at creative commons, if they are well meaning, are complete technological idiots..
I mean, have
they
ever done a site search on google, do they know how typify the licenses to the content, like how, in a search, does one
distinguish
between a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License for Music__
and one for the Web
Page__
that hosts the content? The license is too generic, it makes it impossible for someone to narrow a search without raking together
all the relevant content..
Maybe they want people to be a slave to the form of the content? To read each page and happen upon
compatible content licenses by seredipity..
If musicians and other artists customize their licenses too much, nobody will
want
to go through the task of determining the license terms. See, the more customized it is, the less people will want to go through
the
process of finding it or determining its relevance to their needs.. It makes me think that musicians really don't want to be
popular
or to have their content show up all over the net. See it's not where you show up on the net, it's the permeation of your content
into the nooks of the net. If you just have a song on GarageBand.com, you will only be seen by people that come to that site.. But
if that site is not searchable on google, and if someone is trying to determine quickly whether or not your content's license is
in
line with the fair use policy at creative commons, chances are people will not even listen to your content, worse yet, nobody will
be looking for it nor will discover it.
Albeit I like music, I haven't really known very many musicians that were tech savvy,
savvy enough to know how to sell themselves in a useful manner on the net. They dream too much about making it big, than making it
at all.. If you look at the world market place, the more musicians there are, the less visibility that is available, it is to your
advantage to first become popular and permeating, second to be commercially successful.. Yes, number one is to market your music,
so you know what people want, what people like, to determine the form you need to provide content, to determine who will come to
the show, and so forth.. After that you can determine how to best sell what you are creating.. But, without that element of quick
discovery, ease of search, delineation, categorization, accessibility, puting your content on the net will only serve people you
know.. At best it's a netified business card, but nothing more..
(10/02/06 11:22 PM): Went on another trail with my Girlfriend, helped some people stranded up in El Rito, NM__,
around road 44 and 122. Found some road with some really funny lettering on some multicolored flags. My girlfriend said it looked
arabic.. Found out we took the wrong road to the trail.. But it was just as well.. Ended up running into a group of cows that
drove our Blue Heeler(w)__
wild.. For about thirty minutes after we were able to drive our dog crazy with improvised "moos". Took some pictures of the
sunset
and mesa's outside of El Rito(w)__.
Then took the final sunset just outside of Espanola.. I'm thinking that these little adventures would make a great travel video
netcast. But it may not work on an iPod.. Hopefully the Zune will force Apple to bone up on their codecs, make them easier to
work
with.. Then I might.. But I expect it will be a Windows Media Video Netcast. At the very least, I'm thinking about a youtube
version
will be used.. I mean we have so much stuff happen to us, I might as well do it..
(10/01/06 11:50 PM): Well Eventually it's going to come out one way or another, but while my girlfriend and I were walking around
in Taos(w)__, I
won't mention where and I respect this ladies privacy.. My girlfriend said.. Hey, it's the lady with twins.. And I said, what
lady?
You know.. No I don't.. It's her, miss pretty woman.. Julia Roberts(w)__..
Yes, I believe she was right, Julia had something like three body guards with her, maybe it was just one.. One had a camera taking
photos, one had a good smile, and the other was probably her husband. We saw her babies.. But I was not so much concerned with
her
existence as my girlfriend was.. I even resisted the urge to take a few shots out of the trees to sell to national enquirer.. I
had
even thought about not saying anything, but I knew eventually it would leak out. I'm not a Julia Roberts fan.. The only movie I
really liked her in is Erin Brokovich.. I am more a Sandra Bullock(w)__
kinda guy.. Anyhow, I think maybe more than a third of the people who go to Taos are looking for Donald Rumsfeld or Julia Roberts.
I
feel sorry that she has to keep her cover from photographers all the time. And I respect that, so I'm not going to post photos
here.. Maybe just give some to my friends.. But you can't actually see her face. Her primary technique of keeping her face out of
photos, which I thought was engenius, is to get her face point blank with one of her children, and her husband too. I would hate
to have to live like that.. Well hopefully for her sake, my story won't appear on google for another week or maybe half a week,
so
whoever is reading, saw it here first. But hey, she looked pretty good for a mom.. I'm not sure, but I think she is a native of
New Mexico. I am too.. I can understand her wish to live in Taos, I love Taos too.. But today, with all the hordes of people,
kinda
made me disgusted a little bit.. I wanted to find another town.. BTW, I will not tell you where we saw her.. But there were some
suspicious people around the area some whom I thought might have been paparazi in disguise. Well there was a couple from Dallas
that came up and had us take their picture, and they took ours.. That was good because I spent about 30 minutes on the ground
trying to find a rock to place my camera.. Oh yeah, if Julia just happens to like music and is reading this.. I'll just say I'm
the guy in the Green/White Checkered shirt, brown Tilley hat and blue jeans (note, I had said a striped shirt but realized from my
photos I was wrong). My girlfriend was wearing a white hat and blue jogging pants. We had a happy, blue heeler with us, named
mila,
after milagro.. I passed Julia and her children by, and my girlfriend, on her right, and smiled at her bodyguard, said hello.. And
tried to be a little biut audible, "I think you are right, yeah that's her, but Celebrities are people too". I would hate to be
a
celebrity for this downside, how people react.. And if you think you wouldn't react, I would say you are a liar.. Either that or
well constrained, or you don't watch TV or Movies, a hermit in a Cave? A Christian pretending to be unaware? Okay... Whatever, if
you were able to do better than I, Applause..
Things I thought about saying to Julia as I Went By
(snob) I'm a big Sandra Bullock fan anyway..
(complement) I like you better in person.
(dumb) You are someone, I know.. I've seen you from some where.. Hmm..
(confused) Oh it's Sandra Bullock, can I have your autograph?
(sarcastic) I like her hair (its the only side I could see).
(nerd) Wow do you manage to keep the vector addition of your hair's normal to the vector of my camera zero?
(karaoke) I am so into you, I can't think of nothing else? (alternate lyrics: I can't get to know the nurse..)
(karaoke 2) Pretty Woman Walking down the street...
(crack) I'm ready for my close-up.
Of course there is bunches of others I could probably think up, but my girlfriend and I were amazed that of all the places Julia
was to be, it was where we were that day.. And nobody else in Taos was where we were, so we felt kinda special, like that was the
top of the day. But It's all I thought about on the way home, knowing I would blog about it.. But I really resisted gushing at
her,
or getting crazy.. I know it's not easy from celebrities, and I know I wouldn't like it if I was popular, trying to have time to
myself, with my family, and have to dodge paparazi.. So I basically said nothing to her, I tried to to notice, and carry on as a
stranger.. I think that is the best compliment.. But a worse case scenario she reads this blog, and I'm gushing at her now.. Sorry
Julia.. I don't know you.. It's just strange how people like me can see someone, we think we know, and know we don't, but still
feel like making the aquintance.. The best thing I can do is do nothing and protect their privacy, identity.. And if one blogs
about it, keep it a secret, except for the obvious.. She's quite clever, and where she is, I doubt the photgraphers will be able
to
find her.. Unless someone is so tempted to cash in on the witness.. Of course, since I didn't see her face.. I don't know if it
was
her.. But she did have two children with her.. So.. As I made my way back to my car, I put my camera away.. If I was to run into
her
again, I would prefer not to have the camera.. I understand the paparazi, and I know why they go to great lengths to invade these
celebrities privacy, it's for money. I wonder if a celebrity has ever turned the table and photographed the paparazi that pursue
them, maybe even blog about them..
That was my next line of thought was, what could someone like Julia Roberts do to reduce incentive to capture her in her privacy.
And I thought of some..
Ways Julia Might be able to reduce inadequate press:
Ocassions for people to see her in Taos, like Concerts, Book Signings, etc..
Strike a deal with Taos, to get four Julia Imposters to walk around Taos, with sunglasses on, and similar entrourage (sp?), so
that more people will think they've seen Julia, so as to raise Tourism in Taos (thus allowing Taos to improve road conditions, and
for Julia, frustrate and deter paparazi). Note, the Imposters would have to act like Julia in such a way as to not be noticeable
but strangely avoiding photographers.
Buy a Trail guide for alternate trails, using google earth, visit spots like Ghost Ranch, or one of the tens of places my
girlfriend and I have walked around New Mexico..
Photograph the photographer, post photograph on blog..
Favor one or a few photographers, give them exclusive photos, sell them to papers dirt cheap, flooding the net and media with
photos, making candid photos less valuable.
Vouch for legislation in NM law to prosecute candid photographers in the interest of protecting a celebrities rights. I'm sure
if it passed, it would bring more celebrities to New Mexico..
Gee I don't know, it's a tough problem..
Well evidently, it's just her Ranch.. I was telling my Girlfriend that I would rather be in New York if I was a celebrity, and I
came up with some reasons based upon the years I spent on 14th in Manhattan.. There is literally thousands of people on the
streets.. You could run into a celebrity and not even know it, there are so many people in New York that look like celebrities..
Many people are Foriegners, and are not as familiar as americans about who are the celebrities.. People in New York are used to
it.. You don't have to go anywhere to live in New York.. Shore'nuf, she's got an apartment there, and sometimes has been seen in
places like Union Square at the Market.. I lived three blocks down from that.. It's a pretty good place to get cheese and bread..
And all the good places to eat, and places to shop are nearby..
.
Unless obviously not copyrightable, all original works of Kiernan are Copyrighted: Kiernan Holland (C) 2000-2010
