Musical Archaeology - Rhapsody Playlists ('n' More)

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.

Blog Archives: [Current, 2007], [2006], [2005].

For You Lazy YouTubers: YouTubeify It Bookmarklet + FREEDB = Easy YouTube music searches.
For Those Who Haven't Patience To Use YouTube: CHANN3L Z - What If YouTube was TV. (NEW!!!, 2/07) Quicktime (30MB), YouTube One and Two, Tutes.
Cheapest way to podify yourself: Buy this mp3 player (I own two of these with 1 gig SD cards ) (--> DEMOSTRATION VIDEO)
Cheapest way to listen to audio:Dell A215, Get Some Clip On Headphones, Sound Blaster Live!
Best way to veggitate:

www.chann3lz.com Youtube + Me = Chann3lz, a completely random music video playing jukebox of content, managed by the audience, no registration necessary, all mechanism, no policy.. www.youtube.com Videos, Videos, Videos and more Videos, and you don't have to download anything, you don't even really need a Video Codec. It's all FLASH!! Tubeify Everyhit Take YouTube, Combine with Everyhit.com, What Do you get? iTunes How-to-install iTunes (v) here is a downloadable tutorial (v) if you have a slow line. RSS NETCASTS (Hint: Drag&Drop These Links onto iTunes "Podcasts"): Wikipedia Synthesized Mind "Fart" Synthesized (Monthly) Musical Archeology Synthesized Wikipedia Turkeys Synthesized 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
1. go to url "about:config" in address bar of firefox browser.
2. toggle 'browser.tabs.showSingleWindowModePrefs' to true (pre 1.5; post v1.5, search Advanced Options )
3. then middle mouse click on each youtubified search link
4. click on the videos, bookmark, make into playlists, enjoy..

How Fast Is Your, Connection, Really!! a script I wrote that computes data connection uproute/downroute rates (here is mine, Comcast).

Where to Find Quicktime Pro Forums (and many disgruntled owners): Quicktime for Windows Forum.

Best way to secure your computer: Grisoft AVG (free), ZoneAlarm (free*!) {flash demo}, TCPView (free) {for semi-advanced users}.
Best way to discover music besides this one: Coverville.com
Best way to access your computer remotely: VNC, in particular TightVNC (stay away from www.gotomypc.com)
Best way to obtain/distribute huge files (bit-torrent clients): Azureus
Best way to make backups: Knoppix (Linux/DVD*R), Audiograbber (CD2mp3), DVD Shrink (FreeDVDBackup)
Free Knowledge: UC Berkeley Courses (no credit)

Interesting netcasts for programmers: Software Engineering Radio
How to painlessly publish/purchase a book: LULU.COM
Best of the Best (non-obnoxious): 46 freeware utils
Best webhosting: Geocities (free, commercially scaleable), phpwebhosting (commercial with ssh/sftp-access), Find Hosting.
Best information resources: Google (no brainer), Wikipedia (def)
Best place to lust for synthesizers: Vintage Synth Explorer
Best way to convert wikipedia articles to sound TextAloud, the Eddie voice, and my custom UserTranslations.chl file (put in install directory). TA also comes with a firefox/IE plugin that will read web pages for you, making it easier.. I use it when I hate reading web pages..

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.

Say No To Software Patents
Thanks to: JESUS (CHRIST) *, Richard Stallman (AVI, RM, RM2-SP), and the respective creators of these packages and places.

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 but Wastes Hours of Time Submitting Rebate Offers no Recourse if Rebate Fails!! DELIBERATE THIEVES

All Rhapsody Playlists found in this page (and some not).. All Rhapsody Playlists YouTubeified

Tip Jar ->

or my Amazon Wish List

-[  Mind 'Burp' Blog (September 2006) ]

Web www.bl3nder.com

[ Index ][Top] blog:[Current,07][2006][2005] [YouTube-ified Playlists]

NetLibrary.com sucks for the following reasons, and will not be of any success because of them.
1. eAudio Books _ _ have a 19 day checkout period. There is no way to check in books. So one must wait until the end of the 19 day period before they can download another eAudio Book.
2. one can only download ten eAudioBooks _ _, there are two audio formats: CD Quality and Radio Quality. If you download both, that counts for two books, even though you downloaded really only one.
3. the Radio Quality eAudioBook uses a version of the Windows Media Audio CoDec _ _ that is only compatible with some players, it's a very low bit-rate, something like 1Kbps, and sounds awful, but each eAudioBook stores into about 20 megs, versus 100 for the CD Quality ones.. The downside is that as I said previously, if you make the mistake of downloading this, it counts one against your total downloads, so you now have 9, if you had ten, and downloading the correct one will bring you to 8 subscriptions left. Also the bit about the radio quality being worse, and quite incompatible.. I couldn't even make audio files this quality using Microsoft's codecs (I think one has to pay to make audio with this low a bitrate.. Okay add to that it's highly dependent on Microsoft technology..
4. the NetLibrary service doesn't give sound snipets, not even a slider so you can sample through the book to see if you want to listen to it. Some people may not like the tone of a book, or the person saying it.
5. No visible reviews of the books, no comments, no suggestions, no way to link to the books from a blog, etc..
6. eBooks through NetLibrary are not the downloadable kind, you have to read the books on your computer..
7. NetLibrary's concept of an eBook is that you use its simple interface to page through hundreds of one-page PDF files, carefully controlled by a Javascript based AJAX-like interface. It even prevents one to select the text in the PDF.
8. Since the text can't be copy/pasted, or even selected, for such an operation, it's impossible to use a voice synthesizer with the eBooks from NetLibrary. I use "Text Aloud" to read web pages for me, because I like to surf web pages, while my voice synthesizer reads the pages.. NetLibrary forces me to read each page, at my computer, without the aid of a voice synthesizer.. It's almost of more of an advantage to use an OCR with a scanner, and turn that into text to feed the voice synthesizer. OR better yet, pirate the material by the car loads from Bit-Torrent or Limewire. The Book Publishers are up the creek as far as I'm concerned..
9. Oh yeah, DRM(w) _ _ protected audio file are trackable, you can but OCR's with scanners and page feed mechanisms, so as to convert about 400 pages in about an hour.. If you really really want to give some books to your friends.. This is why the book publishers are clueless.. Don't piss off the consumers, they will bypass you.. Or even replace you (give Wikipedia or Lulu.com as an example).

BTW, my local library that boguht into the technology, claims that there isn't very many people who have gotten this NetLibrary thing to work for them, (this in the town of 10,000, which used to have the highest percentage of PHD's per capita than any city in the US), the Los Alamos National Laboratory is full of Scientists, and they can't figure out how to use NetLibrary, Guys!! You are a total failure as a service..

(09/29/06 5:20 PM): Richard Stallman talked about Coke's Murdering of People in Columbia.

(09/29/06 4:48 PM): Eben Moglen(w) _ _, Richard Stallman's(w) _ _ Lawyer for GPL 2.0(w) _ _, and now is working on GPL 3.0(w) _ _ which will protect open source software in other nations, but makes not provisions for "patent-lefting" in America, as patent protection for open source has to come from patent law revisions, Eben even says that software patents were a small bad idea when the GNU Public License turned to revision 2.0 from the GPL(w) _ _ that Richard Constructed in the (80's??) with lawyers, and now it's a huge bad idea that festered into other areas such as DRM(w) _ _, which could potentially lead to DRM on software, limiting people to only being able to use software on particular processors(w) _ _/hardware(w) _ _, and Open Source(w) _ _ software (OSS(w) _ _) needs to be protected from this in a way that those who release open source software can't lode into that privately held patents, it's also to protect the patent holders from confusion surrounding open source and patentable technology. Eben discusses this with Leo Laporte(w) _ _ and Chris DiBona(w) _ _ in the latest installment of FLOSS, Issue 13, Netcast.

Sorry I may not have completely understood all the issues due to the complexity, and may have completely misrepresented them here, but you can find the complete discussion here at this location (in mp3 format).

(09/28/06 4:14 PM): Who Killed The Electric Car (the Interview) as a Play All on YouTube..

(09/28/06 8:29 AM): This is my favorite TV station:

INPUT

(09/28/06 6:53 AM): Has anyone ever noticed that all our major enemies in the other parts of the world, our major enemies, live in small itsy bitsy countries? Some are the size of Texas, but still.. Small.. China is probably our most major enemy that is big, but we are making friends with them. In any case, if North Korea was to drop an atomic bomb on us, it would maybe take out part of a state, but if we were to drop a bomb on North Korea, it would take out North Korea (maybe parts of South Korea). Same goes for the middle-east, but they have more money to get more bombs.. Anyhow, it seems it's always the runts that are easier to pick on..

(09/27/06 9:04 PM): FOX HAS NO REAL NEWS! It's merely conservative Opiate..

(09/27/06 12:57 PM): BTW, I don't know if I mentioned it, but "Rhapsody To Go" can load the rhapsody RPL files I've been loading to my site. So if you have "Rhapsody To Go", keep in mind you can download these ".rpl" files, play them, download the "wma drm" files from "Rhapsody To Go" and play them on your mp3/wma player. Personally, I use the Sansa M230 Player..

(09/27/06 12:40 PM): Microsoft should be sued for the forced "restarts" after automatic-updates, I think I may have lost some work after leaving my laptop.. I downloaded a update from Microsoft, and it nagged me every ten minutes to restart (with a count-down clock). When I left, it restarted without my consent.. MICROSOFT SHOULD HAVE THEIR PANTS SUED OFF THEM.. What arrogance..

(09/26/06 6:57 PM): For those who haven't noticed, there is a certain way to read a URL.. This is the form they take:

protocol://login:password@domain/directory/file_or_script?parameter=value&parameter=value&parameter=value ...

This is the case for scripts, which most web content is becoming.. Less you will see files with "mysite.html", and more you will see "myblog.php". PHP isa scripting language that dynamically generates content, based upon content passed to it via the URL (past the Question Mark), or via forms that are submitted to the php script. Sometimes the links like this, or forms found in pages, are associated with a graphical feature like a button, sometimes flash scripts make the calls, but in any case, POST's (forms), and GET's (url's) are what makes the web work.

(09/25/06 7:04 PM): I think Clinton was justified in his discussion with Chris Wallace.. I think Fox deserves to look like fools, I don't watch fox because I keep asking a question in my head, "What the #$%$ Am I watching this crap!!". It's sensationalism at it's best and anyone who jumps on this bandwagon, with the press, beit democratic or republican, deserves to be made a fool of just for watching TV, listening to the radio. This is partially why I listen to netcasts, no operating costs (almost none), no incentive to sensationalize, no incentive to serve advertisers, almost no advertising, no incentive to slant things just to keep people watching (though the techniques of mainstream media rub off on all media).. I think it's the future of media, and the decentralization of media sources.. Hopefully it will lead to the depolarization of america, and force people to think about things before jumping onto bandwagons.. Determining what is worth getting frustrated about and what is not.

Leo Laporte's news organization is great, yeah, but I think to some degree he's trying to make something like Fox for tech people. And I am already tired of Listening to TWIT, it's just a form of redundant jabber that you find on any news program.. Like recently Leo and Patrick Norton and John Dvorak were discussing Microsoft's plan to sell it's new iPod killer, as well as a killer of technologies based on their "Play For Sure" technology. Much to do about nothing.. Microsoft just wants what Apple has with iTunes.. But Leo has to have something to fill his show up with, because darnit, there has to be something to talk about this week.. Who said that netcasts have to occur on a timeline? Why can't news just be delivered when it happens, rather than it being a nervous buzzer that goes off 24/7 about something..

(09/22/06 4:06 AM): EA Should be Shot, literally, for offering such deals with the release of a game. Just because they are power-hungry thieves, doesn't give them the right to treat the post-order customers like crap by giving the pre-order's special treatment.. There oughta be a law against this, on the level of equal opportunity employment and non-biased sweepstakes/contests.. They are slowly tarnishing their brand with such deals.. Heck with the release of "Team Fortress" for the Half-Life2 Engine, and the consideration that the vehicle-less option on BF2 maps, is giving rise to the players disgust with the addition of vehicles.. It's causing some to go back to games that they had abandoned for lack of vehicles.. Well.. As much as I would like to Pre-Order 2142, I really hate their coercion.. May this new release suck more than ever and put EA in their place..

BTW, I enabled the 3D Stereo Driver, and though it worked today on the test, I got about 5 blue screens of death (well semi-blue-screens of death), so I'm going to give up on the stereo driver until they fix their bugs and get it working for dual core (and core duo) machines.. I really can't tell what the difference is between a Pentium D and a Core Duo anyhow, I guess it's just the memory model, how the processors connect to the cache or such, but really I see my Pentium D as twice a Pentium 4, because it really is twice as good..

(09/22/06 3:17 AM): Some of you probably didn't know that if you have a NVIDIA Geforce card and either two monitors, a pair of anaglyph glasses _ _, or something more complex _ _.. That you can download a "3D Stereo Driver" that will let you play games such as BF2 or Half-Life2, in Stereo 3D!!! One of the advantages of switching over to NVidia (from ATI, my previous card).. BTW, ATI Graphics cards _ _ totally suck, I've had 4 of them, they all sucked.. The last I had was ATI X600, or something like that.. Anyhow, I purchased a Geforce 6800 XT a couple of months ago, and it's the best decision I made..

ANyhow the Stereo Driver works now, for only, single processor systems or Core Duo/ Pentium D's, with one processor disabled in BIOS.. Which is what I will have to do to test out the Anmaglyph mode, but I tried the TEST screen with the spinning NVidia logo and moving letters.. This Stereo Driver has been a feature of NVidia's ever since the late 90s, so don't be suprised..

(09/22/06 2:19 AM): Let's say you want to backup windows XP, but you purchased a USB External Drive that is formatted in Windows NTFS? And everytime you go to backup to the drive, Windows keeps interrupting you to tell you that it was unable to make the copy because something changed. Well I guess there was an easier way to do this, but I was determined to find a way around windows.. I'm not sure, yet if I found it 100%, but I think I'm there 95%.. This is what I did:

First off, format the drive in a Windows FAT-32 Filesystem. You will need this because I'm going to use Knoppix(w) _ _ to backup the drive.

Download a copy of mkdosfs.zip from mkdosfs _ _.

Look in "My Computer" for the drive letter assigned to your USB Drive (I suppose this would also work for Ram Drives, but I'm using an external hard drive here).

Go to Start->Run, enter in "cmd".

In the command line, cd to where you downloaded mkdosfs, and make sure the zip file has been dearchived, so that you have access to the "mkdosfs" executable.

Type: mkdosfs.exe -v -F 32 -n volume_name_here Drive_Letter:

Drive_Letter = F: (in my case, in yours it will be different, this is the drive letter of the USB drive that will be formatted).

I don't know what the volume name length limitations are, I chose the name "Monet" so, for me it was:

mkdosfs.exe -v -F 32 -n Monet F:

Hit enter, and wait, and wait, and wait..

If you happpen to have procexp.exe _ _ from sysinternals, there is an option to monitor individual process' utilization (even with memory -- i/o -- cpu graphs) .. It was useful in this case as I could watch it working.

Okay, now once mkdosfs has returned, the drive should be formatted for FAT 32...

Next we need to get a copy of Knoppix(w) _ _ Live CD. I used the Bit-torrent(w) _ _ client to obtain myself a CD ISO of Knoppix(w) _ _ 5.0. I then burned the ISO with Roxio CD burning _ _ software (Nero CD Burner _ _ can do this too).

I then rebooted my machine, in this case I formatted the drive on a Windows XP machine, then I rebooted my laptop, which is the one I want to backup.

So again, I popped the Knoppix(w) _ _ CD into my laptop drive, and rebooted..

At this point we should Make sure the USB drive is connected to the laptop..

Upon load, for me, it came to the "boot:" prompt (this is also called "lilo", I think, it's Linux's boot wedge).

I had to type in a knoppix cheat code _ _ for my laptop as it stalled in the boot process, for a Thinkpad 600X, the cheat code is "boot: knoppix pnpbios=pff". And I had to pop out my Wireless Ethernet card, because it stalled on that too..

Okay, assuming it loaded for you and you can see the USB drive on the Knoppix(w) _ _ KDE(w) _ _ Desktop (represented by a USB cable connector). And may have the name "sda1" associated with it.. I began to look around for how to remount the USB drive for read/write access, because by default Knoppix sets all drives (except for the temporary ram drive it created in your system memory) to read only.. But if you system disk to your computer, as was the case for my laptop, is in NTFS (WinXP, Windo2000, WinNT file system), you can't write to it even if you remounted the drive. That's why the USB drive had to be formatted as FAT-32, that's the only think a Linux operating system and write to that Windows machines can understand.. Again, we are using Knoppix, or Linux, here because you can't backup Windows while it's active..

Okay, what I had to do to remount the drive as writeable, was open a "Shell" window (the icon with the computer monitor, in Knoppix(w) _ _, at the bottom of the screen, assuming KDE Desktop is visible).

In the Shell window I typed:

Man Mount

Which told me how to use mount.. Then I figured it out.

umount /mnt/sda1 (un-mounts the usb drive, for me, for you it will be different).

Then I typed "mount -w /mnt/sda1" .

It complained that I was not root _ _, so I typed

"sudo mount -w /mnt/sda1".

(Note: this works as the root account in knoppix has no password, so you don't have to know the root password).

I then went into the KDE desktop, opened my hard drive (hda1 in my case), then I open the "sda1" drive, selected everything in "hda1", COPY, and went to the "sda1", PASTE.

I'm at this point right now, and it seems to be doing okay.. It's 9% completed.. I have a 9.7 Gig partition on the laptop.

But I have a sucky slow USB(w) _ _ 1.0 interface to the laptop, this reduces my write speed to 1MB/sec, meaning that to backup a 9.7 gig drive will take about 9700 seconds to copy, or about three hours..

So there you have it.. A way to backup your laptop, freely and easily, without using Norton Ghost(w) _ _ (SUCKS!) or some other package.. However, there is probably a way to make a perfect backup of the NTFS partition, I was just going for the easiest way I could find.. There is probably a better was to do this in Windows XP, but my laptop runs Windows 2000, and it's a copy that came with the Laptop.. So I had no choice..

I've used Knoppix(w) _ _ in the past to make backups to DVD when Windows XP has failed, and this can be done with half the effort, but DVD's are not as dependable storage as hard disks.. Tape drive is even better considering a Tape has more surface area than a hard disk, and you have to do more to corrupt a tape.. Whereas wit with a hard disk you have to drop it a foot while it's running (so be careful with the hard drive).. To destroy a DVD/CD you just have to scrath the aluminum label, which is where the data is really stored..

(09/20/06 9:23 PM): Bugger, I know why Youtube's Playlist creation interface is so funky, why it forgets playlists you've created.. They are using Load Balancing, and their servers are not all updated at once, they are mirrored over time, so when you create a new playlist, it's only created on the master server, then it is later mirrored to the others overtime. So if your playlists don't appear, reload the video, you will probably get the right server next time.. This is what people call "load balancing" now.. But really what they should do is have the source code that creates the playlists on a seperate server and have the load balanced servers contacting that one for information about the playists, and when playlists change, as the data-throughput for playlists is most likely not as high-volume as working with video content.. They could do even better to allow people to make playlists external to the site, so the playlists are relevant regardless of the architecture of the site. Anyhow..

(09/20/06 6:55 PM): I wrote a simple bit of javascript, actually I stole a bookmarklet that recognizes web addresses in pages and makes them into links, one called linkify.. And I modified it to take "Cash Box Top 100" lists from a site I'll list below and links them up as youtube searches.. This is just a beta, it at best gets you the link, at worst it doesn't get it linked, or it contains extraneous information, but it should make making youtube playlists easier.. BTW, I had an old youtube account, and it was nearly impossible to make playlists.. But I got a new account, and fixed the problem..

Here is the CASH BOX TOP 100 YouTubify Bookmarklet!!

And a link to the charts that this can be used on.

Drag the bookmarklet link (above) into the link/toolbar of your firefox browser (may also work for IE, I don't know), rename it "YouTubify_CashBox".

Go to a cash box top 100 year->week, click the bookmarklet in the toolbar, notice the page now contains links everywhere there is a song and artist mentioned, middle-mouse click on the links, this will open some tabs to youtube with the song + artist linked in..

(09/19/06 12:21 PM): If you like Ben Folds (M) _, if you like Cheap Trick (M) _, if you like Electric Light Orchestra (M) _, if you like the Beatles (M) _, if you like Todd Rundgren (M) _ and or Utopia (M) _.. You will like Jason Falkner (M) _.

(09/18/06 7:54 PM): Google Earth has video features on it now, so you can click and find all the places where they sell beer.. Makes me wonder if they will get real and cover something worthwhile than this crap that "Turn Here Short Films" shows.. Like NOB Hill for Albuquerque.. I went to school at UNM, they are talking about the place you go to get drunk and get tatoo'd.. This is like going to Saint Marks Street in New York.. But it's not everything.. Santa Fe has more originality than Nob Hill, and there isn't one video for Santa Fe. In fact, there is hundreds of trails in New Mexico that could each have a video devoted to them. For instance, this last week, my Girlfriend and I went to "Embudo Creek" trail that runs by the Harding Pegamite mine (owned by UNM). We found this with GPS data provided in a book that covers trails in our area, but it would do the book (and google earth) some good to have a video showing the area, and what was seen there. We found a creek about 30 feet across with rushing water, and there was a colorado couple that just happened to find the spot folowing us. And there were shiney rocks and white quartz(w) _ _ and feldspar(w) _ _ all around.. And I can't find videos about the Ice Cream shop we got Lime Sherbet with Kona Coffee, in Penasco.. Or the apples we bought near Dixon.. None of that.. Just joints where people can get drunk.. Did I note they also had a art show going on along the road, all the way to Sipapu?

The week before that we went on a trail west of Espanola, to see some rock formation on the Ojijos Trail (gypsum balls, look like little eyeballs).. The week before that we went to Ghost Ranch (Georgia O'Keefe's ranch, where she painted all those pictures of red mountains). Maybe I can dig up a few pictures and place them here..

(09/17/06 10:11 AM): Judge a printer not by its resolution so much, as the price of the print cartridges. I thank my mom for showing me the HP line of printers. It makes perfect business sense to sell cartridges with the printhead attached (disposable printhead). The 38ml color cartridge is cheap at SAMS, and it lasts about three months with about 100 pages or more of full color..

(09/16/06 2:37 AM): I'm not going to buy another thing at Office Depot ever again.. I robbed me.. Well not really, but perceptively.. At Samas I can get a 78 HP Color Cartridge for 50 dollars that contains 38ml's of ink. I thought I was getting a really good deal at Office Depot, the other day, because they were offering a 78 and 15 (black), together on a discount at 56 dollars.. I was doing a little dance after that one.. And was happy, until I got home to find out it was the 19ml color cartridge and not the 38ml.. BTW, HP's newer inkjets are a rip-off because since the 6122 and it's predecessors that took 78/15 cartridges, those inkjet printed went up in price because HP is losing money on the cartridges.. So they made a whole new class of printers that use smaller cartridges, like 15 and 13ml ones, so people are driven to buy more.. The reason HP corners the market on it's printers is that the cartridges contain the printheads, rather than just being plain old cartridges and having the head on the printer itself.. So no matter what printe your get from HP, it's the cartridge that really determines the resolution of your prints, that and the stepper precision on the band that zips the head back and forth.. Printers and Floppy Disks work similarly, in the use of optic sensors that track a striped belt that connects to the print head.. It uses that to determine how far to go to make a dot. So the resolution is really determined by how small the dots are, and by how precise the motors..

(09/14/06 8:22 AM): Whitney Houston(w) _ _ is !!FINALLY!! divorcing _ _ Bobby Brown(w) _ _.. Though I'm not one to believe in divorcing as a choice married people should have, as a means of giving up on the struggle, Whitney has tried and tried to stick by her man.. But her man has been less than devoted to her needs, considering all that shes sacrificed for him.. He's left her as a bit of a wreck.. Remember how happy she used to be in the 80s and early 90s... Add in the booze, and you can see the bags under her eyes from having to deal with him. I only recall a certain show on MTV, a reality show, showing how he was drunk.. Of course, she was born and raised in a family that had talent, and she knew what came with the stardom, but he on the other hand was just a kid from a hip-hop group, New Edition(w) _ _, that rose up in the 80s with the song "Mr. Telephone Man _ _" (not a particularly great song, but sort of the beginning of the American Menudo counterparts, such as "New Kids on the Block" and N*Sync).. Bobby Brown, as I recall was particularly lewd _ in the early 90s when he took a girl up on stage and was acting lewd about her _ _.. I was amazed after that Whitney could even marry a guy like this.. Now I'm amazed it took her so long to finally divorce him.. This was long overdue, I don't know if their marriage was ever not on the rocks, especially with Bobby Brown's drinking problem. Maybe this will clean him up. But I'm looking for a bit of a comeback for Whitney, now that she is about as old as her aunt, Dionne Warwick(w) _ _, when Dionne had a second comeback after making it big in the 60s with Burt Bacharach(w) _ _. Well I hope they don't have any children, this could either be a sad or happy affair, but in any case a perspective warping experience for children. If they were Italian, I would play them Billy Joel's "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant _ _". I suspect what could hold someone together this long is the romance and the memory that was tied up in their meeting and how intially, that they were.. Whitney is not stupid, she's just very faithful, even trying to handle the matter as a Christian (as she was claiming in the mid-90s), and without really doing much if any research on their relationship, I'm sure that Bobby's drinking problem lit the slow fuse of the breakup (it's really been a longtime coming).. Hey wasn't it Whitney that wrote the song "It's not right, but it's okay _ _"? A fairly good song to play for the ocassion I guess.. She's going to be a bachelorette, possibly with no interest in being married again.. I can see her talent waxing _..

I just realized why in the music video of Mr. Telephone Man, why these guys are talking to some ConEdison(w) _ _ service people.. Oh, they are telephone men.. Ah..

Wow Billy Joel doesn't need a studio to perform "Scenes" live.

Whitney, Before and After (well almost) Bobby Brown.

As for Whitney's Brief Crack Addiction, I sugest the following as a prescription: Sublime's STP, Jim Carrol's Those Are People Who Died, David Bowie's Ashes to Ashes Weezer's We Are All On Drugs Eric Clap... Umm, Oh Ah, JJ Cale's Cocaine. George Thuro..._____..Good's One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer The Who's/Tina Turner's Acid Queen Greg Brady Stoned Van Halen on several Cases of Beer (JUMP), The Reason David Lee Roth was dropped from the band, bad influence on Eddie.. Eel's Novacaine For The Soul Jamiroquai's Space Cowboy & Virtual Insanity Devo's R U Experienced? Def Leppard Me & My Wine Fish Heads Jane's Addiction Stealing The Tube's White Punks on Dope Todd's Elpee's Worth of Tunes, and here it is Whitney, your song.. Just one Victory it's due for a cover, you can do it Whitney!!!

Or Jackson Brown's Somebody's Baby (couldn't find Cocaine, but I suspect this was early enough in the 80s that he was cooked on cocaine).

Hey, another Brown.. There is something about that name, it just spells trouble.. Oh yeah, James Brown on dope..

(09/12/06 12:09 PM): The audio book I'm listening to about 9/11 says that what permitted the towers to come down was not the jet engine fuel, which ignited immediately, but all the darn paper work that was in the building.. See if people were in paperless offices, this incident wouldn't have been quite as big.. Also it said that steel becomes weak at something like 350 degree fahrenheit.

(09/12/06 8:56 PM): This may only work for while, and I'm not suggesting people pirate, but someone on YouTube suggested this program to convert DRM protected WMA files into mp3's.. I think it's incredibly stupid to purchase WMA, WMA DRM, mp3, or any lossy-compressed audio file format, DRM or not, as the quality of encoding is worse on each re-compression of the audio, the best format for audio storage is in the original CD format, it's also impossible to track to the purchaser. Any music purchased online could potentially contain audible watermarks that are traceable back to yourself. If someone steals your music, the cops can trace it back to you, and may start interrogating you (worse case scenario). But with CD's, you run no such risk, unless the mp3 ripping software you use knows who you are and is audibly watermarking your MP3's against your consent. I'm not saying such technology to trace usage, exists, just that it's quite feasible that it could. Just as the micro-dots on printed copies from certain laser printers can carry enough information to determine the laser printer that created the printed copy.. The use of watermakrs is just one step in the copyright-friendly basket that will seek out consumers and criminals alike.

But CD's, why would anyone put a watermark on a CD (unless a side track is pre-arranged to contain a writeable track, or contains a memory chip, or even RFID.. It won't keep you from ripping it with a mp3 ripper from 1999, if you happen to have one..

BTW, WMA DRM is not superior to mp3 compression, I found out it comes out to be about the same. The only case where it is different is in custom audio compression formats, like WMA's speech compression format which can achieve something like 4Kbps, which is about tenth the rate of a normal audio book, or a 60th the size of a normal audio file (mp3). But my Sansa m230 can't handle this compression rate, so you might want to look around for another player that can.. But the point is, it's best just to rip to mp3 format..

(09/12/06 8:00 PM): I just purchased this Sansdisk Sansa m230 player

• USB 2.0
• WMA DRM / MP3
• 512 MB
• 5-band Equalizer
• Voice Recorder
• Multiple Preset, FM Radio
• Menu Controlled
• 1 Month free "Rhapsody To Go
• $45 at TigerDirect

The reason I bought it was to play WMA DRM files (on subscription, not for purchases, I would never buy anything that uses WMA DRM)..

The WMA DRM _ _ tunes are downloadable and playable on the player from Rhapsody To Go _ _ (15 dollars a month music subscription service, which {different from some music services} offers the complete album for download to the player, available for as long as one is subscribed to the music service (forever?)..

Currently on my player I have Gerry Rafferty's(w) _ _ "City To City" album which contained "Baker Street (yt)" and "Down The Line". I also have about 6 songs from XTC(w) _ _'s first album. Along with four audio books I downloaded from NetLibrary _ _, an audio book subscription service that was available through my library for free. I am limited to about 10 books for about 19 days or so, which I can resubscribe after the period is up.

The audio books I'm listening to are:

American Ground : Unbuilding the World Trade Center _ _

Unabridged.
by Langewiesche, William.

The Elements of Effort : Reflections On the Art and Science of Running _ _

Unabridged.
by Jerome, John.

The Greatest Experiment Ever Performed On Women : Exploding the Estrogen Myth _ _
Unabridged.
by Seaman, Barbara.

Cod : A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World _ _
Unabridged.
by Kurlansky, Mark.

It, like many players at this price level, has a voice recorder and FM radio, the FM radio has something like 15 presets.. It has a stopwatch feature (big deal, I would have rather had the bookmark feature).. But wht is a big deal, a customizable 5-band equalizer (hey hey!!). And if you play Journey on it, and have some Sony clip-on earphones, you can probably blast it loud enough anyone in a 10 foot radius can hear it.. The best part is the mp3 player can play a long time on a triple-A battery, the quote is 19 hours. And as usual you can lock the player. Another plus was tht it came with a free month of Rhapsody To Go service, which was a 15 dollar value, but there is no telling if you will get the same deal as I.. There is also a Sleep Timer (after which it will cut-off) and capabilities for shuffle and repeat. I'm sure I'm going to leave out the other specifications of the player, but I got it because it was the cheapest and most popular in the bunch I had looked at..

I installed Windows Media Player 11, and it seems like the "Disk Access" to the playwer disappeared from "My Computer" listing in Windows.. Media Player 11 does do pretty well transfering the content to the player, in a sync process, but I have a feeling its why I can't get direct access to the player as a drive, which I used to be able to do. Anyhow.. Having no direct access to the players filesystem was a big-downside for me, but for someone who doesn't stick non-audio files on their player, this won't matter, it may even make the player less confusing, as Realplayer, Media Player and Rhapsody can be used to manage the player.

(09/12/06 7:52 PM): I just spotted a pretty good deal at Tigerdirect, a P2.4 Ghz Ibm Netvista, 40 GB HD, 100Mbps communications card, Pentium 4 2.4Ghz, Desktop, Oh, and the big one, Windows XP Professional preinstalled, 200 dollars after 40 dollar rebate..

(09/12/06 9:19 AM): Boy I hd the weirdest (well somewhat norml dream). I hd dreamt that I met Gerry Rafferty in something that looked like guitar convention, and Angus (from AC/DC) showed up, and he climed he was a big fan of Gerry's, and so they sat down and played a few songs, but soon Gerry disappeared, becuse everyone was there playing his songs, and he was on the floor playing with the kids, all smiling and tickling. I then overheard one of his children say something like "No no no, he was into blue chips".. This has got me thinking that Gerry stopped the music business and got into some other profession like the stock market. In particular what drove this dream was that "Baker Street" was about his failure in the music business to get big like he had thought, but it being a complete let down. And "right down the line", if you think about it, is a wedding song, it's like the one you play in substitution for "here comes the bride". So those two thoughts entered my head, as well as one of his songs about "The Ark", thinking that he embraced religion. So I thought, yeah, he musta just got out and "threw away all those crazy dreams" and become a champion stock broker or something.. Now I am going to wikipedia and prove myself wrong..

Let me see Gerry Rafferty(w) _ _, how about Gerry Rafferty _ _

(09/11/06 9:54 AM):

Ways foriegn outsourcers can edge in on American work.

The lady I'm doing PHP scripts for, bought into a FlashMap service, FlashiMap I think is the name, because our client was demanding it (yes and to top it off they were only going to give us 2000 dollars for the contract, the lady I'm working for doesn't consult with me before she does a deal, she gives me a little bit of a clue then asks me if I can do it, I should just get out of this relationship).

Anyhow, They charged her 50 dollars for a map of the US, and 15 dollars for each state map, with counties.. She thought it was a good deal.. We then realized its these Chinese dudes in Hong Kong, that are using this as a means of getting people into dependency relationships.. We found out the map didn't come with any features, that they were just maps drawn in flash without any features added in, no way to specify to the maps how to display or what functionality to associate.. So I discussed what it would take to have links for each county and state, so that when people click on a state or county, they get another map or a query on a database. They said, oh, you need the load-XML feature, that will be 180 dollars extra.

It was then that my concept of this being a product shifted to it being a change-order atop the original product purchase. ARGH!!! I then shared with them my expectations of a map, that states show up in a particular color when they have URL's, and when they don't they don't.. And the usual stuff that people expect from a flash-augmented map of a country or state, like visual feedback, rollovers and such.. None of it was in the original product. They even had the gall to say that this product was "easily integrated".. ANYTHING IS EASILY INTEGRATED WITH IF YOU HAVE ACCESS TO THE SOURCE CODE (or if you are paying someone to rework it). But this wasn't a feature of the product as to integrate with the product you would need Flash MX, which is another 500 dollar purchase and a months worth of tutorials.

You can see how this turned out, soon it became another development contract, edging in on my money, costing my client more money.. Knowing she has a fixed amount of money to pay, I know this is going to gnaw on my paycheck. This is utter and complete bullshit!! This is what outsourcing has become.. Just be very careful what you buy and consult with an engineer.. OUTSOURCERS SUCK!!! They are blood sucking leeches!!! Not much different than carnival game workers, that are constantly trying to negotiate money out of you to get you closer and closer to your goal.

I think I'm going to make a abstract form of this mapping software and put it into open source so I can do these guys out of a business.. I don't give a damn about the market for such content, this is not work, its having artists do an engineers job.

See this is how you could better orient this idea: Make each state a shape, give each shape certain states of activity, like when it's at idle, rollover, and when it is clicked. On load, the map will display these shapes. The shapes will signal a handler when clicked. The handler will call a script that handles the process of clicking the shape. Also make the shapes selectable from a database of shapes so that shapes can be added or removed. Then it would be just a matter of having an interface that would allow people to make these by specifying shapes. Anyhow, I'm sure the concept of a map could be abstracted out until the artists would have little or no part int he process of making the maps, so there could be ways to allow the artists to adorn the maps by adding an alternate method of design, by associating the click-handler with a image map. Anyhow, I sometimes think Flash is just a cool way of getting artists back into the development cycle than helping to engineer better solutions. It's on point like this that artists and engineers would argue.. But in my case, I'm both.. I can out art most artists, and I'm a pretty good engineer.. I hate dealing with outsourcers, I know these Asian outsourcers.. When I was playing the devil and involved in a company that was going to outsource web work, I tried to optimize the process of making websites with the Korean web designers in the company. And it was impossible, because they were careful not to work themselves out of the work they know and love, by doing everything by hand.. They resisted any attempt to optimize the process because that meant they wouldn't be able to work the way they had been, the way that had been making them money.

Well I guess the real evil of these FlashIMap guys is that they sell their product like its a product, and they work it into a outsourcing deal..

They wanted to get access to our server, have login/password, and such..

They could not describe to me the process of how to integrate with their content. They wanted to handle it directly than to communicate to me how to use their content. You have to be very careful with this kind of work, as these guys will soon be leveraging your client into using them to do work than you. When we buy a product, we expect a product, we don't expect a development contract.. At last, they told me "this is going to cost 600 dollars to do what you are saying". And what I was expecting was something I expect anyone would expect from an interactive map. It made me wonder if it was really costing them this, or they were just itemizing stuff that wouldn't take them any time to customize. Damn Macromedia!!! Artists love them, though.. I guess if you want a certain look its not so bad.. Just that it's a waste of money to develop content to be owned by an artist and not to be owned by the one who paid for the content.

The result, it's leading to these relationships where foriegn outsourcers can edge in on American work.

THE REAL EVIL HERE IS THIS WAS SOLD AS A PRODUCT AND ITS REALLY A DEVELOPMENT CONTRACT.

You Start with something rather basic.. They build it for you.. That's not integration.. That's not an out-of-box experience.. It's a blackhole of expenditure that is neverending.. You have to be very careful with foriegn (or even local) outsourcers, I would say, try to keep a mind on the process, what is needed, how much access people need, and so on.. Or else they will be working you into a dependency relationship.. And you will get nowehere fast.. This happens usually because the client becomes impatient and thinks stuff should come abotu quicker, they then get burnt on the deal.. Like she was.. I'm thinking I should just let them have it, but it's determining how much money I get.. This sucks..

(09/11/06 1:05 AM): I've temporarily purchased Rhapsody's To Go service, and since I'm still subscribed as a 2.1 user I have access to the old and the new.. The new is not bad, but you have to get the 3.0 download to really use the To Go product.. It's really confusing though wading through all the different services of Real/Rhapsody/Listen and such, I'm amazed I'm still able to navigate around it.. They really need better organization and brand distinction, it seems that they don't have anyone really managing their products.. But they probably make money off all the confused people, that's probably why it is poorly organized.. But there is several kinds of Rhapsody now.. You have Rhapsody Radio, which just picks songs for you based on what other people are playing on Rhapsody Unlimited (my suspicion).. And Rhapsody 25 is like Rhapsody Unlimited, with a limitation of 25 songs per month (and this is free and available to anyone, it's meant to get your familiar with the interface and encourage you to purchase a subscription to Rhapsody Unlimited.. Rhapsody Unlimited allows you to play any song, from your computer.. But Rhapsody To Go, lets you download songs and put them on a mp3 player with Windows WMA DRM. The funny thing is that in Rhapsody's preferences it seems like you can transfer tracks to your player in mp3 format. And it seems you can select different bit-rates of Windows Media Player formats, like 160Kbps.. But the funny thing with my install is it tells me I can't transfer songs to my player, so I cancel the transfer, and it does it anyhow.. Which is what I expect since I'm supposed to be able to download songs in WMA+DRM, but it's as if there is some soft limitation on how much content I can download, though I should be able to download anything.. And there is not much I've found that describes what limitations there are of Rhapsody To Go.. I know that if you Burn a CD in any of the Rhapsody's, it charges for the burn, then I think you can burn more from the same CD. The cool thing, it seems, is that Rhapsody will allow people to put their audio files on multiple players.. So my girlfriend and I can share an account, I would suppose. But supposedly the music will expire after a month, unless refreshed. It seems to be a better deal for the consumer than for iTunes, which requires that you pay for the download. But iTunes doesn't charge a monthly subscription. It depends on how much music you listen to a month. If you buy a CD a month, you want "Rhapsody To Go", but if you very seldomly buy CD's, or if you prefer to listen to the radio.. Gee I'm really having a hard time trying to figure out why I would buy from iTunes.. If I really wanted to buy music I would buy the CD, the quality on CD is better than a sound file.. And given there will be poor people in the universe without Internet access, there will always be CD's to purchase. Not unless Internet and MP3 players can be made so cheap and accessible... When that happens, CD's will disappear, supposedly and all music will be encrypted, DRM protected, and not easily owned.. But people can always record something as audio to a CD.. So the next step may be to make listening technology incompatible and more proprietary than standard phono plugs.. Like maybe Wireless headphones and wireless receivers, but networked devices will have special hardware in them that would make them only useable with certain other devices, and not combineable with technology that allows people to record music. And then they will put chips in the mic's so that if the mic's receive audio that is DRM protected, it will not record the audio.. I'm sure this sound ludicrous (sp?) but it could happen..

Anyhow, Rhapsody is nice enough now that its the best deall I can imagine.. iTunes is successful because there are people int he world who are dumb enough about technology that they are willing to get anything to work for them, and when all the marketing says APPLE is it, and APPLE is on top.. Then everyone thinks its the best stuff around.. I really don't understand the reasoning.. Maybe people think they are doing the American Economy better by buying into iTunes, and rewarding musicians.. But the reality is iPOD's are produced in China, just like the Sansa mp3/wma player I just purchased for 30 dollars that also acts as a recorder, a FM radio and has a builtin Equalizer and Sleep Functions, and can blast audio on my Clip-ons enough to be head within a 5-10 foot radius. Working from one triple-A battery.. It also lets me play by Artist, Album, Playlist, Genre.. It's a pretty neat little player.. It beats my last player (Mach Trio). I also downloaded some 6-12 hour Audio books from my local library using Windows DRM.. I really can't imagine how Apple is going to survive with all the choices of Windows Media Player based alternatives.. BTW, if you have an iPod, supposedly you can also download from Rhapsody To Go.

BTW, John Lithgow(w) _ _ has two albums on Rhapsody. And as usual they are a bit zany, songs like "You Gotta Have Skin" and "The Gnu Song". I guess these are real songs, but "he would" sing them..

(09/08/06 11:31 AM): I'm listening to Marc Andressen, creator of Mosaic and Netscape, essentially the father of the graphical web browser.. Talking about how revolutionary PHP is, you can listen to him in this talk. And after listening to it for a while you will realize he's become something of a paid for evangelist rather than a programmer.. And what he is saying is true about PHP.. But I don't know how many people are actually programming, I don't see it as exponential, but sure his supporters would want him to make Grandiose speculation of the future of PHP so as to blow out the PHP market potential.. POTENTIAL.. Not reality.. Note, Zend is two developers from PHP, Zed and Andy, hence the name. They were hired by SUN, as well as probably Marc Adressen, who would not make a living as a programmer.. Basically the idea is to somehow get people onto Suns platform.. Java/PHP, which is what Marc uses.. But if you listen to this talk you will also hear how hard it is for Marc to sell PHP and Java.. I'm speculating myself.. But I'm willing to bet Marc is not making a living as a programmer anymore, but it does happen that as you get older you can't really spend the kind of time coding like you once were as a 14 year old, or a 23 year old.. As you get older you have more health problems, you become more tired, you try to grasp for easier solutions, you compromise your ideals for the sake of survival, it happens to everyone.. Why do musicians like Roger Daltrey offer classes on how to become a rock performer? He's old enough that his medical bills are probably killing him, if not something else, like his relatives or people he owes, things he has to pay. He's smart, he's selling his services to people who want to become stars, this is a better idea than selling music, for him.. But not everyone can do it.. Just the same that not everyone can make money doing what Marc is.. He's popular, he's respected, he can make money at least at the level of public speaking. Giving people advice, suggesting stuff, and so on.. That's where the market is.. But wait, where is this going? How far can the snake eat its own tail before it ceases to exist.. People can't continue to just make stuff for free, people can't continue to purchase servers, Marc's talk of painting golden pictures of a fantastic future are similar to flying off a cliff pretending there is no gravity.. It's cartoon physics.. People don't develop tons of applications in foriegn nations like Cambodia, like learned people do, because the need to survive is different.. They will more likely copy our content and resell it, because that's easier and it doesn't require as much brains to do, and it addresses the need to survive.

As for the center of Marc's interest, which is my interest, is that PHP is a great language to learn, it's a great language for the creation of services.. I don't predict millions of programmers, but I predict more usage of PHP applications. The prediction that there will be more PHP programmers, gives way to the question who will be programming PHP if its not someone with programming experience. And will the code be correct, scalable.. Will the languages that people use to describe the code change or will it get diluted and will we soon have to use movies and sign language to explain out programs. I'm not against alternative languages of describing programs. But programming is so complex, or can be so complex, that if one was to get lost in it, the services of the world like Plumbing and Law Enforcement would fall away.. There is the idea that professionals need to do what they do best, which is where their profession is.. At what point does a programmer say "I've had it with being paid poorly, I'm going to become a plumber" or when does a writer say "I've had it with writing, I'm going to become a programmer". And in the process of this changeover from one profession to the other, what is lost.. What experience is lost? Why do such shifts happen? What will people pay for? What kind of life is it, that one must do to survive what they are least interested in and do it ineffectively, without much spirit or soul.. Anyhow, without getting to IN to this deepness.....

That's my underlying thoughts getting exposed there.. I think that people need to think about how they compensate others for their services, what services are worth to them.. Even in the bible it says to give to a man what his works are worth. IF nobody ever pays for anything and people compromise their profession/experience to survive, what next?

The future is not so rosey!! Watch where you place your faith.

Well being the escapist I am, if the world was perfect and I didn't need to make money to survive, and such.. One of my dreams would be to have a open source, but well donated to, virtual machine running on web clients and web servers. Then allow people to use whatever language is best suited for that platform.. Allow the virtual machine's sandbox to be custom configured to be protective of the client and the server. To have a way of recognizing these limitations in the languages and adapt to the change.. To allow data objects to travel from client to server and back with methods internal to the objects written in open source, not compiled. To implement servies into the virtual machine that provide API's through the virtual machine to the languages, like graphical services, audio services, data format manipulation services, and so forth. And to do this without much if any Bias.. That would be a utopia for me.. And an idea to influence other related utopiatic ideas I have.

But survival is a constant and ever increasing need, as it just gets more complex with time. Investments might help make survival easier.. But in the end we all die, and our life termination can have effects on how others will survive. Life termination comes with it and higher intent in each of us, how shall we influence others, nd to what end? It's what we work to do.. I personally would like to make more technologies that make people's lives easier, possibly blunting the blow that survival has thrown us. I don't know if the evil is in communism or capitalism, I think in both, but more specifically, it's in assessing the worth of something, pay what people's works are worth, and not getting to greedy or escaping into something that is not helping you survive.. I'm guilty of the last.. But I would like to program PHP, I would like to make computer animations, I would like to introduce people to new kinds of music, but evidently these talents and services of mine don't help me to survive. Must I have a boring and useless exitence in a profession that doesn't coincide with my experince? Should I invest time in sucking money from others to try to satisfy myself in my mundane job. Is this how one should live life? Is this the only way to live life.. I guess so.. And I'm at the bottom of the heap.. And at the top are politicians & corporate thieves, using their marketing tools to categorize us, and milk us for any behaviours we exploit, turning us into them over time..

There is another way to live life, and it requires some amount of faith, and I would place Jesus here.. But it's only because I've grown up in a Christian atmosphere and it's hard for me to think otherwise. It's quite a leap of imagination for me to imagine a world view other than mine. But what underlies any religion is ones faith in survival, how one makes a living, how one lives life, what one believes is good or bad, and belief is that.. Answering the future question.. But for the secular world, it's listening to guys like Marc Adressen, without the intelligence to predict the future, not as much as the best Chess player cna predict 50 moves ahead.. And there isn't a computer that can predict either. But there is less ruin, I would believe, at the bottom of the heap as there is at the top.. I would like to believe this, I don't know.. I survive for reasons I'm not sure, but what I do is communicate what I believe to be good and what I believe to be bad. That's why I blog.. It's not a religion, in that, you may not be able to survive by my words, and I don't suggest you do.. But what I want of the future may not ever happen.. And that's pretty sad.. But underlying it all is how we treat each other. And given that each has something to give, it would make survival easier, and thus the creation of new stuff easier..

I think in the end we just become people who sell services to each other, and that would be nice.. But the world as it stands come down to this: you either get paid, or you don't.. You either give, or you don't.. You either live or you die. There is no utopia without a balance of give and take. Money and similar civilized trust-based resources are like blood.. If it sits in one place for toooo long it can kill a town/person, it can kill worse than any act of terrorism.. The root of all evil is the love of Money. Not money.. Money is the exchange of trusted work.. I work to obtain paper that says I've been entrusted work from someone else.. I pay them, they are entrusted work from someone else, or even me.. But what makes money so useful is that there is that it allows us to serve each other, to value our works, to support others, to satisfy each other.. The one with all the wealth, is not wealthy if all the services which serve him or her, die away.. And that could very well happen in our lifetime, with the older holding, theoretically (given their impending death), less interest in the survival of that mutual trust. A lack of thanksgiving.. This conspicious consumption is a result of that lack of interest, that giving back to oneself for all that they've worked hard for, but it's also an example of their arrogance and self-value, they may die happy, but will those around them be happy what they've left behind? Will they after death be awarded? And for what? Why?

Where does the road of self-pleasure lead? I'm not saying hell or anything.. Just that the behaviour of serving oneself, does not end up happy.. People who serve themselves and not others, who don't exchange works, die. Whether they were good or bad.. They either were rich and greedy, or poor and lazy. In any case the same. Live is about offering services to each other.. And its about paying each other for services, as this is how we are served..

It's no wonder that that is the fundamental belief of what Jesus preaches. Treat people how you would prefer to be treated, pay to each what their works are worth, and have faith that it will come back to you, either now or in the future. Without that, we are all dead.. And if you believe in the afterlife that Jesus preaches of, there is nothing left beyond that.. You are worthless to God. But that's if you believe in Christ.. If you don't, you might look at it from the perspective of those around you.. How do they value you? If you were to be dying on a curb, would they help you?

In computer graphics, there is a concept of ambient light, the amount of light that one can expect to find int he shadow of a scene, it's added in because rendering computations are computed backwards, from the light source to the eye, because this is more efficient that computing from the camera to the light source. Each pixel represents hundreds of rays that were casted from a light to the camera, but on the dark sides of objects, the light never finds a way.. If we were to talk about radiosity, the light would permeate to every surface, precisely, but this would be computationally intensive. I'M NOT GETTING OFF TOPIC, HEAR ME OUT. Anyhow, the ambient light, is like the general outlook that people have on life, it's the expression on their face, its what they are like on a dull day, it's what they are like when emotionless, it's the form of their face, how they look.. It's how people treat each other at the very least.. The Ambient expression, the ambient helpfulness, the ambient expectation.. How would you classify the ambient light in society, is it dark or grey? And to compensate, is there very many bright lights around (investors, supporters, etc..). If there is a high ambient light with not so much light sources, the environment looks unreal, it's not pleasant.. But if the ambient light is too dark, everything either looks contrasted or black.. Bright lights are like your rich sources of life giving rays.. Without light there is no life.. But without darkness, there is no reality, no detail, no sharp points or forms. You need both.. You need to know what is good and what is evil. Light that is not flowing, that can't be received to ones eye, is darkness to ones eye.. If you sit behind a dark object in a ray-traced computer rendering, you will see ambient light which is really just a constant value of grey or some color.. It's not realistic.. It's effectively saying "Let's pretend this is the value".. That's like people saying "I'm happy" for no reason at all.. Without being realistic, about your emotion, about how you feel, you are not providing much detail, all we can see is darkness or a disinteresting shade.. Without gradients of light, computer rendering (or even paintings) are not interesting.

That dullness could be from giving up the things that make you happy, that dullness could be from not receiving light.. From not being paid.. From not being served.. From not being realistic..

Light must travel, it must bounce, it must be received, it must be reflected, transmitted, passed through surfaces, it must refract, reflect, etc.. But without any of that, what use is it.. Is it interesting at all?

In the same light, what is money and serving?

It's like calling out to nobody, or receiving a call with nobody on the other end.. It's your choice how you treat people, and how can you ever expect others to treat you..

I'm speaking to myself too here..

Of course, underlying all this is that I blog to satisfy myself, but I really wish I had a job that would make my life more interesting, and thus make me a more enthusiastic blogger.. Maybe I wouldn't be blogging at all, but blogging is how I satisfy myself, even though I might not have any listeners.. Though actually I can avoid seeing the 800 page views I get a day, but most of that is Inktomi research's spider.. Some is google.. But the mystery is that most people come to my site by direct reference, not by a google search.. Which is quite strange.. I don't know if it is me reading my own site, or what.. I don't know who is reading.. Maybe I should open up that Pandoras Box of friendship.. Maybe I should reciprocate this, and provide myself as a service to you.. But I'm afraid of the punishment that might ensue from unhappy readers, the wrath that is to be poured on me, that just may make me clam up and not blog ever again.. Maybe it would be a useful experience, a sort of self-inflicted massochism. Maybe influence is like money, people need to receive it as well as give it.. I mean, if I don't give you a megaphone to tell me what you are thinking, how does that make you feel, how does it help me.. I could really benefit from this.. I probably couldn't.. I've got my email address there, but nobody uses it, hardly.. Except some indian coder with much my same interests in music and programming, who is interested in discussing programming.. And I did read your email, send me another, I'm not convinced that you are sincere. Besides you only mentioned a general pronoun referring to me and what I do, you didn't mention my name, or any detail that would say to me "Hey Kiernan I like you, lets team up and provide web services. " If I hear, "Hey, I heard you are hot programmer, can you teach me programming.." Obviously there is potential there for me to consult and make some money, but I find that there is a lot of people heading off to learn and make their lives better, but they aren't turning around to reward those who taught them.. Everyone is guilty of this, but the Ambient light is getting darker.. For me, receiving a donation, would be some justification to my relatives that what I'm doing is meaninful to others and justified. I may not make a living from it.. But at least it says to me and others, yes, I provide to others a service..

But a world where everyone is giving free handouts but not creating new stuff, that's either chaos or communism.. True Christian-centric Communism, like the first church, is the utopia of Communism that is so tough for people to attain, it's almost unrealistic.. But not everyone can be a successful capitalist.. I'm sitting somewhere on the lower end of a gamma curve, saying, "Hey, I'm surviving, this is interesting, but probably not realistic, if you like my works, give me something... Thanks".

(09/06/06 8:09 PM): Looks like that documentary on Who Killed the Electric Car has been made into a movie. FYI, I've heard that running a electric car is more work than a regular vehicle, some guy in England has a netcast about it. But I would probably buy one. They other thing is they store up the potential in the battery from the kinetic energy, so you save some power going down hills. Also you don't need brakes as all that is needed is to reverse polarity of the flow. I believe what it says in the video about there being less parts to fix/replace. One potential danger of electric cars is exploding batteries. But the only reason that the recent Sony Batteries (isn't it typical that this movie is a Sony movie?) blew up, is that Lithium ignites with oxygen. My dad who is a retired physicist was supsrised to hear that Li-on batteries contained Lithium.. I guess I never mentioned it.. He says that Hydrogen Fuel would work, but one needs to have something like Nuclear Powerplants generating the power to seperate hydrogen from water. Another possibility is if the biologists can produce an enzyme that performs the seperation automatically. Anyhow, I believe there is solutions beyond using Oil, just that there isn't much motivation in that direction due to our reliance on oil. But if it can be made easier, I know it will be popular. It will have to be Hydrogen Fuel or a non-flammable battery, because even hydrogen reacts with air..

Here is the original documentary (or was probably a review on the movie): Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Oh, I guess it was always a movie, I just didn't notice.

(09/06/06 12:36 AM): Was watching some documentary about Benjamin Franklin(w) _ _ on PBS Earlier, and found this Audio Book at the Gutenberg Press about Benjamin having a discussion with his Gout. Gout is the richman's disease, it's joint pain that comes from drinking alcohol and eating "fine (fatty?) foods".

(09/06/06 11:44 PM): Kathleen Hanna(w) _ _, was evidently the one who suggested "Smells like teen spirit(w) _ _" to Kurt Cobain(w) _ _, wrote it on his wall. And, the jumping bean in Sonic Youth's Bull in the Heather (yt). Here she is with the group Le Tigre(w) _ _.

(09/06/06 11:20 PM): Heard about this funny video on TWIT 67 (Yakety Sax).. I guess this was a hit for a long time, as they said it made it on the MTV Music Video Awards..

(09/06/06 5:23 PM): Time for some Bruce Hornsby.

Boy these guys can really get down..

(09/06/06 5:02 PM): Well it's a good graphics card, and TigerDirect gave me a good deal, but it's this stupid rebate service that is the one who should pay. I think the graphics card vendor XFX(w) _ _ (reseller of GeForce graphics cards), is to blaim, but then again TigerDirect and OnRebate, are both based in Florida. I'm willing to file a report for Internet Fraud, it shouldn't take me any longer than the application I filled out to get the rebate. OnRebate has my UPC symbol, I can't re-submit my claim..

I love the graphics card, but does that justify them stealing 30 dollars?

(09/06/06 1:36 PM): Ah OnRebate.com is *NOT*

going to honor my rebate

, even though I got the wrong card specified from TigerDirect.com _ _ . They chose not to honor the rebate.. Well I choose to expose them here.. These turkeys deserve a good swift kick in the _____________ . My choice would be lemons, but some of you may have some favorite things to put in this blank.. I bought a $130 graphics card with 30 dollar rebate, and I get a automated email saying the two did not match, not even giving me any real form of recourse.. Look at this email (sans reference links): rebatetrans@onrebate.com wrote:

Dear Kiernan Holland, Thank you for using OnRebate.com. We are very sorry to inform you that your rebate application does not meet the sponsoring manufacturer's conditions for approval and therefore has been denied. In order to qualify for the rebate, you must have met and complied with all the terms and conditions as set forth by the manufacturer in the terms and conditions of the rebate offer. The manufacturer or vendor who sponsors the rebate sets the rules for disbursement and OnRebate's job is simply to administer those rules by determining compliance and disbursing payment when complete compliance with all manufacturer's terms and conditions has been demonstrated. Since one or more of the manufacturer's requirements were not met, OnRebate.com is regrettably unable to approve your rebate submission. The following manufacturer requirements were not met: Conflicting Data - Incorrect Offer Code. Your rebate was denied because the incorrect offer code was provided for the rebate claim. Below is a summary of your rebate registration information: Rebate Offer: XFX-2295 Rebate Description: $30 MIR on XFX GeForce 6800 GS Extreme Edition / 256MB GDDR3 / SLI / PCI Express / DVI / VGA / TV Out / Video Card (XXXXXXXXXX) Rebate Award: $30 Final Reward: Final Reward $:30 Tracking Number: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Thank you for using OnRebate.com! Please do not reply to this email directly. This is a system-generated message and sent from an account that cannot receive email. Instead, please send an email to support@help.onrebate.com or call us at 1-888-222-9300 (has a dumb computer voice that just tells you what you did wrong, no help at all, this is worse than outsourcing to India). You can also track your rebate status at http://www.onrebate.com/checkstatus.aspx (which doesn't help worth a damn).

OnRebate.com Sucks!!! _ _

(09/05/06 12:00 AM): My real name is Nigel.

XTC describing their history in a DIY(w) _ _ Mr. Bill(w) _ _ Style as promotion for their Album Oranges and Lemons.

These Books Beat The Current Best Sellers for NOTHING!!

(09/01/06 8:24 PM): Tigerdirect keeps sending me these great deals.. Like an ACER 19" LCD monitor for 150 dollars after rebate. And a 2-Gigabyte Samsung USB Flash Drive for 25 dollars after rebate.

(09/01/06 1:03 PM): Check out this music video from a girl named Naree. I only came upon her yesterday on rhapsody. If you look through my playlists for "familiar*.rpl", * = wildcard. You will find a reference to the song there too. I had learned from her site that she was diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer. That kind of stuff makes me sad, because it makes one think that she might die young. But I think she has a lot of potential if she survives.