With that, I would like to make all content on this site, in effect, Open-Source. That is to say, anyone is encouraged to take it, and use it on their own site(including graphics). Only one condition: Please cite the content. Just a little blurb like ‘courtesy of’ or something along those lines. The official license if Public Domain.

          Video sharing monger, youtube, launched there new widescreen video player recently. This came after months of speculation by community members boasting that youtube was moving towards high definition. Certainly, this move towards 16:9 widescreen video playback is a step toward direct competition with other video sharing silos such as vimeo.

In all of this HD frenzy, the core component of youtube is being severely neglected. Community is what has made the site explode into the central hub for video sharing and overnight internet celebrities. Arguably, the pseudo-HD experience would elevate the effectiveness. I guess it is too early to say.

I’ll keep it pithy: I love the web!

“I was tremendously astounded when I discovered that itunes did not support the FLAC format. FLAC has become somewhat of a ubiquitous and popular format.(especially for independent artists) It is also clear that the lack of FLAC support is simply because of stubbornness. There is clearly no technical reason that itunes has excluded support for FLAC audio files. This egotistical obsession of regulating supported formats drives many, many customers away from itunes, which in turn leads to dissatisfied and disgruntled customers who take their business elsewhere. I’m afraid that I will have to advise people from now own to stray away form the “Gestapo” that is itunes. Simply ridiculous. I am now a disgruntled itunes user and customer. I used to think Apple was better than that, but I guess once a company grows, they think the customer is unimportant. “

An unofficial Album cover image I made in Gimp for JoCo’s album in progress, The Aftermath.

Recently, I bought a few tracks form Jonathan Coulton’s album in progress The Aftermath. Being the audiophile that I am , I decided to download the FLAC version. FLAC stands for free lossless audio codec and is similar to Apple lossless of windows media lossless. Anyway, I imported the songs into itunes, and discovered that there was no album art for this unfinished album. I annoyed me so much that I decided to create my own.

Steve(optionshiftk)

Haven’t posted at all, felt the urge to do so after I color coordinated my desktop. I think it looks better then any mac, but feel free to disagree in the form of a comment.

P.S. Click on it. It’ll be much clearer. Thank you.

P.P.S. Don’t respond in the form of a comment, actually. I mean, if you want to go ahead but I’ll make a poll too.

I’ve been playing around with the concept of blogging every single day. This would conist of me writing a blog post each and every singel day for a month. Now, this concept is no where near new. Mega-bloggers such as Rober Scoble and Dave Winere often post multiple times in one day. My plan is a bit less adventurous. Already, I have been posting quite frequently as you know. My peak day was 3 posts in one day, but consistency is key, not quantity. This spectacle will probably begin next Friday or sunday, so be on the look out. Reminder: Post 200 is just 2 posts away.(counting this one) I do not want to hype the 200th post, but I suspect it will be a retrospective look with commentary from other people. Stay tuned.

More and more, I have been doing the majority of my reading via Google reader. Previously, I had often viewed RSS as dumb and pointless, but that was before I fully understood the power and ubiquity of the technology. I now consider myself an “RSS” evangelist which is a bit hypocritical compared to my previous views. In any event, the purpose of today’s post had to do with a weekly computer/technology column written by Jerry Pournelle.

For those of you unfamiliar,Jerry Pournelle is a highly acclaimed science-fiction writer who pioneered the art. He had maintained a column for Byte magazine(now defunct) since 1982 until he parted ways in 2006. Thanks to the web, Mr. Pournelle was able to keep his legendary column alive on his website Chaos manor reviews. Each week, Jerry writes about technology, gadgets, software, and many other things in a long-form column. When you read his column, you feel like you are directly talking to Jerry. This sense of intimacy between the reader, is accomplished from his top-knotch writing,and his roots as a science fiction writer. It is truly a remarkable publication.

A while back, I embedded a video featuring Jerry Pournelle and scientist Durk Pearsons interviewed by the late Tom Snyder. In the post I said that Pournelle’s vision for the future of technology and his early prediction of what would become the web was brilliant. This type of visionary thinking is what I have come to appreciate from Jerry and his chaos manor column. Truly remarkable.

Join the chaos: http://www.ChaosManorReviews.com/