This blog has been a great learning experience for me; my spontaneous and speedy writing ability has flourished; however, everything must come to an end. From now on, I, as well as the other participants, will cease posting. 

       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!

Below is a letter(email) I sent to apple feedback and also to Steve Jobs:

“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.

As many of you know, I wrote a post a while back proclaiming that pnewb was dead and there would be no further post in the future. I find myself now eating my own words as I have been totally Hippocratical about this whole situation. The bottom line is there really will be no definable end to pnewb. Rather a long period of no updates. You see, back in early September when I got bored, I decided to start blogging on pnewb once again, I even wrote a post discussing the possibility of posting each and every day. Sadly, this has not yet materialized and probably never will. So, if you are actually reading this post, I thank you because you are probably the only legit traffic besides the spammer. For now, I say goodbye, but I shall return when I am bored and want to post something.

Steve(optionshiftk)

Hey all,

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.

• All notes appear in Chronological order
• Gwen iffil-Moderator-PBS-writting book about Obama
• Biden speaks first: Bashes bush-Brings up Obama’s policy
• Brings up simile(kid’s soccer game)-reiterates what Biden said-brings up Mccain policy-bashes Biden-praises Mccain
• Biden: brings up his history in senate-says Mccain said economy was strong(two mondays ago) “out of touch”
• Palin: brings up time as governor and Mccain policy-bashes obama”90 percent of votes along party lines”-emphasizes bipartisan politics.
• Palin: looks directly into camera-does not look at Biden-Biden looks at palin
• Biden: compares Obama to Mccain-Biden not looking at camera, but moderator.
• Biden: Mccain voted 477
• Palin: I’m not gonna answer the questions how the mod says-Time up
• Biden: “Middle class economic engine”
• Palin: small businesses will be affected by the 250 thousand tax -Gwen asks about support for Mccains healthcare-Palin nails it
• Biden: 95% of small business make less then 95 thousand a year-how Mccain pays for health care “taxes healthcare benefit”-20 million will be dropped-
• Palin: Obama voted for oil company tax breaks-palin repeats herself-Gwen asks question to Palin
• Biden-:John Mccain wants 4 billion in tax cuts for the exxon mobiles of the world-
• Palin: brings up stopping partisan politics again-says main street multiple times-
• Biden: Obama pointed out that there was a sub-prime mortgage crisis-bashes Mccain-
• Palin: brings up energy again-stresses energy independence-epic win-700 billion into foreign countries for oil-“energy independence is the key to America’s future”- Gwen asks about climate change issue-Palin believes in it-won’t address the causes-starts to ramble
• Biden: Gets asked the same question-cause is man made- 3% of the world’s oil reserves-Nuclear and clean coal-Mccain voted 20 times against alternative energy sources-
• Palin: Natural gas pipeline in alaska-“All of the above approach”-
• Biden: no distinction between same sex and heterosexual-same constitutional
• Palin: Palin against same sex-shaky-“tolerant”-Don’t support redefining marriage-
• Biden: Biden against redefining definition-
• Both have son on the way or in Iraq
• Palin: Biden and Obama voted against funding for soldiers-travesty if we quit now in Iraq
• Biden: rebuttal about not funding troops- got to have a timeline-10 billion a month on war-John Mccain no end in sight
• Palin: White flag of surrender- very vague description of when the war will end-Biden has nervous tick: laughs and smiles and looks at moderator
• Useless commentary about iran and other things
• Palin: Moderator asks about what candidates think about talking with enemies-
• Biden: rebuttal to Palin’s comment-John Mccain said he would not sit down with Spain-
• Palin: A two-state solution is the solution-comittment is there to work with friends in israel
• Biden: references himself in third person-
• Palin: Both love Israel-
• Biden: How is Mccains policy going to be different than George Bushes-repeats himself multiple times-stresses point
• Palin: rebuttals Mccain=Bush reference- criticizes comment
• Biden: 3 weeks in Iraq-7 years in Afghanistan- shaky on facts
• Biden: repeats himself-
• Palin: nails rebuttal
• Biden: Rebuttal to the John Mccain strategy in this war-absolutely wrong from  the outset
• Palin: Rebuttal is extremely weak
• Moderator: brings up death of Obama or Mccain
• Biden: addresses what happens if Obama were to die-most important election since 1942
• Palin- Brings up what would happen if Mccain dies- both mavericks-continue his work- much weaker response as compared to Biden’s response-repeats herself
• Biden: Spends a lot of time in Home Depot-talks about middle class and his old neighborhood
• Palin: gives a shout out to third grade class, audience laughs-discusses education-Moderator brings up how Palin idd not know what a vice president does- Palin says it was a lame attempt at a joke.
• Biden: Says Chenyney is the most dangerous VP in US history-major putdown-idea that VP is part of the legislative branch is bogus.
• Palin: can’t have a debate without a reagan reference.
• Biden: get emotional-refrences son  and wife-
• Moderator: asks final question: a policy issue that the candidate had to change-revelation
• Debate Over

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/