"Analog hole" legislation introduced

This is really getting out of hand. It is going to get to the point where we won't be able to listen to or watch anything at any time without paying something. And to blame piracy, which will not be affected at all by this legislation, is just ridiculous. This kind of legislation is really going to limit the growth of technology. I am tired of these companies out there protecting their old business models, and trying to legislate new business models without letting the market decide. This is not what this country is supposed to be about. Read more at arstechnica.com/news.ar...

Zeroconf and Firefox

Has anyone done an extension for Firefox that implements Zeroconf? I'm looking for a cross-platform extension that uses Zeroconf (a.k.a. Bonjour) to discover local services. I found one random link on a message board that is over a year old, but it doesn't work the Firefox 1.5, and it didn't look like it was quite finished anyway.

Mayor Phil

Mayor Phil
Originally uploaded by ryandobson.

Punxsutawney has recently added these colorful little statues around town in various stops. Alexis and I took some time out of the Thanksgiving break to try and snap as many photos as possible of them. We managed to capture 15. I believe we missed at least one of them, though, after talking with my aunt, there is a "Builder Phil" near the TrueValue hardware store.

My "Lost" Alter Ego is Hurley

I scored as Hurley. I'm Hurley! A big fan of food, fun, a person everybody can relate to and everybody likes. Who is your "Lost" alter ego?

Information Is Getting (To Me) Faster

I've found that the flow of new information is getting faster. Since I started using NetNewsWire, there has been a steady uptick in my ratio of information found versus time spent finding it. I used to spend a lot of time surfing the web looking at various news sites looking for interesting things. Now, well over a year after I started using NetNewsWire, it's all coming to me. Now, RSS alone hasn't accounted for all of this. This seems old-hat to many people out there, but we are still in the early-adopter part of the curve. I recently added feeds from digg to my subscription list, and it has only helped things out. For those who don't know, digg is like Slashdot on steriods. What the editors and moderators on Slashdot do that takes a day or more is done by the collective power of the users at digg.com in a few minutes. I often see information on digg.com a day or two before it makes it to Slashdot. Information flows faster. Does anyone remember the old television commercials from AT&T with the dog in the computer who would go fetch the news? It was an idea back then that never quite materialized. With the ability to do tag searches on news feeds, we are almost getting to the point where this is feasable. Perhaps it is already there in some people's minds, but I'm setting my standards a little bit higher. I just love the magic of technology. I'm anxious to see how Newsvine turns out.

Konditorei

I read this little book, by Randy Komisar, called The Monk and the Riddle. In this book, there is this little coffee shop where some of the scenes take place. I just couldn't help but take a trip there, and see it for myself. I have to say that it was nothing like I'd expected. I did, however, have a very nice white chocolate mocha latte there, though.

One Infinite Loop

What Apple fan couldn't resist a little side trip while visiting Silicon Valley?

Business Development

In continuing my theme with contrasting various sources, I couldn't help but draw inspiration from my wife and I's trip to California last weekend. We took a tour of the Korbel Champagne Cellars near Sonoma, and the history goes back to the Korbel Brothers starting out making cigar boxes. That was the reason they bought that land -- for the lumber. As it turns out, there wasn't that many trees left, and they needed to find a use for that land. They started farming many different crops, including tobacco, apples, pears, and finally grapes. At each point, they readjusted their plans and kept trudging on. They are now one of the premier brands of champagne worldwide. Can you imagine starting a business as a cigar-maker and changing that into a Champagne maker? The perseverance that would take is just amazing. As we were wondering around the winery after the tour, I couldn't help but connect that to Paul Graham's speech at OSCON (see Channels), where he talked about new companies and how they often have to change direction by asking the right questions.

Channels

You'd think I had a lot of time on my hands lately, but in truth I've been quite busy -- just a lot of thoughts popping into my head. I'm getting better at blogging these. Another similar line of thought that I came across today. Inspiration piece number one was a podcast from a speech that Paul Graham gave at OSCON 2005, the next was a blog from Mark Cuban that I found through an article on Slate. The thought was about channels, as in distribution channels. Paul generalized this in such a beautiful way so that it represents exactly what is really happening. Channels are the aggregate of what businesses push towards us. There used to be such a high cost to getting a product to a consumer that these channels were created to add value in the aggregate. In the digital age, the barrier to this entry is much lower, and yet we still see businesses clinging to the traditional model. Why is that? It turns out that there is a lot of power built up in the distribution channels, and they don't want to give up that power easily. That brings me to the article on Slate, which leads us into where this power is. Wal-mart is clinging to the "video window", which is an agreement between them and content publishers to not allow pay-per-view or any other broadcast of content withing 45 days of a DVD release. What this basically adds up to is that this channel doesn't want to compete with other channels for a certain amount of time. Soak this in for a sec, and I think you'll start to see that the tail is wagging the dog. A single channel is making decisions for consumers about which other channels they can use. That is real power. Mark's proposal is to charge a variable price depending on the date of release. This is an intriguing proposal, and I'd like to see how it pans out. I don't doubt that he is going to keep pushing the boundaries of distribution. Good luck, Mark! Another quirk that brought this to my attention today was a song I heard last night. It was at the very end of the E-Ring episode Toy Soldiers. After some digging on the NBC forums for the show, I found the title of the song was Breathe Me by Sia. The fact that I had to dig into viewer comments to get this information is just ridiculous, but that is a topic for another post. I immediately went to iTunes to try and purchase this song. It turns out that the song was only available for purchase as part of an album (Six Feet Under: Everything Ends, Vol. 2). Someone please explain to me why a single song that is basically part of a mix tape only available as a single song? There wasn't even a discount for buying the entire album. Seriously... this is some kind of a joke, right?

Questions

I've read two articles in the past day that had a parallel line to them, and I wanted to connect them here. This first is an article from Paul Graham about Ideas for Startups, and the second is an article from MSNBC about Einstein. The focusing point of both articles revolves around the use of "Questions". Paul poses that and idea for a startup is best posed as a question. Going through the process of answering that question is what leads to a startup, and it often changes direction as you find a better question to ask. All good ideas start with asking a question. Einstein questioned the nature of light as a 16-year-old boy. He wondered what it would be like if you could "catch up" to a beam of light. What would he see? He eventually answered that question, but the question lead him down the path toward Relativity. It's interesting what questions can lead to.

Flock

Ever since I started using del.icio.us I've been looking for a better way to sync up with my browser bookmarks. I've been using Cocoalicious for awhile, and I like that. I especially like being able to post to it directly from within NetNewsWire, but I have to use a PC at work. So, this lead me to Flock, and I'm giving that a go right now. It even has support for blogging directly from within the browser. I'm curious to see how all this is going to work together. It's an interesting concept. Update: I'm going to need to learn some tricks to get the blogs to post correctly from within Flock, but we'll see how that goes.

Google Print

Prompted by Why we believe in Google Print and Publishers Challenge Google's Book Efforts (WSJ - subscription required). Yes, I read them in that order. I have to side with Google on this one. I really thing the advantage of being able to digitally search the full content of millions of printed pages far outweighs the potential downside of possible theft of work. If this were really a copyright issue, then why aren't the publishers suing libraries? I haven't checked, but did publishers try to outlaw libraries when they started? This is really an extension of the concept of a card catalog. If I were doing research today, this would be exactly what I wanted. Come to think of it... whenever I want to know about something, I first type it into Google. If I find enough out of free, online content, then I'm satisfied. But it would be very nice if I also got back information in published works that I could then go check out from the library, or purchase from some outlet or another. What if I could buy a digital copy of that work, at a discount from the printed copy? What if I could take that work and order a printed copy that was published on-demand (ala www.lulu.com). Now I'm starting to see why the publishing industry is so scared of this. It completely rips apart their business model, and they lose control. Let's ponder their model for a minute. Publishers find a few authors, promote them, print a lot of books, push those books into stores, and pay the authors after they make up the cost of printing all those books and promoting them. For a few cases, this might be different, and if I'm really far off, please let me know. The value-add that the publishers are bringing to the table is both the promotion, and the relationships with the booksellers -- not the actual printing of the books, which turns out to be a negative for the author. I believe the search mechanism will actually drive more people towards purchasing books, but publishers would really have to adapt to handle the influx of requests for works they aren't necessarily promoting. If they could handle on-demand printing, then perhaps they wouldn't be so worried, but that would requre significant captial investment. This is the kind of technology that shifts the world. Anytime you do that, people get scared. Change is often feared.

Elizabethtown

I needed this movie just at this moment. The circumstances that start off the story are quite preposterous, but the feeling that Drew has is something that I think a lot of guys can relate to -- at least I can. You have this sense of doubt about yourself because of this mistake you made and then you stood up for the consequences. This mistake then gets stuck in your head and sits there mocking you while you miss out on some very good things happening around you. I can so relate to the moment when Drew is standing in front of Claire and should be telling her not to go, but has this compelling urge to confess his spectacular failure. It's that kind of obsession of failures that I am talking about. Not that it happens a lot to me, or even if it's big; it's just that some things can kind of stick in your head like that. That keeps you from moving on. So, give yourself five minutes to wallow in self-loathing, and really soak up the misery. Then move on. If you get a chance, and are in the right place, ignore the critics and go see Elizabethtown. At the very least, you'll hear a nice soundtrack.

Apple changes the rules on video distribution

iTunes Video Store This is groundbreaking news. Oh yes, this has been talked about, but the deal has now been done. The biggest news from Apple yesterday was the distribution of television shows. This is the toe-in-the-water of digital video distribution over the network, and it is going to change the way everybody thinks about content. Music was an easy first step. The demand was there long before the content was available (at least commercially). Video is in same stage music was only a few years ago. Making individual episodes affordable for consumers to download is going to drive this market. This was the missing piece for many products -- and it's only the beginning. The technology has been there for some time, but a deal had not yet been brokered. The success of the iTunes Music Store gave the confidence to media outlets that this really can work, and their content is safe. This is an exciting time.

Serenity

Wow. I went to see this movie over the weekened, and it was just fantastic. Serenity started with a bang, and just kept on rolling the whole way through. I've been a fan of Firefly since it was on Fox, and so unrightly pulled away from us all just as it was gaining momentum. All of the characters were true to form, and the environment was just amplified for the movie. It felt a little rushed, but perhaps that's because I missed the pace of the series, where there was time for a meal to be shared around the table. While the show had some pieces that were meant for the fans, I think anyone could just jump onboard without too much trouble. Don't let the fan base scare you, it's still good entertainment. All I can say now is, "Thanks, Joss!"

Google Goes Las Vegas

Very interesting article about an experiment with Google AdWords. It seems if you try to mess with the system, the system will smack you down.

read more | digg story

Water and the Grocery Store

So, can anyone explain mass panic to me? Gas stations are just packed, there isn't any bottled water (or bread) left at the grocery store, and people are just coming out of the store with toilet paper like crazy. WTF? We are in a staging area for evacuees, and yet it's like the storm is going to hit right here. The power will likely go out with the winds, but how long are people expecting it to go out? Update: In all fairness, I've met several people while out today that are hosting others from the coast, so I understand some of the activity out there. It has just gotten a bit out of hand, as several others I met are just caught up in the craze. I even found myself almost catching it. The local stores are well staffed. Apparently they've called in extra help. I talked with one cashier at a local wholesale store who was just happy to be there; he's getting paid overtime for all of this. I guess this is one way to drive up the economy.

Rita in Central Texas

So, I'm in Austin, and the news is just going nuts about this. They are telling us that we could still see a Class 1 Hurricane this far north from the coast on Saturday. Crazy. Update: Looks like the track is going further east. Update: Saturday, 8:36 AM CST All the rain has moved out of the forecast for the day. It's a bit more windy out than normal, but otherwise it looks quite nice. The Austin City Limits festival is still going on.

Do What You Love

I often see this little quote bantered about in motivational speeches, or business books. A little tidbit of wisdom. Lately, I've just been trying to figure out what that is. It's not as easy as it sound, especially when you throw the expenses of life around. I guess I have the problem of being good at several things, not all of which I like. About the only thing I've figured out so far is that I like starting new things. Not necessarily finishing them, which presents quite a conundrum if you want to follow the above advice. So, I just need to find a job where I can start a bunch of things, but then just let other people finish them. That doesn't sound like the clinching interview quote, does it? I guess the problem is that I am good at getting things done, but I just don't like the finishing part. Often I find myself smack in the middle of something when I've already thought out the rest of it in my head, found that uninteresting, and start thinking up the next task. So, does "Do what you love" really count for stuff like this?

del.icio.us

I've added my del.icio.us feed to the sidebar of this blog. This represents a good portion of what I'm looking at on the web. I'm using this is a bookmark aggregator, and so far it's pretty good.

Katrina

In the midst of this tragedy, I am in awe of how quickly we will have access to satellite imagery via the Internet. No longer do we have to be spoon-fed the data from the media; we can just get it ourselves. My prayers go out to all who have suffered.

New Katrina sat pics from NASA; more coming via Google: "Xeni Jardin:

BB reader Phil Gross says,

Regarding use of Google Earth to overlay near-live damage photos: Satellite photos of Katrina's damage will be available through Google Earth and Google Maps in the next few days. They've scheduled time on five flyovers in the next week. Poeple will at least be able to see the damage for a large part of the area at a fair level of detail. Link

(Via Boing Boing.)

10 MPH Movie Trailer

The movie about 2 guys who crossed America using just a Segway just released their movie trailer.

read more | digg story

An amazing world we live in...

Sometimes this stuff is just old hat to me, but every now and then I take a look back at just how far we've come and am amazed. I am listening to a song on my iPod here, and I thought to myself, "That is a cool tune. I wonder what that is like in guitar tablature?" I then just typed in the name of the song and the word tablature into the Google search bar of Firefox, and there it was. Now, keep in mind, ten years ago I had to scour several text-only sites, and search for awhile to find anything. Often, I'd have to go to newsgroups, or even just go out and find the sheet music. I'm not trained to read music very well, so that wasn't what I wanted anyway. That's if I could find it at all. I'm a hack guitarist. This is just one example. Often I will come up with a question in my head; something like, "I wonder how this works?" I can usually just type that into Google and get an answer really quickly. Life is better in the information age. P.S. The song was "Conviction of the Heart", by Kenny Loggins.

Mac Mini

Mac Mini
Originally uploaded by ryandobson.

So, I've taken the plunge and bought a new Mac Mini. This is so much better than my almost 4-year-old iBook. And the screen on the Dell 2005FPW is just beautiful. Fun stuff.

Transitions

So, now I have to think about a "transition" computer. I'm really glad the Mac Mini is out there as an option. I wonder how close it is to a refresh? Can they get it up to 1.5 Ghz in a month? Probably whatever I decide to do, it'll refresh right after I buy. Time to start digging into rumor sites more...

Apple heart Intel Rumors

This particular bit of information is of great interest to me right now. Why? I'm on the verge of buying another Mac, and I was leaning toward that top-of-the-line PowerMac G5. Now, I know most were lackluster about the last round of updates, but I am still using an iBook at 500Mhz, so I was just waiting for another round before going whole-hog. What concerns me most is, I wanted to buy a machine for the next 3-4 years. My venerable iBook as surprised me at lasting 4 so far. If there is an architecture switch coming, then whatever I get, it isn't going to last much longer than 2 years. That certainly leaves me wanting to put less money into a current box. I already bought a external monitor, so I'll either be stuck with a Mac Mini (not a bad choice, but I have G5 lust) or a low-end PowerMac. Steve -- whatever happens with your relationship to IBM, please keep the sexy hardware coming!

Cornered Possum

Cornered Possum
Originally uploaded by ryandobson.

I found this little guy trapped in our garage last night. He was hiding behind a case of Shiner. The prior night I noticed some things were mysterously falling off shelves. Now I know why.

He didn't want to give up his prized location easily, so after taking his picture I proceeded to poke him with a broom handle until he ran out the door. He stayed by the front door until my wife (ever so brave) honked the horn at him and he ran into the bushes.

Marketing the iPod shuffle

This has already been done ad-nauseam throughout the web, but I just wanted to put my 2 cents in. The iPod shuffle is about changing the rules of the digital music player market. It is not about competing on a feature-by-feature level. This product is about marketing. Apple can outspend the others on marketing. Creative doesn't quite get this, as every comment I've seen from them goes into how much better their features are, or how many more features they have. Features aren't as important in this space. It needs to be good enough, but more importantly, it needs to make the buyer feel better for making that decision. This isn't normal in the computer products business -- it is quite unique to Apple, but it is normal in the consumer electronics business. It's normal in any consumer product business. This is key, and this is how Apple is competing. The other important factor to consider here is margin. Apple likes margin. Margin allows them to spend what they do. With all the components that aren't in the iPod shuffle, the cost is a lot lower. The price is just below the competition, but the competition has spent money on LCD screens, FM tuners, and recording. Where do you think that leaves their margin? Most of their competition is focused on razor thin margins in order to compete (with all those extra features). Some say that this is capitalizing on the iPod's iconographic status, and this is partially true. It certainly doesn't hurt their marketing efforts. The iPod was the beachhead into this market, but they needed to tap more of the market, as it's still growing. They aren't sacrificing margin yet, as there is still a long push ahead. The iTunes Music Store ties all these products together, and it was also the factor that solidified this market. It is still small compared to the rest of the music industry, and that is why they need the margin from the iPod. Until this market is mature, the two products need each other. The iPod provides the revenue to build up the store, while the store provides legitimacy for the iPod. The lock-in allows Apple to control the whole product experience, and will help the market grow. Apple will only give up control when it absolutely has to.

Planned Obsolescence

Never quite finished this though, but I'm posting it anyway. I had this flash of a thought while driving home yesterday, and while some won't think it very insightful, I felt the need to write about it anyway. It seems that most modern media companies are predicated on planned obsolescence. This includes audio, video, and software. What doesn't fit into this realm is print media -- books. Books have had to contend with the same copyright issues as other media, yet they have not suffered the wrath of obsolescence -- I can still read a book that was published well over a hundred years ago (granted that I understand the language). When it comes to modern media, there as always been the issue of the player and compatibility. Edison used it quite successfully for both audio (phonograph) and video (film). In my lifetime, audio has transferred from vinyl records though cassette media, up to CDs, and now the publishers are pushing both Super Audio CDs and DVD-Audio. Granted, technology has made the newer recordings a richer experience, but this has also left the industry with a great taste of planned obsolescence. They can make more money off selling the same content on new media than they can making new content. Books don't suffer this fate, because they never become unreadable. There is a thriving business selling old books. Old media also has this trade, but try finding an Edison-compatible recording in one of those places. DRM, or Digital Rights Management, restricts this transfer of media in the all-software age of audio. Old software also becomes harder to read -- does anyone have a 5 1/4 inch floppy drive any more? How about an 8 inch floppy drive? I think this is one of the prime reasons behind the open source software movement. If the platform developed on becomes scarce, then the software can at least be ported. This isn't true of binary-only software, because the developer is most likely long gone. Emulation is the trick in this case, but the software itself will never evolve. And software was meant to evolve. And this is why people are so concerned with open source software. To preserve rights to their data both now and in the future. The Word lock-in forces you to keep a copy of the software in working condition in order to keep access to your data.

Infinite Copyright

Although the museum finally admitted they were incorrect on this issue, this incident shows how our changing view of copyright has turned into a control mechanism. Even if the paintings were copyrighted, the artists are long-dead and copyright should be expired. People now view copyright as lasting almost forever. This is relatively new legislation, as the original intent was to grant only a small monopoly over a work to encourage authors to create new works. The reason the copyright expires is to encourage derivative works. Stop sketching, little girl -- those paintings are copyrighted!: "Xeni Jardin: Museum security guard told a child to stop sketching paintings in a museum -- because they're copyrighted.

It is standard operating procedure for students of art to learn by example by sketching masterpieces in an art museum. A budding artist in Durham found that the time honored tradition was challenged while seeking inspiration at the Matisse, Picasso and the School of Paris: Masterpieces from the Baltimore Museum of Art exhibit in Raleigh. Over the weekend at the North Carolina Museum of Art there were works by Matisse, Picasso, Monet, Degas and some Illanas. Julia Illana is a second grader who was visiting the popular exhibit there with her parents and was sketching the paintings in her notebook. 'I love to draw in my notebook,' Illana said. Her sketch of Picasso's Woman with Bangs, which came out pretty good, and Matisse's Large Reclining Nude got the promising artist into trouble with museum security. A museum guard told Julia's parents that sketching was prohibited because the great masterpieces are copyright protected, a concept that young Julia did not understand until her mother explained the term.

Link (Thanks, Cowicide)" (Via Boing Boing.)