Modernus Mundi

corpdecker @ 2006-04-15T19:12:00

2006-04-15T23:32:49Z

1) Who is the last person you high-fived? Kenna.
2) If you were drafted into a war, would you survive? Possibly. Cramming my fat ass through boot camp would be the wosrt part. I alreadly look a little too much like Private Pyle from Full Metal Jacket.
3) Do you sleep with the TV on? Not intentionally.
4) Have you ever drunk milk straight out of the carton? Yes.
5) Have you ever won a spelling bee? Yes.
6) Have you ever been stung by a bee? Yes.
7) How fast can you type? 30-40wpm, faster if I'm writing my own material.
8) Are you afraid of the dark? No.
9) Eye color? Hazel.
10) Have you ever made out at a drive-in? No.
11) When is the last time you chose a bath over a shower? 4 Years ago on my honeymoon where I had a tub I could fit in comfortably.
12) Do you knock on wood? Yes.
13) Do you floss daily? No.
15) Can you hula hoop? No.
16) Are you good at keeping secrets? Yes.
17) What do you want for Christmas? Electronics.
19) Do you talk in your sleep? Yes.
21) Have you ever flown a kite? Yes.
22) Do you wish on your fallen lashes? Yes, although I got that from Kenna.
23) Do you consider yourself successful? Moderately.
24) How many people are on the contact list of your cell? About 180 (but it's a PalmOS phone)
25) Have you ever asked for a pony? No.
26) Plans for tomorrow? Church, Lunch with friends, gaming
27) Can you juggle? No.
28) Missing someone now? Yes.
29) When was the last time you told someone I Love You? Few hours ago.
30) And truly meant it? Yep.
31) How often do you drink? Pretty rarely.
32) How are you feeling today? Pretty good.
34) Have you ever been suspended or expelled from school? 3 Day suspention in high school for waking out in protest of having our spring break taken away due to hurricaine Hugo.
35) What are you looking forward to? My first child being born.
36) Have you ever crawled through a window? Yes.
37) Have you ever eaten dog food? I tasted a Milk Bone once.
38) Can you handle the truth? Sometimes.
39) Do you like green eggs and ham? So long as the ham isn't green too I'm all over it.
40) Any cool scars? I have a burn scar on my forearm from heating up the metal top of a lighter to extreme temperatures and then branding myself. Yes it was over a girl, but I hadn't been dumped at that point. I was just stupid.

Documentation or Detachment?

2006-02-01T22:33:17Z

Originally published at Ad Modum Digirati. You may also leave comments there.

I know a lot of photographers. I didn't used to. Technically I guess I did, they just weren't photographers. About a year and a half ago this plague of photography swirled through ranks of my friends until I found myself hanging out with people who were just freakin' obsessed with acquiring the latest digitally actuated piece of glass on the market.

What this really means is that any social event in my area is generally better documented than if someone were to kill a CNN anchor...on the air. It's a little scary. If you come to a party you will be captured for posterity, or possibly your soul will be stolen if you follow the Austrailian aboriginal soul theory. Actually that would really suck for you because since it's a digital picture, it's going on a website and will be copied dozens if not hundreds of times which I guess would dilute your soul down to next to nothing. You'd be kinda like Robert Downey Jr.

Anyway the point I was pondering is one that my ever loving wife tends to get hung up on, and that is this, if you are documenting an event, you are by definition observing it. But can you fully take part in something that you are observing?

This came to mind recently when all these photographers crammed into a plane and travelled to the land of active volcanoes and mudslides to see one of their/our own get married. Needless to say there was no official photographer.

So can you be somewhere, say at a party, with a $2000 camera rig and really have a good time if you are taking pictures? Do you have to leave the gear at home to just have fun, or can you snap the occasional picture?

It seems to me that at some point you have begun to slip out of the reality of the event. At some nebulous point you are no longer a member of the group, you are an observer. When this point is crossed you run the risk of two things. First you are not there enjoying the moment with the people you came to hang out with be they family or friends. Secondly you have become an intruder into the moments that they, not you, are enjoying. You have become paparazzi.

Somewhere between paparazzi prick, and "what happened last night?" there is a balance for camera users. Since everyone has a digital camera now, this applies to all of us. I submit that the price professional photographers pay for doing what they love is that they are no longer able to enjoy the things that they are documenting. If you're shooting a football game, it seems like it would be hard to get swept up in the momentum of the moment.

All you photographers come tell me the truth. Post a comment and tell the world how it is.

Optimus Kinda Rolls Out

2006-02-01T16:44:30Z

Originally published at Ad Modum Digirati. You may also leave comments there.

Speaking of little squirts, the much anticipated release of the optimus keyboard that we all hoped (but never really believed would happen today, didn't. Instead we get the Optimus Mini Three. The website is getting hammered since they built up so much interest in it. The sad thing about it is that the actual product that everyone wants is the full keyboard and they have the interest, just not the actual keyboard.

So for now you'll have to be satisfied with three giant OLED buttons that can apparently be mapped to do all sorts of stuff. While it looks kinda cool, I just don't see the point of this thing. I already have 104 keys and I don't even need at least ten of those. Why do I need three more, even if they are all glowy and icon laden? Tell me Optimus! TELL ME!!!

As I mentioned, at the time of this writing the website is getting slaughtered and may go down soon. Quick, go look now, before the site crashes! Hurry!

Take that Opitimus. I'd like my other 101 keys now please.

Microsoft Lets Out A Hershey Squirt

2006-02-01T16:21:06Z

Originally published at Ad Modum Digirati. You may also leave comments there.

You heard me. In case you're not familiar with the term, a "Hershey squirt" (with apologies to the Hershey Chocolate Company) is when you have a giant crap brewing in your colon and a tiny little bit squirts out when you cough or sneeze.

In this case the giant crap is Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 and the squirt is the heavily restricted IE 7 Beta Preview 2. How many terms do you really need to indicate that something still isn't ready yet?

Speaking of butt pain, it's also a pain in the butt to download. Apparently the unpleasant bastards at Microsoft have decided that the way to prevent piracy is to make everyone who wants to download their free product prove that they are running legitimate versions of Windows. Ok either that or they just want to spy on you. I think what they really want is to punch you in the face and take you're wallet, but the technology to do that is still in advanced alpha testing preview mode.

Soon the giant turd that is IE 7 will lurch from the quivering buttocks of the pacific northwest and splach down into the wretched cesspool of browser compatability and piss off everyone. At this point I loathe Microsoft so badly that I wouldn't use this steaming pile of whale dung if it was free, wait...preinstalled...no that won't work either.

Screw it I'm just gonna buy a Mac.

I'm all academic!

2006-01-27T16:37:55Z

Originally published at Ad Modum Digirati. You may also leave comments there.

I was doing my daily troll through my site stats trying to see if anyone really loves me (remember when I mentioned traffic being my only measure of success yesterday?) and I came across a fascinating referrer link. Here it is: http://www.unc.edu/~wrculp/Englishpres.htm. Feel free to crush UNC's server by all going to the site at 12:42pm EST.

It seems this very page is the subject of a term paper, or study or something. I'm not sure really, but I've emailed the suspected author to thank him for the traffic and offer any help I might be able to provide.

It's somewhat interesting to me that just yesterday I posted a, um...post...on what the real value of the site is, why anyone would come here and so on, and the very next day a leading university is researching that very issue for me. Damn, I'm good, or lucky. My daddy always said it was better to be lucky than good so I'll take that one.

Anyway a bigass public thanks to Mr. Culp for a) reading my stuff b) sending me traffic and c) attempting to find out why anyone else would bother to do either of those things. Much love.

Is This Thing Straight Out of Shadowrun Or What?

2006-01-27T16:11:26Z

Originally published at Ad Modum Digirati. You may also leave comments there.

All navel gazing aside, this thing is awesome. This looks incredible. It's called S.W.O.R.D.S. - Special Weapons Observation Remote Direct-action System.

Basically this thing is a bomb disposal robot with a huge array of cameras attached to it and a big friggin' gun, or optionally a missle launcher.

I'm not a huge fan of the military industrial complex, and I'm opposed to the war in Iraq, or anywhere else really, but being flooded with testosterone I can't help but get excited to see some spiffy gear like this.

The full story and lots more pictures are over at Gizmag.

Evaluating Ad Modum Digirati, Three Months In

2006-01-27T05:22:28Z

Originally published at Ad Modum Digirati. You may also leave comments there.

I was recently over at Steve Pavlina's blog reading about "How to Build a High-Traffic Web Site (or Blog)". It's one of those things that's pretty simple to explain and hard to do. Here are his ten bullet points:

Create valuable content.

Create original content.

Create timeless content.

Write for human beings first, computers second.

Know why you want a high-traffic site.

Let your audience see the real you.

Write what is true for you, and learn to live with the consequences.

Treat your visitors like real human beings.

Keep money in its proper place.

If you forget the first nine suggestions, just focus on genuinely helping people, and the rest will take care of itself.

Of course this is a 6,000 word essay (6,114) and it's what's between the bullets that counts so I don't feel like I'm giving anything away here. The point is that all those things are simple and I agree with them. It's like the old saw, "How do you lose weight?", answer "Eat less and exercise.". Not hard to figure out but it can be tough to actually put into practise.

This essay got me thinking about why I started this thing at all. At first it was simply to do it. I wanted to stop feeling like I was out of the loop. I'm a web designer dammit. I need to be in on web trends. So first it was about doing it at all, then it became about doing it well. When that change first manifested "well" = traffic. The more people I got here the better I was doing. I've only ever done so well on that score, although I have had a steady rise.

But traffic alone does not bring happiness, nor does it bring any real sense of achievement. It's a mindless metric that only measures people through the door, not whether they actually got anything of value while they were inside.

Rumormill: Yahoo! to buy Digg

2006-01-26T15:20:13Z

Originally published at Ad Modum Digirati. You may also leave comments there.

I suggested when Yahoo! picked up Del.icio.us late last year that the other social sites might be next. In that piece I was hypothosizing about Google buying one of them for the purpose of competing with Yahoo! but it seems Yahoo! is not interested in competition.

This story from Kevin Burton suggests that Yahoo will make an announcement next week that they are buying Digg.com for $30 million.

Who knows if there is any real truth to the story since everyone's denying everything. But then that's what you'd expect if it were true isn't it? Of course it's what you'd expect if it weren't also.

I think we are beginning to see a divergence in the two major search companies. Not long ago Jakob Neilson talked about how search engines are ruining the web, but in that piece he also suggests that the glut of free services put out by the search overlords (Picasa, Flickr, Google Earth, etc.) are driving users into the search. I'm starting to wonder.

I get the distinct feeling that Google has it's eye squarely fixed on broadband media. While it will continue to use search as a cash machine to get there, search is a means, not an end. As an analogy note that AMD (the PC processor company) actually makes a lot of its cash from making low end memory chips, flash memory and such, but its passion and future are in CPUs.

Yahoo on the other hand seems compelled to buy any product that shows success at connecting users in any way. Flickr, Del.icio.us, maybe Digg? Is it possible that while Yahoo claims to have given up on being number one, they may actually end up with it as Google makes video and television it's core focus?

Keep an eye out, this thing is just getting good.

Has Stargate SG-1 Jumped the Shark?

2006-01-26T00:06:07Z

Originally published at Ad Modum Digirati. You may also leave comments there.

I certainly think so. I think Stargate Atlantis has too. Certainly if recent episodes are any indication, the Stargate glee that I once felt every Friday night is no more. All that remains is the need to endure the weak appetizers of Stargate SG1 and Stargate Atlantis that precede that rich, hearty steak of science fiction television, Battlestar Galactica.

Recent shows have seemed forced, cobbled together from bits of old episodes, movies and other series. The writing has been weak. This is not entirely unexpected. The primary motivator of the series has always been the Goa'uld. They were the antagonist in the movie that spawned the show and were excellent villans for a full eight seasons of SG1 goodness.

Eventually the Goa'uld were defeated. There are only so many years that a viewing public will stand for a protracted war of attrition on their TVs (hint, hint). Eventually the brave souls of Stargate Command had to make some progress. In the end they defeated the evil and deprived themselves of an antagonist, never a good idea for a TV show.

Sure they got another bad guy, the Ori (pronounced OR-eye, which I suspect is supposed to be the plural of oracle), but the old magic just isn't there. Maybe they can get it back, but they better get on the stick and stop throwing together these episodes that are predictable and seem way too familiar.

The truly sad thing is that this is the way things go. Stories can only really go on for so long. Once you reach a certain point everyone pretty much knows it's over. To go on just seems pointless.

Babylon 5 remains one of the greatest shows in the history of sci-fi, but it had the same problem. The story of the show was built around the shadow war. Once the Shadows were out of the picture the whole thing kinda fell apart. Yeah, they tried to get us excited about the telepaths but frankly, the show was done.

One final thought is that it is entirely possible that the inclusion of Battlestar Galactica in the lineup is throwing everything off. This show is so well written, so gripping and visceral, that it's possible nearly anything would seem lame next to it. I really hope that's the case, but I don't think so. I think that Stargate Command defeated not only the Goa'uld, but their prospects for continuing at the level they have attained. Maybe they can pull it out though. There's always hope. And of course it's not like I'm going to stop watching...yet.

Aliens, iPods and Monsters

2006-01-21T16:47:13Z

Originally published at Ad Modum Digirati. You may also leave comments there.

A few things I've stumbled across this morning while wandering the intarwebs.

Aliens - The Self Guard SG-310 is a clunky system that bolts on to your troops rifles and lets a commander see real time video of what they're shooting at. Honestly I was hoping that the drop ship or perhaps interstellar travel would be the first things to become reality from the movie Aliens, but alas. At least now military commanders can fitfully scream into their radios while the video feeds of their soldiers wink out one by one or, even better, fall to the ground and show a blurry feed of some horrible abomination dragging the lifeless corpse of a soldier into the gathering gloom.

iPods - For all you Apple news junkies it looks like Apple is hard at working bringing some sort of wireless service to the iPod. Well EDGE wireless service specifically. They have registered "Mobile Me" as a trademark and are hiring EDGE developers like there's no tomorrow. Of course if they can't keep iPod sales at ridciculous levels, I guess there won't be for them. In case you, like me, didn't know what the hell EDGE was, I've included a link to Wikipedia. For those of you who, like me, fear to go to Wikipedia for fear we will get trapped in a ever widening spiral of tangentally related, fascinating but ultimately useless information, EDGE is high speed (GSM) cellular service.

Monsters - In case you're still a giant wuss and are afraid to leave your foot even a few centimeters off the edge of the bed because the twelve-armed, snaggle-toothed demon will grab you and drag you into his dark domain of sugar free candy and diet soda, the good folks at Strange New Products have found a solution for you. You wuss. The Blue Moon Nightlight is an array of blue LEDs that will make the area under your bed glow with an unholy blue light all night long...for years. I'm sure the rich, corpse-like glow emenating from below the bed will calm all your fears when you wake up from that recurring dream about David Hasslehoff you keep having.

Aliens and iPods courtesy of UberGizmo, Monsters from Strange New Products.

Do you need a TV commercial?

2006-01-21T13:59:46Z

Originally published at Ad Modum Digirati. You may also leave comments there.

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<p style="border: 1px solid black; padding: 3px;"><b>Originally published at <a href="http://www.admodumdigirati.com/100/do-you-need-a-tv-commercial/">Ad Modum Digirati</a>. You may also leave <a href="http://www.admodumdigirati.com/100/do-you-need-a-tv-commercial/#comments">comments</a> there.</b></p><div class="shadow"><a href="http://www.spotrunner.com/"><img src="/wp-content/images/logo_sr.gif" alt="Spot Runner"/border="0" /><div class="topleft"></div><div class="topright"></div><div class="bottomleft"></div><div class="bottomright"></div></a></div>Well if you do there's a new site out there that will help you get it all up and running for a pretty reasonable fee. The site is called Spot Runner and like everything else in the web 2.0 world, it's in beta.

They have canned ads which they record a new voiceover for and put your information on the screen in the right places. They even give you exclusive rights to the commercial in your market.

Essentially this is like Google's AdWords for TV. Which is interesting since on January 5th Robert Cringley took on that very topic over at <a href="http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20060105.html">his site</a>. Here's a quote from his story:
<blockquote>What Google wants to do with these trailers is SERVE EVERY TV COMMERCIAL ON THE PLANET because only they will be able to do it efficiently. Only they will have the database that converts those IP addresses into sales leads, only they will have the servers and disk space close enough to the viewers to feed the ads. Only Google will have the chops to run a constant, real-time auction for the next ad every consumer is about to see, and then serve that ad at the moment the program goes to commercial.</blockquote>

I referred to this story a little while back also when I was rambling on in my <a href="http://www.admodumdigirati.com/category/television/">future of TV series</a> of posts.

I guess when a great idea comes along, everyone gets on board.

<strong>Update</strong> - I'm an idiot and forgot to actually link to the site I was talking about. The logo is now linked and here's <a href="http://www.spotrunner.com/">another link</a>.

Proof that the US is ready to collapse.

2006-01-19T20:19:35Z

Originally published at Ad Modum Digirati. You may also leave comments there.

Back in junior high or high school we all learned about the fall of the Roman Empire (those of us who were awake anyway). Things went great for the mightiest power in the known universe until they got so powerful, so rich, so completely engorged on their own success that the entire empire was defeated by a bunch of dirty nomads with inferior technology on every front. I'm not sure who our Vandals are but I found the following interesting.

Some news headlines:

Purported bin Laden Voice: 'It's Only a Matter of Time'

Abortion law sent back to lower court

Civil rights groups plan lawsuits over NSA wiretaps

Witness: Interrogation Guidelines Broken

Europe rejects Iranian request for nuclear talks

So surely with issues like these floating around this is what the world is talking about right? Nope. Here are the top searches accoding to Yahoo's Buzz Index.

Golden Globe Awards

Reese Witherspoon

Jessica Simpson

American Idol

In fact the only things in the top 20 that aren't entertainment related are the IRS (#7), Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (#8) and Wikipedia (#19). Although honestly Wikipedia is as much entertainment as information in my opinion.

At what point does this layer of apathy and decadence that seems to have settled over the strong fiber of our society become so heavy with stagnation and rot that it crushes us all from the world scene? No empire can last forever. The Romans didn't. The Ottoman's didn't. The British didn't.

Some dispute that the US is an empire at all. So much the worse will be our lot then when the tim comes for us and all we have to sacrifice are our pop stars. Have we no territory to surrender? No colonies to free? What becomes of a former global power that cannot support its own girth? I think we have some hints in history. Maybe Wikipedia is informational after all.

Custom Internet Radio

2006-01-17T20:34:17Z

Originally published at Ad Modum Digirati. You may also leave comments there.

Some of you may have heard of this but it's relatively new to me. A website called Pandora.com is essentially custom, ad free, internet radio. The idea is to help you find new music you might not have otherwise found on your own, and that finally happened to me this afternoon. The music I found was Michael Franti & Spearhead's song "We Don't Stop". I may have heard it before, but for whatever reason today it resonated.

Here's how it works. You go to Pandora.com and click "Create a New Station". You put in either an artist or a song name. The system roots around in the massive store of music they have available and pulls out something that, according to the tags applied to the song or artist you picked, exemplifies that sound. After that it begins to branch out and try some new things that are related. If you don't like a song just click on "Guide Us" and tell them so. It'll never play that track again on that channel.

You can add music to channels to expand the playlist style. For example I have a Crystal Method channel. I added Prodigy to that channel to get some more energy into the mix.

If you really love a song click on it. You can use it to make a new channel, or buy it from iTunes or Amazon.com.

This is the future of music commerce right here. The idea that I can build a radio station out of a single song and purchase any track with a click is what everyone dreams about. I'm all about it.

Pandora.com - Personal Internet Radio

Ultraviolet & Something Awful

2006-01-14T17:42:17Z

Originally published at Ad Modum Digirati. You may also leave comments there.

Not just Violet, ULTRAviolet

I just stumbled across the trailer for the new Milla Jovovich flick, Ultraviolet. I have to say, pretty nice. Ms. Jovovich has really carved out a nice niche for herself as the premiere "sexy asskicker in skintight clothes" chick in Hollywood.

Milla is this genetically enhanced badass named Violet (get it? ultraViolet? Sigh.). She's on the run from the government who wants to kill her. That's about it really. Much ass kicking ensues.

The movie looks kinda like Blade without all that weighty plot and ponderous character development. Pretty much just ass kicking. From the trailer I'm more or less expecting the lobby scene from The Matrix for 90 minutes.

The director, Kurt Wimmer, has also come up with such winners as Double Trouble ans Sphere (although in his defense that book kinda sucked too). On the other hand he did The Thomas Crown Affair which was a fairly enjoyable heist movie. It seems he also did a movie called Equilibrium where he came up with something called "gun-kata", which sounds a lot like the gun-fu Hong Kong has been using since 1973.

Anyway, here's the trailer for Ultraviolet.

Something Really Awful

This is so utterly and completely bad it's hard to look away from. Seriously, it's difficult. The effects are so mind shatteringly awful that you just can't click the mouse any more. It's possible it's actually killing so many brain cells from its sheer crapitude that your brain is sent into some sort of shock. I don't know but this, my friends is the very definition of craptastic.

The End is Nigh!

2006-01-14T16:07:24Z

Originally published at Ad Modum Digirati. You may also leave comments there.

Thankfully Darren Rowse's Award for Best Blog Awards is a tongue in cheek shot at all the blog awards that are going around lately. I suppose this is something we can look forward to every year along with the copious lists of predictions for the next year.

All this self congratulatory blustering just reinforces in my mind that then end is coming. The blogpocalypse is on it's way and there's probably nothing we can do to stop it. The entire blogosphere is shuddering under it's own ponderous girth and soon will be forever changed. Doom, gloom, and a little more doom.

You know this post was kinda like those clip shows that they run on TV. You know where the fill the whole thing with little snippets of past shows with some tattered husk of a concept to hold it all together. Kinda like fruitcake. Think about it.

Experimentation

2006-01-14T15:06:23Z

Originally published at Ad Modum Digirati. You may also leave comments there.

You may notice some changes with the things I can't talk about on the individual post pages. Please do not be alarmed. I am experimenting with some things to hopefully do things for me. I really can't talk about it, thus all the vaguery. For you regular readers (all three of you), rest assured, the entire post is on the main page and that isn't changing.

For you LJ people, nevermind, this doesn't apply to you, unless you want to go to the site. Also just a reminder, if you really LOVE what I have to talk about and just can't get it soon enough (I'm beginning to worry about my readership now), there is the ever popular, completely Web 2.0, RSS Feed. There is also a retarded number of options available on the home page for autoinstalling the feed in your favorite webtacular readeroid.

The Future of TV

2006-01-13T19:04:09Z

Originally published at Ad Modum Digirati. You may also leave comments there.

Yesterday I promised to give you my thoughts on the future of television. Well here we go.

The Boob Tube Is Dead

While there are still plenty of people willing to vegetate in front of the television I think this number is dropping and will continue to do so. When I say "vegetate" I mean just sit there and passively watch whatever the broadcasters want to throw at them. Proactivity is on the rise and people will watching exactly what they want to watch, or they'll be doing something else.

Will there still be a market for streaming content? Sure. There are days when I don't really want to put forth the effort to find something good to watch and even if I did, I wouldn't have the mental acuity to really enjoy it. It's those times I just want to "see what's on". This is where another of my predictions comes into play...

Custom Channels vs. A La Carte TV

Currently Tivo and it's ilk are a la carte systems. They sift through the networks looking for things you've chosen to record. Tivo at least, also makes some guesses as to what you might like and records those shows whenever it has spare drive space. This is the birth of the custom channel.

Think of your TV, and at this point TV will refer to whatever conglomeration of devices you use to get light into your retinas, as an RSS reader. Say you're a fan of House, one of Fox's cooler shows in my opinion. You subscribe to House. But the system is smart enough to make some assumptions based on that preference. However at the moment all that it seems to be able to do is record everything with Hugh Laurie in it. Maybe you dig the prick on House but you really, really hate Rowan Atkinson, aka Mr. Bean. Sucks to be you because Hugh Laurie was a major character on Blackadder, one of Atkinson's longest running shows. Crap. Stupid Mr. Bean.

Fortunately these systems are getting better. If you've ever used Netflix you're familiar with their suggestion and rating system. You scan though as many movies as you care to picking the ones you like or hate and from this the system decides what to suggest to you. This is better but still not quite there.

Consider spam filters a moment. How much research and thought is being put into technology that can tease out the slightest hint of crap you don't want to read? With a big enough bank of information about what you do and do not like, it gets better and better at figuring out things you want to see. We have cheap processors and cheaper drive space to store more preferences and crunch the algorithms to determine what you like. That will comprise your channel lineup, not call letters. This sort of technology, filters of every stripe are going to be huge in more than just TV. It's a good thing too because in the future we'll have...

Telespam!

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<p style="border: 1px solid black; padding: 3px;"><b>Originally published at <a href="http://www.admodumdigirati.com/?p=90">Ad Modum Digirati</a>. You may also leave <a href="http://www.admodumdigirati.com/?p=90#comments">comments</a> there.</b></p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=admodumdigira-20%26link_code=xm2%26camp=2025%26creative=165953%26path=http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html%253fASIN=B000BYPHX0%2526tag=admodumdigira-20%2526lcode=xm2%2526cID=2025%2526ccmID=165953%2526location=/o/ASIN/B000BYPHX0%25253FSubscriptionId=0EMV44A9A5YT1RVDGZ82" title="View product details at Amazon"><img src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000BYPHX0.01-AB3RNVJIM1XDP._SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg" alt="TV Wrist Watch" border="0" align="right" /></a><a href="http://www.admodumdigirati.com/89/dining-on-the-carcass-of-modern-television/">Yesterday</a> I promised to give you my thoughts on the future of television. Well here we go.

<h2>The Boob Tube Is Dead</h2>
While there are still plenty of people willing to vegetate in front of the television I think this number is dropping and will continue to do so. When I say "vegetate" I mean just sit there and passively watch whatever the broadcasters want to throw at them. Proactivity is on the rise and people will watching exactly what they want to watch, or they'll be doing something else.

Will there still be a market for streaming content? Sure. There are days when I don't really want to put forth the effort to find something good to watch and even if I did, I wouldn't have the mental acuity to really enjoy it. It's those times I just want to "see what's on". This is where another of my predictions comes into play...

<h2>Custom Channels vs. A La Carte TV</h2>
Currently Tivo and it's ilk are a la carte systems. They sift through the networks looking for things you've chosen to record. Tivo at least, also makes some guesses as to what you might like and records those shows whenever it has spare drive space. This is the birth of the custom channel.

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=admodumdigira-20%26link_code=xm2%26camp=2025%26creative=165953%26path=http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html%253fASIN=B0009WPM1Q%2526tag=admodumdigira-20%2526lcode=xm2%2526cID=2025%2526ccmID=165953%2526location=/o/ASIN/B0009WPM1Q%25253FSubscriptionId=0EMV44A9A5YT1RVDGZ82" title="View product details at Amazon"><img src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0009WPM1Q.01._PB_PU10_SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg" alt="House, M.D. - Season One" border="0" align="left" /></a>Think of your TV, and at this point TV will refer to whatever conglomeration of devices you use to get light into your retinas, as an RSS reader. Say you're a fan of <a href="http://www.fox.com/house/">House</a>, one of Fox's cooler shows in my opinion. You subscribe to House. But the system is smart enough to make some assumptions based on that preference. However at the moment all that it seems to be able to do is record everything with <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0491402/">Hugh Laurie</a> in it. Maybe you dig the prick on House but you really, really hate <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000100/">Rowan Atkinson</a>, aka Mr. Bean. Sucks to be you because Hugh Laurie was a major character on Blackadder, one of Atkinson's longest running shows. Crap. Stupid Mr. Bean.

Fortunately these systems are getting better. If you've ever used <a href="http://www.netflix.com/">Netflix</a> you're familiar with their suggestion and rating system. You scan though as many movies as you care to picking the ones you like or hate and from this the system decides what to suggest to you. This is better but still not quite there.

Consider spam filters a moment. How much research and thought is being put into technology that can tease out the slightest hint of crap you don't want to read? With a big enough bank of information about what you do and do not like, it gets better and better at figuring out things you want to see. We have cheap processors and cheaper drive space to store more preferences and crunch the algorithms to determine what you like. That will comprise your channel lineup, not call letters. This sort of technology, filters of every stripe are going to be huge in more than just TV. It's a good thing too because in the future we'll have...

<h2>Telespam!</h2>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=admodumdigira-20%26link_code=xm2%26camp=2025%26creative=165953%26path=http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html%253fASIN=B000A33DTC%2526tag=admodumdigira-20%2526lcode=xm2%2526cID=2025%2526ccmID=165953%2526location=/o/ASIN/B000A33DTC%25253FSubscriptionId=0EMV44A9A5YT1RVDGZ82" title="View product details at Amazon"><img src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000A33DTC.01._SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg" alt="Innovage 5\" Television Lantern with AM/FM Radio Tuner" border="0" align="left" /></a>What happens when the folks sending us our programming start trying to game the system? Telespam.

How does the Tivo know that if you like A you'll probably like B? Well A has certain criteria that are assigned to it. Some are inherent to the media, the actors, the year it was made, but others are more subjective. Action movie or Thriller? Does <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0388795/">Brokeback Mountain</a> go under westerns? It's got cowboys...

At some point, some broadcaster desperate for ratings for his staggeringly awful sitcom will start sneaking a few more keywords into the description of the show. At first it will be subtle, but it will get worse. The major networks will claim to be honest, but really, they're all playing the same game. In the end <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEO">SEO</a> will come to the TV as well. Then as now, we'll stumble though it and find a way to get our fix.

<h2>The Best Part</h2>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=admodumdigira-20%26link_code=xm2%26camp=2025%26creative=165953%26path=http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html%253fASIN=B00008YGRS%2526tag=admodumdigira-20%2526lcode=xm2%2526cID=2025%2526ccmID=165953%2526location=/o/ASIN/B00008YGRS%25253FSubscriptionId=0EMV44A9A5YT1RVDGZ82" title="View product details at Amazon"><img src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00008YGRS.01._SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg" alt="Futurama, Vol. 2" border="0" align="right" /></a>The best part of the future of TV is something we actually can't know. There are some revolutionary things out there I'm sure but what are they? Who knows? If everyone is watching broadband TV what are the over the air broadcasters going to do with those massive transmission towers? Is there a niche for the current iteration of TV that will seem obvious in ten years but no one can see now?

The best part about the future is that the really cool stuff you never see coming.

Dining on the Carcass of Modern Television

2006-01-11T17:23:42Z

Originally published at Ad Modum Digirati. You may also leave comments there.

Yesterday I talked about the AOL Time Warner vs. Google apparent betrayal as a potential alliance that we just weren't seeing that way. Today I want to tell you a story about the topics that make that post relevant.

The other night I was watching one of my favorite television shows, Battlestar Galactica on the SciFi Channel. About halfway through the show, across the bottom of the screen comes one of those annoying little popup things that usually talks tells you what's on next, or what other shows the network has that you should be watching too. Well this one was a little different. It said:

This episode available on iTunes tomorrow.

I turned to my wife and said,

"Television is dead. It's a goner. Why should I pay for all the awful Lorenzo Lamas 'SciFi Original' movies when I can get the single best thing they have to offer online?"

Why indeed? Don't get me wrong this will not happen overnight. Even when it does happen it won't be a complete death, more of a restructuring. Including all the pain that those in the corporate world know goes along with one of those.

But it's all been said before hasn't it? Wasn't TV going to kill radio? True, but it didn't really. Radio just had to find it's own place. Radio has advantages, it's primary one being that you can ignore it at will and not miss too much. Thus it found a home in our cars. We can't very well watch TV and drive (though I'm sure some folks will try at some point). Radio didn't die, but our concept of it did. How often do you and your family gather around the stereo and listen to a program at a certain time? I don't.

In some circles this isn't a new idea, it's actually somewhat old. But the whole scrap over internet video has me thinking about it.

Currently you can get lots of shows on iTunes among other places to watch on the computer. When the computer is in the living room, hooked to a 36" TV why bother looking for what's on, just pick what you want to see. There are already solutions for this in place. Windows wants to own that computer with Windows Media Center computers. I fully expect to see an Intel powered dual core MiniMac in the near future that has built in TV services bundled right into Front Row.

Tivo has shown everyone the light. We don't want commercials, we don't want to wait for our TV we don't want to miss something because it happens to be on our poker night. The public is beginning to wake up and demand the power to watch what we want, when we want. We've got Tivos and we're willing to use them. We will have what we want. Bittorrent and P2P will provide illegally anything you refuse to offer legally.

What is the future of broadcast and cable television? Who knows. But I've got some ideas coming tomorrow.

AOL Stabs Google in the Back?

2006-01-11T16:50:11Z

Originally published at Ad Modum Digirati. You may also leave comments there.

There's an article running on the Motley Fool that seems to indicate that. I'm not so sure. The link to the full article is at the bottom of this post but the Fool's take on things seems to boil down like this.

Google paid AOL a lot of money for good search results.

Google is getting heavy into video search.

AOL just debuted a new video search system based on a little company called Truveo with a hot algorithm.

Therefore, AOL has screwed Google by stealing away customers from Google's video store just as it's launched.

What if it's not a betrayal but a joint powerplay?

Google has been buying dark fiber for some time with all that IPO cash they raked in. They are quickly becoming poised to make a play as a major player for internet distribution of damn near everything. This is similar to Akamai's business model, but not limited to video, although that's where the most money will be.

Bob Cringley has been dissecting a lot of Google's video related moves in his recent articles, particularly this one. There is a lot of talk about national distribution via shipping containers stuffed with servers placed at key internet convergance points.

So what if the money Google paid to AOL was to get access to the Truveo algorithm in order to improve their own search technology? In return they help cache and catalog all those videos that AOL/Time Warner wants to sell. It seems to me that Google has the pipes and the servers but nothing to sell. I'm not paying for "Star Wars Kid", I'm sorry. Time Warner on the other hand has tons to sell and is saddled and with the laughing stock of the modern internet for an internet partner.

Considering the possiblity of on demand advertising, ubiquitous video caching, high speed access over private fiber, and a small army of the best and brightest engineers out there...

Here's My Theory

Google buys tons of dark fiber.

Google develops video search.

Their video search is trumped by Truveo, who is quickly bought by AOL.

They make a deal with AOL.

Google gets the Truveo algorithm and access to AOL's user base.

AOL gets better search placement and a distribution network for Time Warner's video archive built and supported by the best and brightest engineers of the day.

iTunes and GoogAOL go to war for your video dollar.

I'll talk a little more about the spoils of the TV carcass tomorrow.

Motley Fool Article [via]
Robert Cringley's Pulpit

Ghetto Engineering to the Rescue!

2006-01-10T21:38:38Z

Originally published at Ad Modum Digirati. You may also leave comments there.

Not too long ago my wife who I love dearly was in a hurry to work. She's a wonderful person, she just gets a little flustered in the mornings. That's ok, we all do that some times. Sometimes the morning just isn't your time. The first day back to work in the new year and my wife did that to our trusty Honda. Sigh.

But I lament no longer! For I, using the time honored traditions of my forebears have managed to repair this damage for free from things I had around the house! My only regret is that I couldn't find a stylish way to incorporate baleing wire, the chosen medium of my forebears.

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<p style="border: 1px solid black; padding: 3px;"><b>Originally published at <a href="http://www.admodumdigirati.com/87/ghetto-engineering-to-the-rescue/">Ad Modum Digirati</a>. You may also leave <a href="http://www.admodumdigirati.com/87/ghetto-engineering-to-the-rescue/#comments">comments</a> there.</b></p><img src="http://static.flickr.com/42/78576207_9182f4fe74_m.jpg" align=right alt="Automotive remodeling"/><div class="topleft">Not too long ago my wife who I love dearly was in a hurry to work. She's a wonderful person, she just gets a little flustered in the mornings. That's ok, we all do that some times. Sometimes the morning just isn't your time. The first day back to work in the new year and my wife did <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=78576207&size=o">that</a> to our trusty Honda. Sigh.

But I lament no longer! For I, using the time honored traditions of my forebears have managed to repair this damage for free from things I had around the house! My only regret is that I couldn't find a stylish way to incorporate baleing wire, the chosen medium of my forebears.

<img src="http://static.flickr.com/40/84946171_27faaf0f54_s.jpg" alt="Screws" align=left/><No matter! Using a lowly handful of sheet metal screws I have reattached the bumper cover. I claim bonus points for using sheet metal screws to attach two objects that were neither sheets nor metal! HA HA!

<img src="http://static.flickr.com/39/84946199_6d585fa196_m.jpg" align=right alt="A damn sight better than it was."/>Of course the vehicle is not the sleek wind demon it once was, but come on, it's ten years old. In modern car years that's like 300. In classic car years it's 10, but they stopped using those years around 1974 or so.

Tetris shelves of love

2006-01-10T14:32:14Z

Originally published at Ad Modum Digirati. You may also leave comments there.

A few years back my waife was a huge tetris junkie. Truth be told she probably still it, but she just doesn't have the access that she used to. There for a while she was playing a game called Frac (aka Fractris), a 3d version of tetris, a whole lot and shortly after that developed carpal tunnel. I'm not saying that the tetris caused the CT, she was also a cake decorator and decorators drop like flies from CT, but it damn sure didn't help.

Anyway with all that rambling behind me, I thought she might like these shelves.

Hot Rodding My Life

2006-01-09T02:20:25Z

Originally published at Ad Modum Digirati. You may also leave comments there.

One of the forums I wander over to from time to time is a spot for solo entrepreneurs called Solo-E. It's a great bunch of people who are all in business all by themselves. Thus solo and "E" for entrepreneurs.

Anyway the question was asked, in lieu of resolutions, "What's your theme for 2006?". Having never been asked this before I had to think about it a minute, but what I came up with was "Hot Rodding my Life", I suppose "tuning" might be more recognizable for the "Type-R" set. Old school, new school, same thing.

Hot Rodding My Life

Cut the dead weight, Smokes and Sugar - The first thing a hot rodder does is rip out all the useless things that either hinder performance do nothing to help it. This can be as simple as removing unnecessary cosmetic parts to gutting the interior down to roll bars and sheet metal to save weight. I'm not going that far, although it feels like it some days. I'm ripping out cigarettes and sugar.
Cigarettes are just bad in every way. They cost (too damn much) money, they pollute the air, my lungs and at this point mean I spend as much time looking in the window at my friends as I do hanging out with them. So piss off tobacco.
Sugar is more complicated if only in the sense that it's harder to spot and not consume. Hard as smoking may be to leave behind, I'm not going to find out I'm accidentally smoking halfway through a cigarette. This happens all the time with sugar. But I will persevere! I feel better and even if I don't lose weight I'll be healthier, though a few less pounds would be nice.

Right, so cut the dead weight, smokes and sugar.

Performance, Boost sales by networking - The next thing a hot rodder looks for is where his money can have the most impact for the cost/effort outlay. For example, a supercharger will add a massive amount of horsepower, but in addition to being expensive itself, it requires a lot of expensive engine tuning to keep from destroying the motor. Exhaust on the other hand is cheap and easy and does provide some HP boost. This is why tuners/ricers/whatever have those annoying whiny mufflers with the chrome tips. Cheap horsepower.
In my case I am planning to meet more people. Business is a networking game and the more people you know the more business you get. So I'm planning to go to more networking events and get my face out there and my name in front of people. This is free in most cases and while somewhat daunting to a relatively shy person, gutting it out will help me there also so it's win-win.

Get the most bang for your buck, go meet people and talk business.

Get some killer paint and polish, Dress for success - Finally, or perhaps first, depending on the rodder, they get a sweet paint job and polish the hell out of it. What's the point of having a fast car if it doesn't look fast (unless your racing for titles, in which case it's called a sleeper)? You gotta look good.
In my case I'm swearing off golf shirts and pledging to have on a tie for any and all business functions I attend. If you want to be the man, you got to at least look like him. As my plan unfolds I'll upgrade the gear and get some nicer dude.

So there it is the three step plan to a badass ride and/or a healthier life and business (which will let you buy a better ride btw). One more time for the slow learners:

Dump the dead weight - Cigarettes & Sugar

Get the most bang for your buck - Meet people to boost sales

Look good doing it - No more golf shirts, ties all the way.

If all goes well, by the end of the year this jalopie will be a lean mean street racer.

Damn I love Teddy Roosevelt

2006-01-07T04:47:40Z

Originally published at Ad Modum Digirati. You may also leave comments there.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

- Theodore Roosevelt

Livejournal Crossposting

2006-01-06T19:36:52Z

Originally published at Ad Modum Digirati. You may also leave comments there.

Once upon a time I was much more into LiveJournal than I am now. I had a presence there and I still use the friends page to check in a lot but once I got Wordpress installed ther was just no turning back. The options that a free LJ account are just somewhat limited in this era of blogmania.

So I moved on. At one point I had a crossposting tool running but it petered out. I still don't know what happened to it. But recently (as in ten minutes ago) I found another tool for Wordpress that claims to crosspost with no hassle. It's called, creatively enough, the LiveJournal Cross Poster or LJXP for short. Although I guess LJXP is also short and XTREME since there is no "X" in "Cross".

Anyway I set it up and this will be the official test post. If all goes well my homies on LJ can read my rambling on LJ and the rest of the world can read it here with all the gooey goodness that Wordpress provides.

Read This.

2005-12-27T13:03:58Z

Fear Destroyed What Bin Laden Could Not

I don't think anyone's put it so clearly thus far. It has long been my concern that the Reichstag burned on 9/11 and its looking more and more that was every day.