…and much, much more!
Well, this is interesting…
As some of you may have heard, I gave up the “god thing” nearly 35 years ago, and prior to that I was being raised Catholic.
Now, on the one hand, I recognize the importance of accurate numbers.
I’m normally rabid about not buying computers with a Microsoft operating system pre-installed, because I’m just going to blow it away, and install Linux… I’m paying for it, and it counts as a sale for them, but it’s never even booted under my ownership.
It never really occurred to me that I might be on a baptismal roll somewhere, and, as such, counted among the billion-or-so Catholics. It’s certainly something to seriously consider. I don’t know what diocese I was baptized in, and I don’t know if I’m committed enough to the idea to find out.
I suppose if I have nothing better to do on a rainy Sunday… instead of going to church 
A wonderful video from The Thinking Atheist:
All the news that shouldn’t be news for February 26, 2010, including…
Happy Lent. Yay
Admiral Ackbar - Mascot?!
OpposingViewpoints: Tiger still in the news.
Rickroll No More!
Ohio Man Dozes Own Home
Iraq: A new name changes everything!
It’s been quite a week (or two)!
This week’s show is a two-parter, so here are parts one and two:
Here are some of the stories we’re following for you:
Dick Cheney forgets he’s not VP anymore
Wacky Buddhist Tattoos
The Olympics
Silent Bob Bounced for Belly
Microsoft ZunePhone?!
Sarah Palin: Analyst?!
UAH Shooting: Dots-Connecting, Anyone?
I was offered by YouTube an opportunity (as “newsundies”) to participate in a test program which would allow me to upload videos longer than 10 minutes.
For nearly a year, I’ve been doing NewsUndies shows oriented toward YouTube’s 10-minute limit, often throwing out perfectly good bits to get my shows to fit. I looked forward to the opportunity to participate, but it would take me a little while to get a show put together that fit. There’s something of a pipeline to NewsUndies production, and a substantial amount of planning and research goes into each show, so if a show is planned for 10 minutes, making it substantially longer is non-trivial.
I did, though, put a 13-minute show together (NU1005), and uploaded it. Uploading it took forever, and once it was uploaded, YouTube delayed its release to verify via email that I either owned the copyrights or had written permission from the copyright holders of everything in the video. As a result the show came out late.
This week’s show was made late, because I was planning on uploading a 13-minute show, but when I went to upload it, I was informed that the >10-minute program had ended, and I was thanked for my participation.
That’s poo.
So, now I have a longer-than-ten-minute show, all edited and rendered and everything… and I either need to cut three minutes out of it (no small feat) or cut it into two parts (which requires, essentially, re-editing the show). Either way there was re-editing and re-rendering involved, and by then it was midnight.
I opted for the 2-part route… It’s an inelegant solution, but I wanted to get all that material in there, and YouTube kinda left me twisting in the wind on this one.
So, bottom line is: This week’s show is late , and late shows don’t get watched, thanks, again, to YouTube.
All the news that shouldn’t be news for Friday, Februady 5, 2010, including…
Palin Scolds Rahm Emanuel
Empty Traditional Ritual Continues, Pope Not Involved
Rip Torn: This isn’t my house?
Broken Spirit Roves No More
How Much Is That Goth Kitty In The Window?
Jenny Sanford Tells Some!
…and much more!
Why is this show so late?
NewsUndies was offered a chance to participate in a test program at YouTube which allows upload of NewsUndies videos longer than 10 minutes in length. The complication is that videos longer than 10 minutes in length are placed under increased scrutiny for copyright violations.
This episode of NewsUndies runs just over 13 minutes, so it tripped some automatic scrutiny-o-tron-o-matic… which required manual interaction. It took 8 hours of “processing” before I got sick of it and re-uploaded the video. After another six hours, I got an email pointing me to a questionnaire I had to complete to tell them that I either created or have explicit permission to use all images, graphics, music, performances, et cetera included in the video. After another few hours, the video was officially viewable.
So, really, even though I initially uploaded the completed video Friday morning, I was not available to you until late evening, Saturday.
Here’s hoping the next show can go up cleanly.
This article discusses a Road Warrior-like post-apocalyptic landscape that would come to pass if Microsoft were to seriously tumble from its dominant position (or fail entirely).
I beg to differ.
Contrary to the total chaos Randall Kennedy predicts, I think there will likely be a brief period of uncertainty, while people try to figure out how they’re going to deal with End Of Life issues for software they’ve been relying on for decades… but that’s really not all that different from the “chaos” that came to pass over Y2K… Remember the years we spent using BOTH sides of the toilet paper and eating spoilt cans of Spaghetti-Os over THAT?!
The truth of the matter is that there are, at a minimum, three or four viable operating system choices just waiting for Microsoft’s stranglehold on the market to falter a little. Apple has 2 of them, there’s 3 or four flavors of Linux (which I’ll count as one, because they’re all Linux), there’s Be, which has been dormant for a long time, but could be revived, there’s the BSD varieties (again, all counted together), and there’s Google’s Chrome (which is immature, but on a fast track).
The REAL problem will be migrating Desktop and Server applications to another platform, because of reliance on Microsoft’s “embraced and extended” “standards”. Well-designed software should be, for the most part, relatively simple to port. Poorly designed software will have to be rewritten. Remember when Windows2000 came out? Remember when Windows Vista came out? Drivers didn’t work, and systems crashed, and there were hardware compatibility issues… oh, it was a nightmare… some software wouldn’t run at all.
I’ve been running Linux personally for twelve years, now… I recently bough a couple Macs for my crazy NewsUndies show… but apart from Video Editing (and connecting my iPod Touch), I’ve had no problems with Linux, as long as I bought hardware that was compatible (that is, hardware for which, either the manufacturer has provided drivers, of the OpenSource community has managed to reverse-engineer drivers).
My Macs are OK, but I find Linux to be a better choice for the vast majority of my computing needs.
OpenOffice covers the vast bulk of “office suite” needs, and, as other needs arise, I’m sure people will either demand, or write their own applications to meet them.
I’m not saying that there wouldn’t be a period of disturbance… but … I don’t think wrist-mounted cross-bows and shoulder-pads will be the norm.
Remember when American Motors went away?
Remember when GM shut down Oldsmobile, Pontiac and Saturn?
I don’t think it’ll be much worse than that.
All the news that shouldn’t be news for Friday, January 29, 2010, including:
Obama’s SOTU Address: Balls!
Pope regrets brutality of Holocaust
John Tavolta: Being John Travolta
This Week In Historicity with Ollie Oliphant
Apple Introduces iPad - Next year: iPud
Look Who’s Dead!
This fascinating TED talk discusses an idea I posted on this very blog nearly two years ago.