7.28.2005

"Home is where you get the goods for free"

This article explains why I still feel like a kid even though I'm 24. Mom and Dad, thanks for all the stuff!

7.26.2005

*Geek Alert - Video Stuff

I can't find adequate words to describe how cool this is, but here goes. There is open source software for video editing, 3D animation, and color correction available for free, which, if it were produced by a big name for profit, would run you in the thousands of dollars. And from what I can tell, it's really damn powerful. Unfortunately, that usually translates into user-unfriendly. But give it a shot if you're feeling the flow, just scroll down to the post titled "The Poor Person's Production Suite."

In a similar vein to my last post; the tools are out there, free of charge, to create high quality video content and make it available to mass audiences. If there exists the kind of talent needed to write the code to create and develop this production quality software [and make 'em available for nothing out of the sheer love of doing it], then there exists the kind of talent needed to take full advantage of said software and flood the marketplace with creative, high-quality video content. I am so f'n sick of seeing tripe like "Hell's Kitchen" or "Survivor - Whatever" hit my TV, that I would be happy to spend my entertainment-time surfing around on my computer for something worth my while, if I knew I could find it.

Bring it on.

Open Access IP TV

Popcast, a service I read about this last week from HDforIndies, is a pretty interesting development in the video/television world. Essentially, it's on-demand programming over your computer that uses BitTorrent to share video files among viewers.

This is the kind of video distribution tool that I imagine will start making waves soon (which will likely drive up the cost of this particular service, and with any luck hack cable prices at the knees). But for now, if you're interested and have a fast connection to the internet, you can take advantage of it for free.

If any of you PC users happen to try it out (the Mac version is promised soon), let me know if it cuts the mustard. In theory it sounds great, but in practice it may take some time to develop into anything worthwhile.

7.24.2005

Supreme Court guy...not too crazy after all!

It seems that I must eat my words about Bush's nominee. Roberts seems to be a nice, smart, level headed, relatively a-political hoosier. Of course, he's something of an unknown quanitity, and I would still bet money that Roe V. Wade will be overturned, but he's a much softer pick than I antipicated. I guess there are several possible explanations for this: 1. Bush is more of a moderate than I thought. 2. Bush has good reason to believe that, once on the bench, Roberts will turn into a Scalia clone. 3. Bush feels the mantle of lame duckness approaching, and wants to husband his political capital for other purposes...overturning Roe, while popular with the base, would still have some damaging fallout for moderates.

Here's a related thought. I wonder if there aren't strategic minds in the GOP that would lament a change on Roe? Abortion has been a very useful issue for the GOP from a strategic standpoint...if it becomes illegal again, the GOP could lose that tool.