Author: Lorin Olsen

Video Is Becoming a Commodity

Lorin Olsen


Last night, my youngest daughter (who is nearly sixteen) had a bunch of friends over to the house. They were “actors” in her English project. She decided to direct a video about Greek mythology. Actaully, I think she just wanted a way to get some of her guy friends to take their shirts off – but that’s a different story. So Bailey has written, directed and recorded a video. Editing will soon follow.
But the whole exercise started me thinking about how far video technology has come in such a short time. When I was a teenager, Super 8 film was what some folks used. And the folks who had these gems could be characterized as relatively wealthy. Today, everyone has a video camcorder. And everyone has a computer. So the bar for video filming and production has dropped immensely.
And as I mused about what I was doing when I was a teenager, I remembered that I watched a lot of Star Trek. And then I remembered that someone had told me about a fan film series called Star Trek: The New Voyages. ST:TNV is currently two episodes written, filmed, edited, produced by (and starring) Star Trek fans. And early next year, the third full episode will be released. And Walter Koenig (Ensign Pavel Chekov) will be a guest star in this episode.
So I took the time to download the two episodes already available on the Net. And there is a lot to say about the acting, the writing, the special effects and the entire sense of these works. I won’t write a review, but I will say a couple of things.

  • The acting is way over the top – but so was the acting in the original.
  • The writers have put together a couple of interesting story lines – that are way too busy. Threads from so many other episodes are woven together very indiscriminantly. But as a fan, it worked for me. The two episodes I saw (In Harm’s Way and Come What May) weave together pieces of The Menagerie, The City on the Edge of Forever, The Doomsday Machine and even a few episodes from ST:TNG. So the episodes are great for folks that are already immersed in the universe of Star Trek.
  • I can’t wait to see the next installment.

But what struck me the most was the fact that everyone can make good (or bad) videos these days. And Apple’s recent video iPod places the exclamation point at the end of that sentence. Video is now as much of a commodity as the computer is.
First came commodity writing (the web and the blogosphere). Then came commodity radio/audio (via the iPod and podcasting). Now video is going the same way. What’s next on the commodity cycle? Whatever comes, I can’t wait!
-CyclingRoo-

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Tour de Georgia Gets UCI Top Rating

Lorin Olsen

After only four years, the Tour de Georgia has grown from a dream to a major international stage race. This week, the Union Cycliste International (UCI) has elevated next year’s race to its highest classification (2HC, or Hors Classe). This marks the first time that a US stage race has received this disignation. More importantly, this will ensure the continued success of the event. With this improved classification, substantial UCI points will be available very early in the season. So we can expect another phenomenal turnout from international cycling – even w/o Lance Armstrong riding. I think I just may take a spring vacation in Georgia next year!
-CyClingRoo-

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The End Is Near

Lorin Olsen

Dana has been playing basketball for over eight years now. In less than three weeks, we will be traveling to Carbondale, Illinois to meet with her collegiate coach and team. In NCAA terms, this will be the “official visit.” But for Dana, this will be her graduation to the big leagues. She’s been playing “big time” basketball for quite some time. But this is something different. Basketbal is now something she does of her own volition.
This weekend hammered that fact home to me. On Sunday, she had two “officially” scheduled baskedtball games. One was with her soon-to-be high school teammates in a “fall league” game. The second was with Excel (her AAU team). Several weeks ago, she had arranged to be a “walk-on” player for St. Pious in their high school league. BTW, this kind of walk-on is very common since Kansas rules only allow three varsity players from the preceeding year to play together in out-of-season games. So Dana likes to fill in for friends. So we started the day with three actual games scheduled.
After the first game, she had a four-hour break until her next game. So she asked the leagure coordinator if anyone needed a spare player. She got picked up by some school and played an extra game. After that game, we headed off to a different venue where she would play the game with her high school teammates. They easily won that game – or at least they were winning handily when we had to leave for the next games
So we headed off to a third venue. This was where she played with Excel. After her fourth game (of three that were scheduled in the morning), she saw some friends from the sophomore and JV team. They asked her to hang around and play with them. So game five was added. After game five, some of the sophomore players needed to do some additional homework. So they asked Dana if she could play yet another game. Since Dana was done with homework, she gladly agreed. So within five minutes, she was starting her sixth game.
By the second half of the sixth game, I could tell that Dana was tired. She missed a couple of simple layups (I think the net had a lid). But after six games, who could argue – and her defense was great. She had a bunch of steals, a couple of blocks and a whole lot of “in your face” harassing play. All in all, she decided to play six games. To sum up the day, she had two mandatory games and four additional games. She averaged something over fifteen points every game. Most games she scored either near or over twenty. Man, she is one strong player.
But what struck me the deepest was that the number of games and the tone of her play were her choice. She wasn’t playing because Mom and Dad wanted to see her play. She wasn’t playing for any incentives. She was playing because she wanted to play. And she was playing to help her friends who were short a player or two. And she was playing to get stronger and more skilled. In short, she was playing for her own reasons.
I can’t think of any way that I could be prouder of her. She is taking the skills that God has given her and she is making a life and ministry out of those skills. I hope she gets as much joy from what she is doing as I get in watching her. Just so you know, I really can’t see a thing on the court. Yes, I can see blurry shapes running back and forth. But even without the eyes, I could see her joy as she was playing. Man, I’m grinning ear-to-ear just thinking about it!
So the end is near. Her last high school season will start in less than a month. Between now and then, she’ll play a couple dozen more games. She’ll have eight or ten organized practices with Todd Baugh (her personal coach and a great guy). And she’ll do several dozen weight training sessions (at school and on her own). If she maintains the infectious, positive attitude, she may earn the right to be a team captain. But even with all this activitiy, the end is near. I will enjoy every game of the season, but the end is near. Very soon, my daughter will be focusing on her collegiate concerns (studies and basketball). So the next few months will be the last few months that I get to “see” my daughter play. Wow, the next few months will be both wonderful and transforming – for all of us.
I pray that she is as proud of herself as I am proud of her!
-CyclingRoo-

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Video iPod and iTunes 6

Lorin Olsen

Well, two outta three ain’t bad. First there was the iPod nano. Great product. It’s thin; it’s stylish; it’s selling like crazy. Never mind the recall or any of that stuff. The iPod nano is a winner. Then came the iPod phone. The ROKR failed to thrill. With 100 songs, why would anyone buy this thing. And the carrier choice is absollutely dumbfounding. Personally, I thought that one of the two US CDMA carriers was going to get the business.
Now for the third product: the iPod Video. This wasn’t much of a secret. And the only really novel piece about the hardware is the screen size. With 60GB being the largest current model, htere isn’t much room for mass quantities (of video storage, that is). But since iTunes does support RSS enclosures, I’m sure lots of folks will be storing Rocketboom on their iPod. But back to new things… In order to accomodate the new screen, the scroll wheel has changed again. But the model for this one is the iPod nano. So there no big cataclysmic change for folks to process.
But all of this does mean that there is a new media type for the iPod. Now, there will be a means of directly integrating QuickTime into iTunes. Yes, I know it was there all along. How else did the music videos get displayed on ITMS? But this integration will push Apple one step deeper into the media content channels of the Windows community. In my mind, this is good. I want to see someone challenge Microsoft and WMV. And given Microsoft’s recent settlement with Real, I can be pretty certain that Apple is the best bet for a credible video challenge on Windows.
Will I buy one of these systems? Not now. I have a new 60GB iPod. So there is nothing that would really draw me to this platform right now. But I guarantee that when I need a new iPod, it will be one capable of video storage.
-CyclingRoo-

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Annus Mirabilis

Lorin Olsen


The UN has called 2005 the World Year of Physics (WYP). And for scientists and scientific historians, this year has been the 100-year anniversary of Einstein’s annus mirabilis – the year he submitted four papers, three of which are hallmarks of modern physics. In 1905, Albert Einstein submitted his papers on Brownian motion, the photoelectric effect and special relativity. With these papers, Einstein established himself as one of the greatest minds of his (or any) century.
The PBS program Nova will broadcast its Einstein’s Big Idea episode this Tuesday. In his September 27, 1905 paper (“Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?“), Einstein first documented m=e/c**2. I can’t fully describe how important Einstein’s works were. I would need to be a physicist, mathematician and poet. But as an enthusiast, I can only recommend that you watch the PBS special. I will be recording it – and probably downloading a recording from the web (via BitTorrent).
-CyclingRoo-

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DRM: A Dream Or A Nightmare

Lorin Olsen


The summer of 1997 was wonderful. School was out and the kids were enjoying the great weather. I was leading a youth Sunday School class. One of the kids told me about a band called Switchfoot and their first album (The Legend of Chin). The band was (and is) a San Diego band that sang about God as easily as they sang about bright summer days. The name of the band comes from a surfing term about folks who could lead with their left as well as their right foot. And man, they could belt out a tune. Their message was glorious and made your heart dance as much as your toes. And the lyrics would make you think about your relationship to the world as well as your relationship to Christ.
Well, I’ve loved Switchfoot for eight years now. I remember going on a business trip and buying their second album (New Way to be Human). Rather than mess arond and chit-chat with my business associates, I sat in my hotel room that night and just listened to the music wash over me. Wow. These guys could transport you to another place and time.
So with years of listening, I couldn’t wait until their latest album came out. When my son gave me a free coupon for an iTunes song, I used it to purchase the pre-release version of Stars (the first single from the album). The song is wonderful. And it just got me more excited about the upcoming album.
But when the album was released, I was busy on a few other things. So I didn’t get around to buying the album until this week. I hadn’t read any of the press about the album. Nevertheless, I bought the album (sight unseen) on Thursday night. I couldn’t wait to get home and load the album into iTunes so I could listen to the album on my iPod. Well, I was in for a shock.
I didn’t get a chance to load it at home yesterday, so I thought I’d just listen to the album on my laptop. I loaded in the CD. And, presto – I was greeted with silence. Then the autorun feature kicked in and a special player was loaded. I listened to a couple of tracks. And they were quite good. But I wanted to load the album into my normal player. Unfortunately, I couldn’t even see the CD icon as I launched iTunes. What was going on???
I popped open my shiny new Firefox 1.5 Beta 2 browser and started to browse about the new album. And I was deluged by all of the news articles about the album – and its DRM scheme. I found out that by allowing the autorun feature to start, I had installed some pretty awful DRM tools. I couldn’t even use my trusty old CD ripping tools (like CDex) w/o incurring read erros and getting horrible buzz/static on anything I ripped. Yuck. This was worse than spyware. Sony/BMG had installed software on my system that impaired my ability to legally use my own system. Heck, it seemed like I was being punished for buying the CD.
Strangely enough, the bassist and co-founder of Switchfoot (Tim Foreman) had posted an article about how to defeat the DRM utilities. Why would he do this? It turns out that so many people called and complained that the DRM tools precluded them from loading the newest album onto their iPod – just like me. So Tim put together a short primer on how to take your legally acquired album and rip it into a format that could then be loaded into iTunes (and onto an iPod). The procedure he outlined was fairly familiar. Basically, he referenced a tool (CDex) that could rip the CDDA audio track into a WAV file. And then you could convert the WAV to MP3 (or WMA or AAC or whatever you wanted).
Well, I fired up CDex and ripped the audio tracks to WAV files. I then used iTunes to convert these into MP3 files. Of course, I had to spend the time to tag the files. I use MP3Tag to manage ID3 tags on my MP3 files. Then I had to grab the album art and load it into iTunes. For this, I use the iTunes Art Importer.
So after a couple of hours of work, I finally have Nothing Is Sound loaded into iTunes (and onto my iPod). I should have been at this point in a couple of minutes – not a couple of hours. This is a travesty. I bought this album. And I will continue to buy the albums that I listen to. Nevertheless, the only thing that this particular piece of DRM will do is drive people towards alternate means of acquiring their music.
Many people will move to online purchase and download. In fact, I could have bought the album from ITMS and it would have been cheaper – and a whole lot easier. But some folks won’t be troubled with buying the music. Unfortunately, some folks will just get online and illicitly download the tracks. In the end, I think Sony/BMG may have pushed more folks towards piracy – just so they can hear the music from a band they love. And this piracy has forced a fine musician (Tim Foreman) into advising his listeners/fans on ways to defeat the DRM scheme imposed by his label. This is nuts. And the greatest irony is that this band is a Christian band. Their fans are the folks least likely to be stealing music.
In summary…
The Good

  • The album is great. I love almost every track. As usual, Switchfoot is showing great musicianship and great lyrical ability. Just like I expect from Switchfoot. These guys make you think about your faith and its practical application in the world.
  • I sure am glad that the Internet has so many good resources on how to fairly use the music that you have purchased. I have been able to solve this problem as well as several others. For exaqmple, I once bought a song from ITMS and wanted to use it in a video. To do this, I had to strip the DRM atoms from off of the AAC files downloaded by ITMS. I was able to find good tools that would solve my problem.
  • This album has made me think about how I use music on the web. It is a good reminder that we (Christ’s followers) need to be “salt and light” in the world. Each time I download a “back catalog” track to sample it, I will be forced to think about fair use and WWJD. Thank goodness for the Podsafe Music Network.
  • Tim Foreman really cares about his fans. He risked a lot by posting steps to defeat the DRM on his own album. I don’t know if what he did was right. After all, he willingly put himself under the authority of Sony/BMG. So to summarily disregard their instructions/desires must have been quite a struggle. Tim, may God give you a peace about everything you are doing. Your heart is in the right place. You are looking out for those who need to hear the message God has given you. When Keith Green got to this point, he created his own label and started to give away his music to those who could not afford the albums.

The Bad

  • Sony really needs to rethink their DRM strategy. This scheme is going to make folks flock away from corporate music monopolies. Apple is making it easier. Too bad the labels are starting to get upset with Apple. In the end, the labels are shooting themselves in the foot (or higher).
  • I hope that this particular problem won’t hurt the sales of this album. It is an excellent follow-on to The Beautiful Letdown.

The Ugly

  • We need to find a way of stemming copyright theft. And we need to find a way of ensuring that fair use is also promoted and supported. It is ugly that the two goals seem to be in conflict with one another.

-CyclingRoo-

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Firefox 1.5 Beta 2 Arrives

Lorin Olsen


Well, it’s a day late. But it’s not a dollar short! Asa Dotzler has posted the good news that Firefox 1.5 Beta 2 is now available for download. There is not a whole lot of new features/functions. But this build includes all of the bugfixes that have been rolled into Firefox over the last couple of weeks.
Again, if you’ve been using the nightlies, there is nothing new to write home about. But if you haven’t used the nightlies, then this build may be your best bet. Please note that the folks at Mozilla really want your feedback. So log all of the strange and peculiar happenings. That way, we can swat the bugs before FF 1.5 is released for general consumption.
For my part, I’m loving this build. Things have been quite stable over the past couple of weeks. So this beta seems to be hitting my sweetspot. The latest Greasemonkey is available and seems to work quite well. All in all, I’m getting to be quite a happy camper.
-CyclingRoo-

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Morning Grind #13

Lorin Olsen

It’s been a couple of days since my last post. Boy are things a tad hectic around here. So here is the single-shot version of the morning grind:

  • I’ve gone back to nightly builds for Firefox. While I try and check out the release candidates, I think I’m addicted to the edge. So I’m off the wagon and back onto daily doses of updates.
  • I’m now using Greasemonkey 0.62. The current version supports the latest builds of Deer Park – so I’m happy once again. You can get it at the Greaseblog, or you can joing the mailing list and really stay current.
  • I’m finally used to the Greasemonkey icon and the features that are now surfaced there. I can now just left click on the smiling icon and see which scripts are active and which ones were applied to the page I’m currently browsing. It’s very nice.
  • I’m still not used to the new way that RSS and Live Bookmarks are presented. I got used to seeing the RSS icon in the lower right status bar. Now, the icon (and subscription actions) are available on the URL address bar. I’ll just have to get used to it.
  • There’s a new iTunes version (5.0.1) available. I don’t know the functional details yet. I’m assuming it’s a bugfix version with a few gizmos for the iPod nano. Details will follow.
  • Hurricane Rita is gonna be huge. I pray for the people who will be affected by it. I pray for the people who are stubbornly refusing to leave. I think that many folks would have stayed around – except for the devastation they saw with Katrina. Let’s hope this storm gets weaker as it approaches. And let’s hope everyone is ready. God, please bless those preparing for this catastrophe.

-CyclingRoo-

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Morning Grind #12

Lorin Olsen

Here are today’s “quick takes”

  1. After month’s of investigation, the Cassini orbiter has finally captured images of the “spokes” in Saturn’s rings.
  2. Lance Armstrong held a conference call yesterday. He cleared up all the speculation concerning his retirement. And the message is simple: Lance is retired and he is staying retired.
  3. After a spirited challenge from Dennis Menchov, Roberto Heras is in firm control of the Vuelta a Espania. Barring something catastrophic, he will crusie into Madrid on Sunday and earn his fourth golden jersey.
  4. Robert Scoble has put up a cool video (on Channel 9) about the Microsoft Sparkle project. Microsoft is hoping that Sparkle will become a real competitor to Flash-based animations on web sites.
  5. News.Com is reporting on the prgress of a new broadband telecommunications bill that promises to overall many facets of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. In particular, this bill (if enacted) promises to clarify the already muddled legal framework surrounding BITS, VoIP and broadband video.

-CyclingRoo-

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SVG and Google Maps

Lorin Olsen


With the release of Firefox 1.5 Beta 1, native browser support of SVG is in the hands of a much larger community. This will be immensely important for the growth of scalable graphics on the web. And it’s just plain cool!
Given the fumdamental importance of SVG, I thought I’d look around and find a good example. Well, there are lots. But one of the most interesting appications is using SVG in Google Maps. Jibbering discusses his efforts to link SVG and Google Maps. As of now, Google Maps supports VML in IE. It will take some changes on Google’s part before SVG can be used in browsers like Firefox 1.5. But while SVG support (in Google Maps) is still pending, some industrious chaps have put together an example. If you have Firefox 1.5 Beta 1 (or any of the Deer Park builds), then take a look at the Exmouth-Seaton Cyle map. This map uses SVG to overlay a cycling route map onto a Google Maps instance. Further, SVG is used to display the elevation map that is shown when you view the route. Very cool indeed.
BTW, I’ve always wanted to visit the southern coast of England. Now I have a cycling route to follow once I’m there.
-CyclingRoo-

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