Recent Photos
It’s been almost a year since I last used this. I got busy and I got lazy. On Wednesday I fly off to Egypt, and that has gotten me motivated to start blogging again. I think I’ll leave The Big O.E. as it was, that is over with now and I am onto different things. See you in Cairo!
Some very clever people in Russia have designed what is, in my opinion, the most amazing keyboard every. Art. Lebedev Studio’s Optimus Keyboard is only a rendered mock up of a full sized keyboard featuring an OLED but it shows the real potential of being able to customise the label on every key. Imagine playing Unreal Tournament or Half-Life 2 and having an image of each weapon on the key that relates to it. Instead of pressing E for the rocket launcher, you’d reach for the button with the rockets on it. But it’s not just for gamers. Serious programs such as Final Cut Pro or Adobe Photoshop have a bewildering number of keyboard shortcuts. Wouldn’t it be great to see the tool on the key. It’s have to change relative the program’s state as each key’s use changes, but with USB 2 and a fast enough CPU it’s not going to slow down noticeably when sending new images to the mini-displays on the keyboard.
But of course there is a draw back. It doesn’t exist yet, like I said before this is only a simulation. And the cost of 112 individual OLED displays is going to put this out of reach of all but the most dedicated geeks for quite a while. I’m going to start saving.
Update: They do intend to make it, according to the FAQ they aim to go into production in 2006 and best of all, they’re Mac people so there’s a strong chance of it being fully useable with OS X 
An acquaintance of mine who goes by the internet handle of JL! has put up a very good response to Napster’s Do the math campaign. The essential point is this: With iTunes you own the music but with Napster you rent the music. So if you plan on living a a long time, and I do, you are tied to their subscription fee of $15 USD per month for as long as you want to listen.
You do have the benefit of being able to change you music as you go, I’ll concede that, but the cons still out weigh the pros. Want to burn it to CD? That’ll cost you extra, Napster goes out of business, your music is gone. It all round sucks. And if you’re still not convinced then JL! challenges you to Do the math too.
P.S. The point is moot for me since Napster is not Mac compatible (amazing how many anti-iPod campaigns have claimed to be all about choice but won’t work on Macs) and iTunes won’t sell in New Zealand.
Ever since I realised just how many pictures I took during my Big O.E. I’ve been searching for a good way to display them. I took approximately 7,500 images (including a fair few videos) during the year I was away. After filtering them down to the ones I liked, and merging some into panoramic shots I have 1,500 saved on my computer. I thought that would be enough to make a picture mosaic but I needed much more.
MT-Blacklist is my friend. Ever since I sent a track back ping to The Garden State Blog I’ve been getting comments on this blog about some gambling website. I was getting bored of deleting each one and rebuilding, until I remembered a plugin for MoveableType that Mike Zornek installed. MT-Blacklist catches the comments that are being added and checked if they contain URLs that match the long list of banned sites. Now when those Texas-Holdem wieners come my way they won’t take up any of my time, or get free advertising here.
