A comment on Slashdot hit the nail on the head for a product/service I want to create:

Where *are* all the wonderful ‘independent’ movies and documentaries and such on the Internet these days? Back in the early 90’s, we predicted there’d be simply scads of new and entertaining film content available on the ‘net for perusal, but it seems like its either ‘movieflix’ or sites like silversow.com and demandmedia.net, none of which truly satisfies my urge to surf/download and watch good quality film media I got from the Internet.

Technology is coming together to allow for content distribution entirely via the Internet. Think of it as “Tivo over Ethernet.” It will be the next wave of media, and I hope to to position my surfboard on the sweet spot of this wave and have the ride of my life.

The tools are there. The demand is building. It’s only a matter of time.

I just looked out my window to the office parking lot and counted at least three dragonflies perched on the radio antennas of the cars parked there. Almost every day, I’ll walk out to my car to find a dragonfly attempting to mate with my car’s radio antenna. While they usually fly away when I walk up, I HAVE considered what would happen if I cranked out 60 watts of RF while they’re sitting there. 🙂

I wonder what the attraction is…

An article in the Independent suggests clouds may be public transportation for viruses and bacteria.

Makes sense to me. I’ve often wondered the same thing.

There is, they say, growing evidence that bacteria, fungal spores and viruses may spend large amounts of time – even their entire lives – in the air, riding clouds across the planet. And they don’t just inhabit the clouds – they may also be creating them. Certainly, many of the clouds’ newly discovered inhabitants are exquisitely designed to create the maximum number of ice crystals, the basic building-blocks of clouds. Some Darwinian biologists even argue that the bugs may have evolved for that very job.

I’ve put some pictures up from N.C. State’s Open Pratice from last Sunday. This is one roll of at least two that I took. More will be on the way soon, and the URL will change once I settle on a new gallery script.

For now, you can see the pictures here.

I used to think Michael Powell was doing a fine thing by shaking up the moribund Federal Communications Commission. Now I think he’s just a tool for the monopolistic telecommunications companies intent on owning all the media.

Powell was instrumental in the FCC’s controversial decision to relax media ownership rules (like we need more monopolies), and did this in spite of the vocal opposition of many people from all political persuasions. Seeing how the voice of the little guy was getting drowned by the flood of dollars pouring in from the big networks, Congress took matters into its own hands, drawing up legislation to repeal any FCC rulings relaxing ownership rules. This legislation has a good chance of passing both houses and heading to the President, who may have a hard time vetoing it.

Now that Powell sees the forces lining up against him, he has suddenly got religion and now wants to explore localism. This is the same guy who said “we don’t need local forums” when the other commissioners sought public input on the ownership rules. Only when Powell is about to have his ass handed to him by Congress does he get a clue.

I’m hoping this whole incident raises public awareness about how our airwaves are being mismanaged.

Find out how to make your voice heard by heading over to the Center for Digital Democracy.

Garner’s own Best Buy opens tomorrow. I’m in big trouble. 🙂

This is cool:

While other buildings that house vital services — hospitals, local government emergency centers, radio and television stations — remained functional during the blackout thanks only to backup power generators, one New York City Police precinct in Manhattan wasn’t even fazed by the sudden electrical disruption.

“We weren’t affected by the blackout at all,” says Dave Giordano, a community affairs officer at the Central Park Precinct in Manhattan. “We were still shining.”

The secret to staying powered up throughout the blackout? For the past four years, the precinct has been generating its own power with a clean-energy fuel cell.

I read in the News and Observer that a grand jury has refused to indict a teenager involved in the I-540 deaths two years ago. Four teens were killed when the car they were racing spun out of control on I-540.

Chris Peterson, 19, was charged with involuntary manslaughter, largely due to the work of Dee Welch, the mother of one of the crash victims. Through civil lawsuits filed against Peterson, she gained testimony from friends who claimed Peterson was racing the car in which Welch’s daughter was a passenger.

While Peterson has a history of racing, having previously been convicted of it, it doesn’t change the fact that it takes two to tango. Bryan Reaves, the driver of the other car, was under no obligation to race Peterson. Peterson didn’t hold a gun to his head. It was fully Reaves’s choice to race Peterson, a choice that led to his death and those of his passengers.

Welch claims her crusade against Peterson is about “taking responsibility.” The responsibility lies in Reaves for his own driving, and in his passengers for not keeping him from racing. Charging Peterson for their deaths ignores this responsibility.

The pain one must feel in losing one’s child is unimaginable. I can sympathize with Welch’s need for closure: her need to convince herself that her daughter was not at fault. There is no good to be gained by locking up another teenager and blaming him for her daughter’s death. It doesn’t bring her daughter back, it makes her look spiteful, and takes away someone else’s child. I hope Welch can come to terms with her daughter’s death.

The Business Now folks came and went without too much disruption in the business day. There were a few times when our fearless marketing leader, Darrek, came out to hush us all, since the noise from people actually working was interfering with the interviews being done in the conference room. But all things considered it wasn’t too bad. The crew seemed nice enough. A few of our stellar resellers came in to say nice things about us. It should be a good story once its done.

I was disappointed that the “B-footage,” the framing shots that will fill in the space around the interviews, was so short. The cameraman shot maybe 10 minutes of footage around the office, mostly of people staring at their monitors while they were filmed from behind. It makes for boring video, to be sure, so I’m guessing not much will be seen in the final edit.

Another interesting thing is that Business Now is shown in all of three markets: NYC, Raleigh, and San Francisco (not to mention nationally on TechTV). While it might get watched in Raleigh (when Andy Griffith isn’t on, naturally), I’m sure it will get lost among the millions of cable channel choices in NYC and SF. So while Darrek was making this out to seem like they were doing us a favor, it could actually be us doing THEM a favor! Still, I’ll hold out judgement until it airs. Then we’ll see if it creates any buzz.

I’m glad its over so that the company can get back to work.