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Monday, 31 October 2005
Leonardo Code Update
So today is the nominal deadline for endings to The Leonardo Code.I've finished an ending, and have received contributions from Joe and Jonathan.
Once all the entries are in, we'll get the final product put together.
But, while it took a bit more than the original month -- the ATW community actually wrote an entire novel in a year. Not bad at all.
iSmash
Initially the idea of SmashMyiPod.com rubbed me the wrong way -- a guy creating a site as a rallying point for iPod backlash, raising funds and using them to buy an iPod to smash in an Apple store.I still don't approve, but I do find the idea of cashing in on anti-iPod sentiment to buy yourself a new iPod somewhat clever.
Editorial Note
I said last Thursday that I didn't think all of the issues were completely worked out. By Friday, I was getting my hopes up, but today I learned I'd been right the first time. There's still a few bugs that I'm working on getting cleared up, but your patience is appreciated in the meantime. Thanks.
iTMS: The Next Generation
The good news is that Apple sold over a million videos in 20 days through the iTunes Music Store, which shows that there is, indeed, potential for online video sales.On the down side, though, a lot of the top selling content was not new. The Pixar shorts are basically a non-renewable resource -- when everyone who wants them has bought them, video sales will drop. The music videos are more like the songs; they can keep being added. Of course, two of the top three selling music videos were Michael Jackson's Thriller and Fatboy Slim's Weapon of Choice; which casts doubt on whether music videos will stay strong, or whether people will buy the archive selections they want, and then sales will drop off. (Plus, there's anecdotal evidence that some of the purchases of the videos are just to see how the service works, which also will fall off when the novelty wears off.)
The TV episodes seem to promise more potential for ongoing sales -- theoretically, episodes of Lost will remain high sellers as long as new episodes keep going out.
Basically, the million sales mark is nice, but really only relevant if it provides the ammunition for Apple to round up more content to keep the video store alive.
Sunday, 30 October 2005
ATW Book Review -- The Space Tourist's Handbook
One of my favorite volumes in my collection of space-related books is a library discard titled "Your Trip Into Space."The book by Lynn Poole -- "Producer of The Johns Hopkins TV Science Review," the title page proudly proclaims -- was published in 1953, four years before the beep heard 'round the world ushered in the space age, and eight years before anyone would actually take their own trip into space.
It's a fascinating piece both for what it got right, years before the U.S. would being serious work on putting a man into space, and for what it got wrong. Practically on the eve of Sputnik and then Gagarin, the book boldly pronounces, "No one can give you the precise time and exact date for departure. We are willing to take a chance on predicting that man will fly out into space within your lifetime, at least within fifty years." Emphasis theirs.
Looking back from a little more than that half-century later, "Your Trip Into Space" really isn't of much use if you're actually planning your trip into space. But it is a captivating snapshot of the state of spaceflight -- and public perception thereof -- at that moment in time.
Fast-forward now to the present, and a new book with a title that echoes the spirit of that half-century-old library discard, "The Space Tourist's Handbook." This book's bona fides are equally impressive, with the name on the spine belonging to Eric Anderson, president of tourism company Space Adventures. (The author credit beneath Anderson's name adds, "And Joshua Piven, co-author of The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook.")
To be honest, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from the book when I first heard about it, and Piven's author credit did little to allay that. The success of his above-listed work has spawned a variety of imitators, how-to guides that promise the reader everything up to and including, literally, superpowers. I feared a book that might have some interesting information, but, in living up to its title, would fall as flat as those would-be Supermen. On the flip side, there was also the possibility that it would go the other way, serving as nothing more than a 192-page brochure for Space Adventures.
The book's similarity to its spiritual forebear was pleasantly surprising. Like the earlier book, "The Space Tourist's Handbook" uses the conceit of preparing you for "your trip into space" to present a surprisingly complete picture of the state of human spaceflight at this particular moment in time. From the space shuttle to Soyuz to SpaceShipOne to Shenzhou (and many other things that don't start with S), the book provides an overview of all the major elements of spaceflight in 2005. A person who knew nothing about current events in space could pick up the book and in a couple of hours be relatively conversant about what's going on today. And for the reader taking the book off the shelf as far into the future as "Your Trip Into Space" is into the past would get an excellent idea of what was going on in this moment in history.
There are times when that spaceflight overview is shoehorned into the book's space tourism approach. The book notes the prospect of the space shuttle being used for tourism may be "tantalizing," and, while it notes that there is "no indication" that the government plans for it to be put to such use, to say that's an understatement would be an understatement. The book also notes that a spacewalk is "space tourism's ultimate walk on the wild side--the outer-space equivalent of bungee-jumping, parasailing, and skydiving all rolled into one amazing rush." And that description may be true, but overlooks the fact that while EVA may be "just a single step outside your door," that's one giant leap that no space tourist will be taking any time soon. (The space tourism bias also shows up in such ways as when it promises that "you will be an official astronaut upon completion of your sub-orbital flight." That's "official" according to whom, exactly?)
Those issues aside, the amazing thing about "The Space Tourist's Handbook" is that, in addition to providing an overview of the state of modern spaceflight, it actually lives up to its name. Unlike Poole's book, a person could actually read this book as preparation for their own trip into space. Granted, that's more because of the difference in the age than the difference in authors -- though, to be sure, Anderson has done his part to bring the change about -- but it adds a level of excitement knowing that chapters that still read almost like science fiction are, in fact, rooted in fact.
Even if the $20 million price tag for a Soyuz ticket is slightly out of your budget, the space tourism hints can be fascinating reading while you're waiting for suborbital costs to fall -- the book shares everything from how to prepare for a spaceflight medical exam to how to pass the psychological exam (though one wonders if the tips for seeming sane were actually left over form one Piven's other projects) to what to expect during cosmonaut training to why not to play chess in space (I suggest a new strategy -- let the Russkie win.)
To top it off, furthering its idea that the era of spaceflight for the average man is upon us, a card in the back of the book offers you a chance to enter to win a free suborbital spaceflight.
So when will we actually see someone use this book as preparation for a ride as a passenger on a suborbital spaceflight? I am willing to take a chance on predicting that man will fly out into space on commercial flights within your lifetime, at least within fifty years."
And probably a lot sooner.
Saturday, 29 October 2005
Editorial Note
Two quick notes:First, I've been kind of proud of the fact that this blog has gone from not even making the first page or so in a Google search for All These Worlds to now holding the number one place.
On the flip side, in a search for alltheseworlds, this blog is down to the number three listing (Though 11 of the top 14 are connected to me). Anyway, in hopes of shoring up my position a little, I did a bit of real-estate investing this week, purchasing the domain alltheseworlds.net. Right now, it just points to the blog, and I'm not planning on moving there anytime soon and making everyone learn a new address, but if you want to save a few keystrokes, you can now use the new address instead. I'll answer to either.
Second, during the server problems, while I was unable to say anything about it, I noticed that one of the blogs this blog links to, and I'm not naming names, co-opted the term Blogpoints from ATW. Now, I'm not going to claim to be the only person to use the word (though Google associates the term more with ATW than any other individual blog), but it seems like this unnamed blog could have come up with its own term, like, to just pull something out of thin air, SpatulaPoints. But, don't worry kids:
ITEM! You won't see ATW stooping so low as to steal conventions from that other blog!
Friday, 28 October 2005
ATW One Million
For those who haven't heard, the outage this week was caused when my server host shut down all the scripts at Hatbag.net, preventing dynamic pages like ATW from loading. The shut-down was a result of Hatbag.net putting too much demand on their servers.
Even though the problem wasn't directly exactly too many visitors to the domain (I'm only at about five percent of my bandwidth allocation; though that's many times greater than where I used to be), it was traffic related. Hatbag.net, and ATW in particular, where putting too much load on the server's processor. Basically, every time anybody visits ATW, it was having to use the processor to build the page from scratch. I've since made a change that should eliminate a lot of the work.
The chart above gives you some idea of why that happened. The yellow bars, for example, are unique IP visitors. You know how a year ago I'd be bragging about how traffic was higher than it ever had been? Notice how the little yellow bars on the last-year side of the graph compare to the yellow bar on the right side of the graph. That tall yellow bar is October. With four days left in the month. That's 43,238 unique IP visits to Hatbag.net so far this month.
The other cool thing on the chart is the big green bar. Back in the olden days, hits were how people measured internet traffic. Then, more enlightened times came along, and people switched to Unique IPs as the key measurement. And poor old hits are pretty much ignored. But, for a moment, allow me to draw your attention back to them for just a moment. That big green bar? Over 1 million hits just in the month of October. Yep.
CIVIV
Aspyr has announced that Civilization IV, which was released this week for PC, will be released for Mac early next year.
Marge's Head
Apparently, I helped teach Fox a lesson.And now, I'm kinda sorry.
When they announced that season six of The Simpsons would ship in a new style of box shaped like Homer's head, and that they would be using that format for the next several season, I was one of the ones that complained on my blog about the fact that I would have preferred to have the entire series in matching boxes.
Though I didn't complain directly to Fox, others did, and the company listened -- They went ahead and shipped the season in the new box, but anyone who wanted could have a box that matched the old ones shipped to them for only shipping and handling.
It seems several people did, because, for season seven, Fox is bringing back the old packaging, and keeping the new. According to DVD Answers, the season will be available in both the standard packaging, and a limited edition set in a Marge's head box. (I'm curious how many people got the old-style box for season six if the old packaging is the default for season seven.)
So now, Fox apparently will let us line all of our Simpsons box sets up in matching packages. But now we have to choose. And I kinda liked season six, being able to do both.
But, we won, right?
Gag Me With A Pumpkin
Even with the server problems, we found a way to post this week's new Hatbag to the Web site. Blogging it here, though, was another question. Anyway, we've now gone back in and put it in the site, which is back up. And I'm blogging it here.
Another Blogpoint Opportunity
25 Blogpoints to anyone who sends me a picture of themselves in a Halloween costume this year to be posted on ATW.
Non-Blogpoint Opportunity
The one team that I do actively dislike, though, is Auburn. Didn't like them growing up in Alabama, and got more reason to dislike them during and after college. As a result, I'm not going to give anyone Blogpoints for predicting how badly they're going to beat Ole Miss this weekend.
If Ole Miss does win, though, I'll give 10 Blogpoints to anyone who asks for them tomorrow after the game.
Thursday, 27 October 2005
Editorial Note
As you'll notice, we're back online.Hopefully, the problem has been fixed. (Though there's still at least one other problem to be worked out, so be patient over the next couple of days.)
Thanks!
Wednesday, 26 October 2005
Lobot Horocaust
Does America even stand a chance of remaining relevant in a world in which Japan has developed Lobot technology?
Pod Of Brix
Legos are cool. iPods are cool. And, as PodBrix artist Tomi knows, they’re even cooler together. For his latest creation, he’s put together an iPod made of Legos that really works (as long as you put your own iPod shuffle inside it). Simply slide your shuffle into the Lego case, and impress friends and strangers. The BrixPod goes on sale tomorrow at 8 p.m. CDT (presumably, the site says 9 EST, but surely means 9 EDT) and will likely sell out quickly.
Jobs In Leadership
It’s not unusual to find magazine articles touting Steve Jobs as one of the best business execs in the nation. Nonetheless, I was kind of intrigued by this piece naming Jobs as one of the nation’s best leaders, alongside folks like Colin Powell and Condi. And Oprah, even.
Tuesday, 25 October 2005
Hey...
So why no blogging today?
Excellent question.
For whatever reason, I haven't been able to pull up the site. So, yeah. Alas.
Anyway, here are some of the things I would have blogged if I could have:
- Mars is like really bright right now. Check it out.
- Wisconsin may open a private spaceport. For the people that need to go into space. From Wisconsin.
- NASA announces results from space elevator competition. Wasn't sure if Tutor's friends were involved this year or not.
Also, spaaaaaace elevaaaaatooooor!
- Top selling computers on Amazon. Guess what the top five have in common.
Not sure whether tomorrow will be any better, but I'll work on it.
Monday, 24 October 2005
Leonardo Code Update
As of today, only one week remains before the nominal deadline for The Leonardo Code. (Well, the one that wasn't 11 months ago.)I've already had one ending submitted, and I'm well into the more complex of the two endings I'm writing. Ideally, it'd be great to get any other endings in the next week.
I'm also doing some work for the next ATW writing project, which will launch next Tuesday.
An Open Letter To Paramount
Dear Paramount,
Deep Space Nine! Deep Space Nine! Deep Space Nine! Deep Space Nine! Deep Space Nine! Deep Space Nine! Deep Space Nine! Deep Space Nine! Deep Space Nine! Deep Space Nine! Deep Space Nine! Deep Space Nine! Deep Space Nine! Deep Space Nine! Deep Space Nine! Deep Space Nine! Deep Space Nine! Deep Space Nine! Deep Space Nine! Deep Space Nine! Deep Space Nine! Deep Space Nine! Deep Space Nine! Deep Space Nine! Deep Space Nine! Deep Space Nine! Deep Space Nine! Deep Space Nine! Deep Space Nine! Deep Space Nine!
Love, ATW
Oh, Yeah
One of the things I meant to blog this weekend and then didn't was to say Happy Anniversary to the Tutors!
Saturday, 22 October 2005
Hrm
So there's been something that, when I'm away from my computer, I keep thinking I need to blog today, but every time I'm at my computer, I have no idea what it is.
Oh well.
Hope y'all are having a good weekend.
Friday, 21 October 2005
Movie Poll
So if Nicole and I were to go see a movie this weekend, which should we go see?
Serenity (4 votes)
Elizabethtown (1 votes)
Corpse Bride (0 votes)
Other (Specify in comments) (4 votes)
Here's the full list of options.
Playlist
So many many moons ago I added the Playlist feature to the sidebar. And it was great for a while. Both, eventually, both my ideas and the general participation sort of petered out.Then, a little while back, I tried using that spot for a "Best Of..." list, and that ended up being like a microcosmic history of the Playlist -- Strong participation to start with, but then fizzling out.
So, my question to you, the ATW audience, is what should be done with that space. The way I see it, options are:
1) Going back to doing the playlist thing, but I'm not doing that unless there's an idea to reinvigorate it.
2) Giving the Best Of idea another try, and seeing if it does any better.
3) Giving the Best Of idea another try, but changing it up somehow to make it work better. Ways this might be done include making the list shorter to make it easier, or figuring out a different way to do the ranking.
4) Doing something entirely different with the space.
5) Dropping that spot from the sidebar entirely, which is what I'll end up doing if there's no interest in doing anything else there.
Discuss. Thanks.
Appleture
Following up on our Aperture versus Photohop discussion the other day, here's an article saying that while Aperture is designed to complement, rather than compete with, Photoshop, it could cut into Adobe's sales nonetheless.