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All the news that's... whatever. Welcome to Random Bytes... Friday, December 20, 2002       Brett points out a potential temporal anomaly in my earlier NC rant. I checked the elapsed time meter on my mp3 player - it only read 30 minutes. It felt like a lot more. Apparently the first 10 minutes of the call weren't recorded as Ellen Shankman (I believe) indicates around this time that they've wasted the last 40 minutes. Anyways, that wasn't the real purpose of this post anyways. In chatting with Brett about his MD problems, I suggested that he look into getting a used Nomad Jukebox to replace his Sony. A quick Google search indicated that they weren't quite as cheap as I had suggested, but also pointed to some great software that breathes new IP-enabled life into this IP-friendly (read: not broken) device. I can't wait to get this installed and start playing with it. Part of my adversion to the record companies lies with the fact that every single CD I own has been ripped out to MP3 so that I can play with my bits (don't go there) as I see fit. The actual CD's have basically become nothing more than expensive back-ups for my MP3 collection. NotMad now lets me *use* my CD collection anywhere I find a web-browser. Neat. What's really neat is that it perfectly illustrates the latent value that accrues to companies like Creative because they are open and the specific harm that accrues to company's like Sony because they are purposely closed.    3:38:03 PM     I'm looking for a better way to edit my blog. Post-via-email is handy, but doesn't quite have the power the I need. Carrying Radio around me seems pretty heavyweight, I'd prefer to run it as a server app and post from wherever I am. This tool seems like it might do the trick - and I love some of the copy on their website. "Just FYI, the Toolbar is not scumware, adware, spyware or any other type of ickyware." and "It's free for personal blog use, but it's not open source and it's not freeware. Here's our evil plan for world domination: Get bloggers using it, once they realize how great it is they'll want to use it at work in other projects. Their employers will pay us. We'll be happy, the bloggers will be happy and their employers will be happy. Bwahahahaha." Some companies tend to take their software and their customers too seriously. I do find it a tad disappointing though that the state of software has sank to the depths where a perfectly legitimate company has to make disclaimers such as the one above in order that they're not confused with the real bad guys like Gator and company. Looks like I have something to play with over the holidays.    10:58:35 AM     I'm 40 minutes into the recording of the December 19, 2002 Names Council Meeting. The agenda was simply administrative in nature - they need to transition from being the DNSO Names Council to being the GNSO Names Council. As Cochetti implied the meeting should have taken about five minutes. So far, the only interesting thing that has occurred is Tony Harris' anecdotes surrounding the atmosphere in Buenos Aires one year after the "coup" (as he put it) They still don't have quorum. I'm very pleased that our budget is being spent so wisely - 40+ minutes of general chatter and disorganization. I suppose that I'm more ticked off because I've wasted the last 40 minutes listening to this instead of getting caught up on an audio book or enjoying the new greatest hits package from U2. Sigh. As they say in Argentina, "Obra empezada, medio acabada." - now I just need to get to the part in the recording where the good beginning starts.    10:17:46 AM   © Copyright 2003 Ross Wm. Rader. The opinions expressed in this weblog are solely those of the respective authors. Last update: 1/27/2003; 11:37:59 PM.