Now downloading the Nine Inch Nails new Ghosts I-IV Album(s)
I forget where I first heard about this album release, maybe it was Lawrence Lessig’s blog? I’ve enjoyed Trent Reznor’s, a.k.a. Nine Inch Nails, music since I was in high school. The band’s most recent album is Ghosts I-IV and Firefox has just informed me that my download of the album has completed.
What I love the most about this album is that it is released under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license. Ghosts I is freely distributed at the album website. The entire collection is available for $5, probably just to cover the distribution fees. I bought the fully digital album for a mere $5, the first album that I’ve purchased since I dumped iTunes.
What was heartwarming is that when I went to order my copy, the 2500 copies of the $300 edition have sold out. Playing the Devil’s Advocate, maybe others out there haven’t had to read the CC licenses umpteen times, and maybe it’s just ignorance. I mean, in this day and age when stealing is so easy, wouldn’t people know that this CC license translates to: I, or anyone who has a copy of the music, can now give you a copy of my Ghosts I-IV absolutely free?
Rather, I’d prefer to think that people do understand the license, and they chose to support the people behind Nine Inch Nails because they love their work.
Open Source Life: Subversion, a revision control system (part 2.2 of 3)
Part 2.2: time to make your repository.
I recommend viewing this video in full screen (click the icon to the left of the volume button).
Lawrence Lessig’s philosophical lecture on corruption
Lawrence Lessig’s lecture on corruption has been sitting in my bookmarks for about 2 months. I never set aside the 1 hour and 5 minutes of time to watch it. When cleaning up my bookmarks on Friday, I decided to watch it in chunks and not put it off any longer. About 10 minutes in, I realized the importance is less on the visual and more on the discussion, and while the video compliments the lecture very well, I could have just listened to the whole thing and gotten just as much out of it.
Thoughtful and absent of the witch-hunting and negativity that I’ve grown used to, absent of the soap-box and angry man tone I place in too many of my blog posts; I’ve learned a lot from this video.
Open Source Life: Subversion, a revision control system (part 2.1 of 3)
It’s here, the first part of ?? parts about Subversion revision control “at home” use. I recommend viewing the full screen video by clicking the full screen button in the lower right of the video window, located to the left of the volume control.
I recommend viewing this video in full screen (click the icon to the left of the volume button).
A HUGE thanks to my friend Todd for suggesting that I try CamStudio. It’s small, lightweight, and the things it does well, it does very, very well.
An additional thing I’ve learned: The lossy compression used on YouTube videos usually isn’t a problem, much like the lossy encoding of JPEG images. When watching a Kimbo fight, Youtube works great. For screencasts requiring precision display of thinner font families, YouTube won’t work. (Here’s the same video you see here YouTube’d.) I’m experimenting with openomy for my file hosting. Please let me know if you have problems viewing the video above.
[PS. This video ends before getting to the good stuff. I promise there is more to come, but I was just tired of not posting anything at all.
PPS. I just uploaded a higher quality video. Bad me for not watching the first version when I posted it; its quality wasn't really any better than YouTube's.]
Friday Humor
I do so love Chris Rock
As I drink….
… a lot of vodka and pomegranate concentrate
I fall in love more with flickr, and figure out how in the world to make a screencast using opensource software about Subversion.
[Edit (the next morning): My drunk posts are never as exciting as I want them to be. I did forget to post my flickr account. Nothing really to see there, yet.]
My Absolute Horror with DemoCreator
So I’ve been working for about a week on one of my Subversion walkthroughs with a free copy of DemoCreator that I received about 2 months ago. In this day and age, there is no excuse for, “You get what you pay for,” in the software world.
Good God I’ve been having a pain in the ass time getting my demo to work right. There are out and out bugs all through the software that I’m using. Jesus people! To those at Wondershare who actually sell this crappy software. please listen to me. Why on earth have it be so bug ridden that when I go to use it I want to poke my eyes out? I mean you advertise DemoCreator for $70 a pop.
I’ve used Camtasia software, which runs at $300 a pop, for paid projects. Seriously, I’m way into open source, and free, software, but this DemoCreator shit is AWFUL! I’m ready to plunk down the $300 just to legally use the Camtasia software.
Wondershare, you need to grow the F— up and learn to produce software that is not bug-ridden, especially if your software is commercial. In the mean time, I’m going to find another legal method to fix my now broken demo and actually get it posted in a no-longer timely manner.
[Edit at 2:03 am on March 11, 2008: Wondershare (the makers of DemoCreater), you guys are on my ABSOLUTE HATE LIST! I haven't been this angry at a commercial software company since my vehemence at Microsoft and their backroom OEM Vista deals. SCREW YOU GUYS! I will now somehow find a way to take my week's worth of lost labor and remake the demo I was creating. I hope you guys rot in hell and I hope Camtasia spanks you in the ass! I will never have anything nice to say to a commercial software company that can't produce software without so obvious a set of bugs.]
[Edit at 12:40pm March 11, 2008: I've decided my project cannot be salvaged. I've deleted DemoCreator from my computer. Time to start from scratch with CamStudio.]