Author: josh

Coins First

<rant>

I’m so sick and tired of people who hand me my change with the bills on the bottom and the coins on top. As soon as they plop coins on top of bills in my outstretched hand, the effort to get my money back into my pockets becomes a balancing game, where one possible outcome is that my money will go flying everywhere. This problem is only augmented at drivethrus, where I’ve got a window through which to navigate my elbow, and getting out of my car to pick up my dropped cash could be really difficult.

If you are ever in a position to give someone change from a financial transaction, be it goods or services, please give them the coins first.

</rant>

Purple and Brown

In the early days of Jim Henson’s work, many of his sketches (some say almost all) ended in one of the main characters being eaten, blown up, or at least lit on fire. The elements of the sketch were often so simple and pure that they didn’t require dialogue.

I recently discovered a bunch of clips from a series called “Purple and Brown” on YouTube, made by the guys at Aardman Animations (of Wallace & Gromit fame) that really harken back to that simpler form. I like them a lot. Seeing them makes me miss Jim.

So enjoy, and search YouTube for “Purple and Brown” to find more.

Thoughts on Music

Steve Jobs wrote an article today (yes, this is rare) called Thoughts on Music, and it’s up on Apple’s site where you all can read it. It’s an excellent read, and it’s a rare treat, considering how tight-lipped Apple tends to be about things like this.

I understand it’s a little long, but if you care about the future of music, and especially if you care about DRM, it’s worth a read. DRM is a topic that affects all of us, and this article could end up being pretty significant in the history of DRM.

Hasta la Vista.

I don’t think I need to give many of you reasons to not go to Vista. But I’ll post one big one here: a new Apple commercial that points out the fact that Vista’s higher security may not be worth the tradeoff. Looking for a real-world example? Look no further than this series of screenshots outlining the steps to delete a shortcut from your desktop.

Let me restate that: your desktop. Not their desktop, your desktop.

Having said all that, if you still really want need to run Vista, just run it on a Mac. That way, you can escape to Mac OS X’s loving arms when Vista gets cranky, freezes up, or asks too many questions.

Proud and Singular

At a stoplight today, Steph and I spotted a bumper sticker with an American flag that stated “We’re proud to be an American.” Apparently the passengers in the car were only able to combine their forces to become one American. But hey, at least they’re proud. Maybe it was from the National Schizophrenic Marines organization or something?

Steph retorted, “…where at least we know I’m free.”

Automatic Synchronous Video Transcription

I want a system that I can run a video or audio file through that will take all the words being spoken aloud in the file, transcribe them, and put them back into the file so that the text is aligned with the words being spoken at that moment in the video.

Then, I could easily search that file for certain keywords and content without having to manually assign those keywords to the video. If the video or audio is an hour long presentation, but I’m only interested in three minutes of it, this kind of system would make finding those three minutes a lot easier.

Of course, as soon as such a system is brought onto the web and tied into YouTube, Google Video, and other such online multimedia systems, it gets far more interesting.

I’m sure the government already has such systems in place (like ECHELON), but I’m talking about a consumer-friendly system here.