Time Immortal

Memo to self: install RockBox on iPod.

Jay Currie writes in with a comment about this article.

My born again virginity will come as a bit of a surprise to my three boys…

These guys can’t even be funny without being cliched.

Jay

That’s one other thing that I didn’t bother to mention in my article, but which is worth commenting on, because the comments of Scott Reid and Andrew Potter demonstrate that they — and much of the media, of which they are representative — are rather alarmingly out of touch with the concept of blogging, its fast pace, and its methods.

The dismissal of bloggers as basement-dwelling, laptop-wielding, mouth-breathing virgins is just a charicature, and then not a very accurate one. One recalls how Andrew Coyne live-blogged the Mark Steyn/Maclean’s “trial” in front of the BCHRT — at times from his BlackBerry (I also submit that Coyne is probably not a “mouth breather,” likely not a “basement dweller,” and almost assuredly not a “virgin”). My own blog, in like manner to Twitter, is set up to receive blog posts from my cell phone, just in case I’m on the road and have something to post. As yet, that hasn’t happened…but hey, I was a Scout: Be Prepared! (Shut up, Scar from The Lion King…)

Yes, many bloggers use their laptops, but not all of them do. As mentioned, I do about 90% of my blogging from a desktop PC (and then one that is not situated in a basement). Realistically, I do almost all of my blogging from whatever computer my USB key full of portable applications is plugged into, be that a laptop or a desktop.

Other bloggers I know use email to post messages to their sites (I do that at times as well), and it’s even possible to blog from one’s iPod these days, what with the advent of the Web-capable iPod Touch (the “I Can’t Believe It’s Not The iPhone“). If one has a cell phone, one can blog, from anywhere one gets reception…and many people do just that. Hence mo-blogging plugins for e.g. Wordpress. Hence Twitter.

Speaking of iPods:

And then we get into the business side of things. Some bloggers can almost live off of the money they bring in due to advertising on their blogs (sadly, I do not fit into this category either), and many have at least turned their site into a source of supplemental revenue. That takes at least a measure of business savvy. Companies like Amazon.com add to a blogger’s ability to generate revenue, by offering “affiliate”-type programs which award revenue-generating links with a percentage commission of resultant sales.

In short, blogging is not the realm of pimply-faced basement dwellers; the most successful bloggers are, in many respects, the exact inverse of that sort of person. And more generally, bloggers are “everymen” (and “everywomen”). They are married…or single. They live alone…or with someone. That someone might be their parents, but is more likely a roommate, or a spouse. They might use a laptop…or they might use any other piece of Web-enabled technology. They might be funny…or serious. They might have kids…or not. They might be virgins…but most probably aren’t. They might be religious…or they might not be. If they met each other on the street, they’d probably strike each other as…normal people, going about their respective lives. They might hit it off and have a beer, or they might not ever notice each other at all.

I think it’s these last points that really terrify the media, that scare the likes of Reid and Potter. In their day, these men would have been the voices of national opinion, and would have been the people to whom others looked when attempting to form their own opinions. When all there was to spread the news was the print media, radio, and television (all fields which it is not easy to get into), such men as Potter and Reid would have been near-kings, and powerful to a certain extent.

Now?

Well…not so much. Now anybody who wants to can articulate his or her opinion and have that opinion read by people as far as half a world away. (Time Immortal’s top five visiting countries are, in order, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Philippines, and Sweden.) And other people, who agree or disagree with that opinion, can respond, sharing their agreement or disagreement with the writer through the use of comments forms or contact pages. Massive, sweeping dialogues can occur, opinions can be formed, shared, dissected, and re-shaped, and real-world changes can occur…without anyone having to do anything so old-fashioned as picking up a newspaper, reading an article therein, and firing off a letter to the editor.

And that, I think, must just burn Andrew Potter’s ass.

But he doesn’t understand this “new media.” And when he tries to insult it, he comes off sounding…well…every bit as lame and as old-fashioned as many bloggers tend to think that the print media actually is.

So true.

“…younger workers will use your corporate network to run most any device, technology or social networking software they can get their hands on. Dubbed “Millenials,” these workers born after 1980 are nearly twice as likely to use cell phones and PDAs at work, and half admit to installing unauthorized software on their employer’s computers. On the upside, the Millenials are more security aware than their older co-workers.”

When they’re not causing security risks by updating their MySpace profiles during lunch breaks and downloading music, chat applications, and a host of other bits of media content that have traditionally served as vectors for malware and viruses, that is.

That’s what makes IT such a challenging field — you have to be smarter than the other users, and stay one step ahead of the craftiest cube-dweller. People will use proxies to get around firewalls, so you have to be able to identify and block proxies. People will try and use chat programs, reach Facebook, download games, watch videos, update their iPods, and so forth. To say nothing of the hosts of malicious programs that can get in by any number of means, even email.

It’s a challenge, to say the least.

That’s the challenge my wife has given her readers for tomorrow: leave the mobile phone (and/or iPod, and/or Blackberry, and/or PDA) at home, just for one day, to see if it really kills you (or not).

Sweetie: I’ll take that challenge.

Everyone else: I dare you.

I like this reflection from Binks over at FreeMarkSteyn:

Freedom is not free, even in Canada, where the government tries to be all things to most people.

1. We must speak out, stand up, and turn off the TV and the interweb and the iPod long enough to pay attention to our local, regional, national and international realities. If not us, who? If not now, when? We are in the midst of a civilization-wide religious and ideological war, and Europe is currently the front line, rapidly turning into no-man’s land.
2. We must be ready to protect ourselves, our neighbours, strangers, anyone who stands in need of aid, comfort, or encouragement. There are wolves out there, and too many sheep — the sheepdogs shouldn’t be dozing, and the shepherds can’t all be busy at shepherding workshops, laying down their club & staff because somebody says they’re dangerous weapons.
3. We must prepare ourselves and those around us and under our care to be safe and secure — in home security, personal security, self-defense, weapon-training, whatever fits the situation. If we can’t be bothered to defend our freedoms, nobody else will. Whatever her faith, Robina Butt is our sister, and the cowardly bastards who beat her or who support such action are our enemies, and enemies of the Canadian way of life, pure and simple.
4. We must get our spiritual lives in order. Nature abhors a vacuum, and the same is true for super-nature. If Christians and other people of faith, and people of good will are not willing to believe what they believe, stand up for it, and for the civilization faith built, then we should not be surprised when other views and other powers creep in and begin to take over. Political Correctness is a flaccid creed, not a living faith. There is a particular duty laid upon Canadian Muslims of good will to stand together and to name, expose, and shame the radical elements in their midst, and report such people to the authorities, and persevere if those authorities appear too clueless or timid to do the right thing.

That’s pretty much the long and short of it, O Reader. War is, unfortunately, one of the constants of the world, and of history; war is upon us yet again. Maybe it won’t be a war that ever sees troops take the the streets of Canadian cities, pitted against raging mobs or organized rebels. Maybe it won’t be an explicit war waged to overthrow the infidel government of a Western nation. Maybe it will just be a war of words, of rhetoric — with the occasional riot or car-burning spree thrown in for illustrative effect.

It’ll still be a war. Are we ready for that?

Interesting article from John Robson, which gives some context and meat to observations I’ve made before in various comment-level discussions here on the site. Namely, he points out that when governments tend to fail in their efforts to promote “environmentally friendly” initiatives, private enterprise usually succeeds.

It will upset others that companies are succeeding where governments often fail. The European Union’s environment commissioner just admitted that biofuels promote rainforest destruction. Legally mandated efficient light bulbs may give some people skin problems. The failure of governments to build nuclear plants has contributed massively to greenhouse-gas production. But over there in the private sector, it’s just progress progress progress. Wretched, isn’t it?

The progress is enormous. That digital dictaphones use less power not only means fewer dead batteries full of weird metals chucked into landfills, it also means fewer new batteries manufactured then schlepped about using fossil fuels. Thes we store s on require far fewer resources to manufacture, and generate far less trash when they’re history, than LPs, spools or the aforementioned three drawers’ worth of microcassettes. (And just wait until I discover external hard drives.) Fourth, a subtle refinement, early digital dictaphones required proprietary software CDs and connection cables that also had to be manufactured, transported and, one day, discarded; newer ones send standard files through standard USB ports or wireless. Fifth, we e-mail, FTP and stream this stuff instead of couriering or mailing physical copies.

If you’ve ever been in a darkroom while “film” was being “developed” (Google it, kids) the stench of sodium thiosulphate tells you instantly that digital photos convey at least equal benefits. (And how, incidentally, do you dispose of old photos you no longer want? Landfill? Burn? Yuck. Whereas now it’s right-click, delete, empty recycle bin, goodbye ex-mother-in-law.)

Some greens advocate going back to a time when the human “footprint” on the environment was smaller. But we actually have to go forward, technologically speaking. The “footprint” of a portable cassette device was far larger than that of a digital player, while a medieval monk would have had to lug some nit with a lute on his back to enjoy Greensleeves while he jogged, to say nothing of plucking geese, skinning sheep and mixing who knows what gunk to write down the sheet music.

If you think about it, this makes a good deal of sense. Progress and technical innovation, especially in the field of consumable products of almost every variety, are inherently driven toward greater efficiency. That’s the nature of the give and take of supply and demand — consumers want devices that perform a wider variety of roles, and different companies will race to meet that demand. The companies that will thrive, and the products that will survive, are the ones that offer the best balance between price and capability — this is why the iPod dominates the digital music market despite the fact that there are dozens of brands of mp3 players out there.

But the principle is applicable in a broader sense as well. Obviously, not everyone buys like this, but the average comsumer looking for a new vehicle will tend to want (especially given fuel prices these days) to buy a vehicle that gets better gas mileage. That means that the pressure is put, because of consumer demand, to develop more efficient automobile engines that burn fuel at a more efficient rate. That also (surprise, surprise!) has the effect of reducing emissions.

It’s no coincidence that the Western nation with one of the best environmental track records in terms of emissions controls in the last decade is also the nation that has been enjoying, for most of said decade, a major economic boom: the United States of America. Almost as a matter of course, greater efficiency of products and diminished levels of environmental impact necessarily follow prosperity.

Of course, this effect can go too far as well, and I have in the past been highly critical of the situation that megachains like have created by reducing price points to so low a level that it is easier and cheper to throw away a defective electronic device and buy a replacement for it than it is to have said device repaired. I think that’s a case of the pendulum swinging too far in the opposite direction, crossing the like from progress and efficiency into wasteful decadence.

But on the flip side, I can’t deny that private industry seems to be getting things right where most governments are getting things wrong, in terms of driving us all toward the use of products and methods which, as a side benefit of their profitability, are more efficient and environmentally friendly.

(In Soviet Russia, hat tips you: SDA)

A while ago, I bought myself an iPod Photo.  It’s a great little device, which I call Son of Smalloclees(being that I named my first iPod, a Generation 1 I bought some two years previous, Smalloclees).  The sound quality is exceptional, it’s small and portable, and best of all: it stores and displays in sharp resolution and colour the over 2000 photos I have taken with my digital camera thus far.

One common criticism I hear from people concerning iPods in particular, and most portable audio players in general, is that they hold so much (let’s face it, 40 gigabytes of hard drive can hold a lot of 5 megabyte .mp3s, and even more 4.5 megabyte equivalent .m4as - that’s the file extension for Apple’s new AAC audio codec, which tends to undercut the memory usage of .mp3 by up to a megabyte) that it would be impossible, or at least highly improbable, that an iPod owner would ever listen to all the songs they have stored on their device.

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CRUSADE-DATE #3: At the end of the day for June 8, 2005, the crusade has progressed thus far:

• Total number of yet unplayed music tracks: 2226
• Total play duration of unplayed music tracks: approximately 6.2 days

Finally broke through the 7-day mark! There’s less than a week of music left in the music. And of course, I keep finding songs I love, so my list of 5- and 4-star songs continues to grow!

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In a certain sense, this is true - we all have songs we prefer, and we’re likely to listen to those tunes more often than other tunes we’re maybe not so keen on.  At the same time, randomizer functions on any media player, whether CD or .mp3, tend to favour certain songs and track numbers more than others - that’s just the nature of pseudo-random generators, and a consequence of the fact that, as yet, it is impossible for any digital system to generate a truly random number that cannot, in some way, be predicted.

But I’m never one to let my critics have the last word.  They raise a valid point, and so this iPod owner has set out on a crusade to prove that not only is it possible for an iPod owner to listen to his entire media library, but that it has been done and documented!

Here’s the statistics on what is on the iPod right now:

• Total number of media tracks on the iPod: 5263 (includes a mix of music tracks and audio books)
• Total number of Harry Potter audio book tracks on the iPod: 420 (most of the first four books, segmented by chapter or part thereof)
• Total number of music tracks on the iPod:4843
• Total play duration of all music tracks: approximately 13.5 days

For the purpose of this crusade, only the music tracks will be considered for play.  The Harry Potter audiobooks are kind of a special case, and not really the sort of thing this iPod user would listen to in casual daily iPod use.  Now, we also have to consider some other bits of information.  For example, there are songs on the iPod that I have listened to already.  So another quick search, this time based on play-count for music tracks, reveals:

• Total number of yet unplayed music tracks: 2958 (courtesy of a raid of a friend’s laptop that boosted my library by some 3000 tracks)
• Total play duration of unplayed music tracks: approximately 8.2 days

So there you have it - the scope of the crusade.  A little over a week’s worth of music to listen through.  Fortunately, my 8.5-hour workdays are at ATCO Pipelines, and my employers permit employees to listen to music in their cubicles, so this shouldn’t take more than a couple weeks to finish.  I will post periodic updates as I get closer to my goal.

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CRUSADE-DATE #1: At the end of the day for May 27, 2005, the crusade has progressed thus far:

• Total number of yet unplayed music tracks: 2854
• Total play duration of unplayed music tracks: approximately 7.9 days

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CRUSADE-DATE #2: At the end of the day for June 1, 2005, the crusade has progressed thus far:

• Total number of yet unplayed music tracks: 2653
• Total play duration of unplayed music tracks: approximately 7.4 days

Interestingly enough, this has been a somewhat profitable crusade. As I listen to the music, I will use a built-in feature of the iPod interface to assign a rating to songs I like, either 4 or 5 stars (I don’t bother, at this time, with going less than that). When I undertook this crusade, my count of songs (there’s a playlist) with a 4 or 5 star rating was 802. It’s now up to 834. I’m happy to report, then, that I’ve discovered some tracks on the iPod that previously I would not have been aware of as awesome.

The crusade offers up spoils of victory!