Brad Ideas - Media - Comments

InfoQ

jim — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 22:45:33 -0800

InfoQ.com also does many of its talks this way. It would be nice to know what software they use so it can be more widely done.

Two ideas

Wes Felter — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 19:32:30 -0800

I have also thought about this on and off over the years; I think the pieces exist but haven't been put together. For playback, SMIL can sync still images with video; the supporters of SMIL (QuickTime and Real) have fallen out of fashion but I suspect you could implement a SMIL runtime in HTML5. For recording, there are cheap USB VGA capture devices, but nobody knows they exist and I don't think they have Linux or Mac drivers.

Yes, it's huge

brad — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:48:50 -0800

I had to put on a 500gb USB disk and I am recording the Olympics on that. This way I can record it all and quickly browse.

In the future, I expect a customized online delivery. For that Olympics it would break up certain events, and show me “the good parts.” But in a way that I can’t readily be sure of the winner by knowing I am getting the edited version. For example, take a time-trial event. It would show me:

The winners, of course
The athletes I am rooting for or am interested in
Enough other non-winners to spice up the mix so I can’t predict the ending.

Then it would also throw in great moments from sports I am not as interested in. Not just a highlight reel, but enough to get into them, if they offered truly great sport. I can always decide to skip. But all I will know is, “There’s something interesting here” but not what.

DVRs and the Olympics

James — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 10:00:01 -0800

I agree with your point about using a DVR to watch the Olympics. This has made them much more enjoyable for me. Fast forwarding through the sports I don't like or the countries I don't follow is great. My only wish is that NBC would chop the programs up into smaller pieces. For example, I have been recording the curling matches played during the day, but NBC has been combining the matches with hockey, and a few other sports. The result is recordings that go on for 6-8 hours when I am only interested in the 3 hour curling match. My DVR fills up quickly when this happens. Since very few events are shown live, they should know exactly how long they plan to play a particular event.

I have a bot...

geeknik — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:51:02 -0800

I have a simple Perl bot that watches it's followers on Twitter and posts X number of updates in an IRC every X number of minutes. I currently don't have any way built into to post from IRC to Twitter, there are plenty of solutions for that on the web. ;)

Twitter Spam

Tigerdoom — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 06:24:58 -0800

Hi Brad, I seem to get a fair few of these also, many linking to pay to view adult sites or offering free iphones or something. I think the idea is to get as many followers to sign up and in return they are rewarded by the host?

Width

tehag — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 03:25:37 -0800

I would think HD resolution (16x9) would permit division into two frames, one for the slide and one for the speaker. That would permit the slides to advance at the speaker's pace.

Yea I absolutely do feel

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 10:06:12 -0800

Yea I absolutely do feel cheated by those cursed black bars. I paid good money for a big TV and it is frustrating to see that the whole screen is not in use. It makes me feel as if I could have bought a smaller TV and gotten the same size screen. In fact, the old TV we just replaced with a sony Bravia DOES have the same size screen when I put the aspect ratio on "normal", feels like a ripoff to be honest.

Not aware

brad — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 14:07:53 -0800

No, I haven’t seen these guys but I am glad they are doing it. My question is, why haven’t I seen them? I see tons of video streams of lectures with slides on the net, but I never saw one with this. I guess this link may help get the word out.

Videolectures.net

Kevin Canini — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 12:08:53 -0800

You're aware of www.videolectures.net, right? They do exactly what you're talking about for prerecorded academic lectures.

Example: http://videolectures.net/mlss09uk_jordan_bfway/

Follower spam

Anonymous — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 22:04:43 -0800

http://yiannopoulos.net/2009/12/we-are-social-honest/

I hate WS TV's that are

Midna — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 10:07:56 -0800

I hate WS TV's that are stretched. I hate FS and hate the fact that many channels still broadcast like this but I live with it. Having a stretched image I can not live with or ever get used to. It looks fuzzy and people like stretched and distorted and I hate it. My Mom and Dad and sister both prefer it and don't see a difference. I always laugh at them because of it. I'm very observant and I noticed it the first time I saw it.

What about the black bars when watching WS in a SDTV/CRT TV? Too bad there wasn't an option for to stretched the image vertically, I would love to see it, LOOOOOL.

I keep changing setting to normal and they keep changing the setting back to panorama.Worst thing about TV's like that, is having an option to change the resolution to fake WS. Why can't people just except it and watch it in the format it's supposed to be in?

~Midna

On bluetooth

brad — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 21:11:36 -0800

Sorry, I was thinking about it but forgot to mention it. No exchange of power possible, but it also is no longer necessary for the phone to be mounted on the tablet at all, though you might still want it. This turns out to allow something quite useful, which is remote control of the page flip.

I have found it to be quite nice, on an airplane, to mount my book on the top of the seat in front of me, hanging down in a book holder at eye height. I built a tool to do this long ago, which I attached to the top of the seat with velcro — there used to be a velcro cloth on the back of seats on most planes. Another way to attach it is a mount which can be crunched between the tray and seatback that sticks up and holds the reader.

You need to illuminate the book or reader when you do this, as the overhead light does not shine on it. But the remote control in your hand that would come from the cell phone control is a very pleasant reading environment.

plus bluetooth is low power

Moz — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:57:41 -0800

I was going to post the same thought.

I have a PRS-505 and have been whining in various places that a usable cellphone as part of the deal would make me happier. I actually sit in the other camp - if I don't need to hold it to my ear I'm not too fussed about size and weight. But I don't wear a suit and usually carry stuff like a D lock so the idea of a PRS-505 sized device that's 15mm thick with a giant battery and a bluetooth headset + phone ability appeals a lot. I carry an external battery/charging device anyway so I can pump my 27 random electronic devices up as I travel - making that smart would be an obvious step.

But flipping that makes more sense frm a market size perspective - lots of people already own smartphones and if they could support a bluetooth external display that would rock. Not need to force eInk, there's more display technologies on the way. Just how much dumber it needs to be than a PRS-300 is open to question - it might be easier to just add bluetooth to a basic eInk device so you could sell them independently. Possibly even with a "free" bluetooth USB dongle to make the usual connection power + wireless data.

A physical connection isn't

-dsr- — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:12:14 -0800

A physical connection isn't necessary -- smart phones come with Bluetooth, and that's more than enough bandwidth to implement a text + still graphic connection to the eInk screen.