Delicious Library

Delicious Library is definitely worth taking a look at! I've been thinking for some time (since the StoryCatcher days) of a system to let people share their books, CDs, video games, and DVDs. People's preferences and similarities in terms of media is a great social bond, and it's a shame to have that bonding element trapped on bookshelves, etc. because friends with similar interests have no way of knowing what each other has. Think of the number of book clubs in the US (thanks Oprah for mainstreaming this again) and the media sharing that happens on college campuses, etc. Sharing media is fun, cost effective, and has a definite viral revenue effect.

I could never figure out the business model for this "media library" sharing. You could do an affliate model with an Amazon or other media vendor to buy things you liked after borrowing them, but I don't think that model can support an larger, independent business. Seems like adding "community" functions to key media services is the more appropriate function, but that is something vendors will have to learn on their own.

Anyway, the Delicious Monster folks definitely have the "my library" part of this concept figured out! I'm cranking on a couple of other projects (Light a Brite, my web site, KOTR, blah, blah, blah), but I really want to play with this application!

Enjoying a vacation

I've been off enjoying my winter vacation!! We stayed at home for the holidays, which has given me copious amounts of time to geek! I've been working on my "Light a Brite" application, which is a test application that controls my Beta-Brite LED sign. I also have been organizing our 2004 photos, which is a daunting task!

I realized that it was probably time to bring some of this content back up on this site. I took the first step today by adding the "My Stuff" section to my main page. The only active item is "Links", and it uses old formatting, but I'll take things a step at a time.

I'd comment on world affairs and the like, but I'm blissfully unaware of anything other than the terrible tsunami in Asia. I don't have access to TV (a deliberate decision), so I'm normally disconnected from the world. Over the holidays it seems like that there is often less to report, and less Internet sites to report it. So I've become even more disconnected.

I actually enjoy being disconnected from TV and the world. News today is often so depressing. In some ways I'm an isolationist when it comes to world affairs. I don't want to know, and in general wish the US would adopt a similar policy. I'm tired of the US being the world's police, and it would seem the rest of the world is as well. Let's take the "police" budget and put into education and research. I encourage the US to be the world's economic and research superpower, but I'll pass on the political and offensively military superpower.

Returning to local affairs, my girls and I are enjoying the lack of a schedule. My poor wife has to work :( I'm going to a party in San Francisco tonight, and having lunch with my Aunt Ann and Uncle Steve tomorrow, but other than these events I'm a free man enjoying a chaotic, unscheduled life!

Happy Holidays!

Does the modern church represent the modern world?

A Methodist minister was recently defrocked for being gay. When I first glanced at the headline on Google News, I didn't think much of it. My wife brought up the topic recently, and it got me thinking that it must suck to be gay...

Do I think that God (or a God, Goddess, or whatever form of higher force you can personally relate to) really cares if you are gay? No. Seems like that is a small thing when viewed from a more "god like" perspective. Seriously. Unless everyone was gay and God actually cared that we couldn't propagate, God probably has higher priority problems to potentially address. War, poverty, hate, disease, etc, etc. (Why those aren't addressed by God is another question. Think it has something to do with us actually taking care of those in God's name. So why don't we do that?...)

Does God make certain people gay in the same way that God makes some people geniuses, some people athletes, and some people autistic? I don't know. Do people chose to be gay because of mistakes made during their child rearing, or as a sin? I don't think so, because I know people with nice parents who are nice people themselves, yet they still ended up gay.

Ok, my premise is that people don't make themselves gay, God doesn't care, and God might have been involved in the whole "you are gay" thing. The key point is that God doesn't care, but people seem to. Which is why it must suck to be gay. Because people, not God and/or a sense of higher morality, have control down here on Planet Earth.

And those people say that being gay means you can't serve God. But wait, we just said that God doesn't care. Well, God doesn't, but a long time ago (when the world was flat and slavery was ok) people (not God, but a few leaders trying to codify morality in the name of God) wrote that being gay was bad. At the time, it might have been bad for the propagation of the human race, so we'll let that pass.

It sucks to be gay, because a few powerful people a long time ago said it was bad to be gay, so now due to mathematical progressions most people think it is wrong to be gay. What is a gay minister to do? I've got two suggestions:

1 - Hope that the actual people this person ministers rebel against the word of the few. Mass revolt. If her "flock" would stand up and say she is doing God's work and they want her, the few (church leaders) would have to listen. If not, hit that church where it counts. No, not in the nuts, in the pocket book! Stop tithing the church till it changes this ancient and stupid rule. Reminder premise #2 and #3, God doesn't care and might have something to do with it. So God probably likes it when gay people do good things in God's name. God likes good things in any form they come in.

2 - The minister moves to where people will appreciate good deeds and spirituality in God's name. Again, it sucks to be gay, but not everywhere. Pack up and bring God to somewhere where people remember that God likes good things, and that God doesn't care about being gay.

I tend to believe God gives everyone something that sucks. Makes the game of life interesting. I think being gay definitely has its disadvantages today, but as we as a species continue to learn and evolve, we'll learn that being gay doesn't really suck that much. If at all. Until then, only common sense from the flock or a moving van will solve this problem.

As a end to this piece, I'll state for the record that I'm totally not gay. As a dude, I thank God for my wife and the beauty that is female daily! (Ok, I occasionally think women are here only to torment us sports lovin', simple geek men with their multi-tasking, emotional brains ;-). I'm not even sure my advancing morality and sensibility is ready for gay couples raising kids, because I think men and women each bring essential and different parts to a child's growth. But heck, people need to raise their voices if a true minister of God is silenced without reason...

The winter bug

The winter bug finally got me. I was at the World Handset Forum in San Diego this week, and I think the combination of no sleep, the big PalmSource announcement, and Kamakazis did me in... I've been laid up for the last two days. Blech..

I've found my December "song of the month". "Lazy" by X-Press 2 and David Byrne. It was a #2 single in England in 2002, but of course us Yanks don't get squawt in terms of good dance/electronic/trance music here. Until XM Radio and BPM, of course! Once I heard this song, I knew why it topped the charts. I could groove to this beat for hours! It's available on the iTunes Music Store. The 30 second sample doesn't have the vocals, so you'll have to trust SirCoolio on this one ;-)

I'm suffering from a stack of failures in my lab. My G5 is "down" while it waits for replacement RAM, so I can't do any design work. My PC decided that it has been a year since I built it, so in typical Windows fashion it has to have a complete Registry failure requiring a complete system re-install. I'm going to try and roll the "System Restore" point back to see if I can fix it, but I'm dubious. I quickly built a USB external drive to back up my code projects, saved games, etc., so at least I won't lose anything. Argh!

Xmas is just around the corner. I'm stoked to spend at least a week at home with the family. Plenty of family cheer, game playing, and lab time ;-)

Starting fresh

I'm tired of my web site's design and content. I keep the content of some sections, especially the Lab, current, while sections haven't been updated in years. I've decided to deal with this, in a rather dramatic way.

All the non-blog content from my web site is no longer accessible. I'm going to slowly renew the content if and when I decide that I can and want to keep sections current.

I've changed the root design for my site as well. I've selected a design from the generic templates on Blogger.com that actually mirrors a design I've been thinking of for some time. I'll change the color scheme and need to add a section for my root level links (Music, Games, Photos, Lab, Reading, Me), but I like it enough to use it as a new start.

When does non-blog content start re-appearing? Well, my G5 is offline for repairs, and all my graphic tools are on that machine. Hopefully I can start on the project as soon as my replacement RAM arrives...

Flickr - Photo Sharing

Welcome to Flickr - Photo Sharing is super cool! They implemented a limited version of a feature we noodled on at my startup, StoryCatcher, in 1999. Flickr's cool feature where you can annotate "who is in a photo" was a key piece of the product my startup tried to build. StoryCatcher planned to go beyond what Flickr has implemented by linking "who is in a photo" to other personal information so you could create dynamic photo books or "stories".

I love that companies are starting to do interesting things with photos, as opposed to being focused solely on cheap online storage. I tip my hat to Flickr. Thanks for getting to what we did not finish...