RasterWeb!

Whew, it’s a good thing I remain under the radar and no one pays attention to me.

On 04.03.2003 I posted a bit about what I called the Goophabet, which involves searching Google for each single letter of the alphabet.

Then on 04.14.2003 I noticed Ward Cunningham also did a Google Alphabet thingy. Ward said that Great minds think alike, which, coming from Ward, I took as a compliment.

I completely missed Docs mention of the ‘O’ incident…

Now Search Engine Watch does a bit on something called the Google Alphabet, which points you to ChangeMedia’s Google Alphabet.

So ChangeMedia took things a step further, resulting in zillions of hits and popularity going through the roof via the slashdot-effect. Luckily I’ve managed to avoid all of that, but it was a close call!

Anyway, you’re all welcome…

From the Switchers Department:

Richard Stallman best known for the creation and relentless advocacy of the Gnu Project Licence, has for many years run his own site using software produced under the more generous BSD licence. www.stallman.org switched from FreeBSD to Linux during April

This InfoWorld article on open-source has the following statement from Brian Behlendorf:

One of the key insights of open source is that there are good reasons to attach people to code. Apache isn’t just a Web server, it’s a Web server with a community around it. To treat software like Legos, without thinking about the context and the community, is a losing proposition.

I heartily agree. I think some of the strongest points for many open-source projects are that they are so open – not just in the code – but in the development process, and in the interaction of the people involved. Through mailing lists, newsgroups, bug trackers, and now weblogs – you can really cut through the crap and see what a piece of software is really about.

And of course without people being involved in these projects, leveraging the work of other people, things wouldn’t be where they are today.

I’ll add my disclaimer here: I’m not against commercial software, heck, I even use commercial software,
but I hate to think of how dismal the software world would be without the contributions of open-source. If we
took all the open-source code out of Mac OS X or even out of Windows, well, things wouldn’t quite work
as well. (Mac OS X wouldn’t even exist!) Of course we wouldn’t even have the internet here to discuss this now, would we?

Ok, so iTunes (and 99 cents) will get you that song you want, but it’s not an MP3 is it? It’s some sort crazy protected format that limits what you can do with it, right? Sure… I think it’s in DRM format or something…

I’ve got a Mac with sound output. I’ve got a Mac with sound input. I’ve got cables. I’m not some audiophile phreak who would care about the degradation of the digital/audio/digital conversion process that much. Wait a minute, that’s too complex, what if I download a song, burn it onto an audio CD and then rip that CD back into MP3’s, what happens? Problem solved?

I guess the problem is still somewhat the laziness factor. I mean, the whole idea behind an easy to use, and affordable online music service is that it’s much simpler to pay for it, and play by the rules than to break the rules, or find creative ways around the rules.

I’ve never liked rules…

Dear Apple, I’m sick of this:

Please fix it immediately.

Thanks…