Australia Space
Say, is there a cool website name that ends in -scape? No, never mind, let’s talk about something else.
While watching season four of The X-Files — which is quite good so far; the show continually confounds my usual ‘2-3 are the best seasons’ theory. Not that it’s really been awesome yet. It just keeps on keeping on. There’s perhaps been a slow improvement overall after a nadir in the early second season.
Ahem. Sorry, that was just supposed to be an aside. Er, while watching season four, and seeing Mulder flitting about between the various states, it occurred to me why Australians just aren’t as big on science fiction as everyone else on the planet. Americans, Europeans… they’re all used to driving, flying, translocating in any direction and coming across people really quickly. And so, they don’t really get the whole ‘space is really big and empty’ idea. And so, they’re quite happy to accept Star Trek finding a new planet all the time.
Australians understand space. They’re used to driving for over eight hours and finding nothing more interesting than Adelaide. They hear people say we’re light years upon light years from anything else and think, “Oh, right, no point exploring then. We might accidentally arrive in the universe’s Adelaide and we don’t want that.” And then they see Star Trek and wonder: didn’t they get the memo?
Or not. I’m not convinced, but sometimes things just bounce around in your head and you can’t get rid of them. Like the music in this what if Microsoft designed the iPod packaging? video hosted on YouTube.com (well, it was, and might be still at a different URL, but we’ll take this GoogleVideo link instead). Watch, and be similarly cursed. Andy asked me when YouTube.com turned up today and I had to admit I didn’t know. I hate to dash the poor kid’s hopes like that. He looks up to me so. Anyone else know?
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ben
March 1st, 2006 at 4:37 pm
that video is golden. :D
youtube began in feb 2005, founded by some former employees of PayPal
andy
March 1st, 2006 at 5:48 pm
There’s a been a spate links to youtube since the end of last year, and being far too lazy to type ‘history of youtube’ into google I thought I’d askTom.com
ben
March 1st, 2006 at 7:35 pm
i wouldnt trust that askTom.com
Tom’s mind is like a steel trap; rusty and illegal in 47 out of 50 states.
hayko
March 5th, 2006 at 7:45 am
“This video has been removed by the user.” – too bad…
Is this the one ?
As all the other million users, I always feel in doubt which company actually make the OS. Thankfully, they remind me eight times before I’m done booting. Glad I don’t reboot.
Tom
March 5th, 2006 at 7:52 am
Yes indeed, that’s the one, thanks Hayko. I prefer google video — having the option to download the video easily is rather attractive.
I don’t like to go more than a few days without a reboot. Not because of any performance issues — I just start to feel uncomfortable for some reason.
hayko
March 6th, 2006 at 5:58 am
Rebooting is for wusses. There are only two reasons why I (re-)boot:a) There was a power failure and my UPS didn’t kick in. Great, huh?b) I was on holidays and return.
Did you try to download from Google Video? The Windows option simply downloads a 1 kbyte file to connect to Google again. However there are tricks to capture the stream to a file. Yet, this video player is the best thing Flash has ever created.
Tom
March 6th, 2006 at 6:05 am
When I’m at Google Video, I see a “Windows/Mac” option, which downloads a .avi file that’s 5.4 MB big. Though, it is one of those funny downloads that doesn’t seem to know how big it’s actually going to be.
hayko
March 6th, 2006 at 7:48 pm
Interesting, when I click the download for Windows / Mac in my Firefox nothing much happens except a new text “Download the video” appears, which simply downloads a tiny .GVP file.
Tom
March 6th, 2006 at 9:53 pm
Huh. Interesting. It seems the reason you get your .gvp file is because there’s a google video player for windows. Since there isn’t one for the mac yet, they let you download it as an .avi.
With a bit of user-agent spoofing you might be able to get the .avi on a PC.
Andy
March 13th, 2006 at 10:51 pm
Try this to download video files google and utube and such. http://keepvid.com/
hayko B.Sc.
March 14th, 2006 at 4:43 am
There is the GVP for windows, but there are other tricks to get the AVI. But it seems to stream the avi and it takes as long as the video is.
Andy BSc
March 15th, 2006 at 12:53 am
Too bad Admiral Adama doesn’t have google universe. He could just type in Earth and have the course plotted out for him.
hayko B.Sc
March 15th, 2006 at 11:44 am
Well he’s alone anyone now and can do whatever he wants – as of the episode I know last.
It’s nice to finally have something besides one’s name – other than more names I mean. It only took a few years.
hayko B.Sc.
March 15th, 2006 at 7:00 pm
PS: Apparently Microsoft did this video themselves. An inside job that got outside.
andy BSc
March 15th, 2006 at 7:08 pm
Those extra letters have made my life immeasurably more exciting. Perhaps I should get some more.
Laminex could do with a video to show our marketing department the mistakes they are making.
hayko
March 16th, 2006 at 11:32 am
Ok, I’m done with my letters. I’m already on the way for the next bunch.
Actually the next video I will do is another cover version of this respektiere dich song.
Andy
March 16th, 2006 at 9:40 pm
I was sure someone else would post to show off their letters.
Tom BA BSc
March 16th, 2006 at 9:43 pm
I don’t know anyone who’d be tempted by such obvious bait.
hayko
March 17th, 2006 at 12:30 pm
Pah, there’s the mischief. It won’t be long now and I won’t be allowed to use these letters anymore.
Why is it taking so long to load some comments and others appear in a moment’s time?
Andy
March 17th, 2006 at 8:56 pm
Distance. We’ve out sourced some of our comment approvals to India, so the comments have to all the way there and back again. It’s a long way.
The other possibility is that the comment got lost on the net so click the submit button several times to make sure it gets through.
Andy
March 22nd, 2006 at 7:46 pm
Don’t you graduate today Tom? So you don’t yet have the right to use those letters.
Tom
March 22nd, 2006 at 7:53 pm
I could have had it mailed out to me before now. I’m well within my rights.
andy
March 22nd, 2006 at 10:47 pm
It’s not official until you have the sticking the letters onto your name ceremony.