Each Season

I had an amazing time snowboarding yesterday up at Mt Washington with my father-in-law, B.

It was a last minute trip made possibly by our flexible schedules.

The conditions were incredible. A light layer of fresh snow on a solid base. Not windy. Sun poking through for much of the day. I’m told it was more winter skiing than spring.

There were no line ups. B made the point that people are already well into their spring thinking, and have left the mountains behind. The awesome sunny days we have had contributes too.

It was great to see so many elders skiing. You aren’t old, if you’re active.

It’s been many years since I last boarded, and I barely shook off the rust yesterday. Thankfully, my legs are not feeling too sore today.

It made me think of other favorite activities I’ve left behind, and how important for mind, body, and relationships, it is to do the activities each season. Of course, it also made me think of all the many new fantastic activities I now share with my family.

Watch Videos Online? I Download Later When the Tubes are Clear

I’m a web worker. My work is online, and it all slows to a snail’s pace if I’m streaming or downloading a video.

I have “High-Speed Xtreme-I” which promises “up to” a-lot, but the metered download rate is much, much lower than advertised, about 1.5-2Mb/s up and 0.75Mb/s. Fire up a video download and I’m in slowmo.

I want my favorite online video content delivered to me. Some of it is available on iTunes. Others like WordPress.tv is available on Miro.

Currently, I download a batch at the end of the day, but for my family the web is no fun if I’m downloading video podcasts in iTunes.

Is there a way to self-throttle or meter specific streams, downloads or applications on Mac OS X?

Unfortunately, there is a lot of content that isn’t even available for downloading. Mostly, I imagine because the content is supported by web page ads. I’d pay for that content, why is there no Audible.com for video podcasts? Or is there?

Even if available on iTunes or Miro, there is not even a link back to the online discussion, let alone comments, inline comments and tags (Viddler), and other resources. I would like it all to be pulled into my video player, except for YouTube comments ;-)

Am I alone? Any help fellow web workers? Any help from NewTeeVee pros?

Victoria’s Better Web Posse Disbanded?

Gels Saby Demoing at DemoCamp Victoria

While at An Event Apart SF, I went to look up something on the Victoria Better Web Posse’s site, and was saddened to find that it’s offline, “Address Not Found”. I’ve emailed Gels Saby hoping to find out the status, but haven’t heard back from her yet.

Joan McIlmoyl Cleghorn on the Victoria Linux User Group (VLUG) wrote

As I understand it from someone who was a member of Web Posse, it has folded. OTOH, WEAV amalgamated with Big Blue & Cousins about a year and a half ago. Currently, a former WEAV member is running a Web Tools Special Interest Group monthly.

If this is the case, this is a big bummer. I found the Better Web Posse to have a refreshing design focus lacking from WEAV before it and Big Blue & Cousins still today. The Better Web Posse brought together many talented designers, developers and other workers of the web.

It seemed like Gels and a few other people did a lot of work to bring the posse together. Thank you!