Does anyone still buy albums?

I have been trying to think of anything at all to say about the new iTunes LP's and really all I keep coming back to is Who still buys albums? I have been trying to think of the last album that I loved each and every song on, so much that I wouldn't have been better off buying the songs that I did like individually. The best I could come up with is Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness by The Smashing Pumpkins but on re-listening to it recently I figured out that I really only love about 10 total songs and less than half of them ever made it on the radio. I cannot say that given the choice now that I would have even bought the song that I really did like because of the video on MTV. Another album I swore was amazing was Sixteen Stone from Bush, but again on re-listening, I am not sure I would have bought the whole album, just all the songs that got radio play. I still think of both as having songs I that where a part of my high school experience, but I won't say that with different buying options available to me now that I would buy either as a whole album. I don't buy into the whole Apple Ecosystem mostly because I think that Apple disrespects their customers and retail partners.

Why I won't buy another iPod and neither should you

Apple disrespects their customers and their accessory partners with pretty much every release of the iPod and iPhone. By breaking pin compatibility with previously released accessories they are forcing customers that have invested in their ecosystem to purchase new docks, charging stations, and other accessories. Some in-dash decks that boast iPod compatibility have to have the little * and tell you what generations they support, my wife's speaker dock and charger works for the iPod classic (aka 6th gen) but not for the iPod touch 2nd gen. This isn't rocket science people they did it to prevent unapproved iPod accessories, not because these devices might damage your device but because they where not paying Apple to make these devices. Who suffers in these cases though? Not the knock off manufactures, they just design around it, while people like me that bought my wife a Iluv 1155 dvd player with iPod dock to go with her fancy iPod only to find out that the manufacturer was unaware that it wouldn't work with the new generation of iPod that launched around the time it did. It turns out after reading recently they issued working replacements, but did nothing to remedy the affected users. I choose to not return the unit only because it was a decent dvd player, but it deffinately is a sore spot for me and Apple.

Portable Spa

I don't know why I am so hung up on this idea, but people that know me would know that I have been marginally obsessing about making a portable spa with Aero-bed style portability for about 3 years now. This would be way less work, but at $5000, I am going to guess making it would be more likely to happen than me buying one.

Bottle works

When I went to visit my friend in Colorado for his graduation about 5 years ago, we went to a giant beer store. I had never been to a store where there where brewery representatives running a buy a 6 pack get one to go promotion, turns out Colorado has a different set of laws with regard to open containers of alcohol than Washington. Either way I have never been to one of these shops in Washington, but Seattle Beer Authority is in my area and might be worth a trip.

via Seattlest

Professional quality video distribution

via Justaddpower.com

Other than crazy wealthy individuals there are few people that will appreciate the sheer awesomeness of this product, but some of my work projects of late have put me in proximity to video distribution and I appreciate this. I don't know that it supports multicast (one transmitter outputting to many displays simultaneously) like my dream for it would be, given that it appears Vlans on the network. I for some reason envision this allowing for the networked home to finally have the ip video and audio distribution rather than proprietary or custom cabled jobs.

via Engadget via CEpro

College basics for the masses

Straighter Line has an interesting idea for improving college with flat rate pricing. $99 for the course and the can count for college credit from accredited Universities. Now I am not sure that this would work with every class ever, but certainly the basic courses that most University students find themselves in would be easy enough to package into a digestible web-course that could be taken in a self-paced manner, and still transfers the applicable knowledge to the student. Interestingly the have not chosen to chase an even lower hanging fruit of certification training courses for Cisco and Microsoft. Most of these would benefit from this type of a setup, and would significantly challenge several businesses that are basically training centers that do little more than this for 5-10x's the price. I would think that the target audience for these courses would be bigger than the one for college kids, and with a straight forward pricing model could really disrupt that market. At best some colleges will accept Straighter Line and a few more will put in rules that block this specifically form counting for their degree work and it will not change the overall education landscape.

Interesting, not a game changer.

Paperback book co-op site

I hadn't really ever considered it, but frequently I don't really buy a book to own it, I buy the book to read it once and lend to friends or family from that point on. Normally I don't re-read too many books and as a result I have sold books to Half-Price books before simply because I had no need of them, and didn't want to throw them out. Paperback Swap offers an alternative to sell or pitch, it lets you trade them for other books in the network. I can see how this would be useful for people that purchase a few books a year, but also want to have access to more without having to rely on the library.

I am going to sign up for the site, and working on finding some of the reference books that I have some interest in. As it gets closer to the birth of my Daughter I am interestingly focused on art projects and home improvement. I have 3 specific art projects for the nursery, and a few improvement items for the house to complete. I think a resource on stone working, and basic carpentry are what I need right now.