(language warning for video)

So I’ve been playing with Live streaming services and I want to do something more regular, but not 100% on what. I love what Chris Pirillo does, but the subject matter is a little tame for me. Open to suggestions, on topic, format and even streaming service of choice.

Note I recorded the video above directly to YouTube, hence the quality is shite. I picked up a $100 Mac compatible webcam on skype the other week and the quality is easily twice as good as the overly expensive with backstory iSight I bought last year, and it looks nothing like this.

I’ve finally switched hosting across to MediaTemple to see if grid hosting offers a better outcome than a server. So far, so good. I’m nearly totally up with Plesk now and now I know how to get around it, it seems easier than cPanel/ WHM. Cost is reasonable, not super cheap, but these guys are hosting a lot of big blogs so they should know their stuff if something goes wrong (and how many times have I had hosts in the past that have blamed WordPress when things go wrong). I’ll report back if it goes pear-shapped: the only negative so far is that MediaTemple simply don’t respond to support tickets in any reasonable time frame (I had one there for over 24 hours without response), however calling them directly was easy and sorted the problem out.

Timothy Sykes has a brilliant post up, and this video (NSFW), I know how he feels.

Now I finally have a half decent internet connection (it’s only half because it only delivers 11mb/800k not 24mb/1mb as advertised) it means I can stream video. Been playing with a few of the services and I’m just going to leave one running for a while each day and see what happens. First up is Justin.TV. Me sitting in front of a computer isn’t that exciting, but the music is great, least I think so 🙂 My hours only though, the lamp is out in the office so no empty chair streaming 🙂

I’ve been back from Las Vegas a week to the day, and its probably taken me as long to recover, not so much from Vegas but the insane flight home.

So was it good?

We’ll lets start on the negative side. The glamorous side of Vegas is a bit of a marketing gimmick. Vegas is actually full of old, fat Americans. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just not what the brouchures tell you 🙂

The town itself is like Disneyland for Adults. The casino’s are full on, although for example the casino at the Venitian where I stayed was smaller than most Casino’s in Australia. The difference of course is that there are heaps and heap of casinos. To get from A to B in a hotel you have to walk through the casino itself, which makes gambling rather tempting.

Architecture was kick ass, although I don’t think I got a lot of great shots; I’m starting to think that I’m a better at event/ people photography than objects. See my Flickr shots here, or the Mix shots on Flickr here.

I was up on the electronic machines, to the point I could here “Wheel of Fortune” in my dreams, but lost playing Poker for an overall loss for the week. The thing is though: I don’t care. It was worth every penny. Until this trip I’d never played poker in a casino before, always for fun or online for money. It was freaking awesome. I could have walked away one day $500 up, but instead I just kept going and going because it was that addictive. Best fun I’ve had in a long time. Poker also attracts characters as well in the US, and I saw my fair share, from the serious types with hats and sunglasses, to the crazy guys, the drunk guys, the traveling salesmen, they all had a story.

Wendy’s Song from South Park (lyrics NSFW)

I’m back home, and I’m still seeing people defending the work till you drop and bugger your family and those you love argument put forward by Calacanis + friends.

So how rooted is the Valley? I found this on Amazon via Google

DOWN AND OUT IN SILICON VALLEY presents a side of high-tech, dot-com culture never explored by the media. The authors reveal the haunting truths that Silicon Valley and its techno-cloned communities throughout the country have one of the highest divorce rates in the world, more children who are psychologically disturbed than in less-affluent areas, no affordable housing even for those earning $50,000 a year, eighty-hour work weeks, and widespread alcohol and drug use.

See, normal people would be talking about ways of fixing this in stead of defending it…least where I’m from. Here’s the magic word again: balance. You can be passionate and work hard, but without balance you’re causing all of the above to happen. My question to those parents who never see their kids and are condemning them future issues in pursuit of startup wealth (ie the Calacanis defenders), is it really worth it?

Remember, no amount of money in the world can buy back the time with your kids as they grow up. Justify it how ever much you want, but you’ll regret it later.

I was hard on the SMH the other day, now it’s time for News Corp, who are running shots of Qantas’ new Premium Economy service. See if you can spot what’s wrong with EVERY photo.

Did you guess that every shot shows premium economy seats WITHOUT seats in front in the sample shots, giving a false picture that Premium Economy is heaps roomy where as in real life you get an extra 20-30cm or similar. No comment from News, just the pics, just the freebie ad x 15 shots for Qantas. Worse thing from a traveling perspective, I’ve heard that with Premium Economy upgrading to Business Class with FF points is now going to be that much harder, as Premium Economy will be the old Business Class upgrade.

They’ve obviously not been to certain parts of Western Sydney 🙂

From the Atlantic:

The subprime crisis is just the tip of the iceberg. Fundamental changes in American life may turn today?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s McMansions into tomorrow?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s tenements.

(full article here).

Exactly the same thing happening in Australia.

…and not just in Victoria, where it’s snowing in the Alpine Regions in February (usually the hottest month of summer) and I’m currently dressed in winter gear.

From DailyTech:

All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA’s?Ǭ†GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here.?Ǭ†?Ǭ†The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C — a value large enough to wipe out most of the?Ǭ†warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year’s time. For all four sources, it’s the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.

Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn’t itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.

Wasn’t it suppose to be getting hot right now? 😉