Dave's Blog

Rethinking Education

2013-03-26T21:15:00.001+13:00

I don't believe homework works. I think that if kids aren't learning what they need to in six hours at school, there's some thing wrong and the answer isn't to make them continue working when they get home. After school my kids (5 & 7) are knackered and in no mood for learning. I think it's doing them more harm than good and I absolutely hate forcing them to do it. It also gets in the way of extracurricular activities, to the point where we have to think carefully about whether they get to do these activities or practice spelling. It shouldn't be like that. My kids get less recreation time each day than I do. That's so wrong.

The infographic below makes for interesting reading. This isn't the first time I've heard about Finland's radical rethink of their school system. Apparently they used to have poor test performances until they dumped standardized testing, then their education outcomes improved dramatically. There are a bunch of things they do differently so it's hard to say which is having the most effect. But if these facts are true* then we should be taking notice.

By the way, Finland is the country that Gerry Brownlee said "hardly educates their people". Gerry, that country you mocked is kicking our butts. What does that say about our education system?

*I haven't verified these facts - can anyone? I've read a lot of comments from Finns and they are mostly supportive with only a few disagreeing about the accuracy of this infographic. Also, I don't know who to credit the graphic to - sorry about that.

Most Internet Pranks are Unfunny

2012-02-24T15:29:00.002+13:00

I love the fact that I can waste hours watching funny stuff on the net but I hate the fact that so much of it is fake. I don't mind fake stuff per se but it has to be done well (e.g. The Onion).

Some people think lies are inherently funny but they are wrong. There's nothing intrinsically funny about lying and there's certainly no comedic merit in convincing the victim of something that could easily be true. It's only funny if it achieves something additional such as including witty dialogue or making the victim believe an unlikely fact. For example, it's not funny to convince you that I'm a doctor but it might be funny to convince you that I'm a professional nipple tweaker.

Recently I read the story of a girl who prematurely got her new boyfriend's face tattooed on her arm. Turns out it was fake; a joke. Dammit, this is not humour. It's not funny because there's no good trick involved. There are plenty of nutcases that do this sort of thing for real - this entire scenario is (sadly) completely plausible.

The whole lonelygirl15 saga is another example of pointless, unfunny deception.

What annoys me most about this is that it detracts from the genuinely funny real-life stories. Failblog is a lot less amusing when you realise that any given entry is likely to be fake.

So, please stop with the lame pranks. Before creating your viral masterpiece, ask yourself: Is the prank difficult to pull off? Does it describe a highly unlikely event? Does it contain text or images that would still be funny even if the reader knows it's fake? If the answer is "none of the above", don't do it.

What do the Wall St occupiers want?

2011-10-26T12:46:00.003+13:00

The Occupy Wall St movement is doing an admirable job of galvanizing people from around the world, but it's struggling. Unless it changes direction it's doomed and within a matter of weeks it will begin fizzing out towards an inglorious and anticlimactic end.

Why? One reason: It has no obvious set of demands. Despite being modelled on the Arab Spring, the Arab movement is a completely different ballgame because the protesters know exactly what they want and so does everyone else. Their demands are simple, clear and obvious – their leaders should stand down and hold democratic elections. Anyone can understand that and everyone knows what needs to happen.

The Occupy protesters have nothing of the sort. I've seen the banners - they say things like "End Corporate Greed". Fair enough, that's a sentiment most of us share, but exactly how should we do that? Who do you want to act and exactly what action do you want them to take? It's unlikely that corporations will change their greedy practices just because you ask them to, so maybe you want politicians to introduce some new laws to force them to give up greed? If so, exactly what new laws do you want?

I visited occupywallst.org, scrolled down the entire home page and couldn't see a single clear demand for anything. All I saw was advice on how to be a nuisance, and a bunch of complaints about the economy that are so vague it's just noise. This is worse than pointless, it makes the protesters look like a motley gathering of whiners who can't decide what they want.

Speaking of how the protesters look, it doesn't help when some people hijack the cause to promote their own agendas such as drug law reform. Although I'm inclined to agree with those of you asking for such reform, please take those issues elsewhere and don't taint the Occupy movement. Remember, not all the occupiers agree with you and it's not fair to make it seem that they do.

By the way, I know some people portray the Occupy movement as constructive rather than protest-oriented, which would be nice if it was realistic (don't get me started on the viability of an alternative currency), but the fact is that it's perceived as a protest by most of those involved and pretty much everyone else. And that's fine – its best chance of success is to use the protest model, assuming it can get the critical mass needed to sway public and political opinion.

So the real task for the occupiers is to create a clearer message and, most importantly, a list of reasonable demands that the public will support and politicians will find difficult to ignore.

I don't have all the answers but here's one suggestion to get the ball rolling:

"No employee of any company shall receive an income more than 10 times the income of that company's lowest-paid employee."

Call it The Ten Times Rule or The 10% Rule to make it catchy. Although the devil would be in the details, the principle of the rule is quite clear and would be seen as fair by most rational people. It's a demand you can present to politicians. It's even an issue that could get corporate buy-in; for example, compliant companies could advertise "We support the 10% Rule". Search for exectitive pay to learn more about this issue.

I'm sure all you creative and knowledgeable people out there can come up with half a dozen similarly simple rules to cover the main problems with capitalism. I'm thinking of issues like:

Legal tax evasion.
Shonky manufacturing, including obsolescence-by-design.
Excessive profit from non-productive activity (e.g. automated sharemarket transactions, patent trolling, etc).
Corporate influence in government elections.

We need a list of the most important issues that need fixing, with nice catchy headings. Put this list on the occupywallst.org home page and change all the feel-good-but-ultimately-meaningless banners to point to this list.

A revolution needs a well-defined goal. Vagueness is the enemy. To the occupiers I say: Your demands need clarity and simplicity – it's too easy for politicians to ignore you when it's not clear what you're asking them to do. We need you to clarify your demands and champion them on behalf of those of us who can't be there. Change the message from "We're unhappy" to "This is what we want to happen."

Good luck. We need it.

Seen Avatar 3D? I need your help.

2010-02-12T12:15:00.004+13:00

I'm currently writing a series of articles about 3D and I'd like to hear from people who have seen Avatar or any other 3D movie recently. I'd like to know:

Where did you see it? (so I know which system it was - RealD, Dolby, Imax 3D)
How did you find the 3D effect?
Did it make you uncomfortable, nauseous, etc?
Do you prefer 3D or 2D?

Please either comment here or contact me at mediacollege.com. Thanks.

Where's my flying car? (with answer)

2010-01-01T16:30:00.004+13:00

It's 2010 - Where's my flying car? It's not a new question but a it's good time to repeat it. 2010 ("twenty-ten") is a semi-notable new year and we've got a new generation of adults who grew up with rapidly-improving technology that affected their everyday lives. Many of them are disappointed that technology hasn't progressed further by now.

For as long as I can remember, two things have symbolizing the future of personal technology: Video phones and flying cars. From the promises made to my generation in its youth, both technologies have gone on to become icons of an undelivered future.

So what happened? The technology for video phones has been around for decades. It was never really a case of not being possible, it was a case of public apathy. It turned out that very few people actually wanted to make themselves available for viewing at any time of day or night. The technology was there but the market wasn't.

As it happens I think we're getting ready for video phones now - cellphones are taking us where landlines alone couldn't. The real issue is of course flying cars.

I think it's a similar situation. There are plenty of flying cars out there and if the market was ready, one or more of them would take off (pun intended). The problem is in the market. How many people actually want to fly to their common destinations? How exactly would it work anyway if we just moved our roads up into the air? There are so many ways for that to turn nasty - it's hard to justify the risk of letting the general population loose in aircars rather than finding better ground-based transport systems. We'd have to limit personal flight in some way - most likely to occasional recreational flights and/or longer journeys in strictly controlled air-roads.

Then there's the environmental impact of air-roads. Flying cars would use a lot of energy, but even if they could be relatively eco-friendly it makes sense to apply the same guidelines as ground-based travel; i.e. pool and use public transport where possible. So instead of developing a huge fleet of personal flying cars, a better solution would be a smaller fleet of flying buses. Guess what - we already have them. They're called planes.

I do foresee a future in personal flight for recreational use but I don't see commuters flying to the office any time soon.

acute film

2009-12-14T13:16:00.003+13:00

Okay, this post is nothing but a blatant plug for my mate's website. acute film is a film company owned by Graeme Tuckett who specialises in making documentaries about New Zealand people and issues. His latest project, Shihad: Loud as F**K, promises to be a goody.

Factory Farming in New Zealand

2009-12-09T01:34:00.005+13:00

Oops, looks like I created a small monster here. I was unhappy to hear that three companies have applied for consent to start "freestall" dairy farming in the South Island. So I started a Facebook group opposing it (as you do in these situations). It obviously touched a nerve because the group got 3,000 members in the first 24 hours, which is pretty big for New Zealand. Now I'm dealing with the consequences - messages flooding my inbox, dilemmas over childish twats posting garbage on the wall (guilty parties on both sides of the argument), and all the stress that goes with a sudden unexpected job to take care of. An interesting few days ahead it seems.

Maybe next time I'll just post a comment somewhere suggesting that someone else forms a group.

Yet again we ask: Is it art?

2009-09-09T15:02:00.006+12:00

When I was a young musician I moved to Palmerston North, attracted by the strong community of original and alternative music. However I soon realised that "alternative" was a euphemism for "talentless". Seriously, the whole scene was dominated by wannabes who couldn't be bothered actually learning an instrument. They simply found an easier way - buy a nasty cheap amp, get wasted and see what strange noises can be produced. Fun, but not music.

I see much the same in contemporary art. The latest example comes courtesy of nearby Waikato Museum which recently awarded top prize in an art competition to a pile of rubbish. Artist Dane Mitchell couldn't be at the competition to enter himself so he left instructions to museum staff: Pilfer rubbish from other contestants and lay it on the floor. That effort netted him $15,000 first prize.

My first surprise was that anyone could think of a pile of rubbish as worthy art. Not because it's rubbish, but because the concept is so hackneyed. Google "rubbish as art" and wade through the ten million results. There's a whole sub-genre of artistic rubbish which may or may not have merit but one thing's for sure - Mitchell's work isn't in any way original. It's a totally weak imitation of far more interesting works dating back years.

While we're discussing tired old cliches, how long are we supposed to wear the argument "It generates discussion and that's the point of art, so we're happy". Really? Even if the discussion is all about what a joke art has become? Art curators must be the only people in the world able to interpret widespread derision as a good result. Face it - this argument is nothing more than a last defense when you've been caught out.

Competition judge Charlotte Huddleston said she was impressed at how Mitchell "responded to his situation" (i.e. being absent and making someone else create the entry). Hmmm. Let's say I want to enter a running race but I can't be there in person to do the actual running part. Should I be allowed to nominate another person to do it for me? I could leave specific instructions: "Go really fast and see if you can get to the end first". Perhaps this isn't a completely fair analogy but it illustrates a fair point - shouldn't the artist who enters a piece actually have made it?

In my opinion Mitchell "responded to his situation" by cheating. He couldn't be there so he found a loophole. Not only is this cheating, it makes it quite clear that there's no real artistic merit in the work. He didn't invent this work to make a statement, he invented it because he needed a convenient way to make a proxy entry. He quite literally asked someone else to scrounge up the leftovers, dump it in a pile and call it art.

I'm suspicious that the title is often the most important feature of an artwork. In this case it's called "Collateral". Ooh, how incisive. Yawn.

The art world is widely believed to consist of self-serving tossers rorting the public purse. This kind of debacle is exactly why. I say it's time people in the art world started laughing at the naked emperor. This crap isn't art. Spare me the snooty BS, just deal with it. Start teaching people how to paint and sculpt instead of selling snake oil.

What happens to your pet after the Rapture?

2009-08-28T08:37:00.004+12:00

"The Rapture" is the time when Christian believers will all be raised to Heaven and everyone else gets left behind. The Rapture doesn't get a lot of discussion time in New Zealand but it's quite big in the US where fundamentalist Christian beliefs are more popular.

Yesterday I came across a fascinating business idea called Eternal Earth-Bound Pets which may (or may not) appeal to you if you believe in the Rapture. Business partners Brad and Bart are atheists so they won't be joining you for the ascent to Heaven. Neither will your pets since animals aren't invited. It does seem a bit unfair that your faithful companions will have to fend for themselves in a chaotic post-rapture world but now you don't have to worry — for a modest fee you can arrange to have animal-loving atheists rescue and care for your pets within 24 hours of the Rapture.

I was intrigued so I wrote to Brad and asked a few questions. Here's the situation:
Yes, the business is completely serious and legitimate.
Reactions from the public have been mixed - some think it's a joke while others take it seriously.
Some Christians appreciate the service and have subscribed. Some Christians are openly hostile and can be quite nasty. Says Brad: "We often ask if they kiss Jesus with their filthy mouths."

We don't have a lot of conflict between faiths in NZ and atheism is pretty much the default philosophy. It can be hard to imagine what it's like to live in an area where atheists are seen as evil and anti-Christian. Judging by what I've seen in many "fundy" forums, I'm sure there are plenty of people who see Eternal Earth-Bound Pets as wicked. I just think it's wickedly funny.

Delayed Gratification

2009-08-14T10:44:00.002+12:00

In this short video Joachim de Posada explains a famous experiment on delayed gratification and how it can predict future success. In fact the ability to delay gratification is arguably the best available method to predict whether or not your kids will do well at school and later life. If you don't care about such things, just watch the video to laugh at kids fighting the urge to eat their marshmallows.

Smacking Referendum

2009-07-15T00:10:00.009+12:00

My contribution to this debate will be brief. I'd like to outline the position of a group of parents that has been largely overlooked or assumed not to exist. Parents in this group:
- Don't smack their kids.
- Don't really care if you smack your kids or not.
- Do understand the importance of discipline.
- Don't appreciate being categorised as radical liberals just because they choose a particular form of discipline.
- Are frustrated by a $9M referendum which, for them, is unanswerable in any meaningful way.

I'm only going to cover one aspect of this debacle so let's get to it. Here's a statement that has been noticeably absent from the current debate:

Non-smacking works!

Forget all the ballyhoo about child psychology, legality and morals. Who cares what the hard-core lefties or righties think? There's a simple but powerful reason to take non-smacking seriously: It works.
Here's the thing...

Not smacking ≠ Not disciplining

In other words, choosing against smacking does not mean choosing against discipline. It means choosing a different type of discipline - the most popular being "time-out" or some variant. There are people who don't like the word punishment but I have no problem with it. Time-out is an effective punishment and deterrent. According to one source I read (wish I could cite it), time-out was rated by children as a worse punishment than smacking. My kids hate it. It's not soft.

I find that non-smackers usually understand discipline very well because they need to put a lot of thought and effort into it. If you don't smack your kids you must have a well-planned, consistent approach to punishment. I'm sure it actually helps me keep track of how consistent my discipline is.

As for the practical objections ("That would never work with my kids", "What about when you're at the supermarket?"), I won't try to predict and answer them all in one go. It's more efficient to say that non-smacking works well for many families and there are plenty of people willing to help you if you're keen to give it a try. Your local CAB is a good place to start.

I think my children are very well behaved. I have three (2, 4 & 18) and none of them have ever been smacked. Not because I'm so morally righteous but because it's working.

Space Blog

2009-07-14T18:12:00.003+12:00

Quick note for subscribers of the "Space News" blog: I've moved the blog to my space museum domain and the new RSS feed is here. Sorry about the change - you'll need to update the feed in your RSS reader.

2009

2009-07-11T15:06:00.003+12:00

Oops, another six-month gap in my blog. Don't ask - there's no point me trying to explain. Let's just pretend it didn't happen.

Google Street View

2008-12-03T20:21:00.003+13:00

The good news is that Google Street view has been launched in New Zealand. The bad news, for me at least, is that the street view for my town of Te Awamutu is just as bad as the satellite view. I've pretty much given up on getting a satellite view of my town in which I can actually see the town but I had high hopes for the street view. It was not to be, in fact the quality of the images is probably the worst I've ever seen on Google Street View. I've yet to look around the rest of the country but I sure hope it's better than the rubbish I've seen so far. What a disappointment.

Anyway, I'll look art incorporating street view at 3DNewZealand.com as soon as I can. I'm a bit tied up until after Christmas but I'll get on it ASAP.

Amazing foot guitarist

2008-11-04T15:01:00.001+13:00

Think you're all thumbs on a guitar? Check this video out.

What's Going On

2008-10-21T17:58:00.007+13:00

I went to an online marketing seminar this morning (thanks Peter, it was very good). Social networking was a big topic and I was yet again reminded of how poorly I'm performing in this space. I was also reminded of how much I don't like telling people my website URLs in real life because I'm a wee bit embarrassed by them. Frankly my sites sound better than they look and I'm sure some people are disappointed when they first see them. So I have several problems:

- My sites look they were designed in the 90s, although to be fair, most of them were designed in the 90s. Graphic design is a weak area for me and I'm too cheap to pay competent designers unless I'm absolutely forced to.
- I have too many projects and none of them are getting enough love. It breaks my heart but I'm going to have to let some of them go.
- I'm crap at keeping blogs up to date, replying to email and generally being social. To be honest I hate how social networking is "the thing" now! Life was a lot easier for me when I could make static HTML pages with text and images, that never dated and required minimal human interaction. My whole plan was supposed to be about passive income and I liked my lack of social networking, dammit. BTW the only reason I'm posting this entry is that some people from the seminar are going to look at my blog and I wanted them to find something more recent than August. I guess it's also an apology for the state of my sites :(

Anyway, here's the situation with my main projects right now:
dave.co.nz: My personal website is unlikely to get any attention at all except maybe this blog. As much as I'd love to sort out the rest of the site, for now I'll just call it retro. Please don't go there.
MediaCollege.com: I desperately need to work on this site. There's so much to say about what needs to be done I don't know where to start, so I won't.
MC Media Player: I've been working on a renewed plan with my brother and hopefully he'll be coming on board to help at some stage. More information to come soon.
Paranormal-Encyclopedia.com: I have a writer who provides 1 or 2 articles per week for this site. It's coming together well enough but it will be 12 months or so before it has the number of articles I want. I'll wait until then before re-evaluating the layout and design.
3DNewZealand.com: I don't know what to do with this site. The 3D images are important—3D is going to be big and I definitely want to have my finger in that pie. I just haven't got around to making a decent design yet. As for the maps, that's a long story that I'll get back to another day.
Space-Images.com: New site, on the back-burner with my other space-related projects.
Te Awamutu Online: Long overdue for a major revamp. I'm in discussions with interested parties right now. There should be some action before the end of the year.
Other sites: I have about 20 other websites but they are all pretty small and static. I can't be bothered talking about them.

As you can see there's plenty to do. I've been spending a lot of time over the last few weeks thinking about where all this is going. The seminar this morning and my recent meeting at the Business Development Centre were quite timely—they've given me food for thought. It's still all swirling around my head, hence this rambling blog entry, but I expect it all to come together shortly in a resounding convergence of inspiration and purpose. Then, finally, I will be unstoppable.

One last thing... I was convinced to get on Twitter at the seminar. I've been resisting for months because I just can't see myself doing well at it. I can't even keep my blog updated so how will I cope with micro-blogging? Oh well, we'll see. Maybe if you follow me it'll help my motivation ;)

MC Altair v0.8

2008-08-20T16:58:00.004+12:00

I've decided to release v0.8 with only one new feature: Better color control. You can now choose a default color scheme and/or colors for individual elements in the player. See the new variables and setup tool for details.

I wanted to get this version out because a few people have been asking for better colors. Now I'm planning to take a bit of time to consolidate and fix some outstanding bugs in the setup tool.

I've got a pretty clear idea of where to go from here, and I think we're on track for a v1.0 release this year. There are some exciting things going on behind the scenes and I'm looking forward to more development with MC Altair.

At the same time I'm obviously still thinking about MC Classic. I have previously indicated that I would get back to work on it later this year, and I haven't changed my mind, but at the same time there have been some developments that could impact this plan. I'll have more to say about MC Classic later.

In the meantime I'd appreciate any feedback from anyone who uses the new color features in MC Altair.

Setup Tool Upgrade

2008-08-14T21:48:00.003+12:00

MC Altair v0.7 seems to be going fine. I've seen it on a few websites and it certainly looks a lot better at smaller sizes. I still need to work on how the player adapts to different sizes but at least there's no more distortion in the interface and it always looks tidy.

I've released a new version of the MC Altair setup tool. This doesn't affect the player itself and there are no new features as such, although I have also released a non-essential maintenance upgrade for MC Altair (v0.71).

- The setup tool now correctly shows default values for any player size. Edited values are shown in red.
- Many of the buttons have been moved to the new menu. Most importantly, the "Get Code" button can now be found in "Code > Export to Website".
- There is a new "Make Player" wizard that automatically imports a video file and creates a player with the correct dimensions (assuming the video file includes valid metadata - I don't yet have a workaround if it doesn't).
- I've added some more context-sensitive help.

Google Street View for New Zealand

2008-08-04T14:24:00.003+12:00

The rumours appear to have been officially confirmed - Google Street View is coming to New Zealand. This isn't exactly surprising news - the Google car has been spotted around the country by people such as Bevan Rudge (see his great photos). The car is a black Holden Astra, registration plate EFR386.

How will this affect 3DNewZealand.com? Well the Street View is available for the API, which in plain language means we can add it to the website. This is great news and I'll try to implement it as soon as possible. Sadly it does mean that my own panorama project looks doomed for obsolescence - I'm not sure if there's a lot of point trying to fill a gap that will no longer exist. Shame really, I should have moved faster when the idea was new (I published my own version of "Street View" more than six years ago but lacked the resources to pursue it properly).

Anyway, let's just be happy that Street View is coming. I'll let you know when it's available at 3DNewZealand.com.

MC Altair 0.7 preview

2008-07-21T15:45:00.004+12:00

Here's a sneek preview of MC Altair v0.7. I'll be making an official announcement very soon but I just wanted to give RSS subscribers a chance to have a look first. It doesn't have any significant new features but it is an important upgrade because it completely changes the way the player is resized. I decided that my previous approach, which I thought was devilishly cunning and original, was actually too counter-intuitive and problematic. I've returned to the traditional approach (used in MC Classic) which uses a consistent internal coordinate system with the top left corner as the (0,0) point.

Anyway, what this means is a much better, more robust way to resize the player. I'm particularly happy that fullscreen mode is now working properly again, and I'm looking forward to making that more configurable.

Because this version required a major re-write I expect a few bugs to fall out of it. If you don't like upgrading or helping out with bug reports, maybe you might like to wait until the next version. Still, it would be great to get some feedback on v0.7 as soon as possible before I make it the official release version.

MC Altair upgrade, Red5 server

2008-07-06T22:42:00.004+12:00

It's been a mad rush but I've managed to get MC Atair v0.6 released (see the announcement and technical details). It's just in time because I'm going to be tied up with family commitments this week, so I apologise if I'm slow responding to any questions about this release.

In a slight change of plan, I'm going to work on MC Altair 0.7 before getting back to MC Classic. Sorry, it had to be done but with any luck it won't actually take too long.

Good news: Brother Scratch has finished setting up Red5 on a brand new server. It sure looks like fun, I've checked out the simple live broadcast and chat applications that come with the server and there are sooo many possibilities. Too many ideas, too much technology, too little time in a day.

Anyway, let me know if you have anything to ask or say, either here or in the forum.

Photos of Spy Satellites

2008-06-25T12:59:00.006+12:00

Here's one for the consiracy theorists... photographer Trevor Paglen has taken 189 photos of secret spy satellites which officially don't exist. The photos are on display at at the University of California Berkeley Art Museum (more photos here).

Paranormal Blog

2008-06-24T00:14:00.002+12:00

I've decided the paranormal blog needs to be separated from my personal blog and integrated properly with paranormal-encyclopedia.com. The RSS feed will stay the same but the blog posts will appear as part of the paranormal site rather than blog.dave.co.nz. Hopefully this will be less confusing and a bit more professional.

See the new paranormal blog

MC Media Player Quick Update

2008-06-19T12:20:00.002+12:00

Just a quick note about MC Altair.... I'm working on RMTP support and it's looking good so far. I've got RED5 working on my local network and MC Altair is streaming videos well (although there's still some work to do). Unfortunately our new web server won't be ready for a couple of weeks so it would be really helpful if anyone out there has a streaming server (Flash Media Server or RED5) that I could use for testing. All I need is the URL of a couple of video streams that I can play with the player (e.g. rmtp://yourserver.com/path/videofile). Otherwise I'll just have to wait until our new server is online before I can finalise the streaming code.

I've also added a variable for the buffer length which will please some of you.

I'm not yet sure when I'll release version 0.6. I'd prefer to wait until RMTP support is finished but it's possible the next release will just include a few small features and bug fixes, followed by another release with streaming support. In any case v0.6 shouldn't be more than a few weeks away at most.

After that it will be time to look at MC Classic.

MC Media Player Status Report

2008-06-16T12:14:00.004+12:00

Okay, I'm finally getting ready to have another go at the media players. I've got most of the next four weeks allocated to this project so hopefully we'll see some action. Now is the time to let me know of any issues or bugs that aren't already included in the project manager.

Here is the plan:
(1) My brother Richard (AKA Scratch) is investigating the RED5 Flash Server. We're hoping to set this up on a new server within the next few weeks. This will give us a decent platform upon which to develop the players' streaming and interactive capabilities.
(2) Fix the main outstanding bugs and issues with MC Altair.
(3) Tackle the outstanding issues in MC Classic.

The thing I most want to get done is prepare MC Altair for open source. I've been frustrated at not being able to do this yet but I am still motivated.