It may seem like I’m making a big deal about nothing…but I can assure you that I’m not. My jaw dropped, and I pumped my fist in the air at my desk when I saw this BoingBoing post: RepRap universal constructor achieves self-replication. Not that I didn’t think it would happen…but to see it, to see the post…it’s awesome.

I feel strongly that rapid fabrication technologies are the Free Software of …well, of hardware. Of real stuff. A RepRap (more properly, one of the rapidly evolving descendants) plus information will be making stuff for you in a relatively short time. Things that today you would buy from someone who purchased it from a distributor who has a deal with a wholesaler that ships it by the container-full from China. And your stuff can be customized at manufacture for you; not the kinda-but-not-quite what I wanted that you get from the store. Designs of both items and replicators will be shared, and will evolve. I can’t wait.

I re-discovered Winamp a few months ago, after a long separation (thanks, Brent!)…I’ve tried a lot of music players/library managers on Windows, and Winamp is my present choice. (Songbird is coming along, but it’s not QUITE where I want it yet). It slices, it dices, it organizes, it plays. Beautiful.

I realized today I’m missing a piece of the puzzle, though; last.fm audioscrobbling. Just about every other music player/device I use — my Chumby, my Nokia 770, Banshee on my Linux box, etc. — allows me to post my music played to last.fm, either directly or via a proxy. I haven’t been doing that with Winamp though…a hole in my stats. *grumble* Tonight I noticed, and decided to fix it. I figured…hugely popular and long-lived app…how hard can it be? Eh…therein lies the rub. So I thought it’d be a good idea to drop some notes; for my future re-installs, and for anyone else it might help.

The issue is partially the long-livedness (is that a word?) of Winamp (and associated API drift), and partially the fact that the last.fm folks don’t appear to be all that jazzed up over Winamp anymore, so it doesn’t get a huge amount of plugin love/debugging. Regardless…the 5.5 upgrade to Winamp apparently whacked the existing audioscrobbler. After this was noticed by the community, who then proceeded to track down and identify the problem, a re-release of the plugin was announced. I got that, but I still had a problem with it; no config screen would pop up.

After more googling, I finally found a solution that worked for me (on WinXP SP2; ymmv). Two parts:

1. Install the 2.0.47 plugin linked off of this forum thread
2. Go to this page, and follow these directions (updating a dll)
3. (optional) Then config plugin with last.fm login info, if needed

Works like a CHAMP. I’m now updating last.fm via just about every connected music source I use. Just need to track down/wire up a method to do proper MTP-type mobile player info, and I’m 100%! Thanks to everyone on those threads and web pages for doing the gruntwork.

The online music label Magnatune recently added widgets for allowing you to embed Magnatune album players on your own site. Very nicely done, John! I wanted to try it out, and I just bought a really nice classical (Bach violin) album there by Lara St John. So here’s the player: you can click through to her page and buy the album…well worth it!

Note: this, like all Magnatune players, is the whole album; these aren’t 30 second snippets. John Buckman is amazingly generous, and really understands the next-generation music industry. I strongly encourage you to check out Magnatune and it’s artists.

Bach Violin Concertos by Lara St John

In the midst of a huge, whacked-out, troll-besmirched ramblefest of a comment thread over on Charlie Stross’ blog, a guy named Greg London gives one of the best return barrages against the what, don’t you want us to succeed? refrain that I’ve ever read. He knocks it out of the park, IMO. Thanks to Greg for the analysis, and thanks to Charlie for letting that comment (and it’s context) stick around, even in the midst of some pretty intense flamefestness. It was worth it.

So, after my recent rant about FriendFeed suckage, why am I now giving you my FriendFeed url? Eh…experimentation, mostly. Plus, Twitter is pretty broken right now, and it’s my primary off-the-cuff commenting tool. Since it’s not working well, I figured I’d give FriendFeed a quick run across the dance floor in the meantime.

I’ve still got some reservations about FriendFeed, but it’s API seems open and robust enough (unlike, say, Facebook’s) that I can have some fun and learn something with it. We’ll see…I’ve already learned quite a bit playing around with the Planet Ken stuff. I see the value of the social networking components…I just feel a lot of tension when it comes to the control and data portability issues.

Speaking of social networking and it’s consequences; I also just finished a great G’Day World podcast today from back in March, where Cameron re-interviews Jamais Cascio. Their primary topic of conversation is a fascinating bit of work Jamais did for SXSW this year, for a panel called Futurists’ Sandbox: Scenarios for Social Media, 2025.. His concept of The Chorus is quite mind-boggling, yet arguably quite a straightforward extrapolation. Definitely give the G’Day World podcast a listen.

Really nifty Google Code 20% project: Radish – a indoor solar-powered calendar display. Yep…indoor solar power; it uses so little energy that a solar cell charged by indoor lighting keeps it running, allows it to radio in (via ZigBee / 802.15.4) and get updated schedule info, and refresh the screen. I mean…damn!! Nice project, dude.

And last but not least…near the end of the video, the narrator jokingly suggests that the engineer (Aaron Spangler) could hook him up with a hack to let him trump any conference room reservation on demand. Aaron laughs, shrugs, and says …sure. Put in a ticket. I think my DBA peeps will appreciate THAT one!

If you’re a last.fm user, you should definitely check out LastGraph. It’s an amazing data visualization site that pulls in last.fm listening data and produces rich, fascinating graphics based on your listening history. I’m poking about in my own stream, and it’s really cool to watch the ebb and flow of my listening habits. Check it out!

One of the newest episodes of Boing Boing tv features Cory Doctorow dialing in from his Little Brother U.S. signing tour. I’m enjoying it, so I thought I’d toss it in the pot for those of you who don’t frequent Boing Boing tv:

In a romp around Wikipedia this evening, I bumped into a link to an really nice interview with Jo Walton, the author of the books Farthing and Ha’penny (among others) that I’ve ranted so much about recently. The interview requires a subscription to The Internet Review of Science Fiction, but they have a Casual level that is free as in beer. Note: I think they’re probably worth an actual paid subscription, though. Looks pretty nice. I like SF review and commentary, and I think I can live w/ $15-25. *grin* (I say, I say…that’s a joke, for those missing it. Good writing makes 15 bucks look WAY cheap. This is a bargain.)

The interview is well worth reading. Jo Walton gives a great description of the background for Farthing, and I have even more respect for her now, as I hadn’t realized she was the instigator of
International Pixel-Stained Peasant’s Day. She has a lively discussion of the implications of said day with the interviewer as well. All in all, an excellent read.