People who know me know that I’m not a big fan of commercial TV. It hasn’t got any depth, it usually underproduced, overmarketed and makes an insulting assumption on the viewer’s intelligence. (Wow, all in one sentence 🙂 )
So I usually get my information elsewhere. Most of the stuff I find interesting is provided through RSS feeds. Some of it is made available through audio podcasts, which is brilliant when commuting. As for video, youtube looked promising, but the messy interface and sheer overload of people making silly movies with their mobile phones has made it hard for me to find actual interesting video there. The rating system with YouTube did improve the past week, but it’s still hard to find stuff that interests me.
Enter the TED talks. These are brilliant video’s mostly of a presentation, or sometimes music. But generally, the TED talks are just that tiny bit more interesting than TV, without commercials, and with real contents.
Just now I finished watching Mena Trott’s entertaining presentation on how blogs are building a friendlier world. The TED.com site is really clean, easy to browse and contains tons of video’s about remarkable people with very interesting stories to tell. If my TV died, the only way I’d notice is when I switch on my PS3 to play a video game.
At work, we’ve got two Oracle databases and a Java web application. One of the tasks of the web application is to copy tables over from one database to the other. Last week we ran into a funny problem which turns out to be an Oracle bug.
I recently tried to purchase a Logitech LS1 mouse from Logitech. After not hearing from them for 3 weeks, I ordered the same mouse at Dynabyte and got it within 5 days. Suddenly Logitech woke up and sent me another LS1 mouse. Because they don’t react to mails or calls, I had a spare LS1 to play around with.
