I didn't embed because YouTube is slowly moving to H.264 encoding and I wanted tot alk about few other things. There's a high quality version of the video available on a link just below the number of views. It looks pretty sweet.
I've been noticing more vimeo stuff around lately. It has a nicer interface (no contest) and supports HD. YouTube/Google is doing a decent job of slow-rolling their changes but they're going to have to move faster to keep up. Drop the beta-player option, just make it the default (it's been a while, guys. is it really not ready?). I wonder what the transfer rate diff is for the high quality version is. I have a hard time believing it would be much higher (H.264 is that good); I'd make the high quality version the default as well.
At the start of 2006 I decided to keep a log of all the book I read. Through the year I knocked down a total of 22 books. Oddly enough, more then half of those were back in last January (a month of rain wherein I first joined the awesome Vancouver public library). Out of the 22, I had only read 1 before, and non-coincidentally I'm rating it at the very top. Here are my top 5 books from 2006:
Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert A Heinlein This is currently my favorite book of all time. I strongly suggest you read it.
The Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Flatlander - Larry Niven
In A Sunburned Country - Bill Bryson
Mount Appetite - Bill Gaston
The full list comes after the jump, with small descriptions...
I moved to Vancouver on January 7th, 2006. The start of the year was filled with finding a place to live and getting myself set up here. I was working on American History Lux at the time, but it got pushed aside a bit as I explored Vancouver. It's a pretty vibrant city (moreso then some people here think), and I partook in Moose Camp (and was captured on GETV b-roll), a meeting of the pillow fight club, some sessions of Manhunt, and the critical mass bike parade. All that and more in the first months of the year.
Work on Lux Delux continued in spurts throughout the year. The plugins were put on better display, divided into categories, and better Map of the Week awards were added. Lux was released in retail stores in Germany (looks like I forgot to post about that), and got an interface re-design. I started a 2006 in review page on the Sillysoft Wiki that lists the exact dates of various 2006 happenings in Luxtopia.
October hosted the third annual Luxtoberfest Contest and Celebration. It was the biggest and best yet, and I don't know how we can top it next year. Afterwards I got myself set up with a new MacBook Pro as my main computer. Sillysoft popped out a little Devil's Brigade Lux game, commissioned by some TV people. I set up the fast news website Hot Grog on a lark - I plan to do some more with it in the future.
Ancient Empires Lux was being worked on throughout the last half on the year, and was released in December. Shortly after that I took off for a family holiday down to Central America, and then Christmas in Toronto. I came back to Vancouver for New Year's, and that's the end of 2006. It was a good year. I started settling into Vancouver, did some traveling, and kept up the growth of Sillysoft. Now on to 2007!
For those who enjoyed it last time (and for those who didn't), I've again compiled my favourite songs of 2006 and made the top 35 available for download at Said the Gramophone, replete with typically Seanian prose. Like a breathless punch in the chest, etc etc.
LePhil you will recognise this awesome music video, by Electric 6. I think you were the one who introduced it to me. Warning! video contains: a pencil mustache, extended make-out seshes, and a glowing moose penis. The paintings remind me of Manos: the Hands of Fate.
