Where's Wil?

A while back now I blogged about how frustrating it was that the BBC insisted on using Windows Media and, gasp! Real Media for its streaming news programmes on the BBC News website.

A few months after the Flash conversion of the iPlayer, and it seems the BBC is getting with the game - more and more of the news clips being embedded on the site are Flash, and it does seem that DRM'd formats are being phased out, which is definitely a good thing. I've watched a heck of a lot more video on the BBC in the past week or so.

Short Flash clips are a lot more useful to me than longer, DRM'd bulletins. Check out this fantastic post from Justn Webb about the wooing of superdelegates in the US - the first video simply makes the piece.

The Beeb still doesn't allow for embedding of its player - the share button allows you to email a link but won't let you grab the player and put it on your own site, which seems like a slightly strange restriction. MAybe that's a feature for another year?

So I'm walking down the street, listening to some tunes on my iPhone. I turn my head to look at something and - dang! The microphone for the headset catches on my shirt collar.

There's something about the particular length between the iphone, the mic and the cord that makes it catch on pretty much every shirt I wear and the constant tugging on my ear is really aggravating. Thankfully, it seems I'm not the only one.

Surely a campaign of sorts is in order?

So Easter is here, which means a) devout reverence and praise for our Lord Jesus and/or b) consumption of vast amounts of chocolate.

Since it's a bank holiday here in England, I'm going to be taking the time off to tend to do a few things. I intend to go through and edit a few Wikipedia pages to try and make sure that they're up to date: I'll add them in here for people interested as I fiddle with them.

Below is a nice bar of dark chocolate I got from my mother in law from a shop called Sophies, in Chesham, which makes the most insaaane chocolate. Tasty.



EDIT: Scratch that. I decided to have a go at making a Mahalo page instead. I just wrote the search results page for Michael Birch, of Bebo fame. Will see how the final thing comes out!

So my buddy Jes emailed me and asked me to give Twitter another go. After listening to Leo and the gang go on about it incessantly on this week's podcast, I decided I would.

I have previously loved and left Twitter because it simply lacked stability. Every time I would go to post, something would break. AIM support was crucial to me, then was killed. Twitterrific had an awesome UI, but seemed to have a hard time actually connecting to servers. Not to mention the fact that Pownce had more functionality. (Although Pownce had an awful Air desktop app, I'm wondering what it's like now).

But I got back onto Twitter today and I'm starting to see why people are raving about it. It seems more stable now, Twitteriffic has made leaps and bounds (as long as you avoid the hideous Growl add-on - I have no idea why Mac users desire horrid, garish Windows-style notifications) and the whole thing is just a little more useful. I'm already starting to get into some conversations which are helpful.

So add me as @WilHarris if you fancy chatting. Whilst I can't follow everybody, I have direct messages set to ping my Twitteriffic so I can stay on top of them. Top stuff!

Well, I'm slowly working my way down the pounds. The numbers don't tel the whole story, of course - I'm spending a lot of time in the gym working weights, so I'm adding on (heavy) muscle as I burn fat. I definitely seem to be getting fitter and stronger, so the workouts that I'm following (kudos Men's Health magazine) are working.

I've discovered an awesome low(ish) calorie junk food: pizza. You can have half a homebake pizza (M&S pepperoni FTW) for around 350 calories, which makes for an awesome lunch with some salad.

Right, off again to pump some iron...

Here's something interesting I just discovered. You know how nobody wants to pay money for music any more, we're told?

I talked to a friend who went to the recent Linkin Park gig at the O2 Arena in London. After the show, the band sells a gift back for £10 - a blank CD, sleeve liner and a PIN code. The next day, you can use the PIN code to download the whole performance from the night before in high quality, DRM free MP3 - then burn it to the blank CD you bought.

Linkin Park has been touring around the world for the past few months, and has offered every single live performance - recorded straight from the soundboard, so it sounds top-notch - for purchase straight after the show and download the next day. As far as I can gather from looking around message boards etc, this has been a rip roaring success. I, for one, have often wanted to purchase a live performance that I've been at - and the band has made it ridiculously easy, in this case.

With 25,000 people at a large gig like the O2, and just 10% of those buying the CD, that's an extra $50,000 a night the band is making in CD sales. Who said paid-for music couldn't prosper?

(Hint: If you didn't get to the O2 gig, the band doesn't let you buy the CD anyway - stupid, as I would certainly pay £10 for that gig on CD whether I went or not. Thankfully, BitTorrent has your back).

So I'm pretty sure that, as of today, I'm the leanest and meanest I've ever been in my adult life. I hit 196lbs having spent the past two months working out at the gym like crazy. I'm a bit more toned here and there so I'm putting on muscle and taking off fat - which is obviously pretty neat. The fatblogging community seems to have died, but I am finding incentive enough in my upcoming nuptials - I want to look damn good in those photographs!

I have discovered cool new way to pass the time - TV episodes on the iPhone! I have been watching episodes of MASH and The Wire while I run on the running machine - seeing as MASH comes in at 25 minutes, that's quite a nice length to be running for. Then for weights work while I'm moving around, I've been checking out a couple of new albums - Linkin Park Underground 7.0 (with a cool selection of recent live tracks by the band) and I've also been listening to Alan Alda's awesome new audiobook, Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself - grabbed from Emusic, DRM-free. Top stuff.