A few years ago I went into lengths both on OSNews and on my personal blog evangelizing the basic ideas behind a cloud-based OS, and specifically claiming that Google is the company that can make that true. The comments back then were ranging from “it will never going to happen”, to “it’s not feasible”, to “you are dreaming”.

Finally, Google announced last night the Chrome OS. While I feel vindicated about it, it’s true that such an OS does not fit all shoes and it does raise privacy concerns. For example, doing video editing in such an environment would be a pain in the bum. Other actions though, e.g. emailing, might be better.

As for privacy, I think we are going past that. The world is going towards a supposedly-democratic outlook, but with totalitarian roots. Such a software system makes sense for our modern policed nations. And if Google wouldn’t be the one bringing that technology to us, someone else would. I am glad that it’s Google for now. But in 30-40 years down the road, when Larry and Sergey would be long gone from the company, I don’t know how things would be.

One of the best music videos I have seen in a long time, hands down. And the song is amazing too, of course. If this combination doesn’t make the Blitzen Trapper super stars, I don’t know what will. These guys deserve to be big.

Update: A word from the director, via email:
“We shot on an HVX-200 at 720p resolution. No 35mm adapter. We did most of the shoot at 36fps to give it a slightly slow-motion dreamy feel. The post was all done in Adobe After Effects.”

• @slewis You, continue exporting at 5 mbps VBR. BTW, all these discussions are better held on IM, Twitter is not appropriate for that. in reply to slewis #
• @slewis FYI, Vimeo re-encodes at 1.8 mbps video, 128 kbps audio, all VBR. So, so far, Facebook uses most bitrate, then youtube, then vimeo. in reply to slewis #
• @slewis Yes, of course they re-encode it at lower bitrate, otherwise all these services would be out of business. Bandwidth costs money. in reply to slewis #

• @slewis You, continue exporting at 5 mbps VBR. BTW, all these discussions are better held on IM, Twitter is not appropriate for that. in reply to slewis #
• @slewis FYI, Vimeo re-encodes at 1.8 mbps video, 128 kbps audio, all VBR. So, so far, Facebook uses most bitrate, then youtube, then vimeo. in reply to slewis #
• @slewis Yes, of course they re-encode it at lower bitrate, otherwise all these services would be out of business. Bandwidth costs money. in reply to slewis #