Playing with mplayer and streamripper a couple weeks ago, I realized it would be excellent if there was an Internet based stream converter. Perhaps one exists, or it wouldn’t be too difficult to put together.

Basically I’d like to be able to paste a Windows Media audio or Real Audio url and have an MP3 stream spit out the other end. You can basically do this with MPlayer right now, but it requires some set up and tweaking.

I want a service that I can just enter a url like this into iTunes:

http://example.com/?streamurl=http://www.wbur.org/listen/feed/wburlive_20050415.asx

And have a nice MP3 stream come out the speakers.

We moved to Natick, MA eight days ago (gallery) and are adjusting to the new surroundings and new routines. New commute is the biggest change. Walk to the Natick commuter rail (5 minutes). Ride commuter rail to South Station (30 minutes). Take Red Line to Harvard Square (20 minutes). Walk to office (7 minutes). Factor in all the inefficiencies and it usually takes around 1 hour 10 minutes. It is longer than I expected and I need to see how much more expensive it would be to drive. The up side is that I can theoretically get stuff done on the train. However, they really need to add another couple cars to the commuter rail. It is always packed. If you want to make public transportation appealing, don’t make everyone be packed in like sardines. Add extra cars so everyone gets their own seat, add free wireless Internet and a cafe car.

Spent $9.25 to go see Murderball this evening at the Loews in Harvard Square. It is a documentary about the lives of quadriplegic rugby players. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but still wish I had money left over for popcorn.

Forgot to mention the movie contains the song Anyone Else But You by the excellent Moldy Peaches.

I went to watch a screening of “Blogumentary“. A documentary about blogs by Chuck Olsen. Chuck was on hand to answer questions afterwards. The film was created entirely by Chuck over a period of two years with 10,000-20,000 of his own dollars.

Film synopsis:

Blogumentary explores the many ways blogs are affecting our media and politics. Personal political writing is the foundation of our democracy, but mass media has made us into passive consumers instead of active citizens. Blogs return us to our roots and reengage us in democracy.

The film features interviews with Jeff Jarvis, Joe Trippi, Rebecca Blood, David Weinberger, Dan Gillmor, John Hinderaker and many more. The film also explores the personal side of blogging, including a BBC blogger injured in Iraq and a friend’s suicidal blog post. Whatever your familiarity with blogs, Blogumentary offers a fresh and compelling look at how blogs are changing the way we communicate.

Yesterday’s All Things Considered did another piece on podcasting. Now churches are getting into the mix by podcasting their sermons.

Another perk of working in the city is people actually come to visit. A couple weeks ago, Doug Kaye paid PRX a visit. Doug is the mind behind IT Conversations, which consumes much of my podcast listening time. We ended up talking for about 2 hours about his new project. Doug is looking to expand the idea of IT Conversations to other topics, venues, conferences, etc. It is an ambitious project, but an exciting one. The basic argument is that the audience that attends a conference is relatively small. When made available for free on the Internet, suddenly the audience can become huge.

Doug’s business plan for the new project is currently in flux and available here.

After hearing good buzz about Ruby on Rails for a while, I took the opportunity to learn more about it by going to the Boston Linux & Unix User Group meeting on July 20th. Rajiv Manglani was giving a presentation of his experience. He had only been using Rails for 2 weeks, but was able to give a pretty compelling presentation.

Seth has also been wanting to try rails, so we purchased Agile Web Development with Rails. Now we just need the time to read up and try it out. I got it installed on my Powerbook and started playing with it this weekend. I only managed a couple hours, but so far it looks like a refreshing way to develop web apps.

Catching up my city life… Back on July 14th I headed over to the Berkman Center to see Dave Winer show off his OPML application. (Berkman page with more info)

Two weeks later, the application has been released, but I haven’t had time to try it myself. Outlining isn’t exactly glamorous and the OPML editor isn’t very polished yet, but it looks useful for several types of applications.