BiblioPolit: September 2011

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Watching Youtube videos faster

Nope! I am not going to teach you to watch or read or whatever faster. Simply, Youtube has started their HTML5 trial, through which you can select how fast you want to watch their videos. They have speeds as follows: 1/4 Speed, 1/2 Speed, Normal Speed, 1.5x Speed and 2x Speed.

All you need to do is visit the Youtube HTML5 Trial page and click on the link that says “Join the HTML5 Trial.” Once you’ve done that, you’ll be able to select the speed of the video you are watching. You probably have to be logged in to Youtube. I haven’t tested that part!

HT: Brian Auten

What I was doing on 9/11 ten years ago

This was the first image I saw on television

Ten years ago, on this day, one of the greatest modern, human-made disasters occurred. It was then that a group of Muslims from the “religion of peace,” attacked non-combatants (excluding the Pentagon), innocent by-standers, killing 2,977 victims, plus the 19 hijackers.

I can remember the day as if it were yesterday. I was busy buying a car in Centurion (South Africa), and as we were going to start the paper work, one of the salesmen came out of the coffee room saying that America was being attacked. We all rushed in to see what was happening, and I just could not believe what I was seeing. Just 9 months before that, we returned to South Africa after living in Columbus, Ohio for two years. While living there I came to love the country and its people, so when I saw this happening I could almost start feeling a physical ache in my heart as I saw the destruction and death of so many people. Watching the people running in the streets and the billowing dust from the buildings that came thundering down, I could see the fear in their faces and the panic that ensued. It was unbelievable. It was like watching one of Bruce Willis’ Die Hard movies! I couldn’t fathom how this could all be real! I sat and watched there for a very long time, until I could take it no longer.

The car salesman and I completed the paper work, I transferred the money to them, and then I rushed back to work to tell everyone there what had happened. Everyone tried to check out different news sites like CNN, but CNN’s website had so many people trying to get in that from our vantage point, it seemed to have died from all the pressure. At the end of the working day I rushed home to switch on the television. This must be the longest single “program” I ever watched on television. I watched as they replayed all the different scenes over and over again till I simply had to go to bed that night, feeling numb.