By Ian Hollidae, 2025/12/12

Let me say this up front: the only reason I have cable is sports. I do watch a few of the basic movie channels (TCM, Flix, Sundance) but they aren't actually needed. If I could get a sports-only subscription, that's the route I would take. Since I can't, my only options are to continue on as I've been doing or sign up for multiple sports streaming services. Neither path is optimal.

However, this all could be changing with the news that YouTube will start offering genre-specific subscriptions. The details haven't been released and the specific offerings will probably determine each bundles success. What's really important though is if YouTube is willing to bundle up specific packages, all the other streaming services might have to follow suit. Will this finally be the start of true a la carte TV?

I certainly hope so.

Tags: Streaming

By Ian Hollidae, 2025/11/26

It appears that HP and Dell are disabling playback of videos that use the HEVC format on certain PC models because the licensing fee is set to increase in 2026. This obviously brings up a number of questions such as will other venders follow suit, how many end users will ultimately be affected, and how big of a problem will this turn out to be.

From my own perspective, I wonder if this could be the beginning of the end for proprietary formats given the rising importance of video in so many areas such as entertainment and communications. I have to imagine that every major streaming and video chat service, and anyone looking to start a new service, will be looking to cut delivery cost any way they can. And as for the end users, who care nothing about licensing agreements, how many times will they put up with disruptions to vital features.

Regardless of how this all plays out, royalty free formats such as AV1 seem like they have an increasingly bright future.

Tags: Streaming

By Ian Hollidae, 2025/11/19

This is the concrete pavement of a large covered sitting area at a nearby park. There were plenty of colored sections to choose from (green, blue, etc) but the red sections stood out. I can certainly see this texture being used for floors, walls, and maybe, vases.

Interestingly, after I shot this, I learned that the colored fragments were glass. I had always assumed they were rock. If that's true, I guess it's one of the many things you discover while researching your subject.

Select a thumbnail to see a preview.

Download the Sprinked Colors texture set under Creative Commons (CC BY 4.0).

Tags: Textures

By Ian Hollidae, 2025/10/31

I've been running across a lot of articles related to RSS lately. It makes me wonder about which way the tides of blogging are shifting. Is a return to organic posting really under way? I get the feeling a lot of the noise resides in the more tech-oriented communities.

Personally, I'd like to see a larger segment of the web get back to independent blogging, but as some have pointed out, the issue of discovery, outside the social media format, still hasn't been solved. Simply putting an RSS feed on your site has never been the answer. Feed aggregators were a step forward, but clearly, they couldn't keep up with web indexing. I don't blame people for sticking with social media. A ready made gathering place is hard to ignore. I think if there is a solution, it'll have to be something no one has thought about.

For now, here's some of what I've come across:

• A deep dive into the rss feed reader landscape (Lighthouse)
• Have we passed peak social media? (Financial Times)
• In Praise of RSS and Controlled Feeds of Information (Tom Burkert)

Tags: Blogging

By Ian Hollidae, 2025/10/16

One goal of my photography project is to take pictures of mundane or average things and try to make them look good, or at least, presentable. I would say a common street sign is as mundane or average as it gets.

I was hoping to focus on some of the weathered patterns along the wall but finding a good one proved challenging. Focusing on the sign instead and letting the wall add contrast seems to have been a better move. As a bonus, I got some reflected sunlight from one of the top floor windows behind me to go along with the ambient light of the alleyway.

Photo Only

This post is a continuation of the Beginners Photography Project.

Tags: Feature Photos

By Ian Hollidae, 2025/10/05

I remember getting a TiVo back in the mid aughts while looking into buying satellite TV service. DirectTV offered a TiVo package and a friend, who already had the service, let me play around with his. I was fairly impressed so I decided to give it a try. That for me was the start of my "digital TV" journey. So the news that TiVo is exiting the DVR business has a mildly sad and nostalgic feeling.

But the end was inevitable long before this announcement.

A few years after my purchase, the iPhone was released and the concept of streaming to all devices took off. TiVo never made the necessary adjustments, which was unfortunate, because so many changes could have been made at that point in time. The whole streaming field was still wide open and the market hadn't been overrun with service and hardware choices. I always thought a TiVo/Blockbuster pairing would have done well.

Nowadays, DVR is just a minor feature in the streaming/TV landscape. But I still have to wonder, what-if.

Tags: Streaming

By Ian Hollidae, 2025/09/23

This is a flat concrete wall captured in low light. There are plenty of interesting patterns and imperfections scattered throughout the original shot. One subtle detail I left in the crop is there seems to be a slight brushed area near the center of the image. Not sure if that was intentional or if the builders even cared. I’m thinking this texture will be used as a standard wall or a floor for future 3D presentations. I don’t see a wider use but you never know.

Select a thumbnail to see a preview.

Download the A Splash Of Concrete texture set under Creative Commons (CC BY 4.0).

Tags: Textures

By Ian Hollidae, 2025/09/16

I've written before about why blogging on the web is still a great path. It seems I'm not the only one who thinks this. An interesting blog post, "No, RSS isn't dead", outlines a number of really good reasons why. One particular point caught my attention:

You're exposed to the remnants of the indie web. These are the people who are still creating cool stuff and sharing it because they want to, the people who don't know or don't care about SEO, the people you could have discovered in search results a decade ago but who have now been shunted down to page 25 by a massive fatberg of over-optimised content. They were probably on Twitter ten years ago but have now walked away in disgust. When you find someone like this today, you need to follow them because you won't find them again. RSS can help with that. In an age when search results have become polluted by SEO spam, think of RSS as an anti-SEO strategy.

I admit, I like the term "indie web". There's something underground-ish about it. It also reminds me of why I started Chromalucent in the first place, even though I'm not really a natural writer. Having a space where I can post all sorts of things without worrying about algorithms, likes, and memes seems like it should be the future. At least it did years ago when RSS was more widely in use. Sure, going it alone has downsides. You have to find ways to generate your own traffic. You have to manage site features on your own. And if you want to monetize your outlet, you'll have a harder road because there may not be as many available options.

On the other hand, I don't see these issues as downsides. Going your own way is just the flip side of the social media dynamic. Breaking through the endless noise, trying to differentiate yourself within popular memes, and dealing with the corporate limitations on the space allotted are all things that remain roadblocks with today's social media scene.

So will RSS-style content consumption make a comeback?

Maybe if a platform can capture more of the original web experience without the supposed handicaps. Maybe if readers and writters continue to get fed up with the current monotonous nature of social media. Maybe if everyone decides a more organic approach to online consumption is a better way forward. Sure, there's a chance. After all, the "indie web" never really went away and I don't think it'll be leaving us any time soon.

Tags: Blogging

By Ian Hollidae, 2025/09/06

I've been reevaluating everything related to my photography project for past couple of weeks. Mainly, I've been asking questions about the future direction I want the project to take, including the question of what have I learned from my experience. It's probably the type of evaluation one might expect from a relative beginner.

Thankfully, I've come up with a few answers.

What I primarily learned is that I don't have to be bad at photography. Constant practice makes a far bigger difference than simply soaking up YouTube tutorials. In the early days of the project, I took a lot of photos. Over time, I took fewer and fewer photos but not because I didn't find anything to shoot. I stopped filling up my allotted photography time taking random pictures with filling up the time trying to see shots. The spray and pray approach became inefficient.

Another thing I learned was that having your own space to post photos is a big benefit. I do have a Flickr account, and briefly had an Instagram account, but the social media aspect of photography hasn't been what I originally hoped for. One of the main goals of my project was to gain some real feedback on what I was doing. More often than not, what happens is a few "Nice shot" comments which are appreciated but aren't all that helpful. There might be some forum out there where deeper interaction happens, but so far, I haven't found it. So I decided if I'm not getting extended feedback, I might as well get rid of other things such as format and compression restrictions. Everything posted here is displayed exactly as I want it. No need to compromise.

In the end, the biggest lesson learned is that regardless of standard rules or conventions, the end result is all that matters. Obviously, the rules are time tested and exist for a reason. But after all the effort of taking and editing a photo, if you can view your work with some level of satisfaction, that might be the most important thing anyone can have.

For now, I'm still happy with the current project direction of learning photography.

Tags: Photography

By Ian Hollidae, 2025/08/28

A number of years ago, before I started a beginners photography project, I made a far less organized attempt at taking pictures. Shortly after Flickr became popular, I bought a FujiFilm S3000 (FinePix) point and shoot. I knew absolutely nothing about photography. And since there wasn't a wealth of photography information at the time, learning was slow. Although I enjoyed myself, the effort eventually fizzled.

Fast forward to 2025 and I'm buying a USB to USB-C converter for my MacBook to use some old thumb drives. It occurred to me that my old camera connector was USB. But where was the cable? Fortunately, it was neatly coiled up in storage.

Obviously, while going through the old photos, I found that most shots were useless. But there were a few close and could-have-been shots as well. I remember taking this one. It was a street side restaurant with a glass enclosed patio. I even remembered the original title, so I used it for this post.

In the end, it was good to look back and gain a new perspective on current photography efforts.

Photo Only

This post is a continuation of the Beginners Photography Project.

Tags: Feature Photos