It's not often that I voice a core belief...

...but a conversation with a friend on IM made me realize... well, made me solidify a realization I had ages back, regarding what the internet is truly accomplishing.

Unlike all the ads claiming it on the radio and what-not, the internet is truly removing the middle-man from artistic endeavors. More than anything else, it's proving that Information wants to be free! is missing one very important seven-letter word. Flowing. Information wants to be free flowing! is vastly more accurate, I believe. Middle-men, steps between final creation and final consumption of a product, are obstacles to that free flow.

Removing those middle-men and allowing for things like hundreds of fans to pay an artist to continue a small work, up to hundreds of thousands of artists getting a studio to continue producing a beloved series, are both examples of what the internet is allowing for today. The free flow of information. Not without cost, but without obstacles of time or distance.

Okay... I have to give USBank credit where it's deserved...

...due to mistakes either on their hardware (power failure WHILE the ATM was vending my money caused the emergency-safety 'suck everything in and spit out any cards inside' mechanism to activate) and other vendors (double charged for a CD purchase and later the same day at a chinese place) I've racked up a total of six overdraft charges over the last three weeks.

All of them have been refunded within' a couple of days, no muss, no fuss.

Also, got most of my LJ layout's "comment reply" page finished now. Need to start working on the archive/daily/weekly/monthly views next, and then go through and implement the Plus-level ad-display code properly.

Then comes the really hard part by comparison, actually making things customizable including placement options. To start, I'll be making three themes, mine, the one I'm doing for luxari while she's stuck on Restriction (yes, I know she can see this, it's not a surprise, and I don't even know if she'd want to use it) and one other I think would look nice.