One feller's views on the state of everyday computer science & its application (and now, OTHER STUFF) who isn't rich enough to shell out for www.myfreakinfirst-andlast-name.com
Using 89% of the same design the blog had in 2001.
FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY!!!
Back-up your data and, when you bike,
always wear white.
Developers in my direct experience have too long been nailed to the cross of an inhouse 'programming language' written by some pompous lawn troll who didn't bother to learn theory.
Mac OS X only: If you don't want to install a whole other piece of software to see today's date in your menubar, you can add it manually in System Preferences.
Wow. I recently got my stereo out of storage, where it'd sat for years on years. I'm not sure my speakers are what they once were, and my EQ still hasn't shown up, but I did get enough together to try out my iPod blasting through the amp & speakers.
Ouch. Wow. Bad.
I'd convinced myself that the 110 disc CD player I'd purchased about a decade ago was wasted money. Now I believe the music I've purchased at 256 kbs from Amazon and Apple were burned dollars.
So though I don't think I ever wrote it, I've often thought I didn't have a good enough ear to really tell the difference between 192 kbs and CDs, and that I had good enough backups of my collection on my Macs. Not true. My apologies for so much as thinking such blasphemy. Wow. I think I'm going to be buying Before the Frost on vinyl.
Last week a few Kindle owners awoke to discover that the company had reached into their devices and remotely removed copies of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm. ... Someone uploaded bootlegged copies using the Kindle Store's self-publishing system, and Amazon was only trying to look after publishers' intellectual property. The Orwell incident was too rich with irony to escape criticism, however. ... The worst thing about this story isn't Amazon's conduct; it's the company's technical capabilities. ... As our media libraries get converted to 1's and 0's, we are at risk of losing what we take for granted today: full ownership of our book and music and movie collections.
This is one reason I've liked Apple's stance of putting zeroes and ones in your pocket, even if they're DRM'd. I've been POed more than once when my iBook has refused to play Between the Buttons because I wasn't connected to the iTMS, but there are enough apps out there that can removed the DRM that I'm not quite so worried.
And in any event, I was able to back the things up. What this argues against is buying items to run on a closed box like the Kindle. I don't see eReader being able to do the same thing, eg.
posted by ruffin
at 7/28/2009 10:38:00 PM
We cannot allow our government to neglect our municipal water supply and encourage the privatization of water by enabling multinational corporations to drain our aquifers...
The era of Google as a trusted, 'non-evil' startup whose actions are automatically assumed to be benevolent is over.
... Today, protestations of 'but it's open source!' are being used to paper over real concerns about data ownership, and the truth is that open code doesn't necessarily imply that average users are in control.
But at a practical level, how well will this actually work? Is it feasible to use Chrome OS as your sole computer?... In short, will Chrome OS pass the dog food test: is it something Google’s own engineers will want to use?
I’m skeptical about the prospects of any new system or product that isn’t intended for use by the people creating it. Gmail, for example, is the best web mail system because it was designed to be used not just by “typical” users but by expert users, including the engineers at Google who made it....
Make something intended not for your own use, but for use by dummies, and you’ll usually wind up creating something dumb. The future of computing probably is in the direction of thin clients connecting to network services for storage and software, but my hunch is that Chrome OS is too thin.
Okay, long quote, but I've got to wonder what he's thinking here. Chrome is supposed to be for computers somewhere between desktops and PDAs, and honestly, how much do I do can't be done in a browser? More importantly, how much can I do that Google wouldn't rather I do in a browser?
Our old friend, Joel Spolsky, talks a bit about commoditizing the OS on joelonsoftware.com, and it's exactly what Netscape originally intended to do. A large reason why Netscape didn't work out is that Microsoft took this OS within an OS very seriously. They killed it.
Gmail, Google Reader, Google Docs, Google Talk -- most anything short of programming happens on Google within Google pages. And if the boot time is significantly reduced, all the better. How often am I outside of my browser? I use Thunderbird, iChat/Pidgin, and iCal, but how much of that suffers much moving to the browser? Other things like iMovie and iPhoto or Picasa might have online Google versions in progress now. With Gears, I assume it's happening.
So fast forward another year and a half, and that's if Google ships on time, and assume more moves into the browser, not less. Netscape had a great idea with Navigator, and it looks like Google wants to leverage Linux to make good on that promise.
Btw, Gruber's comparison of Linux to Windows seems spot on.
So I think Gnome and KDE are stuck with a problem similar to the uncanny valley.
If you're always
almost
Windows, why would anyone switch? It's just bizarro world. The reason Linux hasn't ever won the desktop isn't because of Linux, but because of its windows managers. Seriously, you think Apple wouldn't release iTunes for Linux if it had 15-20% marketshare? I can't imagine a few entertainment apps are stopping Linux' proverbial ascension.
posted by ruffin
at 7/10/2009 12:14:00 PM
For months now, Netflix hasn't so much as ventured a recommendation -- or, if it has, they have been few and quickly dismissed. This despite my having rated 444 movies. Seriously? You've got nuttin? If I've got Bloodrayne on my list, isn't it likely I'll watch anything? Maybe my queue's long enough and my plan sorry enough they don't feel they need to entice me into using Netflix more. Still, I'd expect recommendations and an upsell.
In other news, I'm at least temporarily tired of blogging about much of anything, really really like what I've seen of Paintbrush for OS X (which does what Seashore should have done for OS X: provide a Paint replacement), and believe that Ogg Theora will eventually be used more for commercials than anything else.
That's right, the new built-in video codec in Firefox will be used to ensure everyone in that browser sees what are now Flash adverts without a hitch. Until bandwidth costs < licensing, I'm not sure why anyone would walk away from what's already on the scene -- Flash, Silverlight, h.264. In fact, Apple's serving the h.264 Kool Aid as quickly as possible, putting hardware support into every consumer Mac it makes in addition to the iPhone.
I'd like to see Theora do to video what png did for images on the net. Still, the only place they make sense -- file size is small enough and the desire to get the message out there more pull than push -- is advertisements, and even then only for adverts being pushed to folk with Firefox browser strings.
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