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First Episode of NerdTV Released

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the hope-they-are-ready-for-nerd-traffic dept.

kurosawdust writes "The first ever episode of Robert Cringely's long-awaited NerdTV is now available for download. This episode features Andy Hertzfeld, member of the original Macintosh team who always has a few good stories to tell. Episode 1 is available in MP4 Video (whole episode and smaller-sized snippets) MP3, Ogg, AAC, and good old-fashioned text transcript (for those of you who watch your TV in vi, like God intended). NerdTV is released under the Creative Commons license."

15 of 165 comments (clear)

  1. He seems to dislike WindowsCE by ReformedExCon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    One of his quotes is that he would feel very uneasy riding in an airplane where WindowsCE was controlling the cabin pressure. I realize that he is a diehard anti-Microsoft person, as his long history with Apple and recent history with Open Source suggests, but I wonder if he is taking his gut feeling about the company and judging the technical worth of its products sight unseen.

    I'm no fan of WindowsCE. I think that it has a lot of warts, though these have been smoothed over in recent releases as Microsoft seems to be moving away from "it's just like Windows!" and more towards a real embedded OS. But it's still pretty slow in scheduling ISRs and requires a fair bit of fiddling to get power management working correctly in the drivers. But all-in-all it isn't a bad system. It's not prone to crashes any more than any other embedded system is, and it's much more resistant to crashes than desktop Windows is.

    For something as straightforward as cabin pressure and lights in an airplane, something like WindowsCE is actually pretty easy to implement and use. I, for one, wouldn't worry a bit about it running such systems.

    --
    Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
    1. Re:He seems to dislike WindowsCE by gowen · · Score: 4, Insightful
      It's not prone to crashes any more than any other embedded system is
      That's just crap. It's about as stable as many other multi-purpose, palm-top OS... but none of those are good enough either.

      If something's keeping me alive, I want something with extremely high-reliability, near hard realtime performance, coded in a language that's as errorproof as possible in language design (Ada, perhaps) and preferably that's been proven bugfree.

      Windows CE is "good enough" for many many tasks. Life critical tasks are not among them.
      --
      Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
    2. Re:He seems to dislike WindowsCE by metamatic · · Score: 5, Interesting
      --
      Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.

      Why do I need saving from your past?

      --
      GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
  2. Java applet doesn't need a plugin? by l_bratch · · Score: 5, Funny

    Still in development but coming soon is a Mediaframe Open Source Java applet player, which will play NerdTV video right in your browser without any plug-ins.

    Incredible how that works - I usually need to use a Java plugin to view Java applets in my browser.

  3. No Torrent? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I checked the site and couldn't find a .torrent file (at least in an obvious place). This surprised me greatly.

    Nerds (geeks) + Creative Commons = Perfect Opportunity for a Torrent.

    Is there a problem with mainstream adoption of .torrents? It would seem to me that bittorrent should be the FIRST option for distribution of this kind of content.

    I had a similar experience downloading Ubuntu Linux. There was a torrent file available but I had to hunt (briefly) for it. Shouldn't these kind of projects capitalize on the cheap bandwidth for their free content?

    1. Re:No Torrent? by lga · · Score: 5, Informative

      Bob mentioned bittorrent when he talked about NerdTV in July. He explained that people downloading NerdTV via bittorrent would only seed the last one or two episodes, and that he would instead build a distributed network similar to Akamai.

      From the article: "so the real heavy lifting for NerdTV will be done through a network of distributed servers I've created as a kind of "poor man's Akamai." My distribution cost using this system, by the way, works out to be approximately ONE PERCENT of Akamai's retail price, which shows how much profit there is in that business, or should be."

      --
      A latent existence
    2. Re:No Torrent? by whathappenedtomonday · · Score: 4, Insightful
      "poor man's Akamai."

      ...is giving me 6.7kbyte/s..no, 5.4...no...5.1 and falling.

      people...would only seed the last one or two episodes

      huh?! he could seed the missing files himself or only offer older episodes as direct download. nerds...

      --
      I hope I didn't brain my damage.
  4. Below expectations by NamShubCMX · · Score: 4, Informative
    The interview is really interesting but I was somewhat disappointed by the "TV" part.

    It could really well be NerdRadio, since there is absolutely nothing happening on the screen but that guy's lips moving.
    For +1h.

    Save your bandwidth and get the Ogg audio version.

    --
    We've always been at war with Eurasia.
  5. watch your TV in vi, like God intended by smittyoneeach · · Score: 5, Funny

    I feel your research into the topic of editor theology may be incomplete.

    --
    Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
  6. Autobots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Episode 1 is available in MP4 Video

    Heh. I can only imagine what the MPAA's autobots are making out of that comment...

    1. Re:Autobots by Quarters · · Score: 4, Funny

      The Autobots are the good guys. The MPAA would employ Decepticons.

  7. Interactive TV by martalli · · Score: 5, Funny
    A little correction for the original poster. vi is interactive TV. If you just want to watch TV, I suggest less.

    Bryan
    "less is more, but less is better"

    --
    Building a healthy future; Connecting communities
  8. IPTV on old school TV by phildog · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've been watching more and more IPTV stuff these days--Rocketboom, NerdTV, systm, homestarrunner, etc. Can anyone recommend a good dedicated piece of hardware for watching IPTV stuff on a real TV?

    Bonus points if HDTV support is baked in.

    But the biggest factor is it has to pass the "wife test". The UI should be simple and intuitive.

    Does such a product exist? The Pinnacle Showcenter 200 and D-Link Wireless Media player sound close, but I worry about the usability factor.

    From what I've heard XBMC is a great solution, but I want something I can actually buy online or in a store somewhere. I'm more into hacking software than hardware these days.

    Thanks!

    --
    slashsearch.org - slashdot search. powered by google.
  9. Bill the used car salesman by SamSeaborn · · Score: 5, Insightful
    he would feel very uneasy riding in an airplane where WindowsCE was controlling the cabin pressure. [...] I wonder if he is taking his gut feeling about the company and judging the technical worth of its products sight unseen.

    A used car salesman has sold you problematic cars for the past 20 years, and he says he finally has a good car to sell you. Are you going to examine the car for "technical worth" or are you going to let your previous experiences with that salesman influence your buying decision?

    Sam

  10. TORRENT by fabs64 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's the official torrent.
    No seeds as yet, hopefully the /. crowd will quickly change that ;-)