So with the Internet "doing away with" so-called Big Media, doesn't that mean any monkey with a webcam ought to be able to "produce" his or her own shows?
If you're sick of the pabulum the networks are shoving down your throats, get out there and make something better!
If Podcasting is "the next big thing", then certainly "Vidcasting" (or some such) has to be right around the corner.
We need to lower the barrier to entry.
Why is it that TV should come from the "Studios"? (Why is it Music has to come from the Record Labels?)
We should encourage every broadcast enthusiast to get out there and start producing content. Some "hobbyists" will eventually hone their craft to create some fantastic work. That's how all good film students get started...
Sure, 99% of it will look like an Open Access cable network, but when the remaining 1% is good, it will be Very Very Good -- footage from war-torn nations; independent interviews with local officials; an inner-city youth documenting the struggles of clawing himself out of the ghetto, etc.
"Reality" TV has potential. Fear Factor, The Bachelor, and The Simple Life are *IN NO WAY* based on reality...
Networks start offering *free* cable and/or satellite, as much as you can 'eat', all you have to do is get a 'webcam' installed in your lounge.
Penn Jillette ("Penn and Teller") did a talk where he said, if you study the history of television, programming started going downhill the moment it went from well-written shows that aired once a week (Jack Benny, Milton Berle, e.g.) to nightly "talk shows" (Dick Cavett, Merv Griffen, Johnny Carson) which relied less on writing -- there wasn't time -- and more on off-the-cuff interviews with celebrities.
Then we ended up with Phil Donohue and The People's Court where producers started to replace the [expensive, "difficult"] stars with "regular" people who discussed their problems. (Jerry Springer was the Gen-X version of that.)
At the time of the talk, TRL on MTV was just starting to let people IM messages up over top of the videos. The appeal was that YOU (Yes, YOU!) could be on TV!
Eventually, Penn argued, television "programming" will approach a point where it simply consists of handing out a bunch of mirrors and letting people amuse themselves.
This sounds curiously close to the webcam+cable "dream" of the previous poster...
Never underestimate the power of percussive maintenance.
I concur! Who hasn't had a HDD with a little bit of "stiction" that needed some gentle persuading to spin up?
The old 80MB (With an 'M') Seagate I had on my Amiga 500 (Trumpcard, baybee!) had that problem. While the computer was up and running, all was right with the world, but if I turned it off, I would literally have to whack the hard drive to make it go again. Fittingly, I rested the disk on a paperback copy of the Necronomicon so it wouldn't scratch my desk.
Besides, don't most people hit the monitor? Like the poor CRT had anything to do with the problem!!? People are a lot less likely to hit a LCD flat panel, though...
How come nobody's invented headphones with speakers which face outward?
Like what you're listening to? Want other people to hear it as well? Push a button and go from "personal" mode to "speakerphone" mode.
You'd need some sort of baffle, obviously, to protect your ears from amplified music, but it wouldn't have to be *THAT* loud...
Certainly not as loud as those Gh3tt0 B0yZ in their thud-rumbling six-fours ("Mah music's so loud I gots-ta lean outside mah car just to listens to it!")
A better "JoyNub" [that sounds dirty] would be between the H,J,N keys -- actually put it where my pointer finger already *IS*, rather than make me have to travel way past the 'H'.
Of course, they'd have to make a version for Lefties where it's between the F,G,V, and I'm sure that they don't want to have to manufacture two separate models, which is why it's stuck where it is -- equally inconvenient for everyone. [See.sig]
Another innovation would be putting a scroll wheel between the U,I,J keys (or E,R,D if you're a southpaw).
Try it!
-- "A Good Compromise is when Both Sides are Dissatisfied." Hail Mediocrity!
Mega props to the MobilePC Magazine editors for quoting HHGG:
36. PULSAR QUARTZ DIGITAL WATCH, 1972
[...] While its marketers may have been exaggerating when they called this a "time computer," we still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.
If you RTFA (or Hear it on the Radio, as the case may be) you'd know that the NPR piece claimed "Forbidden Planet" as the first FEATURE LENGTH MOVIE to feature an all-electronic score.
As others have, and will continue to point out, electronic music is as old as electronics itself.
(Of course, determining what you call "music" is still very subjective...)
It's interesting to me that IBM would feel pressured to "play catch up" against HP (Should we expect one from Sun next month?) Obviously both companies have been percolating SOME sort of "Killer App" Grid Initiative for some time now. Perhaps the Grid Wars are finally starting to heat up!
(The name "World Community Grid" DOES sound like a blatant copy of "Global Grid Exchange", IMHO. C'mon guys! Be original!)
It's my understanding that because the Global Grid Exchange is bytecode-based (Java) they will support Linux as well as Windows (and eventually OS X.) Also, researchers will be able to write their OWN applications to run on the Grid, rather than limiting themselves to Proteome Folding.
Imagine that -- a researcher on a Windows box will be able to write a program which could be run on a Linux box (or, I'll go ahead and say it, a Beowolf Cluster) all without the programmer having to know -- OR CARE!
For that reason alone, IBM's offering seems like "Too Little, Too Late".
VAIO Laptops Unsupported :-(
on
Firewire and Linux?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
As a proud owner of a Sony Vaio laptop, it saddens me to see that, from the linux1394 homepage, "Not [emphasis theirs] supported are the proprietary Sony chipset found in various Vaio systems". Thus I continue to have to dual-boot
into Windows, rip to HDD, and mount the underlying
VFAT FS under Linux.
I don't agree with changing the form factor -- yeah, being able to fit "about" the same amount of data as a CD onto something one-twenty-fifth the
size is cool and all, but can you imagine having to sort through a pile of these while you're driving?
I think the CD's size has become a pretty de facto form factor -- I'm convinced that part of DVD's success has been because people feel comfortable picking up a 5" disc (certainly laserdiscs were too bulky to become popular) *AND*, you can build players that accept both media without having to hack any additional logic into it.
I say keep trying to pack more and more information into the same size. It'll sell better because people have already accepted that size, whether they even realize it or not.
xterm and Eterm allow you to change their title and icon strings via escape sequences:
if [ "$TERM" = xterm ]; then
export
PS1="\[\033]2;\u@\h \w\007\033]1;\h\007\]\u@\h:\w> "
else
export PS1="\u@\h:\w> "
fi
I actually do a lot more, like putting "jobs | grep -c Stopped" in curly braces at the beginning,
and if I'm running under "screen" I put the $STY variable in square brackets, and if I'm root
I change the ">" to a "#", etc.
For my be-all end-all.bashrc (hopefully this will
be informative), check out:
Slashdot Mirror
So with the Internet "doing away with" so-called Big Media, doesn't that mean any monkey with a webcam ought to be able to "produce" his or her own shows?
If you're sick of the pabulum the networks are shoving down your throats, get out there and make something better!
If Podcasting is "the next big thing", then certainly "Vidcasting" (or some such) has to be right around the corner.
We need to lower the barrier to entry.
Why is it that TV should come from the "Studios"? (Why is it Music has to come from the Record Labels?)
We should encourage every broadcast enthusiast to get out there and start producing content. Some "hobbyists" will eventually hone their craft to create some fantastic work. That's how all good film students get started...
Sure, 99% of it will look like an Open Access cable network, but when the remaining 1% is good, it will be Very Very Good -- footage from war-torn nations; independent interviews with local officials; an inner-city youth documenting the struggles of clawing himself out of the ghetto, etc.
"Reality" TV has potential. Fear Factor, The Bachelor, and The Simple Life are *IN NO WAY* based on reality...
I'm not sure I'd mod the parent "Funny"...
Networks start offering *free* cable and/or satellite, as much as you can 'eat', all you have to do is get a 'webcam' installed in your lounge.
Penn Jillette ("Penn and Teller") did a talk where he said, if you study the history of television, programming started going downhill the moment it went from well-written shows that aired once a week (Jack Benny, Milton Berle, e.g.) to nightly "talk shows" (Dick Cavett, Merv Griffen, Johnny Carson) which relied less on writing -- there wasn't time -- and more on off-the-cuff interviews with celebrities.
Then we ended up with Phil Donohue and The People's Court where producers started to replace the [expensive, "difficult"] stars with "regular" people who discussed their problems. (Jerry Springer was the Gen-X version of that.)
At the time of the talk, TRL on MTV was just starting to let people IM messages up over top of the videos. The appeal was that YOU (Yes, YOU!) could be on TV!
Eventually, Penn argued, television "programming" will approach a point where it simply consists of handing out a bunch of mirrors and letting people amuse themselves.
This sounds curiously close to the webcam+cable "dream" of the previous poster...
Never underestimate the power of percussive maintenance.
I concur! Who hasn't had a HDD with a little bit of "stiction" that needed some gentle persuading to spin up?
The old 80MB (With an 'M') Seagate I had on my Amiga 500 (Trumpcard, baybee!) had that problem. While the computer was up and running, all was right with the world, but if I turned it off, I would literally have to whack the hard drive to make it go again. Fittingly, I rested the disk on a paperback copy of the Necronomicon so it wouldn't scratch my desk.
Besides, don't most people hit the monitor? Like the poor CRT had anything to do with the problem!!? People are a lot less likely to hit a LCD flat panel, though...
Better yet, start a company that assembles MythTV boxes and SELL one to your sister.
Hooray for competition! Capitalism rules!
How come nobody's invented headphones with speakers which face outward?
Like what you're listening to? Want other people to hear it as well? Push a button and go from "personal" mode to "speakerphone" mode.
You'd need some sort of baffle, obviously, to protect your ears from amplified music, but it wouldn't have to be *THAT* loud...
Certainly not as loud as those Gh3tt0 B0yZ in their thud-rumbling six-fours ("Mah music's so loud I gots-ta lean outside mah car just to listens to it!")
A better "JoyNub" [that sounds dirty] would be between the H,J,N keys -- actually put it where my pointer finger already *IS*, rather than make me have to travel way past the 'H'.
.sig]
Of course, they'd have to make a version for Lefties where it's between the F,G,V, and I'm sure that they don't want to have to manufacture two separate models, which is why it's stuck where it is -- equally inconvenient for everyone. [See
Another innovation would be putting a scroll wheel between the U,I,J keys (or E,R,D if you're a southpaw).
Try it!
--
"A Good Compromise is when Both Sides are Dissatisfied." Hail Mediocrity!
36. PULSAR QUARTZ DIGITAL WATCH, 1972
[...] While its marketers may have been exaggerating when they called this a "time computer," we still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.
As others have, and will continue to point out, electronic music is as old as electronics itself.
(Of course, determining what you call "music" is still very subjective...)
Also, the Global Grid Exchange client runs in a secure Java sandbox, so there's no fear of being 0wned by malicious code.
A couple weeks ago, HP had a press release announcing the "Global Grid Exchange":
http://www.globalgridexchange.com/
It's interesting to me that IBM would feel pressured to "play catch up" against HP (Should we expect one from Sun next month?) Obviously both companies have been percolating SOME sort of "Killer App" Grid Initiative for some time now. Perhaps the Grid Wars are finally starting to heat up!
(The name "World Community Grid" DOES sound like a blatant copy of "Global Grid Exchange", IMHO. C'mon guys! Be original!)
It's my understanding that because the Global Grid Exchange is bytecode-based (Java) they will support Linux as well as Windows (and eventually OS X.) Also, researchers will be able to write their OWN applications to run on the Grid, rather than limiting themselves to Proteome Folding.
Imagine that -- a researcher on a Windows box will be able to write a program which could be run on a Linux box (or, I'll go ahead and say it, a Beowolf Cluster) all without the programmer having to know -- OR CARE!
For that reason alone, IBM's offering seems like "Too Little, Too Late".
Kinda klunky, to say the least...
Dabe
I don't agree with changing the form factor -- yeah, being able to fit "about" the same amount of data as a CD onto something one-twenty-fifth the
size is cool and all, but can you imagine having to sort through a pile of these while you're driving?
I think the CD's size has become a pretty de facto form factor -- I'm convinced that part of DVD's success has been because people feel comfortable picking up a 5" disc (certainly laserdiscs were too bulky to become popular) *AND*, you can build players that accept both media without having to hack any additional logic into it.
I say keep trying to pack more and more information into the same size. It'll sell better because people have already accepted that size, whether they even realize it or not.
I actually do a lot more, like putting "jobs | grep -c Stopped" in curly braces at the beginning,
and if I'm running under "screen" I put the $STY variable in square brackets, and if I'm root
I change the ">" to a "#", etc.
For my be-all end-all .bashrc (hopefully this will
be informative), check out:
--
Dabe