My favorite was the time I (as pasty a whiteboy as you can find) went to a local Radio Slack to make a cash purchase. Approaching the counter I braced myself for the usual questioning. But this time the clerk barked "your phone number" in such a sneering tone that I threw out my normal, polite explanation of why I don't like to give out unneeded information.
salesdroid: Your phone number!
me: 912-555-1212
salesdroid: Last name!
me: Jackson
salesdroid: First name!
me: Janet
(long pause)
salesdroid: Well if you didn't want to give it out you should have said so!
me: (thinking of the attitude they usually cop when I tell them no) Here, why don't you just put this back on the shelf for me? (exit stage right)
They probably just stopped the interrogation because it took up time better spent hawking cell 'phones. Fuck 'em.
I don't know how it is on them new-fangled grey & silvery lookin' Macs but on this here beige G3/233 (o/c'ed to 266, w00t!) OSX requires some patience to use. In unexpected ways, too. Illustrator 8 in Classic runs quickly and crisply while Illustrator 10 in OSX feels like jogging underwater. Overall the experience reminds me of my 8100/100AV running MacOS7.5.5 with too many extensions and not enough RAM.
I had been thinking in terms of OSX/classic or WINE-ish solutions but incorporating VM capability into the OS? That would rock.
While it might be nice for the new user to have Windows apps seem to run in the OSX environment, VMs would add a lot of value for everyone, from newbie to ubergeek. Like you said, it would be easier for Apple (and, I imagine, the owner) to make VMs work. And hopefully networking the VMs and the host would be easier with Rendezvouz than with Samba!
Hello, Apple, are you listening? Until you do something this cool, I'm hanging onto my beige G3.
I am not saying that x86 Apple boxes are necessarily a good idea, so I'm not going to argue the merits of it. But I just had an idea of how they could do it and give everyone a fairly smooth transition onto the platform.
As has been said elsewhere, (and IMO) Apple x86 boxes should be the only ones that can run OSX. But does that have to mean that they could not run other x86 software? What if OSX/x86 came with something that I'm going to tentatively call xClassic86?
Imagine something like a dual P4/2Ghz built in the style of what next year's G4s would look like. If a Windows user bought one they could get the warm, fuzzy Apple experience but install and use the software they already own in xClassic86. It seems like the switch campaign would be even more successful if the Windows crowd didn't have to immediately shelve all the software that they paid for or culled from free/share-ware sites.
Between OSX's BSD underpinnings and xClassic86, it should be even easier for a *nix user to switch to this box. And with 2 2Ghz procs under the hood, xClassic86 might even run hardware emulation fast enough to run MacOS9 and OSX/PPC apps acceptably well.
Would xClassic86 be a bitch to program and buggy to its last day on Earth? Probably. But if it gives prospective buyers the assurance that they can use familiar softare from day one, and if it gives developers a year or two to make the switch, then it might be enough to give OSX/x86 boxes a foothold in the market.
Omnivore (10.3) could follow Jaguar, then by 10.4 or 10.5 enough native OSX apps should be on the market to allow phasing out of xClassic86 if it does turn out to be an ungodly ball of cruft. And if they can get it smoothed out and running cleanly, then even better: OSX/x86 can be the universal computer. Instead of the old "Write Once, Run Anywhere" this Mac could say "Write Anywhere, Run Right Here!"
In my (completely unsupported by objective facts or first hand knowledge) opinion, the current fervor about Iraq must be some sort of smokescreen. Maybe it is to cloak the US's real plans for the Middle East.
Maybe the situation in Afghanistan is falling apart and Bush wants to keep our attention away from there. If he keeps the media focused on Iraq, they will keep Americans focused on Iraq. Maybe its something much more sinister, or much more inept.
All I know is that it feels like we're having a war marketed to us - as though it was an upcoming movie or new line of car. Usually wars are fought for more clearly compelling reasons than...
dramatic music
He was evil in 1991
dramatic music
Now he is part of the Axis of Evil(TM)
dramatic music
See Tex Bush put Saddam Hussein in his place in
crescendo
DESERT STORM, THE SEQUEL
BTW, just out of curiosity, can you name any specific instances of the WTC being edited out of movies or TV shows? I heard it might happen, and other parts of the NYC skyline have been getting more attention than they used to. But I have not yet noticed any scenes where the towers were actually edited out.
"Sure, you could say it's their fault for having an outdated business model, but there's a problem: these sources are where A LOT of the content for your PVR comes from. If they die, there's nothing for your PVR to record."
So now that viewers have found a way around the tedious mindfuck that is TV advertisement, maybe broadcast TV will finally die a natural death. Hopefully it will do so before we're all forced to
buy HDTV enabled sets.
And honestly, who cares? There is so much else out there to do now. You can reclaim that TV time (books, family, friends, projects, sleep) or waste it even more pleasantly (DVDs, video games, online chat clients, the web, mp3 hunting, sleep).
Don't get me wrong - I'm no "TV is evil; unplugging it will cure all your problems" preacher. But if making broadcast TV tolerable to watch is what kills it - doesn't that mean its been doomed all along? And to put broadcast TV on life support just to keep your TiVO out of the attic for a few more months? Be real. That's like protesting the overall shift to CDs - so that AOL will keep sending you free, easy to reformat floppy discs!
On primary sources & predictions
on
Dystopic Novels?
·
· Score: 1
We can't forget Thomas More's Utopia as starting point when reading dystopic literature. (you say U-topia, I say dys-topia...)
For a "Bleak Future of the Wired Society Told Before the Internet Even Existed" dystopia, find a copy of E.M.Forster's short story The Machine Stops.
Orphans of the Sky by Robert Heinlein is an interesting "mystics vs. scientists and humans vs. mutants on an interstellar lifeboat from Earth" sort of tale.
And for a glimpse of an upcoming dystopia, or to do your part to help form it, just go to the Citizen Corps site.
I agree with BitGeek; Atlas Shrugged is an excellent read. But if you want a sample of Ayn Rand's work that includes a dystopic ending and is a little easier on your schedule (AS is like taking on a part time job) try We the Living. It is a semi-autobiography set in Russia immediately after the Communist Revolution. It makes 1984 look an amusement park.
An even shorter read is Anthem, though it does have slightly more optimistic ending.
On the other hand, if processors and programming keep pace with your projections of HDD and DVD-R advances, maybe future historians will have some way of dealing with the deluge of raw data. Maybe a virtual assistant like the ones in Snowcrash*
I hope that in a thousand years they'll have something even better than google.
*by Neal Stephenson. If you hasven't read it yet, run -don't walk- to a book store now!
Yeah, they should protect their assets as well as they can, but there are several things wrong with approach:
1) There had damn well better be big, bold print at the checkout desk, on the contract and hopefully on the sun visor in the car telling me that I am under surveillance while in their car.
2) I don't like the idea of private companies enforcing and having their own penalties for civil laws. If I'm speeding and and get pulled over, that's between me and the local traffic court. If I'm speeding and I wreck, a) that's why I got insurance, b) I will still have to answer to local authorities and c) so bar me from renting cars from your company; I'll understand.
3) There are local conditions that a backroom beancounter won't understand. For example, imagine this conversation:
Clerk: "Your readout shows that you were going 69 miles per hour in an area marked with a limit of 55mph. We're going to fine you for it." Me: "Yeah, but that was on (insert highway name) at 4pm on a Friday....." Clerk: "Yes, that's right 4pm on Friday. And we're going to fine you for exceeding the posted speed limit." Me: "Have you ever driven through there at that time?" Clerk: "Nope." Me: "Well, the left lane and middle lanes were doing about 80. I was just trying to get to my exit before the line of eighteen-wheelers behind me crawled up my ass!" Clerk: "Oh. Well, the fine will be noted on your credit card bill as.." Me: "Did you hear me? Do you want me and your car to be road pizza because XYZ Rentals expects their customers to be the only people on the road who actually drive the limit on that stretch? Where in the contract does it say that we're are supposed to be suicidal?!" Clerk: "Here's the 1-800 customer service number. The computer voice will guide you right to the person you need to talk to. They may be able to refund the fine in a few weeks. Have a nice day" (vapid smile)
This is just another fabulous technological solution in search of a problem.
Golly! You mean a _submarine_ movie sucked?!
on
Review: U-571
·
· Score: 1
In other news, studies show that some "hacker" movies contain innaccuracies.
From the perspective of technical accuracy, historical plausability and overall believability, Crimson Tide sucked. Hunt for Red October sucked. And that travesty whose name escapes me but it had Kelsey Grammer (sp?) in it sucked. And so on.
With the single exception of Das Boot, submarine movies are made by Hollywood candy-asses who appear to do all their tech research on the 'submarine' ride in Disney Land, who couldn't tell an MBT blow valve from the wardroom crapper, and who probably would put a deck gun on a Los Angeles class boat if they thought it would help the plot.
Big freakin' whoop. The only suprising thing is that we are talking about it here and now. But since we're digging up old grudges here, maybe this is the time for me to finally write an impassioned article about how IE's unfair victory over Netscape really pisses me off....................or maybe not.
For what its worth, if it wasn't for/. I wouldn't've known about the WTC & Pentagon attacks until nine or ten hours after the fact. I was about to go into my workshop (no radio, only CDs), probably until dinner & the 6 o'clock news, when I thought, "let's see whats on/.", and I saw the first post. After about 5min of scrolling down and looking for the punchline or the gotcha, I finally turned on the TV.
It would not have seemed real if I'd only seen it on TV and it would not have seemed real if I'd only read about it on the 'net. Slashdot and ABCnews were like coffee and doughnuts that day - great on their own but even better when taken together.
Pearl Harbor? I wish it was that easy.
on
Our New Pearl Harbor
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
At least the aftermath of Pearl Harbor was easy to grasp and propose solutions for: Japanese national forces attacked American national assets, so the US government sent forces to pound Japan into submission. But we do not have a common enemy to unify against and revile. We do not have an island or a country at which to direct our anger and our weapons.
We weren't attacked by a known enemy. It is more like being mugged and beaten in broad daylight, and not even getting a look at the bastard. And to top it, everyone around you acts as though they didn't see a thing. And this is on a previoiusly unimaginable scale.
So what do we do? Years of painstaking detective work resulting in a trial in the Hague? Anticlimactic and unsatisfying. Nuke the entire Middle East into one big godforsaken glass parking lot? Very satisfying. And it would probably solve the question of Jerusalem by making it uninhabitable for tens of thousands of years. But its a stupid, knee-jerk idea. Don't forget all the cries of "Islamic fundamentalist terrorism" immediately after OKC. Invasion and occupation? Volleys of cruise missles? Impractical and expensive, not to mention where and against who?
Right now it would be a relief to go down to the recruiting office and say "I wanna go kill me some fuckin' (insert demographic), sir" But all I could do was drop off a pint at the bloodbank and stare at Peter Jennings and the Talking Head Band all day.
btw, i do not mean to criticize Jon Katz, just the comparison to Pearl Harbor. He's not the first or only one to mention it - he just gave me an opening to bring it up. I sincerely hope he (and all concerned) finds his people alive and well.
Industrial designers are coming up with some bizarre ways of using all this new technlogy. In my ID studio class we're trying to come up with wireless gizmo ideas to enter in a Motorolla competition. One guy came up with a bluetooth enabled PDA in the form of an origami frog. The frog is made of either MIT's electronic paper or one of the new light emitting polymers. Yeah, it sounds unlikely but who in say, 1974 would've believed the PalmIIIx's LCD display possible?
The "iMac-ification" of the Palms tells me that everyone who wanted/needed a Palm for what it is has one.
Since 3com needs to keep selling Palms, they have 2 choices: come out with, say, PalmIX and make it so much better than III/V/VII that the current users run out and buy one OR they can put the current Palms into pretty boxes so all the people who like to buy pretty things & who've been curious about all those funny grey boxes that other people peer & write into will buy one.
In other words, great effort for uncertain gain vs. little effort for considerable gain. I'm not saying that nontechnophiles have more money, just that there's more of them to get money from if you know how to attract their attention.
Slashdot Mirror
salesdroid: Your phone number!
me: 912-555-1212
salesdroid: Last name!
me: Jackson
salesdroid: First name!
me: Janet
(long pause)
salesdroid: Well if you didn't want to give it out you should have said so!
me: (thinking of the attitude they usually cop when I tell them no) Here, why don't you just put this back on the shelf for me? (exit stage right)
They probably just stopped the interrogation because it took up time better spent hawking cell 'phones. Fuck 'em.
While it might be nice for the new user to have Windows apps seem to run in the OSX environment, VMs would add a lot of value for everyone, from newbie to ubergeek. Like you said, it would be easier for Apple (and, I imagine, the owner) to make VMs work. And hopefully networking the VMs and the host would be easier with Rendezvouz than with Samba!
Hello, Apple, are you listening? Until you do something this cool, I'm hanging onto my beige G3.
As has been said elsewhere, (and IMO) Apple x86 boxes should be the only ones that can run OSX. But does that have to mean that they could not run other x86 software? What if OSX/x86 came with something that I'm going to tentatively call xClassic86?
Imagine something like a dual P4/2Ghz built in the style of what next year's G4s would look like. If a Windows user bought one they could get the warm, fuzzy Apple experience but install and use the software they already own in xClassic86. It seems like the switch campaign would be even more successful if the Windows crowd didn't have to immediately shelve all the software that they paid for or culled from free/share-ware sites.
Between OSX's BSD underpinnings and xClassic86, it should be even easier for a *nix user to switch to this box. And with 2 2Ghz procs under the hood, xClassic86 might even run hardware emulation fast enough to run MacOS9 and OSX/PPC apps acceptably well.
Would xClassic86 be a bitch to program and buggy to its last day on Earth? Probably. But if it gives prospective buyers the assurance that they can use familiar softare from day one, and if it gives developers a year or two to make the switch, then it might be enough to give OSX/x86 boxes a foothold in the market.
Omnivore (10.3) could follow Jaguar, then by 10.4 or 10.5 enough native OSX apps should be on the market to allow phasing out of xClassic86 if it does turn out to be an ungodly ball of cruft. And if they can get it smoothed out and running cleanly, then even better: OSX/x86 can be the universal computer. Instead of the old "Write Once, Run Anywhere" this Mac could say "Write Anywhere, Run Right Here!"
Just a thought. What do you folks think?
Maybe the situation in Afghanistan is falling apart and Bush wants to keep our attention away from there. If he keeps the media focused on Iraq, they will keep Americans focused on Iraq. Maybe its something much more sinister, or much more inept.
All I know is that it feels like we're having a war marketed to us - as though it was an upcoming movie or new line of car. Usually wars are fought for more clearly compelling reasons than...
dramatic music
He was evil in 1991
dramatic music
Now he is part of the Axis of Evil(TM)
dramatic music
See Tex Bush put Saddam Hussein in his place in
crescendo
DESERT STORM, THE SEQUEL
BTW, just out of curiosity, can you name any specific instances of the WTC being edited out of movies or TV shows? I heard it might happen, and other parts of the NYC skyline have been getting more attention than they used to. But I have not yet noticed any scenes where the towers were actually edited out.
So now that viewers have found a way around the tedious mindfuck that is TV advertisement, maybe broadcast TV will finally die a natural death. Hopefully it will do so before we're all forced to buy HDTV enabled sets.
And honestly, who cares? There is so much else out there to do now. You can reclaim that TV time (books, family, friends, projects, sleep) or waste it even more pleasantly (DVDs, video games, online chat clients, the web, mp3 hunting, sleep).
Don't get me wrong - I'm no "TV is evil; unplugging it will cure all your problems" preacher. But if making broadcast TV tolerable to watch is what kills it - doesn't that mean its been doomed all along? And to put broadcast TV on life support just to keep your TiVO out of the attic for a few more months? Be real. That's like protesting the overall shift to CDs - so that AOL will keep sending you free, easy to reformat floppy discs!
For a "Bleak Future of the Wired Society Told Before the Internet Even Existed" dystopia, find a copy of E.M.Forster's short story The Machine Stops.
Orphans of the Sky by Robert Heinlein is an interesting "mystics vs. scientists and humans vs. mutants on an interstellar lifeboat from Earth" sort of tale.
And for a glimpse of an upcoming dystopia, or to do your part to help form it, just go to the Citizen Corps site.
An even shorter read is Anthem, though it does have slightly more optimistic ending.
I hope that in a thousand years they'll have something even better than google.
*by Neal Stephenson. If you hasven't read it yet, run -don't walk- to a book store now!
1) There had damn well better be big, bold print at the checkout desk, on the contract and hopefully on the sun visor in the car telling me that I am under surveillance while in their car.
2) I don't like the idea of private companies enforcing and having their own penalties for civil laws. If I'm speeding and and get pulled over, that's between me and the local traffic court. If I'm speeding and I wreck, a) that's why I got insurance, b) I will still have to answer to local authorities and c) so bar me from renting cars from your company; I'll understand.
3) There are local conditions that a backroom beancounter won't understand. For example, imagine this conversation:
Clerk: "Your readout shows that you were going 69 miles per hour in an area marked with a limit of 55mph. We're going to fine you for it." .."
Me: "Yeah, but that was on (insert highway name) at 4pm on a Friday....."
Clerk: "Yes, that's right 4pm on Friday. And we're going to fine you for exceeding the posted speed limit."
Me: "Have you ever driven through there at that time?"
Clerk: "Nope."
Me: "Well, the left lane and middle lanes were doing about 80. I was just trying to get to my exit before the line of eighteen-wheelers behind me crawled up my ass!"
Clerk: "Oh. Well, the fine will be noted on your credit card bill as
Me: "Did you hear me? Do you want me and your car to be road pizza because XYZ Rentals expects their customers to be the only people on the road who actually drive the limit on that stretch? Where in the contract does it say that we're are supposed to be suicidal?!"
Clerk: "Here's the 1-800 customer service number. The computer voice will guide you right to the person you need to talk to. They may be able to refund the fine in a few weeks. Have a nice day" (vapid smile)
This is just another fabulous technological solution in search of a problem.
From the perspective of technical accuracy, historical plausability and overall believability, Crimson Tide sucked. Hunt for Red October sucked. And that travesty whose name escapes me but it had Kelsey Grammer (sp?) in it sucked. And so on.
With the single exception of Das Boot, submarine movies are made by Hollywood candy-asses who appear to do all their tech research on the 'submarine' ride in Disney Land, who couldn't tell an MBT blow valve from the wardroom crapper, and who probably would put a deck gun on a Los Angeles class boat if they thought it would help the plot.
Big freakin' whoop. The only suprising thing is that we are talking about it here and now. But since we're digging up old grudges here, maybe this is the time for me to finally write an impassioned article about how IE's unfair victory over Netscape really pisses me off....................or maybe not.
user: qwerty474, passwd: qwerty
enjoy!
It would not have seemed real if I'd only seen it on TV and it would not have seemed real if I'd only read about it on the 'net. Slashdot and ABCnews were like coffee and doughnuts that day - great on their own but even better when taken together.
At least the aftermath of Pearl Harbor was easy to grasp and propose solutions for: Japanese national forces attacked American national assets, so the US government sent forces to pound Japan into submission. But we do not have a common enemy to unify against and revile. We do not have an island or a country at which to direct our anger and our weapons.
We weren't attacked by a known enemy. It is more like being mugged and beaten in broad daylight, and not even getting a look at the bastard. And to top it, everyone around you acts as though they didn't see a thing. And this is on a previoiusly unimaginable scale.
So what do we do? Years of painstaking detective work resulting in a trial in the Hague? Anticlimactic and unsatisfying. Nuke the entire Middle East into one big godforsaken glass parking lot? Very satisfying. And it would probably solve the question of Jerusalem by making it uninhabitable for tens of thousands of years. But its a stupid, knee-jerk idea. Don't forget all the cries of "Islamic fundamentalist terrorism" immediately after OKC. Invasion and occupation? Volleys of cruise missles? Impractical and expensive, not to mention where and against who?
Right now it would be a relief to go down to the recruiting office and say "I wanna go kill me some fuckin' (insert demographic), sir" But all I could do was drop off a pint at the bloodbank and stare at Peter Jennings and the Talking Head Band all day.
btw, i do not mean to criticize Jon Katz, just the comparison to Pearl Harbor. He's not the first or only one to mention it - he just gave me an opening to bring it up. I sincerely hope he (and all concerned) finds his people alive and well.
Industrial designers are coming up with some bizarre ways of using all this new technlogy. In my ID studio class we're trying to come up with wireless gizmo ideas to enter in a Motorolla competition. One guy came up with a bluetooth enabled PDA in the form of an origami frog. The frog is made of either MIT's electronic paper or one of the new light emitting polymers. Yeah, it sounds unlikely but who in say, 1974 would've believed the PalmIIIx's LCD display possible?
The "iMac-ification" of the Palms tells me that everyone who wanted/needed a Palm for what it is has one.
Since 3com needs to keep selling Palms, they have 2 choices: come out with, say, PalmIX and make it so much better than III/V/VII that the current users run out and buy one OR they can put the current Palms into pretty boxes so all the people who like to buy pretty things & who've been curious about all those funny grey boxes that other people peer & write into will buy one.
In other words, great effort for uncertain gain vs. little effort for considerable gain. I'm not saying that nontechnophiles have more money, just that there's more of them to get money from if you know how to attract their attention.