It's not idealism at all. It's total pragmatism. Any *popular* open source app will have:
- Well commented, maintainable code
- *Some* people in the community with the skills and inclination to maintain it
- Or, *some* people in the community with the money and inclination to pay someone to maintain it
If an OSS app dies on the vine just because its original developer walks away, it must have been really niche.
The main reason OSS fails to find mainstream success except when there's a corporation behind it, is that the commercial alternatives have a marketing budget.
There's a big difference between telling a web site, or an app, where you are at this moment -- which is what the article you link to is about, and what Android/Blackberry do -- and keeping a log of everywhere you've ever been, without telling you.
I don't know how you're missing this. A cloud is a massive cluster of nodes which collaborate to process requests, and can route around failures.
Yes, you can have your own cloud. Amazon's cloud services came about when they realised their private cloud had become big enough that they had capacity to spare.
No, a System/360 is not a cloud. Although, for as long as it's working, it might be indistinguishable from a cloud to the client.
Where does it say they're dropping H.264 from YouTube?
YouTube stores videos in a bunch of formats, and the client negotiates the best format for the current situation. It will keep delivering h.264 to you. It will have the option of delivering WebM to clients that are better at displaying that. Everybody's happy.
Are they transcoding from the original upload materia going back to 2005, or are they transcoding from 240p.flv in many cases?
Presumably, they transcode from the best version they have of any given video. I doubt they've been discarding the original upload for a very long time. Google doesn't treat storage as scarce.
Currently, if I upload an HD video, they transcode it into multiple formats at multiple resolutions; WebM is just another format to add.
Spotify allows you to pick a song and play it -- something which Pandora (last time I tried it) does not. Indeed, I think Pandora's weighted-random personal radio station is a legal hack, so that they're classed as a radio station rather than something else.
Spotify really is like having an iTunes with a vast library.
It was never really free, insofar as it was supported by ads. I'd be interested to know what it is that makes ad-supported Spotify unsustainable, while ad-supported commercial radio continues to be profitable.
If feels to me (I say "feels" because I have no figures) as if the licensing terms for Internet streaming must be unreasonably high in comparison to radio broadcasting.
Or, Spotify hasn't convinced enough advertisers that it's a worthwhile channel.
TFA says it's free (although I expect micropayments come in).
TFA says "your facebook friends won't know the different" in the author's voice, not in a quote from the guy. I'm not sure it will pretend so thoroughly; you'd have to be a complete weirdo to want to deceive all your friends into thinking this virtual girlfriend was real. Surely this business wants to appeal to a wider market than just weirdos?
You make it sound so easy, like "Just go out on a date!". Perhaps it is easy for you, but what if a guy is just told to "F#@k off!" by any girl he approaches. (OK, the polite ones just walk away without saying anything).
They all did that to me in my 20's.
Did you approach strangers, apropos of nothing, and ask them out? I don't think that works for most mere mortals. You really need to have communicated on some other pretext before broaching the idea of a date. Introduced by friends; met at some social/leisure activity; and yes, introduction services.
And even then, a first date should be positioned as nothing more than that -- some time spent together for fun, with no expectations of it leading to more. If it does, great, but if not, you've had fun. (Of course, you might hate each other's company; chalk those up to experience)
Not that I realised any of this in my early 20s either.
Maybe so where you live / with the girls you date.
Here in the UK, in my recent experience -- we're talking mostly middle-class women in their early-mid 30s -- they all expected to split the cost.
Insofar as there's a protocol, it seems to be:
- man offers to pay, woman protests that it should be split, man graciously accepts
- or, man pays in first instance, woman says she'll pay for the next drink / dessert / whatever, man graciously accepts
I can't comprehend WHY this would seem enjoyable for anyone.
Well, people seem to enjoy maintaining a virtual farm -- so why not a virtual girlfriend?
We don't really know what the service will entail -- to what extent it really purports to be a substitute for a real girlfriend; to what extent it disguises the fact that it's not a real person; to what extent it's presented as just a fun game.
There's a worst case scenario -- but I'd be surprised if that's what it is.
I fondly imagine there won't be maintenance headaches (unless it turns out to be something along the lines of Japanese girlfriend-simulator games where the simulated girl's fondness for you depends on what presents you buy her).
The way I read TFA, "she" will pitch in on Facebook etc. as if she was a real girlfriend. "Hey hun, you look hot in this pic" etc.
Monetizing it -- targeted ads, maybe as another poster suggests, virtual gifts -- resulting in more flattering posts on your Facebook wall "Hey gorgeous, thanks for the flowers, I love them".
It'll take some clever balancing to set the right tone. I think it would be best if it was clearly not real -- just a bit of fun. After all, you don't want your real friends to think you're a freak who's been pretending to have a real girlfriend all along. Also, most single people presumably don't want to deter real girls from showing an interest, believing your fake girlfriend to be real.
It's not addressing the same perceived need as porn.
Friends, wives, girlfriends, mistresses, strippers, prostitutes, porn -- some people avail themselves of all, some, or none of them, in every possible combination, because none of them are 1:1 replacements for another.
(This post does not imply approval or disapproval of any of the above)
Based on TFA, they'll be employing real people to put words in the mouths of virtual women. Presumably because they've not got a chat-bot that's convincing enough.
So it's: 1. Dork tells you properties of the pretend woman he wants 2. Facebook profile created for pretend woman (somehow avoiding violating Facebook TOS) 3. Pretend woman becomes a Facebook "friend" of dork 4. Employee, in persona of pretend woman, posts some girlfriend-ish stuff on dork's Facebook wall etc. 5. ???? 6. Profit
(Where ???? presumably entails some targeted advertising etc.)
... and you needn't have. The aim isn't to get the CPU cold. It's just to keep it at operating temperature. Overclocking makes it churn out more heat, which means you need to draw more heat away -- but the point with oil is that it can conduct the heat away more readily. Elsewhere in this thread, it says the system we're talking about here has the oil at 40C. You could have done similar.
The only reason we have to use air con to keep server rooms so cold, is that air is such a bad thermal conductor.
There's also thermal conductivity to consider. Oil may have twice the heat capacity of air, but it will also spread that heat throughout itself much faster.
Air: 0.025 W/(mK) Mineral oil 0.138 W/(mK) Water: 0.6 W/(mK)
Of course the key property of mineral oil is that it has better thermal conductivity than air, while still being an electrical insulator.
Is that the real world any more? It seems to me that people spending real money on datacentres are virtualising everything -- so once commissioned, hardware won't get touched again until it breaks -- at which point it's disposed of, not repaired. Configuration changes and "new data connections" are managed in software -- VMs, VLANs, that kind of thing.
I am curious about disposing of equipment that's been used in this way. Is there some solvent bath to clean things up so they don't go to the recyclers coated in oil?
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It's not idealism at all. It's total pragmatism. Any *popular* open source app will have:
- Well commented, maintainable code
- *Some* people in the community with the skills and inclination to maintain it
- Or, *some* people in the community with the money and inclination to pay someone to maintain it
If an OSS app dies on the vine just because its original developer walks away, it must have been really niche.
The main reason OSS fails to find mainstream success except when there's a corporation behind it, is that the commercial alternatives have a marketing budget.
There's a big difference between telling a web site, or an app, where you are at this moment -- which is what the article you link to is about, and what Android/Blackberry do -- and keeping a log of everywhere you've ever been, without telling you.
Again: there is no suggestion that YouTube will stop delivering H.264.
YouTube keeps multiple versions of every video, and your client negotiates which one it wants. Size, format, etc.
I don't know how you're missing this. A cloud is a massive cluster of nodes which collaborate to process requests, and can route around failures.
Yes, you can have your own cloud. Amazon's cloud services came about when they realised their private cloud had become big enough that they had capacity to spare.
No, a System/360 is not a cloud. Although, for as long as it's working, it might be indistinguishable from a cloud to the client.
It's like saying "Ford are now making Focus cars in black, whereas previously only Fiestas were available in that colour".
So let's take a step backwards here from the ubiquitous, standards-backed h.264
Where does it say they're abandoning H.264?
Where does it say they're dropping H.264 from YouTube?
YouTube stores videos in a bunch of formats, and the client negotiates the best format for the current situation. It will keep delivering h.264 to you. It will have the option of delivering WebM to clients that are better at displaying that. Everybody's happy.
Are they transcoding from the original upload materia going back to 2005, or are they transcoding from 240p .flv in many cases?
Presumably, they transcode from the best version they have of any given video. I doubt they've been discarding the original upload for a very long time. Google doesn't treat storage as scarce.
Currently, if I upload an HD video, they transcode it into multiple formats at multiple resolutions; WebM is just another format to add.
Spotify is less radio-like than Pandora.
Spotify allows you to pick a song and play it -- something which Pandora (last time I tried it) does not. Indeed, I think Pandora's weighted-random personal radio station is a legal hack, so that they're classed as a radio station rather than something else.
Spotify really is like having an iTunes with a vast library.
It was never really free, insofar as it was supported by ads. I'd be interested to know what it is that makes ad-supported Spotify unsustainable, while ad-supported commercial radio continues to be profitable.
If feels to me (I say "feels" because I have no figures) as if the licensing terms for Internet streaming must be unreasonably high in comparison to radio broadcasting.
Or, Spotify hasn't convinced enough advertisers that it's a worthwhile channel.
Pretty common. It's not an erotic thing; but it's a bit of intimacy isn't it?
TFA says it's free (although I expect micropayments come in).
TFA says "your facebook friends won't know the different" in the author's voice, not in a quote from the guy. I'm not sure it will pretend so thoroughly; you'd have to be a complete weirdo to want to deceive all your friends into thinking this virtual girlfriend was real. Surely this business wants to appeal to a wider market than just weirdos?
You make it sound so easy, like "Just go out on a date!". Perhaps it is easy for you, but what if a guy is just told to "F#@k off!" by any girl he approaches. (OK, the polite ones just walk away without saying anything).
They all did that to me in my 20's.
Did you approach strangers, apropos of nothing, and ask them out? I don't think that works for most mere mortals. You really need to have communicated on some other pretext before broaching the idea of a date. Introduced by friends; met at some social/leisure activity; and yes, introduction services.
And even then, a first date should be positioned as nothing more than that -- some time spent together for fun, with no expectations of it leading to more. If it does, great, but if not, you've had fun. (Of course, you might hate each other's company; chalk those up to experience)
Not that I realised any of this in my early 20s either.
If you are male you are still expected to pay.
Maybe so where you live / with the girls you date.
Here in the UK, in my recent experience -- we're talking mostly middle-class women in their early-mid 30s -- they all expected to split the cost.
Insofar as there's a protocol, it seems to be:
- man offers to pay, woman protests that it should be split, man graciously accepts
- or, man pays in first instance, woman says she'll pay for the next drink / dessert / whatever, man graciously accepts
I can't comprehend WHY this would seem enjoyable for anyone.
Well, people seem to enjoy maintaining a virtual farm -- so why not a virtual girlfriend?
We don't really know what the service will entail -- to what extent it really purports to be a substitute for a real girlfriend; to what extent it disguises the fact that it's not a real person; to what extent it's presented as just a fun game.
There's a worst case scenario -- but I'd be surprised if that's what it is.
:)
I did type "real women", then backspaced and replaced it with "people".
I fondly imagine there won't be maintenance headaches (unless it turns out to be something along the lines of Japanese girlfriend-simulator games where the simulated girl's fondness for you depends on what presents you buy her).
The way I read TFA, "she" will pitch in on Facebook etc. as if she was a real girlfriend. "Hey hun, you look hot in this pic" etc.
Monetizing it -- targeted ads, maybe as another poster suggests, virtual gifts -- resulting in more flattering posts on your Facebook wall "Hey gorgeous, thanks for the flowers, I love them".
It'll take some clever balancing to set the right tone. I think it would be best if it was clearly not real -- just a bit of fun. After all, you don't want your real friends to think you're a freak who's been pretending to have a real girlfriend all along. Also, most single people presumably don't want to deter real girls from showing an interest, believing your fake girlfriend to be real.
It's not addressing the same perceived need as porn.
Friends, wives, girlfriends, mistresses, strippers, prostitutes, porn -- some people avail themselves of all, some, or none of them, in every possible combination, because none of them are 1:1 replacements for another.
(This post does not imply approval or disapproval of any of the above)
Redeeming point or upside: it's just a game.
Based on TFA, they'll be employing real people to put words in the mouths of virtual women. Presumably because they've not got a chat-bot that's convincing enough.
So it's:
1. Dork tells you properties of the pretend woman he wants
2. Facebook profile created for pretend woman (somehow avoiding violating Facebook TOS)
3. Pretend woman becomes a Facebook "friend" of dork
4. Employee, in persona of pretend woman, posts some girlfriend-ish stuff on dork's Facebook wall etc.
5. ????
6. Profit
(Where ???? presumably entails some targeted advertising etc.)
So have two pumps? I don't suppose they're expensive.
... and you needn't have. The aim isn't to get the CPU cold. It's just to keep it at operating temperature. Overclocking makes it churn out more heat, which means you need to draw more heat away -- but the point with oil is that it can conduct the heat away more readily. Elsewhere in this thread, it says the system we're talking about here has the oil at 40C. You could have done similar.
The only reason we have to use air con to keep server rooms so cold, is that air is such a bad thermal conductor.
There's also thermal conductivity to consider. Oil may have twice the heat capacity of air, but it will also spread that heat throughout itself much faster.
Air: 0.025 W/(mK)
Mineral oil 0.138 W/(mK)
Water: 0.6 W/(mK)
Of course the key property of mineral oil is that it has better thermal conductivity than air, while still being an electrical insulator.
Is that the real world any more? It seems to me that people spending real money on datacentres are virtualising everything -- so once commissioned, hardware won't get touched again until it breaks -- at which point it's disposed of, not repaired. Configuration changes and "new data connections" are managed in software -- VMs, VLANs, that kind of thing.
I am curious about disposing of equipment that's been used in this way. Is there some solvent bath to clean things up so they don't go to the recyclers coated in oil?
Well, it's not an entirely stupid idea, and big datacentre operators to like to put themselves in coldish places.
Even so, Iqualuit gets as high as 25C in summer, which is warmer than my server room, and -40C in winter might bring operational problems of its own.