I would really love to see a manufacturer integrate a twiddler(TM) into the side of the phone.
To me this makes perfect sense as that's generally where your fingers are anyway. Except of course for the phones that are too small to even hold normally.
But to me this would be ideal. Especially if you imagine them one day making this into a full-function wearble.
I'm salivating already.
I know it's too late to get any karma but hopefully somebody reads this....
The fact that it's a modified long EZ scares me. I mean, John Denver didn't exactly have great luck in his.
We _all_ agree that it would be better to write software under a 'good' license to begin with. There's no arguement there. But there are 2 points to consider:
1) People have different opinions on what 'good' is. So perhaps it takes a stricter license to make an individual feel more comfortable about releasing his/her hard work to the masses. Even if you consider it "the man keeping you down"!
2) We live in a capitalist society. People are out to make money. Money stuffs pockets, but money also staffs buildings. Buildings that house developers and researchers. People that develop products (sometimes stupid) that get bundled with operating systems or pervade the market and make you think about adding a program like that to your operating system under a 'better license'.
Don't get me wrong. I believe in the GPL and the LGPL and BSD licenses. I also believe there is Linux (redhat, etc.) and then there is GNU/Linux. I believe in writting software that we can _all_ use and understand. But I can't afford the research, the time, the manpower, or the MISTAKES made in developing the next Lotus Notes TM. So I will gladly let those people make those mistakes and learn from them when I make a better version with other like-minded individuals.
Ever see a Playstation game lately? I've never actually bought one - I don't own a playstation. But it's always amazed me how people are willing to pay 40 to 50 bucks for just a jewel case when PC people won't touch it without a box the size of a suitcase. Personally, I would appreciate just the jewel case - I hate those big ass boxes. I prefer the OEM packaging.... let's go back to the shareware style of packaging they used to have in bookstores!
I'll tell you what I would like to see happen now is either a) release the titles to the open source community - which I really doubt they would have an interest in (can't say I blame them). Or b) perhaps Loki could get a handle on the titles (either straight purchase or through licensing) and port them to Linux while there's still a good market for them.
Somehow I just don't see them giving up what they worked so had on just because they don't have any money. But it would be a shame if the code just disappears into the great Abyss only to resurface when it doesn't serve any good. It would be a nicer gesture than people pawning off failed projects on us.
I agree. I mean, based on their example of optimizing native HP PA-8000 binaries, one could, in theory, potentialy run M$ proggies faster on my linux box using something like Bochs or FreeMWare or Plex or whatever the hell they're calling it these days. Granted shitty code run 20% faster is still shitty code.;P It would still be nice to see someone more talented than I pull it off.
"The open-source community is a good imitator but not a good innovator." Correction, the Linux community is a good imitator. Open-source (Apache et al) doesn't IMHO fit into that category. Linux is open-source but open-source is more than just Linux!
If there's one thing I know, it's that management never learns from it's mistakes.
See, I work for a fairly successful company (which shall remain nameless) that just upgraded to the 12-way RISC, and is gambling on this next 400 to be there when we outgrow the new one in 2 years.
The problem is, the last time they took this gamble, IBM promised and promised but nothing showed up in time. We were forced to Opti-connect 2 boxes together just to get by.
The biggest mistake in this gamble now is that they got rid of the Opti-connect environment when they upgraded! What a mess! At least if they continued testing for Opti, we would have some sort of failsafe but they nixed that too.
So now when IBM fails to come through again we're dead!
After all, management sure isn't gonna take the blame.
I had been fantasizing about this very idea ever since I had seen Replay for the first time in Popular Science.
I thought the first thing though would to make it very basic - just enough to replace the VCR/stereo.
Slap a pentium (or Cheap equivalent), All-In-Wonder Pro card, a DVD-Rom drive, and one of those hard drives in an old stereo component like the CD player (to give it that "consumer electronics feel").
Run the OS (preferably Linux) off of RAM for a quick boot and leave the entire HD for video storage. Replace the stereo CD with the DVD. And have all of the necessary ports coming out the back.
Throw in a modem port so you could connect to the internet (with your new 'set-top-box') for things like timetables and CDDB or even that 'WebTV'-like experience. Maybe even synchronize the system clock with the National Atomic Clock so you never see that Blinking 12:00 again!
The DVD would be for movies and CDs. It could be used for backup if DVD burners become reasonable any time soon.
Bonus: If it's a recent stereo/CD player, now you have a LED display, a remote and IR receiver that you might be able to hack some software for.
Of course I don't need more than that except maybe a connection to my PC. But starting from this point you could always add Firewire ports and other digital video input or hack decoder cards for HDTV, Digital Cable/Satellite, PAL or any other signal. Mabye even some streaming internet format for Video on Demand.
I prefer Linux. But all of the drivers you need probably aren't out there. I'm sure it's something a lot of people would love to hack though!
Think about it, why pay even $200 for a VCR that'll be obsolete in a year or two when you could build your own and configure or upgrade it to suit your needs as time goes on?
I don't mean to belittle Linux as an operating system by sticking it in everything from the toaster to the kitchen sink. But when a couple people want to build a POWERFUL homebrew device such as this, there's no better choice. Where else could you find an active bed of resources this big to persue a fantasy as little as this?
Got any ideas let me know I'm getting really psyched about this idea again. I think I might try to actually bite the bullet and attempt to make one this time. That is if my review goes well in a couple of weeks....
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I would really love to see a manufacturer integrate a twiddler(TM) into the side of the phone.
To me this makes perfect sense as that's generally where your fingers are anyway. Except of course for the phones that are too small to even hold normally.
But to me this would be ideal. Especially if you imagine them one day making this into a full-function wearble.
I'm salivating already.
I know it's too late to get any karma but hopefully somebody reads this....
The fact that it's a modified long EZ scares me. I mean, John Denver didn't exactly have great luck in his.
What's so 'insightful' about common sense?
We _all_ agree that it would be better to write software under a 'good' license to begin with. There's no arguement there. But there are 2 points to consider:
1) People have different opinions on what 'good' is. So perhaps it takes a stricter license to make an individual feel more comfortable about releasing his/her hard work to the masses. Even if you consider it "the man keeping you down"!
2) We live in a capitalist society. People are out to make money. Money stuffs pockets, but money also staffs buildings. Buildings that house developers and researchers. People that develop products (sometimes stupid) that get bundled with operating systems or pervade the market and make you think about adding a program like that to your operating system under a 'better license'.
Don't get me wrong. I believe in the GPL and the LGPL and BSD licenses. I also believe there is Linux (redhat, etc.) and then there is GNU/Linux. I believe in writting software that we can _all_ use and understand. But I can't afford the research, the time, the manpower, or the MISTAKES made in developing the next Lotus Notes TM. So I will gladly let those people make those mistakes and learn from them when I make a better version with other like-minded individuals.
Ever see a Playstation game lately?
I've never actually bought one - I don't own a playstation. But it's always amazed me how people are willing to pay 40 to 50 bucks for just a jewel case when PC people won't touch it without a box the size of a suitcase.
Personally, I would appreciate just the jewel case - I hate those big ass boxes.
I prefer the OEM packaging.... let's go back to the shareware style of packaging they used to have in bookstores!
I'll tell you what I would like to see happen now is either a) release the titles to the open source community - which I really doubt they would have an interest in (can't say I blame them). Or b) perhaps Loki could get a handle on the titles (either straight purchase or through licensing) and port them to Linux while there's still a good market for them.
Somehow I just don't see them giving up what they worked so had on just because they don't have any money. But it would be a shame if the code just disappears into the great Abyss only to resurface when it doesn't serve any good.
It would be a nicer gesture than people pawning off failed projects on us.
I agree. I mean, based on their example of optimizing native HP PA-8000 binaries, one could, in theory, potentialy run M$ proggies faster on my linux box using something like Bochs or FreeMWare or Plex or whatever the hell they're calling it these days. Granted shitty code run 20% faster is still shitty code. ;P It would still be nice to see someone more talented than I pull it off.
"The open-source community is a good imitator but not a good innovator."
Correction, the Linux community is a good imitator.
Open-source (Apache et al) doesn't IMHO fit into that category.
Linux is open-source but open-source is more than just Linux!
If there's one thing I know, it's that management never learns from it's mistakes.
See, I work for a fairly successful company (which shall remain nameless) that just upgraded to the 12-way RISC, and is gambling on this next 400 to be there when we outgrow the new one in 2 years.
The problem is, the last time they took this gamble, IBM promised and promised but nothing showed up in time. We were forced to Opti-connect 2 boxes together just to get by.
The biggest mistake in this gamble now is that they got rid of the Opti-connect environment when they upgraded! What a mess! At least if they continued testing for Opti, we would have some sort of failsafe but they nixed that too.
So now when IBM fails to come through again we're dead!
After all, management sure isn't gonna take the blame.
Now if only somebody could find a "perfectly functional" use for M$ products.
I had been fantasizing about this very idea ever since I had seen Replay for the first time in Popular Science.
I thought the first thing though would to make it very basic - just enough to replace the VCR/stereo.
Slap a pentium (or Cheap equivalent), All-In-Wonder Pro card, a DVD-Rom drive, and one of those hard drives in an old stereo component like the CD player (to give it that "consumer electronics feel").
Run the OS (preferably Linux) off of RAM for a quick boot and leave the entire HD for video storage. Replace the stereo CD with the DVD. And have all of the necessary ports coming out the back.
Throw in a modem port so you could connect to the internet (with your new 'set-top-box') for things like timetables and CDDB or even that 'WebTV'-like experience. Maybe even synchronize the system clock with the National Atomic Clock so you never see that Blinking 12:00 again!
The DVD would be for movies and CDs. It could be used for backup if DVD burners become reasonable any time soon.
Bonus: If it's a recent stereo/CD player, now you have a LED display, a remote and IR receiver that you might be able to hack some software for.
Of course I don't need more than that except maybe a connection to my PC. But starting from this point you could always add Firewire ports and other digital video input or hack decoder cards for HDTV, Digital Cable/Satellite, PAL or any other signal. Mabye even some streaming internet format for Video on Demand.
I prefer Linux. But all of the drivers you need probably aren't out there. I'm sure it's something a lot of people would love to hack though!
Think about it, why pay even $200 for a VCR that'll be obsolete in a year or two when you could build your own and configure or upgrade it to suit your needs as time goes on?
I don't mean to belittle Linux as an operating system by sticking it in everything from the toaster to the kitchen sink. But when a couple people want to build a POWERFUL homebrew device such as this, there's no better choice. Where else could you find an active bed of resources this big to persue a fantasy as little as this?
Got any ideas let me know I'm getting really psyched about this idea again. I think I might try to actually bite the bullet and attempt to make one this time. That is if my review goes well in a couple of weeks....
codec
codec7@hotmial.com