Imagine you live in Rome. You are a civil engineer, in charge of building the first bridge. You build it the best you can, based on observing trees that fall across small streams. It is very dangerous, but effective for a few years. Several other people copy your design and build their own bridges using tree trunks.
Meanwhile, someone else looks at your design and determines the bridge could be built much safer if you use an ads to flatten out the top, so that people can walk on the flat area, and some ropes along the sides at hand level let people keep their balance. You try it out and find it works very well. Meanwhile, people all over Rome are falling off the "Gen 1" bridges. People protest bridges to the Roman Senate and elect people who won't allow new bridges to be built, even with the safety features.
To make matters worse, the existing bridges are now rotting. Several bridges have fallen into the creeks and many are too fragile to let more than one person across at a time. The tree bark, which provided at least some grip for people using the bridges is now gone, and when it rains the bridges are incredibly slippery. The Roman Senate funds a study to look into building "Gen 3" bridges. The engineers come back with designs for stone bridges, using the latest in geometry (the arch). The engineering community thinks this bridge will last for years, be incredibly strong and safe. But because the public has such a bad memory of the existing bridges, they want nothing to do with them. Meanwhile they demand the Senate fund more ferryboats for river crossings.
You kids won't remember this one, but in the late 1960s Disney made a "comedy" about a college kid programmer (Kurt Russell), who somehow is electrocuted by a mainframe computer and able to recall any fact, and answer any question. I saw it in the 1970s and even then I knew it was totally imposable. Kurt Russell programming computers! Really, how dumb do they think we are?!?!
And let's not forget any of the computers in The Six Million Dollar Man, including the bionic eye.
The market is mature. When new technology is introduced into an open market, there is a long period of improvement until it gets "good enough." Then the only thing to compete on is price and we've beaten most of that out now, too.
I wonder if they've physically shut down the networks (down, down) or if they just did something like kill the DNS servers? Even in a small network like what Egypt has it would still take a while to get all the network links, towers and DSLAMS, etc. completely off. Even if it would be a little more difficult there are plenty of resourceful people who could get IRC servers and other services up even without the links to the outside world. Most people would consider a DNS failure an outage and it's relatively quick and easy (and just the thing to be sneaky if you have a revolutionary mind).
But they'll also be using Android/ARM on their phone, Wrist Watch (no watch is just a passing fad until "smart watches" are introduced), TV, DSLR, Coffee Maker, Rice Cooker, Blu-Ray player, kid's toys, NAS, and in-dash sat nav system.
And that desktop will still be used, but less, since there's all these other screens available. It might not be the "media hub" that MS wants it to be, but it will be used for anything that needs high performance processing (like the "fix it" button on low end photo editing software), or a big, dedicated screen.
As much as I love checking email on my phone (almost never fire up Evolution anymore) and checking twitter on my tablet, I don't see myself writing anything of substance on my tablet or editing pictures on my phone.
I should be used to the frustrating feeling of waiting for updates by now. As a former Nokia N95-3 user, I watched as my European neighbors got something like 20 firmware updates, including minor bug fixes, major memory handler improvements, new features, free maps, etc. And when my phone finally got an update it was buggy and in some cases worse than the prior release.
Then I was wow'ed by the N900 and the promise of lots of firmware updates for it. Several months after dealing with a faulty Bluetooth stack we got a minor release. Then we got a major release that fixed some other things, but messed up a few others. Then Nokia suddenly went in a different direction and screwed us all.
So I said "NO MORE!" and bought a Samsung Vibrant. Sure the GPS sucked, but there's a work-around. And they'll fix it in August. It finally got fixed in September, IIRC. Right after the announced Froyo would be out in the fall!
My point is, handset makers treat software maintenance like a teenager treats a book report. 1/2 assed effort at the last minute.
Well, not yet anyway. Remember that it took a few years for Compaq to re-create the BIOS, and Asian mass-producers to standardize motherboards.
Once the general form factor is stable we'll see standard parts and connectors. It will likely take a much longer time than it did with PCs (look inside a PC case at all that air), but it will happen.
The Sun is a very old thing. Like most old ham radio operators, SOL didn't like the FCC screwing around with the testing. "BY GUMMIT! I had'ta take the 25WPM test to get my Extra, so should all you youngins!" he was heard exclaiming after the rule change. So ol' Sol got together one morning over coffee with all his buddies on 80 meters and hatched a plan: "I'll just turn down the sunspots for a while, they tend to inflame my gout anyway. That way they'll have to use CW, since they all live in deed-restricted tract houses and can't put up boomers like we have!"
And so, as the newly-licensed HAMs bought their Miracle Whips and Outbackers, in the hopes of cycle 23 kicking up and making it easy to work the world, their hopes (and bank accounts) were quickly dashed on the reality of all quiet bands (except for those old guys talking about their aches and pains) and those weird sounds at the bottom of the band. Some took to new methods, and some picked up the old ways, but the old guys, with their antenna farms and "full limit" linear amps got to keep "their" voice subbands and coffee klatches, comforted in the knowledge that their frequency will continue to belong to them, for as long as they can keep it.
This is not about breaking the law. The law says you can "opt out" of going through the x-ray scanner and be hand searched. The hand search is very time and labor intensive so it might slow down the lines at the airport on the busiest flying day of the year.
Well, there's the attitude that leads to us "morons" having to get felt up and strip searched just to go home for Thanksgiving.
Fuck you. I may not like dealing with my customers, but I at least realize they indirectly pay my salary and have some fucking respect, even for the less knowledgeable of them.
You mean like what happened when I tried to watch a program that was posted here yesterday and couldn't because the FED uses Microsoft codecs to stream their content?
CUSTOMER: Here's one -- nine pence.
DEAD PERSON: I'm not dead!
MORTICIAN: What?
CUSTOMER: Nothing -- here's your nine pence.
DEAD PERSON: I'm not dead!
MORTICIAN: Here -- he says he's not dead!
CUSTOMER: Yes, he is.
DEAD PERSON: I'm not!
MORTICIAN: He isn't.
CUSTOMER: Well, he will be soon, he's very ill.
DEAD PERSON: I'm getting better!
CUSTOMER: No, you're not -- you'll be stone dead in a moment.
MORTICIAN: Oh, I can't take him like that -- it's against regulations.
DEAD PERSON: I don't want to go in the cart!
CUSTOMER: Oh, don't be such a baby.
MORTICIAN: I can't take him...
DEAD PERSON: I feel fine!
CUSTOMER: Oh, do us a favor...
MORTICIAN: I can't.
CUSTOMER: Well, can you hang around a couple of minutes? He won't
be long.
MORTICIAN: Naaah, I got to go on to Robinson's -- they've lost nine
today.
CUSTOMER: Well, when is your next round?
MORTICIAN: Thursday.
DEAD PERSON: I think I'll go for a walk.
CUSTOMER: You're not fooling anyone y'know. Look, isn't there
something you can do?
DEAD PERSON: I feel happy... I feel happy.
[whop]
CUSTOMER: Ah, thanks very much.
MORTICIAN: Not at all. See you on Thursday.
CUSTOMER: Right.
[clop clop]
MORTICIAN: Who's that then?
CUSTOMER: I don't know.
MORTICIAN: Must be a king.
CUSTOMER: Why?
MORTICIAN: He hasn't got shit all over him.
Meanwhile a quick Expedia.com search shows ASE to MIA at $315-450/person . Even with 6 fliers that's exponentially lower cost than going on a small charter flight. Granted that's not the-week-before-thanksgiving prices, but you get the idea.
If you really want to avoid hassle, drive. I can make it across the US in 24-36 hours if there's no really bad weather. That's not really much longer than flying when you have to deal with connections and other crap. Sleeping accommodations may not be the best if you're aiming for that $315 price and/or time sweet spot, but a pickup truck bed with an air mattress works very well and is dirt cheap, unless you're in -20F degree weather.
I wonder if Maemo and Nokia would be in the same place they are now if they would have kept the same size and form factor of the N810 when they put out the N900?
I've moved on to an Android device mostly because the screen and keyboard on the N900 was just too small to be useful for me (and the useless kickstand...). I still use my N810 as a photo viewer and Sykpe phone, while the N900 is in a closet. Maybe I'll get it out again when 1.3 is released, but I don't think I'll go back to using it on a daily basis, unless there's some very compelling reason (like Skype video calling).
You CAN GET a bash prompt on your Nexus 1. While Maemo COMES WITH a CLI out of the box.
"Rooting" the phone was as simple as enabling the extras repo and getting the gainroot application (which I believe comes from Nokia).
Then open the CLI, type sudo gainroot and watch as the prompt changes to a #.
Done. No screwing around with custom kernels, waiting for the "community" to figure it out, etc.
But the reality is that mobile phones aren't built for people who care about such things. If Nokia survives the handset wars, it will be in a role kind of like HP calculators: everyone else uses TI, so when you try to explain how easy it is to do complex math using RPN, they don't get it.
When the team of technicians presented the camera to Kodak audiences they of course heard a barrage of curious questions:
Why would anyone ever want to view his or her pictures on a TV? How would you store these images? What does an electronic photo album look like? When would this type of approach be available to the consumer?
That's the problem with huge companies, people try to look smart by knocking down an idea, or only see a finished product, instead of acknowledging the great hack!
Lucky you can do that in Europe. Here in the US, every carrier (save one, which I'll get to) is more than happy to provision your unlocked phone. But if you want to get an unlimited data plan, you have to sign a contract. The contract-free plans are horrible for data, in one case almost $5.00/day. And they don't give you a break on the contract if you have a phone, so you might as well get the cheapest phone with the offer and add on stuff later.
Verizon's billing system won't let you add anything to a plan unless your phone supports it. I have no idea what they would do with an unlocked phone, but they do say they support them. It isn't as simple as installing a SIM card though.
T-Mobile is the one beacon of hope. They have re-done their plans to look more like the European model. If you pay upfront for the phone (or buy one unlocked), you save money on service (and no contract). The only problem is that they use an oddball frequency plan that isn't compatible with anything else on the planet (thanks, FCC). So my Galaxy-S wasn't available unlocked, so I had to buy it from them, with their custom version of the Samsung custom Android firmware. I'm hoping there will be a plain vanilla build that will work with Samsung/T-Mobile firmware, but realistically it hasn't done anything I don't like other than clutter up my applications screen with a few things that can't be removed through rooting.
That's because they did a deal with Verizon for exclusive Skype on Android. The really troubling thing is that there's no determination as to how long this will be.
I have somewhat marginal cell coverage in my home from T-mobile. When using my N900 it is not a big deal thanks to the incredible Skype integration. I just set the "forward when unreachable" call forwarding (**62*) to my Skype-in number and it works like butter. With my Galaxy-S, not only can't I get skype, but it seems that the Verizon version will never let you use WiFi for calling. That makes it worthless for me.
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Imagine you live in Rome. You are a civil engineer, in charge of building the first bridge. You build it the best you can, based on observing trees that fall across small streams. It is very dangerous, but effective for a few years. Several other people copy your design and build their own bridges using tree trunks.
Meanwhile, someone else looks at your design and determines the bridge could be built much safer if you use an ads to flatten out the top, so that people can walk on the flat area, and some ropes along the sides at hand level let people keep their balance. You try it out and find it works very well. Meanwhile, people all over Rome are falling off the "Gen 1" bridges. People protest bridges to the Roman Senate and elect people who won't allow new bridges to be built, even with the safety features.
To make matters worse, the existing bridges are now rotting. Several bridges have fallen into the creeks and many are too fragile to let more than one person across at a time. The tree bark, which provided at least some grip for people using the bridges is now gone, and when it rains the bridges are incredibly slippery. The Roman Senate funds a study to look into building "Gen 3" bridges. The engineers come back with designs for stone bridges, using the latest in geometry (the arch). The engineering community thinks this bridge will last for years, be incredibly strong and safe. But because the public has such a bad memory of the existing bridges, they want nothing to do with them. Meanwhile they demand the Senate fund more ferryboats for river crossings.
You kids won't remember this one, but in the late 1960s Disney made a "comedy" about a college kid programmer (Kurt Russell), who somehow is electrocuted by a mainframe computer and able to recall any fact, and answer any question. I saw it in the 1970s and even then I knew it was totally imposable. Kurt Russell programming computers! Really, how dumb do they think we are?!?!
And let's not forget any of the computers in The Six Million Dollar Man, including the bionic eye.
The market is mature. When new technology is introduced into an open market, there is a long period of improvement until it gets "good enough." Then the only thing to compete on is price and we've beaten most of that out now, too.
when you have cut down the last tree and poisoned the last river... etc...
only then will you realise that you cannot eat money.
Luckily, we know how to grow trees and clean up rivers.
When the number of Ham Radio operators exceed the number of cell phone users, I'll consider geek culture mainstream.
When there are more modified plug in Priuses than unmod'ed, I'll consider geek culture mainstream.
When there are more people using Slashdot than Facebook, I'll consider geek culture mainstream.
When the Science Channel has higher ratings than the Superbowl, I'll consider geek culture mainstream.
I wonder if they've physically shut down the networks (down, down) or if they just did something like kill the DNS servers? Even in a small network like what Egypt has it would still take a while to get all the network links, towers and DSLAMS, etc. completely off. Even if it would be a little more difficult there are plenty of resourceful people who could get IRC servers and other services up even without the links to the outside world. Most people would consider a DNS failure an outage and it's relatively quick and easy (and just the thing to be sneaky if you have a revolutionary mind).
We did. Years ago.
http://www.aprs.org/
But they'll also be using Android/ARM on their phone, Wrist Watch (no watch is just a passing fad until "smart watches" are introduced), TV, DSLR, Coffee Maker, Rice Cooker, Blu-Ray player, kid's toys, NAS, and in-dash sat nav system.
And that desktop will still be used, but less, since there's all these other screens available. It might not be the "media hub" that MS wants it to be, but it will be used for anything that needs high performance processing (like the "fix it" button on low end photo editing software), or a big, dedicated screen.
As much as I love checking email on my phone (almost never fire up Evolution anymore) and checking twitter on my tablet, I don't see myself writing anything of substance on my tablet or editing pictures on my phone.
I should be used to the frustrating feeling of waiting for updates by now. As a former Nokia N95-3 user, I watched as my European neighbors got something like 20 firmware updates, including minor bug fixes, major memory handler improvements, new features, free maps, etc. And when my phone finally got an update it was buggy and in some cases worse than the prior release.
Then I was wow'ed by the N900 and the promise of lots of firmware updates for it. Several months after dealing with a faulty Bluetooth stack we got a minor release. Then we got a major release that fixed some other things, but messed up a few others. Then Nokia suddenly went in a different direction and screwed us all.
So I said "NO MORE!" and bought a Samsung Vibrant. Sure the GPS sucked, but there's a work-around. And they'll fix it in August. It finally got fixed in September, IIRC. Right after the announced Froyo would be out in the fall!
My point is, handset makers treat software maintenance like a teenager treats a book report. 1/2 assed effort at the last minute.
Kies doesn't recognize the TMO Vibrant without some screwing around, and even then it doesn't work very well, from what I can tell.
Well, not yet anyway. Remember that it took a few years for Compaq to re-create the BIOS, and Asian mass-producers to standardize motherboards.
Once the general form factor is stable we'll see standard parts and connectors. It will likely take a much longer time than it did with PCs (look inside a PC case at all that air), but it will happen.
The Sun is a very old thing. Like most old ham radio operators, SOL didn't like the FCC screwing around with the testing. "BY GUMMIT! I had'ta take the 25WPM test to get my Extra, so should all you youngins!" he was heard exclaiming after the rule change. So ol' Sol got together one morning over coffee with all his buddies on 80 meters and hatched a plan: "I'll just turn down the sunspots for a while, they tend to inflame my gout anyway. That way they'll have to use CW, since they all live in deed-restricted tract houses and can't put up boomers like we have!"
And so, as the newly-licensed HAMs bought their Miracle Whips and Outbackers, in the hopes of cycle 23 kicking up and making it easy to work the world, their hopes (and bank accounts) were quickly dashed on the reality of all quiet bands (except for those old guys talking about their aches and pains) and those weird sounds at the bottom of the band. Some took to new methods, and some picked up the old ways, but the old guys, with their antenna farms and "full limit" linear amps got to keep "their" voice subbands and coffee klatches, comforted in the knowledge that their frequency will continue to belong to them, for as long as they can keep it.
Put your children in T-shirts that say "The Federal Government is afraid of me" or "The government thinks I'm a terrorist."
This is not about breaking the law. The law says you can "opt out" of going through the x-ray scanner and be hand searched. The hand search is very time and labor intensive so it might slow down the lines at the airport on the busiest flying day of the year.
It's called a protest.
Well, there's the attitude that leads to us "morons" having to get felt up and strip searched just to go home for Thanksgiving.
Fuck you. I may not like dealing with my customers, but I at least realize they indirectly pay my salary and have some fucking respect, even for the less knowledgeable of them.
You mean like what happened when I tried to watch a program that was posted here yesterday and couldn't because the FED uses Microsoft codecs to stream their content?
CUSTOMER: Here's one -- nine pence.
DEAD PERSON: I'm not dead!
MORTICIAN: What?
CUSTOMER: Nothing -- here's your nine pence.
DEAD PERSON: I'm not dead!
MORTICIAN: Here -- he says he's not dead!
CUSTOMER: Yes, he is.
DEAD PERSON: I'm not!
MORTICIAN: He isn't.
CUSTOMER: Well, he will be soon, he's very ill.
DEAD PERSON: I'm getting better!
CUSTOMER: No, you're not -- you'll be stone dead in a moment.
MORTICIAN: Oh, I can't take him like that -- it's against regulations.
DEAD PERSON: I don't want to go in the cart!
CUSTOMER: Oh, don't be such a baby.
MORTICIAN: I can't take him...
DEAD PERSON: I feel fine!
CUSTOMER: Oh, do us a favor...
MORTICIAN: I can't.
CUSTOMER: Well, can you hang around a couple of minutes? He won't
be long.
MORTICIAN: Naaah, I got to go on to Robinson's -- they've lost nine
today.
CUSTOMER: Well, when is your next round?
MORTICIAN: Thursday.
DEAD PERSON: I think I'll go for a walk.
CUSTOMER: You're not fooling anyone y'know. Look, isn't there
something you can do?
DEAD PERSON: I feel happy... I feel happy.
[whop]
CUSTOMER: Ah, thanks very much.
MORTICIAN: Not at all. See you on Thursday.
CUSTOMER: Right.
[clop clop]
MORTICIAN: Who's that then?
CUSTOMER: I don't know.
MORTICIAN: Must be a king.
CUSTOMER: Why?
MORTICIAN: He hasn't got shit all over him.
Really? Must be nice to be able to blow that much money on a jet...
http://www.netjets.com/NetJets_Programs/Fractional_Aircraft_Ownership.asp
http://www.newflightcharters.com/private_jet_charter_flight_pricing.htm
Meanwhile a quick Expedia.com search shows ASE to MIA at $315-450/person . Even with 6 fliers that's exponentially lower cost than going on a small charter flight. Granted that's not the-week-before-thanksgiving prices, but you get the idea.
If you really want to avoid hassle, drive. I can make it across the US in 24-36 hours if there's no really bad weather. That's not really much longer than flying when you have to deal with connections and other crap. Sleeping accommodations may not be the best if you're aiming for that $315 price and/or time sweet spot, but a pickup truck bed with an air mattress works very well and is dirt cheap, unless you're in -20F degree weather.
I wonder if Maemo and Nokia would be in the same place they are now if they would have kept the same size and form factor of the N810 when they put out the N900?
I've moved on to an Android device mostly because the screen and keyboard on the N900 was just too small to be useful for me (and the useless kickstand...). I still use my N810 as a photo viewer and Sykpe phone, while the N900 is in a closet. Maybe I'll get it out again when 1.3 is released, but I don't think I'll go back to using it on a daily basis, unless there's some very compelling reason (like Skype video calling).
You CAN GET a bash prompt on your Nexus 1. While Maemo COMES WITH a CLI out of the box.
"Rooting" the phone was as simple as enabling the extras repo and getting the gainroot application (which I believe comes from Nokia).
Then open the CLI, type sudo gainroot and watch as the prompt changes to a #.
Done. No screwing around with custom kernels, waiting for the "community" to figure it out, etc.
But the reality is that mobile phones aren't built for people who care about such things. If Nokia survives the handset wars, it will be in a role kind of like HP calculators: everyone else uses TI, so when you try to explain how easy it is to do complex math using RPN, they don't get it.
Tell that to the kid who shot birds off my cable line (and caused a short when he missed).
"Why not just grab a copy of The GNU Image Processor from the web to get the intern working on some of these images you want?"
That may have gone over better.
When the team of technicians presented the camera to Kodak audiences they of course heard a barrage of curious questions:
Why would anyone ever want to view his or her pictures on a TV? How would you store these images? What does an electronic photo album look like? When would this type of approach be available to the consumer?
That's the problem with huge companies, people try to look smart by knocking down an idea, or only see a finished product, instead of acknowledging the great hack!
Lucky you can do that in Europe. Here in the US, every carrier (save one, which I'll get to) is more than happy to provision your unlocked phone. But if you want to get an unlimited data plan, you have to sign a contract. The contract-free plans are horrible for data, in one case almost $5.00/day. And they don't give you a break on the contract if you have a phone, so you might as well get the cheapest phone with the offer and add on stuff later.
Verizon's billing system won't let you add anything to a plan unless your phone supports it. I have no idea what they would do with an unlocked phone, but they do say they support them. It isn't as simple as installing a SIM card though.
T-Mobile is the one beacon of hope. They have re-done their plans to look more like the European model. If you pay upfront for the phone (or buy one unlocked), you save money on service (and no contract). The only problem is that they use an oddball frequency plan that isn't compatible with anything else on the planet (thanks, FCC). So my Galaxy-S wasn't available unlocked, so I had to buy it from them, with their custom version of the Samsung custom Android firmware. I'm hoping there will be a plain vanilla build that will work with Samsung/T-Mobile firmware, but realistically it hasn't done anything I don't like other than clutter up my applications screen with a few things that can't be removed through rooting.
That's because they did a deal with Verizon for exclusive Skype on Android. The really troubling thing is that there's no determination as to how long this will be.
I have somewhat marginal cell coverage in my home from T-mobile. When using my N900 it is not a big deal thanks to the incredible Skype integration. I just set the "forward when unreachable" call forwarding (**62*) to my Skype-in number and it works like butter. With my Galaxy-S, not only can't I get skype, but it seems that the Verizon version will never let you use WiFi for calling. That makes it worthless for me.