Recent Posts

576

Living Room / Re: Odd Google Behavior

« Last post by zridling on February 16, 2011, 08:43 PM »

From blogspot to rankings, I think so many people are scamming Google these days. JCPenney is just one example of search marketing gone bad. They need an IBM Watson to seek and destroy bogus links, period; there's not enough humanoids to do it.

577

Living Room / Re: Apple: if we get you subscribers, we deserve a cut

« Last post by zridling on February 15, 2011, 11:01 PM »

And Rhapsody is the first to say NO. The model can't work and keep content providers in business:
http://news.cnet.com..._105-20032119-1.html

Our philosophy is simple too--an Apple-imposed arrangement that requires us to pay 30 percent of our revenue to Apple, in addition to content fees that we pay to the music labels, publishers and artists, is economically untenable.

______________
@Deozaan: The reason I missed it is because I didn't read it clearly. That's worse than I thought.

578

Living Room / Re: We are doomed: IBM's Watson debuts on Jeopardy today (14 Feb 2011)

« Last post by zridling on February 15, 2011, 10:49 PM »

Have to say it's marketing genius to have Watson play Jeopardy. Here's an expert discussion on Watson's Day 2 analytics:
https://www-950.ibm....ibmwatson?lang=en_us

But is it a Hal 9000 or Wall-E future?
[T]he true implications of Watson’s technology will come after it retires from the stage and pursues a workaday career in offices and labs. That’s when Watson will shed its avatar and revert to its true nature, that of a powerful machine working for us, not against us. Watson will be a tool [...] A new generation of language-savvy machinery will soon be hunting down answers for us. [...] Once you regard this technology as a powerful supplement to human cognition — and not a replacement — Watson suddenly starts to look much friendlier.

579

Living Room / Re: Apple: if we get you subscribers, we deserve a cut

« Last post by zridling on February 15, 2011, 05:31 PM »

You make good points, Renegade. Apple claims "they built a new backend system that any of these apps can take advantage of. And when they do, it will give them within one-click access to some 100-mn+ credit cards." Bull. That's already in place! And just as there's no free trial for their apps, Apple also doesn't allow a free trial subscription. You're all in or forget it. That makes it hard on companies with more expensive subscriptions (or apps).

I really shouldn't make a snit over this. Companies should just charge Apple users a 30% tax on everything they buy. In fact, double it to 60% and make 30% off Apple's back. Problem fixed. If Apple users complain, give them Steve Jobs' iPhone number.

580

Living Room / Re: The best geek marriage proposals

« Last post by zridling on February 15, 2011, 04:46 PM »

Sign of the times. Wow, these guys are certainly creative (and funny).

581

Living Room / Re: Apple: if we get you subscribers, we deserve a cut

« Last post by zridling on February 15, 2011, 04:41 PM »

@Renegade
Exactly! So where does the 30% figure come from! Why not 50% or 70% or 95%? Would any Apple user protest if it were doubled tomorrow to 60%? Apple clarified later today: The rules are very straightforward: Publishers can continue to sell digital subscriptions on their own websites and give free access to existing subscribers. Apple will not take a cut from these transactions. Publishers who offer out-of-app subscriptions, though, also have to offer in-app subscriptions and the price has to be the same or lower than for subscriptions processed outside of the app. Apple will take a 30% cut from these in-app transactions. http://www.apple.com...1/02/15appstore.html

And what if 30% never existed in history in some businesses? Apparently this means Amazon is going to have to pull its link to the Kindle Store that it currently provides in its iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad apps. Yea, they're sure making it easier and simpler all right. Question for Steve Jobs: How much is enough?

582

Living Room / Re: We are doomed: IBM's Watson debuts on Jeopardy today (14 Feb 2011)

« Last post by zridling on February 15, 2011, 09:36 AM »

Here's a followup on the first of three days of Watson play:
http://www.pcmag.com...,2817,2380351,00.asp

Here's the spreadsheet view:
https://spreadsheets...mHQ&toomany=true

I loved that avatar. I want that avatar!

583

Living Room / Re: Apple: if we get you subscribers, we deserve a cut

« Last post by zridling on February 15, 2011, 09:30 AM »

All this time I thought it was the app that brought in the customers, not the OS. How foolish of me.  

If Amazon thought like Apple, they'd raid your bank account. "You know that investment book you bought from us and made $3000 on? Send us $900 immediately or we're deleting your account and banning you!"

584

Living Room / Apple: if we get you subscribers, we deserve a cut

« Last post by zridling on February 15, 2011, 09:29 AM »

The crazy just keeps on at Apple.
http://arstechnica.c...we-deserve-a-cut.ars

"Our philosophy is simple—when Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple earns a 30 percent share; when the publisher brings an existing or new subscriber to the app, the publisher keeps 100 percent and Apple earns nothing," CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement.
____________________
"And if you so much as eat an apple or say the word apple or think of apple, send us 30%!

585

Living Room / Re: New Chrome extension blocks sites from Google results

« Last post by zridling on February 15, 2011, 08:35 AM »

If they can't change their algorithms enough to detect this cancer, then a crowdsource effort is a good start. At the least, you won't see the same stuff over and over.

586

Living Room / Re: I'm so old, I remember when people paid Microsoft to use their software

« Last post by zridling on February 15, 2011, 06:51 AM »

Tim Anderson says that Nokia's Elop fears mobile duopoly. He tries to make sense of it: "This is not good for Nokia, though it might be 'the least bad of all the poor choices facing Nokia'." He also talks about how Nokia killed off the Qt devs within the company after saying they were the future. Oy.
http://www.itwriting...is-already-here.html

But then I read Loic Le Meur on the "new nightmare of developers and brands" that all these platform ecosystems are creating, and I can only imagine how devs might be tearing their eyes out of their sockets:
http://www.loiclemeu...pers-and-brands.html

You need to be on all the above platforms stores, of course. But wait, there is more. You need to submit and manage your app to the mobile carrier app stores, they all have one. That's only a start, wait until the manufacturers themselves, the Samsung, Dell, HP and Sony have theirs, HP has one with the Palm acquisition... Even Amazon has an store for applications. Bonus startup idea of the day: create a service to help register and manage my app in all those stores in all languages, I can be your first customer.

587

Living Room / We are doomed: IBM's Watson debuts on Jeopardy today (14 Feb 2011)

« Last post by zridling on February 14, 2011, 12:42 PM »

I welcome our computational overlords. If you read this before it airs, tape Jeopardy today. IBM eviscerates the humanoids, and frankly, the SOB sounds a lot like that Hal 9000 fellow.



The story
http://singularityhu...y-performance-today/

Game show footage:
http://singularityhu...jeopardys-ass-video/
_________________

588

Living Room / Re: I'm so old, I remember when people paid Microsoft to use their software

« Last post by zridling on February 14, 2011, 12:27 PM »

Man, wouldn't it be wonderful for a company to just start making cell phones that are blank slates, not tied to any carrier?

-superboyac (February 14, 2011, 12:07 PM)

Google did in '09 with the Nexus, and it promptly died when carriers pulled out after thinking about giving customers software choices. They found out they could charge for that stuff!

...the carriers decide that phones should be locked down (for supportability as well as for 'lock-in').

-mwb1100 (February 14, 2011, 11:42 AM)

Hey, isn't that the same argument book publishers are making about ebooks? Small world.

589

Living Room / Re: DC Front Page

« Last post by zridling on February 14, 2011, 12:17 PM »

"Linux" has this problem -- info is scattered all over. So now two sites seek to delimit some of the news throughout the week:

The Linux User & Developer Daily [LUD] (I like this easy-to-follow design)
http://paper.li/LinuxUserMag

Linux for You Magazine (this one is busier, noisier)
http://www.linuxforu.com/

Neither is by no means complete. Mostly highlights and news makers.
______________
*Thanks to Stephen below for the correction!

590

Living Room / The White House Asks: What's Blocking Innovation in America? Answer: IP Laws

« Last post by zridling on February 14, 2011, 07:43 AM »

The White House is asking us to give them ideas on what is blocking innovation in America. I thought I'd give them an honest answer. Here it is: Current intellectual property laws are blocking innovation.

President Obama just set a goal of wireless access for everyone in the US, saying it will spark innovation. But that's only true if people are allowed to actually do innovative things once they are online.

You have to choose. You can prop up old business models with overbearing intellectual property laws that hit innovators on the head whenever they stick their heads up from the ground; OR you can have innovation. You can't have both. And right now, the balance is away from innovation.

Let's take some specific examples to show why that is so. When Napster first showed up, it was innovative. Heaven knows it changed the world. And instead of letting this creativity flourish, make money, and create jobs, the law was used to kill it. And kill it it did. The law is still trying to kill or at least marginalize peer-to-peer technology, and so it has never been used to the full.
____________________
And Pamela Jones goes on to name names and detail many examples. An educating read indeed.
http://www.groklaw.n...ory=2011021108493059

591

Living Room / I'm so old, I remember when people paid Microsoft to use their software

« Last post by zridling on February 14, 2011, 07:09 AM »

Nokia CEO and recently former Microsoft employee Stephen Elop did the deal for Nokia. (He worked for the company for only two years, but became its 7th largest shareholder?!) Oh well, just another wall to the internet: choose your shackles: Apple, Google, Microsoft, et al. This ain't about software, this is about the future of charging customers for every single move they make with their devices and the right to advertise them to death.



Microsoft to pay out 'billions' as part of Nokia deal
http://www.computerw...s_part_of_Nokia_deal

Nokia CEO Elop Denies Being "Trojan Horse" For Microsoft
http://www.businessi...for-microsoft-2011-2

592

Living Room / Re: I wish I'd had this when I was learning physics

« Last post by zridling on February 13, 2011, 11:12 PM »

Have to agree with SuperboyAC -- if you own a kid, get them to the Khan Academy site now!
http://www.khanacademy.org/

No more "I had a bad teacher" excuses for this generation.

593

Living Room / Re: Borders Goes Bankrupt - The Death of Print at Retail?

« Last post by zridling on February 12, 2011, 04:52 PM »

I have a confession. I worked at Barnes & Noble for three years and it's the best company by far I have ever worked for. They paid almost nothing, but it was a pleasure working with intelligent, curious people. If you got sick, they'd say, "Call us when you feel ready to come back to work." Made me want to work even when I was sick as a dog just because they trusted you.

As several noted, like software and music, there's almost no need to walk into a bookstore. And B&N spent zillions building stores independent of malls. Maybe they can expand the cafe.

594

Living Room / Re: Let's face it: the ebook market is FUBAR, thanks to pure greed

« Last post by zridling on February 11, 2011, 10:20 AM »

On a Kindle tangent, Slate's Farhad Manjoo seems confused about degrees of "openness":
http://www.slate.com...7298/pagenum/all/#p2

The comments provide corrective feedback to his misperceptions. Among other interesting tidbits are:
-- How librarians are telling people to stop buying Kindles as a gift (once you buy a Kindle, you're locked into Amazon)
-- The model publishers are following with DRM and pricing is RIAA in the 1990s all over again
-- We might see ebook rentals for textbooks, pulp fiction, etc.
-- Laura Miller's take on Google's ebooks at Salon: http://www.salon.com...bookstore/index.html
-- Stop confusing the iPad as an e-reader. It can't do what the Kindle/Nook does and doesn't have the Ink clarity.

595

Living Room / Re: A question for Google -- why are you so desperate to have me switch to Chrome?

« Last post by zridling on February 09, 2011, 05:09 PM »

Since Mozilla and Opera are "merely" in the software business -- and not out to take over the world -- then they're in an "I-can-do-that,-too!" position, hoping to get noticed.

596

Living Room / Re: Let's face it: the ebook market is FUBAR, thanks to pure greed

« Last post by zridling on February 09, 2011, 06:33 AM »

Exactly where on this planet are you going to find a democracy if I may be so bold? I didn't know any actually existed.

-40hz (February 07, 2011, 07:41 PM)

Of course this only assumes those who believe in the market also believe that we exist in a free market... (with no government bail-outs/global plans to censor the internet/intentional worsening of depressions to temporary stave off a more noticeable recession...)

-Paul Keith (February 07, 2011, 12:34 PM)

Reminds me of this line  :
Choice is an illusion created by those with power for those without.
  -- Merovingian, The Matrix Reloaded (2003)

597

Living Room / Re: NoteSlate - mono color tablet, nice price

« Last post by zridling on February 09, 2011, 06:27 AM »

If it's real, I'd buy one to see if it works half as good as it looks. A 13-inch display would be awesome, since I'd use a tablet mostly to read .ePub books with.

598

Living Room / Re: A question for Google -- why are you so desperate to have me switch to Chrome?

« Last post by zridling on February 09, 2011, 06:20 AM »

Probably for the same reasons that Microsoft bought a little browser then turned around and made it free. Applications are moving to the web, and they want to be there. That's where the money is.

-Renegade (February 08, 2011, 12:20 AM)

Have to agree with Renegade and Paul Keith on this. The answer lies [somewhat] in 1995 and the lengths Microsoft went to make it so easy to use IE over any other browser. That crazy time with Navigator really set the open source movement on a path that has slowly evolved into Chrome. Apple doesn't give a frick what you think about Safari; they're in control like it or not. Microsoft is racing to install cloud services throughout its software lineup. But right now (beyond Opera), you have three choices: (1) buy into a closed proprietary system like Apple, (2) go with Microsoft, who refuses to implement key open source standards in its browser, or (3) go with Chrome, which is trying to shed as much proprietary baggage as possible for one simple reason: so you can "take your data with you" -- whether that be mobile/tablet, desktop, netbook, and even gaming within the browser.



One example is WebGL (Web-based Graphics Language). What it does is use JavaScript to implement the use of 3D graphics within the browser. Currently this can only be done in Chrome, which makes version 9 a significant step in browser technology. Firefox and Safari are both expected to support WebGL, although Microsoft has not said that they will implement it in IE. Google's Chrome Experiments page contains some cool examples of what they're trying to do. (You will need to turn off adblock and other filters.)

Finally, Google has learned user behaviors the hard way: once settled in and comfortable with an application, most users are loathe to switch. If you're accustomed to Google Apps and Services, you'll likely lobby your company to adopt the same for convenience. Microsoft wrote the book; Google is just following the script.

599

Living Room / Re: Let's face it: the ebook market is FUBAR, thanks to pure greed

« Last post by zridling on February 07, 2011, 10:45 AM »

Absent from publishers' and distributors' discussions are the customer. It's not what we want, but what they're willing to shove up our ass, I mean "give" us. Much like I envision the "Apple experience."
 

600

General Software Discussion / Re: LibreOffice UI Mockups (with sidebar)

« Last post by zridling on February 06, 2011, 09:35 AM »

It opens in less than a second on my old computer under openSUSE Linux. And the preloader's been gone a while now. I regularly open a 6.2mb spreadsheet file from the desktop and it takes just over a second. No way I can be unhappy with that response. I do hope, though, that if future versions bring "heavy" new features, the user will be able to include/install them modularly. I don't need everything, just Writer, Calc, and Formula.