I don’t agee with all its points. But it has been a while since there was a ‘Barry says’ like piece.
Being a child of the last century, and having built machines, that, well, actually build machines, I might have unusual high interest in things how actually get made. Looking at America in 2007 you might think that it needs is marketing and malls to provide people with ‘stuff’. But there is this little -often ugly- detail: ‘stuff’ needs to get made. And before that, it has to be engineered. Mostly elsewhere.
This brief intro to zfs I had linked to in the last entry already. As it turns out, I was a bit naive in thinking that Apple would just implement zfs in leopard. If I understand this clarification correctly then ZFS will be READ ONLY in Leopard. Which makes it pointless for all real life uses I had in mind. Or that most people ever would have had in mind. Why bother? Apple is an odd company, certainly not one that behaves logical in some areas of it’s efforts. Sometimes it just behaves like a spoiled Trust-a-fari. Who needs reason if the iPod sales just keep the ATM filled up for you?
In the meantime Sun’s Jonathan Schwartz invites Linus Torwalds to dinner in response to his post about Sun.
What I do like about this story is how much of it happens in the open for everybody to see. In a more upbeat perspective there seems to be one big global “Forum Romanum” these days.
some random links, let’s call it BlogsNow Digest:
Zfs explained: easy, brief and hands on I will upgrade to Leopard aka OS X 10.5 just for ZFS.
Pi is 3, says the Bible
Some things are so god-damn straight forward, it is hard to fathom that people run around and try to think otherwise. I
via strangemaps via BlogsNow (of course)
Some days I like the internet. Does it not only have sites for strange maps but also for the history of the button
and -I am sure- all sorts of other ones.
It’s been 50 years since Mao said “Let 100 flowers blossom”.
Of course there are all sorts of flowers.
A brief story about the beginnings of Photoshop. Interesting, I had no idea that Pixar made computers. Which is a bit embarrassing, considering what I do for a living. Well, now I know.
Somehow there is this long history of really small screens. And most of them were failures. OK, Sony became known by shipping a load of portable TVs via one of the first 747s to NYC. But apart from that, the watchman wasn’t really that sucessful. Neither was the iPod with video capabilities. There are actually much better devices in terms of screen size or price. But none of them really caught on. I think the problem is, that there is no real content and need for such a device. It’s technical feasibility seems to lure people into thinking otherwise. But how often do you find yourself wishing to watch a couple of quare inch screen? When? As much as the original walkman concept of having a mobile music source with headphones was a hit the mobile visual pendant is a miss. It’s not flying. And I honestly doubt that the iPhone will change that. Nothing will. How many of your chat sessions are video chats? Exactly. Yet, the picture-phone had the same feasibility driven shadow life for a while. Lateral progress I would call these things: Something is a hit. And then people just extend the concept to the side. Cinemas add first sound and then color. Both times it’s been well perceived. Smelling is another sense! Just that it did not work. Walkman -> Watchman. Same deal. Ears are happy with a walkman on, let’s feed the eyes now. It’s probably easy to pitch. Stupid board member can ‘see’ this simple lateral extensions. As Homer Simpson said “They have the internet on computers now”
This is a neat little overview how the internet is doing.
Some other links that do similar things: UCI.edu Internet Traffic Report And nice cross matrix between different providers.
Abusing the own blog as a boomarking tool again, here a list of ten OS X Application Some even be worth trying. Just that every new Application I need to kick one to the curb. Appl-Clutter is horrible.
Clutter is horrible. Period. Just writing this while Final Cut thinks it needs a re-render. Of course it’s not needed. But those bugs that you can survive that ‘only’ waste time and disk space get fixed last.