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odysseus_nz

Listed below are comments made by odysseus_nz between Friday, 29th May 2009 and Wednesday, 26th August 2009.

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Anonymous on the internet 10:27am on 26 Aug 2009 @synthil Have you heard of http://identi.ca/ ? While not quite a non-profit, it's all FOSS and CC and open standards, so is almost there.
Teenage hackers: Making a better world 5:00pm on 24 Aug 2009 No ravenmorpheus, we are hackers, and proud of it. The name has a long and proud history since it was coined at MIT in the 60's, it is only the media who misused and subverted it in the 80's to mean something different, what we refer to as crackers.

Hackers create, crackers destroy, simples!

John.
(Proper Hacker, Geek, Free-Software 'crusty', and damn proud of it)
Time for an Apple rumour 09:34am on 14 Aug 2009 Souped up iPod Touch based on the iPhone 3GS. New music file format wrapper to include full album artwork, lyrics, etc. A new iTunes streaming jukebox service.

No tablet, unless Steve wants to mark his comeback with a very big 'One more thing...', but I've yet to see a convincing business case for one, i.e. what would it be for, who would buy it, what strategic advantage does it give Apple???
A browser-free Windows 7 11:44am on 26 Jun 2009 Looks like the MS astroturfers and shills are out in force again, guess this is a sore point for them...

A few points:

The EU action has had a major benefit in that MS have stopped their deceit that the browser is integral to the OS and cannot be separated or uninstalled from it. Their action has forced MS to separate it out and ensure that other browsers can operate on Windows on a technologically level playing field. That's the real benefit of the EU and DoJ actions.

Remember MS is a convicted monopolist, not because they have a monopoly, but because they illegally used that monopoly in one area, the OS, to create a monopoly in another area, the browser market.

Ubuntu and OSX may ship with Firefox/Safari installed, but you are free to uninstall them and choose a different browser and have it function OK. Ubuntu and Firefox are made by separate entities and don't even have a business relationship so it isn't even comparable.

Personally I wouldn't want to rely on MS playing nice, look how they left IE to stagnate after they illegally beat Netscape, if maintaining competition in the market forces MS to continue developing IE and to move to better support for browser standards, them I'm all for it as it ensure the net stays an open platform.

As for not offering an upgrade installer in Europe, that means you will have to completely wipe your drive before installing Win7 fresh, which is probably a good thing from a technical view. Users will of course have to back-up their data files as part of that process (MS provide a wizard for this), and so will just need to save a copy of the Firefox installer too. Given FF has about 50% of the European browser market anyway, that won't be a hardship for most people. That said, I do prefer the EU idea of giving users the choice after install for which browser they want to install, but I still wouldn't trust MS to do that right either.
Apple's big day 11:41am on 09 Jun 2009 Bit miffed they upgraded the 13" Macbook a mere 6 months after the initial release which I got, especially as it seems to address my big problems with the screen. Now to decide if I take the financial hit from the early upgrade...

Other big question: where's the upgraded iPod Touch? I don't want an iPhone, too bulky to carry around all the time, but a 64Gb touch would be perfect.
A swing to the pirates 10:39am on 09 Jun 2009 The Pirate Party is also now the largest party in the 18-35 age-group, something that will be grabbing the attention of the local politicians...

The plan to throttle file sharers? How will they know when everyone starts encrypting their traffic? Yet another unworkable fantasy from policy makers who don't have a clue about technology. There is NO technological solution, there will always be a way around it. Instead they need to put their efforts into developing an economically viable business solution. Just as the VCR made the movie industry more money instead of killing it as they so wildly predicted, so too can digital media if done the way the customers want it done.

And on a slightly related note, Ben Goldarce rips apart those dodgy stats on the cost of piracy to the economy that the government published the other week. See http://www.badscience.net/2009/06/home-taping-didnt-kill-music/ or The Guardian website.
iPlayer: BBC v BT 10:58am on 02 Jun 2009 I wonder, do they throttle BT Vision as well? I hope so, as anything would be anti-competitive behaviour from a dominant market player. Or is that not available for Option 1 customers?

In general though, it doesn't matter what the content is, I'm paying my ISP to deliver the bits when I request them, what those bits are has nothing to do with the ISP. Why should the ISP get a cut of the business they are carrying? BT doesn't get a cut from the insurance company when I phone up to renew my premium, the Post Office doesn't get a cut from that book or CD that Amazon posted to me, the power company doesn't get a cut from the trades I've just made using my pc powered by their product. So why does BT expect that that the content providers should have to give them a cut?

Now, if BT has a problem delivering on the service they have sold, that's their problem, they shouldn't be over-selling their capacity. If they want to advertise up-front the terms and conditions that apply to getting a cheap plan, well and good. But their actions here can at best be described as deceptive.
Xbox Live gets truly social 10:40am on 02 Jun 2009 I have some sympathy with Darren's view, but possibly not for the same reason. It is a big thing that MS are opening up their closed garden and linking into outside services using public API's. In the past they would have forced you into using only MS services unless they did an exclusive deal with an outside provider where money changed hands (although the whole Sky/iPlayer thing shows old habits do die hard). For MS, that is a big thing.

As for Natal, as with most MS 'innovation' I'll believe it when I see it in action in the real world...
Britain and the bike: a bumpy ride 11:28am on 29 May 2009 Oh, and as for getting coverage on the BBC, I have two words: Red Button. How often do I push it and see nothing but a logo, or some endlessly looping sports headlines, or some dumb self-promo material for a new show on CBeebies? There's hours of time to fill in there and it's not like it clashes with something major like Wimbledon, or that the Beeb needs it for the Ashes.
Britain and the bike: a bumpy ride 11:07am on 29 May 2009 Just for comparison, In Australia the TdF is shown almost in full, live, and free-to-air on SBS, and in New Zealand most stages are shown live on Sky. Of course, the time difference makes that easy to do as coverage starts around 10pm/midnight when the stations need a cheap time-filler, and you get to work the next day absolutely buggered from lack of sleep, but it sure beats the coverage over here.

I commute every day by bike, and it's actually faster riding then catching the hell that is the Northern Line, but between the drivers, the pedestrians, the potholes, the dodgy estates (2 stabbing deaths literally on my route in the last year alone), and worst of all my fellow cyclists, I sometimes wonder if I have a death wish...

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