...more recent posts
The New York Times thinks you are stupid. Here's their new offer. And here's an explanation of what it means. The short version is: you get a digital version of the paper that can only be played in a propritary browser (what's wrong with my browser?) can't be linked to or shared with anyone else (including a second computer of your own) and expires after a week. This is getting silly. Only someone who doesn't understand the technology could fall for this. Please join me in never linking to any New York Times pieces. I'm going to stop reading the print edition too. (Yes, I'm sure they're quaking in their boots.)
I guess I should say something about the iPod, Apple's new portable MP3 player. It certainly represents no "breakthrough" as the pre-release hype had everyone wound up to expect. But it is an incremental improvement. Sure, you can get a nomad with 20 gigs of storage, but the nomad is big and heavy. And ugly. The iPod, with 5 gigs of storage (enough for roughly 1,000 songs) is truly portable. Its firewire connection (instead of the USB connection most "portable" devices have) transfers music fast. Downloading 20 gigs into a nomad over USB would take forever. And O.K., at $399 the iPod is expensive, but this is an Apple product so that should come as no surprise.
The real question is about digital rights management. Computing devices that attempt to secure intellectual property are going to be more complex while having less utility than devices which do not. The ethical questions can be debated endlessly, but I think this much is clear: the market will reward general purpose computing devices that don't police their own users over devices that foil simple, legal and fundamental uses of the device merely in an effort to stop the possibility of misuse. Consider the market potential of an automobile equipped with a cut off so that it couldn't go faster than 65. This would assure that drivers do not break the law, but who would buy such a car? Yet the computer industry seems intent on offering us just such crippled products. It's certainly not your "rights" which "digital rights management" schemes are trying to protect.
Steve Jobs was quoted in one New York Times article as mentioning that there was some unspecified technology in place that would prevent users from uploading songs from the iPod to a different computer than the one from which the song was downloaded. But the quote was vague, and nothing in the iPod specs seems to back this up. This HTP thread discusses the issue in some detail. My best guess at this point (no one has an iPod yet) is that there is some tiny bit of friction built into the device to curtail trading of music files, but not much. And maybe none. This is the direction Apple needs to be heading, and perhaps that is what Jobs' means when he says Apple makes devices that "just work." I think most people are under estimating how vulnerable Microsoft is on this point. Of course, I'm not sure Apple won't blow it.
Do I want one? Sure. But I won't be buying one. I don't really listen to music when I'm moving around. I'd rather put the $400 towards an iBook or TiBook which would then give me all the capabilities of the iPod (minus the extreme front pocket portability) plus being a computer in it's own right. I think the iPod is only attractive to people who work out at a gym, or to people who like cool gadgets and to whom $400 is no big deal (I miss on both counts.) But if you're looking to buy me a present I'd sure be happy to get one for free.
Did anybody else feel that? I don't know what time it was, but I was completely asleep last night when I was woken up by a violent shock to our building. Not like something falling on the roof, but the whole building shaking. Very strong. Not really the sort of thing you want to feel these days. I can't find anything in the news though...
Maybe an earthquake?
A sonic boom from a low flying military jet?
Definitely something big. At least on the lower east side.
Here are 10 photos from our trip up to Indian Lake in the Adirondack State Park. Five hours from NYC. We stayed in a small cabin right on the water. We took a couple hikes, a rather long trip in two row boats, and ate pretty much constantly. C beat us all at cards. Beautiful spot we will return to next year.
Gone fishin'.
Be back Thursday.
When I get downstairs to the office later (and the DSL line) I will check out this 15 megabyte photo of the WTC site. Apparently it was made with a large format camera from a airplane.
Cam has a side by side comparison of the new Windows XP default screen and a poster of the teletubbies. Hmmmm....
Tuesday is: XP release; new Apple ("not a Mac") device release; weblogs.com corner turn. Also, I'll be introducing a new upgraded version of myself at a gala press conference. Your invite might have been lost in the mail.
Whump has a link to an article on making custom sidebars for Netscape 6 (Mozilla.) I've got an experiment brewing I'll need this for.
Wow. Great show last night. Well worth the trip. A little bit of mayhem can still happen right in the middle of Times Square. Are they coming to your town? Highly recommended.
Short article by Paul Virilio:
"...I will underline that terrorism has just inaugurated an anti-cities strategy. This means that all towers are today threatened. Instead of being a place of dominion, as the dungeons of the past, the tower has become a place of weakness: vertically, it is henceforth the equivalent of the outer wall which the artillery blew up...."