An addition to this blog post
Of course I had forgotten the semantics in the meantime, and google did not point me to my own blog. So with this entry I hope it will. Since one thing is for sure: I will need the screen command again, and it will also have forgotten how to use it.
In order to share one terminal session by two people on the same machine personA runs:
screen -S someName
the second person should be able to share the session by running:
screen -x someName
yeah, yeah,
youtube. Everybody talked about all that money g paid for it.
Next one on the list of things to mention is the ample amount of content.
And then -of course- people mumble about DRM. Lawsuits. All that stuff journalists like to write about.
But, did anybody ever look at it???
It looks like shit – curtesy Flash video. 95% install base made this format an instant winner.
And it still looks like shit. When MTV appeared it at least had the same TV quality than the rest.
The sad part is, that it seems to be good enough. People don’t seem to mind.
Once about a time Amanda and Andrew (2) made rocketboom. And it was alright. Had a couple of ideas, was fresh, delivered in iTunes daily. Overall it was worth watching. Then they broke up (divided by two). Andrew got a new leading lady (+1). I never started watching again (=0). She tried to much to be like the old rocketboom AND try to find her own style in the same time. Amanda went to LA. She signed with a talent agency. And now ABC picked her up (+allot):
ABC’s “page” for Amanda Congdon
Just watched the first installment. It it dull, boring. No content. Nothing of interest. More visual treatment but nothing that mattered or that was original. She still does the signature swing into the camera thing. But not even those worked. Timing is indeed crucial.
Perceived production value on the original rocketboom was definitely higher than it is now. Which is ridicolous, since ABC probably spends between five hundred and thousand times more per second than the original did.
Another sad part of the new presentation is the whole “breast in your face” action. No, it is not me. I have watched her for hours, daily on Rocketboom. Yes, she never was ugly. But it was a good mix, with her looks not trying to center stage. Which is almost always horrible boring. It seems ABC never understood her or the whole concept. They tried, and failed dismally. It could easily be that ABC will loose around hundret US$ per viewer per episode on the web. Nobody would care to watch this.
I hope that ‘zefrank’ is really only one guy. So he can not split up, and leave us with no decent content left in the those video feeds.
The screen goes dark on an iBook G3 that my wife used to use. Turns out that this is a very common problem with iBooks G3 machines. Google does do a good job in showing related results. But imagine it could do a better job! How if computer makers would give their models google-able individual ‘names’. Those could be anything, as long their use is easy and encouraged by their nature. Bugs could be tracked. There could be a whole new industry around this: I rather write some new code then to battle 50 tiny screws on that iBook. But somebody else might have fixed a few of those iBooks already. Putting a bigger harddrive in while the machine is open. It’s old, but still a very neat machine. Who cares about the Mhz? The white iBook is a great little computer. One worth fixing. One capable ‘enough’.
A very interesting overview of the different response curves for the Arri D20, Thompson Viper, RED and some other cameras.
March 12, 2009
A couple of years ago I wrote this post. Putting it under this headline was misleading. I like my credit union (much better than my other bank: Wells Fargo. Well OK, that’s an easy one).
The original post read like this:
I am with that credit union since ten years. And I will probably stay with them. The people in the branch are nice. Since years I wire money. Always the same accounts. It never went through in the beginning. They could not read my handwriting. So I made a pretty version and started to xerox it. Filled in the date and the amount. Things started to work. Then they must have gotten a new middle management moron or just plain lost it: Now they have their people fill in the form, print it and then fax it. Which takes them a while, I have to double check that all numbers are correct and so forth. Stupid really, since they were able to read the forms before. They just loose time. I would too, but I can use the wifi of the nearby coffee shop while they enter the same information. Month by month.
Now the money did not arrive. After 20 minute of call center hell I learned that they now require an additional number: the IBAN number. Another 21 digit number. There are already 50 digits to be filled out for each transfer. Fine. The problem was that they just did not tell their branch that this number is mandatory now. Nor did they issue new forms. Of course the number is already contained on those 50 digits. Wikipedia knows that. I know it now. But the bank, who’s business it should be to know these things, apparently does not. This -unforntunately- is no exception. Every years billions of dollars are being destroyed in endless rows of ugly cubicles by moronic concepts and TPS reports. Since all banks are the same it is hard for capitalism do what it is supposed to do: keeping people on their toes. Make them think, so that they don’t break things.
A while back a friend gave me his Nokia 3210. Five weeks ago it got soaked with water and stopped working. Just a single horizontal black line on the display flashed up when the phone was powered up. Or the entire screen when it was connected to the power adapter. Removing battery and SIM card and holding a blow dryer into to for a minute fixed this issue. I could not believe that humidity was able to hide for so long in the phone and a decent ‘bake’ from the blow dryer was able to fix it. Should I set a robot an buy everything @ ebay that reads ‘water damage’ and is cheaper than 10 US$ ?
Maybe the miracle can be repeated. Maybe this is the way to get rich? Forget about coding. Value up seemingly broken electronics.
In November the best selling game console was (drumroll) the Playstation. Playstation-2 that is: 664,000 of the units that debuted in the beginning of century found new owners. With prices as affordable as 99 dollars and the biggest game library there is it makes for a pretty nice product. Next one in the sales charts is Microsofts Xbox 360 with 511,000 units. Pushing its install base into substance after being out for one year. Nintendo’s Wii was able to get 476,000 out to i’ts users in a few days. Quiet a start. Trailing the pack is the Playstation 3, the console that was supposed to revolutionize everything. Much has been written about Sony’s ambition with this machine, it’s supply issues, the craze for the first units. Not much was said about the pretty pictures that the unit is able to create. Which is not good news. After all a ps3 is five to six times more expensive than a ps2. HD alone is not enough I am afraid.
Joel makes a point that things do well when they features. For INTERDUBS I spent allot of time lately think about the number of features, and ‘iPodness’ of the user interaction. Interesting to read a voice that goes against the current trend of simple, simple and simple.