Virtual Thought

...and I don’t think Apple is ever going to put it in.

I read an article on Wired that discusses where Apple’s entertainment division is going next now that there are no more features to be added to the iPod. Basically, the author says that since Apple hasn’t added a new feature to the iPod this year that is a sign that they’re slowing down, that they’re feature complete.

Nope. The killer feature that Apple could add to iPods is wireless connectability. I believe it is the killer feature. Imagine being able to put two iPods side-by-side and have the little beasties communicate and give their users the ability to swap songs. Easy as pie. “Select the songs you want to transfer.” “Click here to transfer.” “Transferring…” “Done!”

I understand the author isn’t saying that he thinks iPods don’t need features anymore… that it’s Apple that is saying it. Still… imagine how cool it would be to transfer songs with your friends! C’mon, Apple!

Of course the RIAA might have something to say about that… ( =

Windows Vista is coming out soon for large values of “soon.” Among the features I am excited about include the improvements in Windows Explorer:

Yeah, yeah, I know… it’s a beta, blah blah blah. ( ;

Just so we’re all clear… Mac OS X has not had its first virus. The Oompa Loompa threat is a trojan. It disguises itself as a legitimate program (or, er, a JPEG in this case) that invites clicking. You then have to authenticate with your password. Only then will it run. I wouldn’t type in my password to look at a picture, would you? ( ;

It does spread via iChat… but only after it has been executed and authenticated by the user. Compare this to ActiveX virii on PCs that spread because the user went to a bad webpage… way different.

And I’m not doing this because I’m some rabid Mac guy… I just hate misinformation.

Okay, Microsoft, please please please fix this before you put Visual Studio 2005 out.

VS keeps changing project files on me and it’s screwing up my source control. We’re using StarTeam at work and, every time I build, VS changes the types of form and control files in, oh, about half the project files in the solution from “UserControl” or “Form” to “Code”... and then, arbitrarily, back again. This happens even though I haven’t done anything of the sort inside the editor itself… it just happens on solution builds. So then, when I go to StarTeam and try to check in only the files I’ve modified I have to wade through the 30 or so project files that say they’ve changed even though I have changed nothing. WTF(What the fuck)?!?!? Don’t keep erroneously changing the types of those files on solution build! Don’t make it harder for me to do my job!

I like this headline: Google bows to great firewall of China

So Google’s motto is “Don’t be evil” while, at the same time, it is a multinational corporation ultimately responsible to its shareholders for maintaing a steady rise in profits. Which motivation won out here?

On the one hand I think they weren’t evil here: At least Chinese citizens have access to the Internet’s far-flung resources that Google provides. I truly believe in the transformational power of availability of information and I know for a fact that no matter how good a filter Google puts in place they won’t be able to filter out everything the Chinese government wants them to. Maybe they’re banking on that fact.

On the other hand, Google has to watch out for its bottom line and it’s the shareholders and the Board who determine how evil Google is. Corporations, as a rule, need to profit from their actions as a survival strategy. That is the economic system that we have set up currently.

I would love to see the deliberations from Google at the highest level. What were they talking about? What were the pros and cons from their point of view? Again, could they come out and say, “Yes, we’re filtering content at Google.cn but, don’t worry, we know that we can’t filter 100% of the controversial content so Chinese citizens still have access,” without pissing off the Chinese?

Microsoft wins FAT patent case.

In an IP law infected world, what does this mean? Potentially, that Linux won’t be able to use FAT as a filesystem and therefore will only be able to interoperate with Windows filesystems through Windows OSes. It means that all the USB drives of the world just got a little bit more complex, a little more expensive. It means that a small host of helpful, free utilities might have to license the filesystem use from Microsoft.

Godammit. Who did this protect exactly? Microsoft. Who was billions of dollars to ensure that IP legislation stays current and aggressive through donations to key legislators? Microsoft. Who gets hurt by the lack of innovation this widespread, general kind of protection this patent provides? Consumers. You might be thinking, “Well, Microsoft did innovate and invent that filesystem. They deserve to be compensated for their hard work commensurate to their effort and dilligence. After all, I would want that kind of protection should I ever invent anything.”

Wrong. Guess what: We don’t live in a free market. Your products don’t get to compete fairly for two reasons:

1. Late-era capitalism combined with post-scarcity commodities. Digital goods are not scarce. Digital means of production are not scarce. In fact, filesystem innovation at the level of FAT is not scarce. What is, exactly? Time. Right, right… the resource in a digital age. But guess what? If you measure the amount of time spent on developing FAT with an adjusted ruler (adjusting for the current speed of technology development) you’ll find that the time spent was probably only a few minutes. How much is that worth now? Are FAT royalties going to be adjusted to that level? Can a free software advocate walk up to Microsoft, give them $100, and declare that the royalties for FAT have been paid?
2. Influence of capital. If I pay you $5 to influece your decision, is that fair? If large, corporate bodies that are content providers lobby Congress incessantly with large amounts of money, is that fair? I’m not one to argue that “fair” necessarily needs to be a part of the marketplace; however, if you think the market is going to reward your commensurately reward your efforts based solely on those efforts you are sadly mistaken.

My scream of frustration goes here.

I have found the solution to loving my Mac but wanting to develop on a PC.

So apparently there’s this app called Synergy which lets one person sync two computers, each with their own monitor… so that someone (say, me) can effectively have one keyboard and one mouse, but two monitors and two computers. Dragging the mouse cursor to the edge of the screen of one system (Windows) will move the cursor onto the second system (Mac). Genius! There’s even a Synergy GUI for help setting it up on the Mac.