junklight

First off - most people in any entertainment industry - music , books , comedy etc. are not making megabucks. Most of them earn somewhere between an ok wage and a pretty rubbish one.

However there are plenty of people experimenting like Louie C K is up and down the spectrum. I buy lots of stuff from people who are doing their own thing. To pick some random smaller examples - http://www.dgmlive.com - King Crimson and Robert Fripp, Matt Stevens http://www.mattstevensguitar.com and Richard Skelton http://www.sustain-release.co.uk/

Do they make megabucks? of course not but they are making a living.

The question actually is - are they getting more return for their work than if they used more traditional channels and I think all would argue that they are.

Not only is this approach sustainable - it's going to become essential for all but the most mainstream. Louie CK and Radio head possibly suggest that even the more mainstream will do better doing it on their own terms.

that was my thought too

I wouldn't sasume it has been ruled out - people (myself included) sometimes get mentally stuck on one solution and fail to spot another obvious avenue.

this whole "there is only one product in any category and it has to be killed" theory of journalism and blogs drives me up the wall.

Go outside and look in the road. Can you see more than one make of car?

competition is good. This story should read - "at long last some decent competition in the 'pad' market place"

Heh heh. When I learned about computer science in school it was punched cards, and then later on VAXs. The theory and the Unix stuff came in useful though.

Seriously though I left education 24 years ago and now looking back that was pretty much the period of lowest density learning I've ever had. Since I left education I have been learning constantly.

As an employer the main things I need you to come to me with from your education is: how to research things on your own, how to learn new stuff without being spoon fed and if possible some good solid and broad theoretical knowledge. You will pick up source control and all that stuff up from your co-workers.

I'm not sure that this actualy means anything. Just a pragmatic move while they get the pro features into FCPX.

I guess if there is any hidden message it might be that they are wanting to keep the pro's onside - which might be good news for the direction of FCP and Logic.

(also to note that there is nothing actually wrong with FCPX - I'm using it everyday working on some marketing materials right now. I can see that Pros are missing some features which is fair enough but it's an extremely usable application and I'm finding it very friction free to work in)

yes it's clear that what this light hearted throwaway joke needs is lots of over analysis.

I thought it was quite amusing anyway.

Do you know what - in my house I have a number of machines. They do things like cleaning clothes and dishes and making food hotter. They all have microprocessors in them and can do quite sophisticated stuff - but their interface - almost always a single dial. And that's great because I don't actually care how they do it I just want the job done. Yes I am technically capable of getting in their and reprograming the chips but why would I?

And this is the thing - there is no reason why half the things on my computer should be hard. When I am working with documents (text , video , music , etc) then I just want to easily open the document and work on it. I want backups to be trivial etc. etc. And what is more 99% of users want this and only this.

But the great thing about the mac is that if you look at the SDKs there is ever more sophistiation and "cool" stuff for us developers. Terminal had a lot of love this time round, Xcode might not have the greatest UI but it also gets a lot of attention - Apple take developers seriously

It doesn't bother me that my computer is powerful and easy to use. I don't think this is a bad thing and I also think all the people reading into this "oh the mac is going to just be for idiots" are idiots themselves: go and download the SDKs and XCode and then tell me that Apple are dumbing down

I do think that Apple are moving away from the "pro" market BTW - they have their sights on something much more interesting - the pervasive computing future when most of our computing needs are met by a cloud of little machines. I already love that I can walk into a room in my house and flick up stuff from my phone or ipad onto my TV or walk into another room and make music appear from said phone or iPad. There will come a day when your "computer" is a coming together of screen , processor unit and keyboard and when you get up taking the processor with you that computer is no longer physically there until next time you come past. We are going to see this in the video game world too - we aren't far from an ipad or iphone that is your portable gaming device and when you are near your TV is your console and when you are with your mates is your lan party (with or without screens and speakers) - and if Microsoft and Sony aren't paying attention they will loose the entire market overnight

I guess there are three options:

1) dive in help her, pay up make it all good get good PR. BUT if they are thinking that this is going to be a common problem and going to happen a lot then they may be making rod for their own backs…

or

2) Ride the storm - which again you would only do if you thought this was going to be an ongoing issue

or

3) they are idiots and have no idea how to handle PR (just like I wouldn't hire a project manager who hadn't been on a serious failed project I wouldn't hire PR who hadn't weathered some sort of shit storm)

None of those choices speak well for Airbnb's value - either this is going to be a problem for their business model or they aren't experienced enough to run something like this…

to be fair if it's (3) I'm sure they are getting some pretty good learning in right now

yawn

I do get tired of these "recieved wisdom" nuggets as seen in the headline here - see also "ipad is for consuming only" and "linux not suitable for desktop" (although that one seems to have died a death) etc. etc. and of course the actual article is a rather mundane overview of one or two of the features

Since I'm here: is Lion turning into iOS - no. I'm finding it makes me even more effective - I fly round my Air like I can fly round my source code with Vim. I find the gestures and the trackpad make a mouse feel like a clumsy ancient thing, Launchpad is acutally not too bad sometimes - gesture tap is quicker than ctrl-space typing enter (I use launchbar now - switched from quicksilver when it was going through rough times). Mission control, or whatever it's called, is much better than spaces and expose - I love the re-arrange spaces so apps I alt-tab between are close to each other. I find that full screen and focusing on a single task is much better for my concentraion - and was something I've been trying to do since long before I got Lion.

this is actually a power users update whatever you might hear

This isn't really suprising. Even the large banks would do this if they could get away with it. Look at the Goldman Sachs high frequency trading stuff - even if it wasn't illegal they were sailing as close to the wind as they possibly could.

Trust is going to become a massive issue in the future - just as "privacy" and "digital rights" are at the moment if we have any desire to move away from the large institutions and governmental regulation that we currently use to "solve" these problems. Quotes because it's not a great solution - see Enron for example.

It's great that things like Bitcoin are being tried - but we should also be clear that this is the wild west. Dealing with banking and trading in a totally unregulated environment. I would hope that the lessons that the finance industries learned the hard way and that led to audits and regulation and other instruments can be leveraged. Otherwise we are doomed to reinvent the whole industry all over again....

It's not just the tech industry - read Nick Davies Flat Earth News for more on PR and the massive impact it has on "news".

I wonder if this will become the norm or if there will be a backlash and people will start to prefer unspun unvarnished truth ?

I've been programming since '81 and commercially since '88.

Books, magazines (remember typing in example programs!) , undoubtedly re-invented many more wheels than I do now, colleagues, CIX (remember that BBS in the UK?), looking at open source code, I wrote a warren abstract machine (Prolog interpreter) back in the day and a regular expression engine and for both of those spent a lot of time in the university library (had long since left but still lived near it). Just because it wasn't a click away didn't mean that the information was not there.

But most of my code now still comes out of my head. The times I search for code are when I know that someone must have solved this problem already.

I fully agree projection figures are guesses, likely to show the situation in a good light, and as much use as a guide to the future as a random line drawn on a bit of paper.

BUT

that is not all that makes up a projection. The interesting and useful information is what assumptions have gone into making the projections, what understanding of the market is present etc. etc. By questioning the creator of the business plans about all of this you can rapidly find out if they understand their business, their market place and their competition.

(I'm not sure how this scales - but for small companies it's critical information. However it certainly works in some situations - IDC are projecting that Microsoft and Nokia will once again be a dominant force in mobile phones, reading the article their assumption seems to be that, Microsoft and Nokia have been dominant in the past and therefore, despite a changing market and any damage they have seemingly done to their own companies, they will be again. Having identified it I can now evaluate that assumption on it's own merits. With a small company this may well be more hidden. Another great example comes to mind: the work song nano cluster episode of Big Bang Theory when Sheldon points out that Penny's business plan will result in her earning considerably less than minimum wage)

Projections are not useless - they tell you what people are thinking and how well they understand key things needed to make it succeed. Just don't treat them as actual predictions of the future.

This strategy worked out really well for C# as a response to Java. At first it seemed just like a spoiling move but somewhere a long the way c# turned into the better language.

So you can't blame them for giving the strategy another whirl

Well it looks like they have already done something better than all their non-Apple competitors - instead of rushing it out half finished they seem to have waited until it's done. Given the biggest complaint about webos on the phone was the power of the processor this stands a good chance of being a nice product. fingers crossed for them

(I'm unlikely to give up my iPad given iCloud now but there really should be a decent competitor in the market place) ((and by decent I mean something a casual purchaser will be happy with and not a tablet that is good enough to make someone happy who pointedly doesn't want to buy Apple and will put up with all sorts))

I think your editorial headline doesn't really do them service. They made an entirely rational business decision based on prevailing conditions. They sound more disappointed than pissed to me.

next, money.

"I heard that this guy went to his dealer with some cash and walked away with some drugs leaving no paper trail whatsoever."

ah bless. Apple product announcement and all the websites and bloggers and journalists are scratching their heads.

"How can I turn this into page views. Gee the overview of what he said - been done a million times. What about slagging it all off - well it is pretty interesting stuff though. I know. I'll come up with a trolling headline and use some tricksy language making myself look cool so it's not really slagging them off at all. hmm. got it. Redefine innovate to mean first one ever to think of an idea. Bingo. "

"Damm. Better start thinking about the next release......"

I worked for a chap in Yorkshire who had been a miner and had lost his job in the Thatchers war against the miners. He'd taken his redundancy money and taught himself to program.

you give away 9 copies to sell 1.

Perhaps you need to give more away and make it easier and then you'll sell more?

it's not just your friends - it's everyone that has an interest. Take all things said to you and ask "what's their angle". (and that 'angle' might that they love you dearly and don't want to upset you)

looking back I reckon an awful lot of good advice and focus on our part came from our repeated (and usually unsuccessful) attempts to get early funding. Investors tended to point at what they saw as holes which forced us to think about that - either to show to ourselves they were wrong or to see that they were right and sort it out.

Yes. The fact that Facebook knows what bands and tv all my friends are into is why i choose to do my tens of searches a day on Facebook. Pity it never tells me anything useful.

So the author thought of a cool metaphor about dust and archeologists. Shame it's complete rubbish. This isn't a game where Facebook has more data than Google. It has different data. Useful and cool data for sure. And I'm sure google would love to get their grubby little paws on it too. But if the author thinks that Facebook are casually going to replace Google or even that we are all going to loose interest in what Google offers then really should they even be writing opinion pieces?

Of course these are from a selected environment - those dying with time to reflect. I imagine there is a whole other class of regret the: I wish I hadn't done that/put my <body part> in there/opened that door/said that etc. etc. moments before death.

But yes, far too many people live their lives as though they are going to get some sort of prize at the end: "Yes you suffered silently all your life about some thing you could have changed - here's a gold star". The only person measuring your life is you. The people around you will on the whole appreciate you more if you are fulfilling your self. Obviously there are those that won't - family or otherwise. You need to get rid of them - you don't get a prize for putting up with their crap either.

I have no idea if it is solid or not but statements like:

"Bitcoin will be tested but from what we know about it at the moment, it looks solid."

worry me. Its easy to make things for ideal conditions. If bitcoin becaomes mainstream the stresses will be incredible. Where there is money to be made there are smart people looking for an angle and leverage. Even governments suffer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wednesday

This is an experimental mechanism. It is not based on main stream economics and it has no government or bank protecting it with regulation or defending it. The originators may have hit upon something new that is solid and can stand on its own two feet or they may have initiated the construction of a tower of cards.

Even if you are a full on supporter of bitcoin you would be mad to assume that it doesn't have a fatal flaw at this stage.

It doesn't even need to be a real problem - just one that the investor perceive as a problem. And given that the tech is pretty complex and beyond the understanding of a lot of people using bitcoin then that risk is even greater.

And as with any investment scheme the potential for manipulation by rumour is also very real. There is a lot of regulation around more mainstream investment and money mechanisms to stop this (and it still happens) - bitcoin, which has no centralised "defender", will be just as prone to it.

I would imagine that now a wider audience is becoming aware of bitcoin we will start seeing this kind of thing in the next few months (and possibly are already doing)

I think you are spot on. Although the whole saga of windows variations on tablets, which is astonishingly ongoing, never really helped.

What really surprises me is that the likes of Palm never got their act together in this space. Apple have shown it was ripe for the taking. Palm had years of experience and a great user base (I was a Palm user for years).

But this is all grist to the mill of the ideas versus execution debate. It's not the idea (although good ones help) but the execution that's key

So explain why it is a "religion".

I am looking at human nature and saying that you are not going to change it and therefore you are going to need to work around it.

"We need a circular flow of recycable materials" is a technical solution too. And perhaps is the right answer.

Then only thing I am saying is that this lovely green view of us all living in harmony with the planet is complete rubbish. Because it does not take into account human nature. Yes I agree that some people can live like that - some very well indeed. But you can not make all do so.

You also have a very fixed idea of what cheap energy involves: "because they exploit materials that can be exhausted". I had in mind things like photovoltaics, wind - I live surrounded in all directions by wind farms and there is an immense amount of investment going on, modern nuclear tech - have you seen Bill Gates talk on this?

This is not a dogmatic view. If you came to me and could show that you could genuinely do it in a different way without relying on mass education and changing the way people normally behave then cool - I'll be on board.

Your idea that my views are a religion is a dogma in itself

What is worse is that this is why we are likely to be more screwed than we should be this problem: for a lot of solutions they some how need to stop all of the other solutions because they don't match ideals. I am not advocating a single solution - I want as many people as possible trying. I am not even saying don't try to get everyone living in a sustainable way - I recycle, when I finally get round to buying a house I have every intention of having a crack at doing my own power generation. All I am saying is that any plan that involves changing the behaviour of every single human being on this planet is not going to work under any circumstances - and when the failure mode of that being your only plan is so serious then people need to be pointing this out.

So I do agree that the tipping point will be when the danger is in our collective faces. I also agree there is a good chance it might be pretty bad indeed with as you say large numbers dying.

I don't believe that sustainable ways of life will prevail before any fall. Look at the fishing in the North sea - despite the stocks being pretty much destroyed the fishermen who have taken the fish continue to argue their case to take the very last few because they don't want to change their way of life. This is sadly all too common.

There are people who can see all this working on tech - I think the best bet (ie the one were more of us survive) is if there are some decent breakthroughs. Knowing what I do about projects in progress and the work being done I think there is a good chance this will work out. The reason is that this isn't just a stopping us dying scenario this is making lots of money for lots of people scenario.

If we have to sort ourselves out after a fall - well you may be right. But only for a while. It is almost certain that sooner or later some person or other will look at the next valley or over a sea and think: "hmm what would happen if I went over there. I guess I'll need X Y Z" where X Y Z is some bit of basic tech that doesn't exist yet. and the human race will be off again.

We're tenacious buggers us humans. I don't think it's time to give up and sit quietly by the fire just yet....

(oh and also the very diversity - look at what you are into and what say, I am into - an entrepreneur, a technologist and an optimist - and our different views. That very difference means that we have a "portfolio" strategy as a species. Our eggs are in millions of baskets. There may be a catastrophe and you with your abilities to cope on your own resources will just carry on trucking. Something else my happen and some other group may thrive. It will be a damn hard job killing the lot of us - even for something as resourceful as the human race itself)

it's not a bold claim at all.

Look around at the planet. Humans are everywhere it is possible to be. Something drove us to do that. And given it is quite unlikely that there was a meeting 100,000 years a go in Africa where we as a species decided - "let's give overrunning the whole planet a go" I think that "instinct" for want of a better word is what drives that. Living in a sustainable way does not come naturally to humans - I'm betting you are well educated and have reasoned long and hard about it.

Yes there are people like you who chose to be sustainable. But unless you get everyone to do it then we are screwed. Because it's an all or nothing plan. And you may love making your own food but by the same token I am really glad someone else is doing it for me. I find it boring and a waste of my time - I want to just be able to get food when i need it without thinking about it. My interests lie elsewhere.

Likewise the global trend is too the city. Every bit of research points to massive urbanisation http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/aug/18/percenta...

We has a species do have the ability to overcome our animal urges but if you don't solve the power problems you are doing to need everyone to do it and the failure mode of that is massive suffering. There are various sustainable living and back to nature and even so called luddite movements and have been for quite a while but I still don't see them being a significant force.

There is nothing wrong with what you are doing at all but do you think you can convince everyone you know outside of your community to join in?

I'm not totally sure about that. There is a lot of investment in this area (albeit tossed and blown on the winds of political trends). Things like photovoltaics are only a few years off being viable on a large scale (at current levels of investment which turns out to be the biggest problem).

But I agree it's going to be a struggle and one that may go badly wrong for a while.

But the key thing here is that we have to get the knee jerk politics out of it. It doesn't matter if there is global warming or not because if we stay dependant on fossil fuels there are just going to be endless conflicts over the them, if the greens can persuade everyone in the whole world to live a life of abstinence that's cool - but we need to bet that they can't - because their failure mode is that we all die horribly.