Geek Conferences: Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself02/16/2004 05:37 AM Is the O'Reilly Emerging Technologies Conference elitist? This
question seems to be stirring up the blogosphere, and causing lots of
good people who I read and like to throw verbal bricks at each other.
I thought that as someone who is clearly not a member of the blogging
elite, I might have a useful perspective to offer. Is the conference
elitist? Of course it is - and no, it isn't. Both are true. It is
elitist in the sense that it requires interest, knowing that the
conference is going to happen, and being able to come up with the
large amounts of time and money to attend. This rules out a very large
proportion of the world. However, if someone is motivated and willing
to rough it, it is possible to attend the conference for a lot less
money than the standard cost of the conference and swanky hotel. In my
case I found cheap late night flights on Southwest, stayed in a very
cheap hostel (though not as cheap as the hacker loft crash pad), and
got a free pass to the conference by writing and asking Tim O'Reilly
nicely for one -- I saw other free passes being given away via the
Wiki. So the money doesn't have to be the huge barrier it seems like
at first, but attending does require a bit of luck and or chutzpah,
geographical proximity, and being willing to stay in considerably less
than stellar accommodations. The conference can also feel elitist
because so many of the people who attend know each other. Many of them
have long-standing professional, technical and personal ties (and
ongoing feuds). If, like me, you are somewhat reticent by nature, you
don't have ties to lots of people at the conference, and you don't
have any particular product or idea to promote, it can be easy to feel
intimidated or like an outsider surrounded by insiders. For instance,
one day of the conference I ran into Dan Gillmor, Doc Searls, Micah
Sifry and Scott Rosenberg at a cafe next door to the conference. I
read 3 out of 4 of them regularly, I respect their work a lot, and I
would have enjoyed sitting at their lunch table and listening to them
talk. Did they invite me to join them for lunch? Of course not, no
more than I would invite a random stranger I saw...
Libraries Have Nothing to Fear [about RSS] but Fear Itself
"However, whether or not to use RSS on your site should no longer
be an option. I believe it has become a necessity if you wish to
compete with others in your industry....
For many users today, bookmarks have become useless since we have
too many of them. Bookmarks allow for information overload just as
easily as RSS does, but the difference is that RSS allows updates
through all that information overload. A bookmark gets hidden, but if
you update your site then the RSS feed will reflect that and tell the
reader its time to view the content....
With the plethora of sites around fighting for the mindshare of
your readers becomes essential. Why lessen your chances by not
including a RSS feed? That opens the gates for everyone else to
increase their readership. RSS feeds create more opportunities and the
advantages outweigh the disadvantages." [BusinessLogs, via del.icio.us/tag/rss]
Tridgell saw a problem, hypocritical use of non-open
source version control
software BitKeeper to develop Linux, and moved to fix it by reverse
engineering BitKeeper's
proprietary protocol.
This upset McVoy, the keeper of BitKeeper and Linus's
childhood friend.
Sharp exchanges between McVoy and Tridgell caused enough uproar for
Linus to pull
back on BitKeeper and then punch back at Tridgell for causing
trouble where there
was none from Linus' point of view.
Meanwhile, Perens who thinks inconsistency is a crime and everyone
should sacrifice
themselves for the wolfpack kicks Linus' ass.
I could use some buttered popcorn.
Bite me, Dick
Bite me, Dick06/24/2005 07:54 PM Today, I got an email solicitation of funds from the Democratic
Senatorial Campaign Committee. No big deal; I'm not planning to make
any political contributions until later this year. But what annoyed me
about this particular email was its author,...
BW: 'It may be too late to take a bite (of Apple)'
BW: 'It may be too late to take a bite (of Apple)'02/05/2005 10:09 PM In his column for BusinessWeek, Robert Barker's "The Barker Portfolio"
looks at Apple's financial success and huge stock climb and ponders
how this affects current and future investors in the company...
Tigers bite back05/13/2004 02:08 PM Tig
ers bite back. Endangered Sumatran tigers have taken the
destruction of their habitat into their own mouths by killing three
& mauling several other illegal loggers.
Taking a bite out of terror
Taking a bite out of terror08/11/2004 07:02 PM With Americans growing numb to the Homeland Secuity Department's
color-coded threat warnings, Tom Ridge and his staff are pushing a new
way to get the word out: the homeland security mascot. The Gannet News Service reports:
Putting the Bite on Apple04/16/2004 04:51 AM RealNetworks wants to cut a digital music deal with Apple, according
to a memo leaked to The New York Times. If it doesn't get one, it's
threatening to go running off with Microsoft.
Yes, Apple creates super cool products, but the insular mindset of
Steve Jobs et al is causing it to fall behind in the race to provide
video over the internet. By Tony Perkins, AlwaysOn
Litigants Take Bite Out of Apple02/11/2004 05:44 AM Five class-action suits are filed against the maker of the popular
iPod digital music player. The iPod's battery life isn't what Apple
said it was, the litigants charge.
Apple's Juicy Bite
Apple's Juicy Bite03/06/2004 02:06 AM There can be no doubt -- DVD Studio Pro 2 is a top-notch app. By Chris
Oaten (The Advertiser via MyAppleMenu)
« A wooden platform path over marshland at Villa Elfvik. »
A few weekends ago, before the weather went to the cold rainy pattern
we've been having lately, Jarkko and I went to Villa Elfvik, a nature reserve and beautiful English-style Jugend
home that has been beautifully restored. The house is gorgeous, but
the nature paths along the Laajalahti nature reserve/marshes is is the
most astonishing feature. As we walked around the grounds, I kept
thinking how unbelieveably close to downtown Helsinki it is and how it
would have been made into strip malls decades ago if it were situated
close to a city in the US. Finns are so lucky to have protected the
natural habitat in and around the metropolitan area before strip malls
became a permanent feature on the global landscape. Of course, like
anything you grow up around and see every day, it takes a fresh eye to
appreciate what you've got.
Inside the house is a small exhibit on natural resources in Espoo, a
cafe (open only on the weekends), some history about the house and its
inhabitants and beautiful art nouveau appointments. The house was
built in 1904 for baroness Elvira Standerskjöld and there are some
events planned to celebrate its 100th anniversary. The paths outside
on the grounds are maintained and scenic and there is a narrow path of
wood planks that leads south through the marshes towards Otaniemi that
even has cows and sheep along the way. One bummer about wading through
a swamp during the not-winter season is mosquitos so it might have
been a good idea to have carried some repellant. There are bird
observation towers at either end of the path which offer a nice view
of the area, too.
Getting there: Take the train to Leppävaara and either walk or take
the 52, 57, 106 or any number of other busses that stop at Ruukinranta
crossing and follow the signs.
Free entrance. Open every day of the week during the summer and
closed on Saturdays during the winter months.
Take bug spray. :)
PATRIOT in bite-sized chunks
PATRIOT in bite-sized chunks05/16/2004 04:54 AM I'm giving a talk in Barcelona on Wednesday about the USA PATRIOT Act,
and so I've been boning up on EFF's analysis of this sweeping,
unconstitutional law. Of particular help has been the clause-by-clause
analyses that our staff attorney Kevin Bankston's been writing for
EFFector, EFF's weekly newsletter. If you ever wondered what the big
deal was about PATRIOT, Kevin's blurbs will explain it all -- in
bite-sized, layperson-friendly chunks.
Apologists justified the broad, civil-liberties corroding powers
granted to the government under the USA PATRIOT Act by arguing that
they would be used to put terrorists behind bars. Yet several
provisions can be used against Americans in a wide range of
investigations that have nothing to do with terrorism. Others are too
vague, jeopardizing legitimate activities protected under the First
Amendment. Worse, the Department of Justice has worked to expand
and/or make permanent a number of these provisions -- despite the fact
that they were sold to the public as "temporary" measures and are
scheduled to expire, or "sunset," in December of 2005.
Magician Says Tiger Bite Was Bid to Help Him (Reuters)
Magician Says Tiger Bite Was Bid to Help Him (Reuters)09/16/2004 09:31 AM Reuters - A Las Vegas-based magician who was
mauled and dragged from the stage by his white tiger during a
show last October said in an interview to be aired Thursday
that the animal was actually trying to help him.
Apple to bite into gaming market?
Apple to bite into gaming market?04/08/2005 12:00 PM Neilsen Entertainment on Thursday revealed results of a study
concluding that men spend more money on video games than on music.
According to Neilsen spending on games has become the second ranked
purchased category for males behind DVDs and in front of CDs, MP3 and
music purchases.
As we can see in the figures from Nintendo and Sony for the first few
days of sales of the companies new handheld systems, game and console
sales are going well. Sony managed to snag 500,000 customers of its
PlayStation Portable (PSP) within the first two days of its North
American release, generating over $150 million at retailers. The
company boasted that what makes the $150 million mark "all the more
spectacular," is that "PSP sales were achieved during a traditionally
slower non-holiday season launch, and during a period when many
retailers were closed for Easter."
The launch of PSP was everything the company had hoped for, according
to Sony Computer Entertainment America president and CEO Kaz Hirai.
"In only two weeks, PSP is having an immediate impact across the
entire industry as consumers are clearly voting it the product of the
year in 2005."
Nintendo sold nearly 87,000 units of the Nintendo DS in the first two
days alone in the UK. Several retailers in the UK opened at midnight
so DS fans could be the first to purchase the device. As of launch
time in the UK of the DS, Nintendo sold more than 3 million units
worldwide. At the end of March, the company announced that sales in
the UK surpassed 500,000 since the March 11 release.
"The launch of Nintendo DS in the UK has been an unprecedented
success; breaking all expected sales figures and even exceeding our
expectations. Nintendo fans, new and old, have embraced the Nintendo
DS and have left no doubt that it is the new must have handheld
console," Nintendo UK General Manager David Yarnton said. "Nintendo
set out to create a new way of hand-held gaming, offering an
innovative and enjoyable experience and with the new Nintendo DS, and
we have certainly accomplished this."
The success of the Nintendo DS has even helped Nintendo prepare for
the launch of its upcoming Nintendo World Store set to open in New
York City this spring. The store will allow visitors to try out new
and unreleased games for Nintendo DS, Nintendo GameCube and Game Boy
Advance SP at sampling bars and interactive stations. The two-story
mega-complex will also be the new home of Pokémon Center and will host
a myriad of Nintendo merchandise, accessories, DVDs and Pokémon
trading cards.
With the gaming market so strong and continually growing, why doesn't
Apple break into the burgeoning $35 billion annual global video game
market? Well, maybe it plans to.
According to an anonymous report, MacRumors.com was told that Apple
and ATI have been discussing either creating or purchasing a game
development unit. Creating a games division could help attract more
PC users to switch to the Macintosh platform. The website also noted
that Apple appears serious about improving gaming performance on the
Mac as recent reports have noted that Apple, ATI and NVidia are
actively recruiting developers to improve OpenGL performance.
Since game sales are above and beyond sales of CDs, digital music, and
other music purchases, perhaps Apple would be wise to break into the
increasingly popular (not to mention, incredibly profitable) gaming
market... just in case it doesn't reach the forcasted 23.5 million
iPod sales mark in 2006, or continue to have one million downloaded
songs per day from the iTunes Music Store.
US anti-spam law fails to bite
US anti-spam law fails to bite02/10/2004 02:47 AM US legislation designed to stop junk e-mails has had little impact on
the amount of spam, say experts.
Is this big news? Sure, but anyone that reads Scoble knows Microsoft is
working towards integrating RSS into Longhorn itself.
However, I agree 100% with Steven that the best RSS
aggregator is one that is web-based, not a desktop client. As more and
more people shift their information on the go, the last thing they'll
need is to begin relying heavily on an aggregator that they'll
lose when their desktop crashes. 'Cause we've all had that happen,
haven't we?
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Antivirus firms fear Bagle's bite
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