OSY Discussion Forum

Yes, it was barely warm enough to go outside last weekend, so we threw together another podcast.

http://jeremyreimer.com/postman/node/398

From the show notes:



Also you can subscribe to Knotty Geeks via iTunes! Just search for "Knotty Geeks" in the iTunes "Store". It's free!

No comments?

Am listening to it now. What's with the intro music tho? Is this like science mystery theatre in the 50's?

Long story short, I woke up one morning to find two iPads outside in the living room. Turns out my sister bought two and sent it to HK. I got to play with it and it has ruined the way I browse and read the news on the internet. It's such a perfect device to be sitting back on the couch, or lazy boy, and just browse the news sites. The display is large, bright, colorful, and the whole thing is easy and comfortable to hold. Typing out the sites is a bit of a hassle and I haven't found a really comfortable way to type on it without put it down somewhere on a flat surface. But as a news reader, it's total bliss.

Although I had some initial skepticism about the iPad and predicted it as a peripheral device outside of average computer use, I can say I was both right and wrong. For my mom, the iPad is perfect. My mom has always resisted learning any new technology. She barely use the tv remote beyond, power on/off, volume and channels. Anything else is like switching from cable to HDMI or AV requires her to put her glasses on, bring the remote close to her eyes and then look for the source button. And she doesn't own or use a cell phone beyond what we (the family) pass to her when she wants to talk to anyone over the phone. The iPad actually excited my mom and she wants me to hook her up with an email address so she can email my sisters in the US. The device is very very approachable for staunch techno-phobes. There is no weird device that's named after a rodent to push some cursor around on a screen and buttons to click, once? twice? to open an app and then click the button, once? to start some task... what? and whats this long think with keys that have letters that are not even in alphabetical order? and why are there two sets of numbers? and what is enter?
I'm only assuming this is part of the anxieties a technophobe feels. Anyway, the iPad simplifies a lot of common tasks to the point it reduces a lot of complexities average users aren't even aware of in day to day regular computer use. How Apple went from a desktop UI paradigm and bring a lot of that power into a much more simplified UI paradigm for mobile devices is, IMO, quite genius. And I only say that because of how well the iPad works. Which is the part I was right about, for a geek - if you disagree, you're either retarded or a hard core anti-mac zealot - the iPad is a great peripheral device. And a hacked iPad will be even more of a tool for geeks that want more geek access to their computers/servers. This won't make sense till you have on in your hand, because till then, you have no idea how comfortable the iPad is to use and carry around in the living room and just kick back, drink some coffee and read news sites, or tech articles. And what geek doesn't like to read tech articles?

commence teh jealousy:

Actually science mystery theatre in the 50's is a good effect, if I achieved that, then yay!

No, what happened is that my podcast partner challenged me to come up with some new theme music (the old music was from an old Amiga MOD file) and so I threw something together in GarageBand in about an hour. The challenge was to somehow incorporate the song from Gilbert and Sullivan's musical The Pirates of Penzance: "I am the very model of a modern major-general/With information vegetable, animal, and mineral..." The main guitar track is sort of... loosely... inspired by that.

You can still hear the old music in the closing segment.

I think the iPad is the netbook killah fer sure.

It's very star trekish too if you think about it. How many times did someone interupt Picard's perusing of Lifehacker in his ready room, whereupon he crispily announces COME, and then waits for the person to enter before irritably, yet casually, tosses his iPad-like device on to his space-wood desk so that he may focus his icy gaze on the intruder? Huh? HOW MANY!?

OK I listened to it and its rather enjoyable, but I must say the first part about jobs is a bit depressing.
Also, I find grey hair adds character, but that's just me. (No I dont have any)

Regarding the ipad, I kind of want one, as long as I can irc, browse the web, and listen to music at the same time. Single tasking is totally useless to me.

The flash thing is not about stabbing Adobe in the back. I mean, Adobe has dragged its heels for years to a) get a macosx version of photoshop, and then b) a cocoa version. Nevermind, c) making windows the main dev platform and d) not bothering with reliable flash. A) is especially egregious because Adobe refused to support Apple when it really needed them to build support for MacOSX.
I can understand their want to focus people to write the best iphone apps they can with native tools. Afterall you can use the same skills to write for OSX, and multiplatform apps do suck usually.

Personally I cant get my head around programming. Perhaps I need someone to show me in person, but really I cant write any code. Shit I even have problems with shell scripting.
Man, Lisp has been around since 1958. Kind of amazing really, especially in this fast moving industry. But I have no real idea what yer talking about.

Speaking about battlecruisers, Jackie Fisher thought they were a splendid idea. Well he was a dumbass. I mean seriously, a fast battleship without any armour that costs the same as a real battleship? DUMB. There's a reason only the British used them.


Oh I found the ipad pocket:

As far as AYB can tell, it's not hardly Adobe's fault for it's woes on the Mac Platform given that Apple unceremoniously dropped Carbon, switched CPUs, and has failed to develop a decent API for web plugins like flash. For online video accelleration, Windows Vista\7 is beating the living smam out of OSX.

Apple sounds like it has gone out of it's way to push away developers.

Meanwhile, other companies are still creating software for the Mac. So yeah, lets pin all of Adobe's woes on Apple. MS, Maxon (Cinema 4D), Native Instruments, Autodesk (3DSMax), and I could list a whole slew of multi-platform professional creative content software that anyone but Adobe seems to have done a good job with all the transitions. And lets not forget the problems MS has had moving developers between major OS revisions. It's always a battle between software developers and OS developers, creating new reliable stable secure API's that allows a much more robust OS experience and developers not wanting to re-invest in software development from the ground up. Apple being rather small can move at a much faster pace. A pace that sometimes puts them ahead of MS in some areas because MS has to deal with a much much much larger software developer mass inertia.

Personally I don't like flash, PC or Mac. And I don't know many people, especially geeks, that even like flash to want to defend flash.

Yeah I don't know why people defend Flash. It's slow and buggy.
Sure, you can play games with it, but there's plenty of non-Flash alternatives, and videos? HTML5 is here, you can use it on youtube right now!

Granted the ogg vorbis vs h264 codec discussion is holding it a bit back, but youtube man! YOUTUBE!!

How? I just pointed a new PC at Youtube yesterday and was forced to install Flash (I was teasing my remote office by remotely putting cheesy videos up on their bullpen dashboard.)

You need to be using an HTML 5 browser, plus at the moment it's restricted sorta and you have to join the html 5 beta testing:

http://www.youtube.com/html5

None of these other guys make Web plugins, except MS and silverlight. And Silverlight is far slower on the Mac.

And yes, one reason Office has been noted as being much more cruddy on the Mac (than usual) was Apple's unannounced architecture switch. It wouldn't surprise me if those other vendors had/have similar problems

So what you're saying, two software companies that have a history of making marginal software for the mac before and after the various transitions were just being consistent. Whereas companies that made good software for the mac before and after the various transitions were just as consistent. Hmmm, interesting indeed.

As for web plugins, I honestly prefer the closed of system that is Safari. Lord knows how quickly IE gets crowded with all sorts of toolbars and plugins the avg user seems to install (or is asked to install because it will improve their 'web-experience'). Why does Google or Yahoo need a toolbar? And that's just a start. Besides, are there any truly compelling reasons now a days to even need plug ins?
You're kinda making it sound like Mac users have a reduced experience on the internet, when the reality has been that Safari has been pretty good with web standards and performances. So for most of the time, Mac users are having it pretty good. The internet ain't perfect, and lord knows how much trouble MS was/is having with IE and getting web developers to support their latest browsers, so there seems to be a pros and cons for both macs and PC's.

Macs con = flash is slower
Macs pro = browser more standards compliant and fast

PC pro = teh awesome flash video performance, OMFG!
PC cons = IE8 has problems, IE9 has promise
Why Microsoft did the right thing in ditching XP for IE9
Add-ons responsible for 70 percent of IE8 crashes
Oh speak of the devil, I had no idea this article even existed and how well it proved my point for me:


Can Microsoft really build a better browser?



Even tho I posted a few links against IE, I don't think browsing on the PC is any worse then it is on the mac. Both have their pros and cons, and their faults.

So revel in your flash is awesome on windows argument, meanwhile for the large part of the internet, it seems anything but IE seems to be ahead of the curve. Worry not for mac users, we're not suffering a lower quality web experience. The smam in my safari is strong.

Wait, how did we get to this point. I was having fun talking about the surprise that was the iPad and what that means for the future with how we will interact with news documents and articles. Damn you AYB and your persistent anti-mac ways. From now on I shall cease to debate pointless arguments that require a little bit of thought and a lot less of bias to see the forest for it's trees (is that the right adage?). So AYB have at it, you're now on my semi-ignore mental filter (and it's a mighty strong one I developed from years on the BF).

Now that has been established, I am looking forward to how other developers will respond to the iPad. Am thinking Google has the strongest opportunity since it has the Android platform it can expand like Apple did with the iPhone platform. And that's the vital component to why the iPad works so well (IMO) because it's a simplified user interface on a tablet device used for a small range of tasks (browsing, reading, watching movies) that doesn't need to have the desktop UI paradigm of Mac OS X/Windows/etc. MS has Windows Mobile 7 (is that right) which can be used as well.

iPad
AndroidSlate
MS-PadSlate

I wouldn't be surprised if the Kindle evolution would be based on Android or MS's mobile OS. Bets anyone? I bet 2000 of my post count to anyone. I'm sure Jeremy can adjust the post count in the database, or probably not. I'm just being silly tho we should come up with some sort of betting system that allows us to make tech predications and see who has the power of iNostradamus.

Nope, OSX has been a bad platform for web regaurdless of the quality of the 3rd party software. Windows has been absolutely superior. OSX is the problem in this.

Warrens discusses this in depth in this thread in the Achaia: http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic. ... #p20307744



What you seem to be extolling is a web platform that is essentially the iPhone OS. It fails to leverage the capabilities of third parties properly, for good or ill. And the pushing of proprietyship has never worked out optimally from a business standpoint. AYB thinks this makes for a more limited overall experience.

And toolbars are something else. It's probably possible to put a toolbar in Safari, but its such a minority that no one has bothered. AYB doesn't use toolbars himself and like the poopyheaded one, don't see thier usefullness.



Actually, All browsers and browser middleware are slower in OSX when doing anything animated.

No, browsers are no more 'standards compliant' and are slower.



AYB doesn't see how it proves that. It does mention that someone authoritive considers Chrome and IE on Windows 7 as providing the safest browsing experience (which between Win and Mac is highly debateable, AYB knows..)




Wait, certainly you do not consider the Mighty AYB as anti-Mac, do you?



AYB just sees the benifit in providing critisism and discussion. AYB will follow up on his use of the iPad (which he was able to try at some store, somewhere that goes beneath his notice....)



..Makes it easier to steal your toenail clippers.

AYB would like to see what is put out. AYB has tried the iPad recently for a few moments, and it was fairly easy for the Mighty AYB to see just how much promise a platform like this has. As a unit, the iPad was very nice and solid feeling, but probably a tenth of a Kilogram too heavy for a non-smamlord to hold comfortably. It was very easy to navigate, but a very incovenient to type in. AYB does see a lot of promise for this, not as a netbook or notebook replacement, but as yet another electronic accessory it would be ideal for sitting in Bed or on a couch. AYB wants one

Thankfully, since that show aired, things have settled down a bit at my company, and I think I'm not getting any more gray hairs (yet).



Aside from IRC, you can browse with music in the background already. The new iPhone OS 4 update, when applied to the iPad, should allow at least things like Pandora, MAYBE Instant Messenger, but I have no idea how it would work for IRC. IRC really requires a separate app running in a separate window on the same screen, which even OS 4 has no idea how to do.



I've gone through periods where I think I can't wrap my head around programming either, but I think it's just a matter of dedication and practice. Much like anything else. The more stuff I do, the more I understand. LISP has come a long way since 1958 but ironically, other languages are still catching up to features that LISP has, and they will never get LISP's simple, clean syntax. It's those irritating parentheses that actually make the language so flexible and powerful. It's kind of neat once you figure it out.



They were indeed dumb, but Germany was even dumber than Britain because during the ramp-up to World War I, Germany decided that if Britain had Battlecruisers, then Germany needed Battlecruisers. At Jutland, both Battlecruiser fleets engaged each other, but bad luck on the British side (and some badly-calibrated armor-piercing shells that didn't explode at the optimal point) meant that their side took more hits, and Britain lost more ships.

"Chatfield, there seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today." Admiral Beatty, Jutland commander.

Thus, the Germans claim they won the Battle of Jutland. But what happened is that after this battle the Germans got so scared about how their ships might all blow up at once, that they never left port again. So the British claim that they won the battle of Jutland.

I tend to side with the British, but then I'm biased.

DON'T MENTION THE WAR!

Well the main advantage German warship designs had was an additional bulkhead to seal off the gun towers from the munition stores.

But yeah they really blew it. They agonized Britain needlessly by building these ships, and then the Kaiser was too chicken to actually send them out and do anything with them.
Ideally the Germans would have used the ships straight away after the war declarations came in, and not waited around for weeks, too afraid to use them.

What good is a navy you don't use? NOTHING.

I suppose that is what happens when they are the Kaiser's pet project.



Wrong war, it's ok!
Even though Austria really got majorly screwed on the peace treaty there in 1919.

Damn it, JR, I never finished the theme song I promised you. I'm sorry. I hate it when people flake out on me and then I turned around and flaked out on you. My humblest and sincerest apologies.

Hey, don't worry about it! And if you want, you can always finish it and add some funkiness to it or remix it or whatever you like.

I mean, I'm the champion of procrastination. I've been promising Part 8 of the History of the Amiga series for almost two years now!

It's almost done, really. Last round of edits and it's done. Seriously. I mean it this time.

Wow, this thread is covering a lot of ground!



Those are the least important features of the iPad. In fact, nothing the iPad does natively is anything to write home about. Except for one thing - ubiquitous access to remote desktops. Get an RDP or Citrix/Xenapp client on that thing, and you are talking about access to any application, anywhere, anytime. That's the power.

Hook this iPad up to a shared data plan with your cell phone to handle times where you don't have wifi, and you are good to go.

As an owner of an iPad for over a month, I can tell you that you're pretty wrong right there. Well I'm not going to comment on the remote desktop because I haven't tried that. However for content consumption, the iPad just rocks the casbah.

Oh and sitting back on the couch and watching TED talks is the win too.

I can assure you OW that I am nowhere near wrong. However, I will admit that my use for the iPad has more of a business focus than yours. What I describe is a game changer. What you describe is a refinement of things that started with the iPhone, ebook readers, and netBooks. IMO of course.