The iPad is an enemy to openness
Posted in Technicalon Jan 28, 2010
A friend of mine who is an Apple employee, Quinn Taylor, tweeted, on the day of the iPad launch, about the use of Flash by Hulu and other online video providers. Presumably, he is responding to criticisms that the new iPad, as well as older iPhones, do not support flash and won’t play videos from Hulu. This is what he said:
When is Hulu going to get with the times and support H.264 and HTML 5 like YouTube & HD content? Flash is an enemy to openness & innovation.
So apparently, a system which requires a proprietary SDK to create videos, which then need a proprietary (free) player in order to view videos, is an “enemy to openness.”
Of course, the iPad isn’t exactly the perfect friend to openness. I mean, to develop anything for the iPad, you have to download the proprietary SDK, use it only on a newer Mac, pay to join Apple’s iPhone developer program, submit any developed application to Apple, hope that Apple approves your app, wait for people to find your app in Apple’s App Store, and then if it gets that far, users can download and use the app on the proprietary iPad device.
I just want to point out that on the conversation of enemies to openness, we could use the new iPad as a perfect example, as everything is locked down and closed from beginning to end.
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- Tags: apple, iPod
Deficit verses Debt
Posted in Politicson Jan 26, 2010
Some people confuse the terms Deficit and Debt when talking about our nation’s finances. I thought I would spend a second to describe the difference.
When we talk about the National Debt, we are talking about the amount of money that our government owes people, companies, and even foreign nations. This is comparable to a person having a home loan, several car loans, lots of credit card debt, and IOU notes written out to everyone in the neighborhood.
The National Budget Deficit is the amount of money the government spends more than the amount of money the government collects. A person having a budget deficit would likely be putting more debt onto a credit card than payments to pay it off. Every year the government works out the budget, that is, they decide how much money they are going to throw at what. When they’ve spent more money than is collected through taxes, they say, “Oh well, we’ll just take out more loans.” The National budget deficit is the amount by which our National debt increases.
When there is talk about “reducing the deficit,” they aren’t talking about reducing the national debt. They are just reducing the rate at which the government takes out new loans. “Cutting the deficit in half” is saying, “We are only going to take out half as many new loans this year.”
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- Tags: debt, definitions, financial
Who can get a handicap parking permit?
Posted in Funnyon Jan 20, 2010
I saw this recent police beat:
Jan. 12: The driver of a white pick-up truck reportedly whipped into a handicap stall, parked and ran to class. Officers confirmed that the running person indeed had a handicap permit.
Perhaps they need, “Sort of handicap” parking spaces and “I’m in a wheelchair” handicap spaces.
My favorite though are the “Expectant Mother” parking spaces out the front of Baby’s ‘R Us.
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- Tags: parking, police beat
Doorbell fix
Posted in Lifeon Jan 18, 2010
Sandy isn’t the only one around here that can do some home improving. Today I replaced our door bell with one that doesn’t look 20 years old. Here is a picture, the old switch is on the left:
Last Halloween I observed the little kids trying find the doorbell, I thought I would put in something that would stand out a little better. The new doorbell has a button that lights up.
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- Tags: sandy
I knew Jay Leno wouldn’t last in primetime
Posted in Insightson Jan 11, 2010
Last September as the fall TV season was starting to roll, I made this prediction: Jay Leno’s new TV show wouldn’t be successful in a primetime slot. My reasoning for my prediction is this, and I’m sticking to it:
In the Tonight Show time slot just after the late-night news, the competition is this: David Letterman (CBS) and Nightline (ABC). All the shows at that hour are basically budget shows airing 5 nights a week.
Shifting to the primetime slot, 5 nights a week, just before the late-night news, and the competition is: CSI Miami, Castle, The Good Wife, The Forgotten, CSI: NY, Ugly Betty, The Mentalist, Private Practice, NUMB3RS, and 20/20.
Basically, by airing Jay Leno 5 nights a week at primetime, NBC mistakenly thought that they could create a low budget show every day that could compete with higher budget shows which longer production cycles.
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- Tags: nbc, tv
Books on my work bookshelf
Posted in Technicalon Jan 7, 2010
Here are some of the books on my bookshelf at work:
- C Programming Language
(K&R)
- Design Patterns
- Code Complete
- An Embedded Software Primer
- Introductory Circuits for Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Pthreads Programming
- Operating Systems
- Linux Device Drivers
I also have various Circuit Cellar
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- Tags: book
Tree Meeting
I’ve been in a lot of meetings that have failed. I’m not sure sure how to make meeting work, but I’m beginning to understand why they fail.
Forget the time cost of meetings. Take the number of people in your meeting and multiply by the time of the meeting. 12 people in a short 20 minute meeting costs the same as a half a day by one person. To make your meeting fail, never consider this calculation; always have the most people in the longest meeting possible.
Have meetings just because. Yesterday’s meeting failed, so there needs to be another meeting today. Have another meeting tomorrow to keep the trend going. We all know that meetings are essential for work, so make sure you have as many as possible.
Communicate 1-0n-1 in large group meetings. If you have a lot of people to talk to, tracking them down and talking to them individually would make too much sense. Instead, gather everyone you need into one large meeting. During that meeting, go around the room and have a one-on-one discussion with each person. Everyone else will surely be bored to death while they listen in on your discussion with someone else.
Darken the room so everyone can’t see you. You prepared two whole slides to use during your hour long presentation–you better turn off the lights for your whole 30-minute presentation so people can see your slides and not you. You want to make sure you place undue importance on that slide containing inspirational quotes that probably could be skipped all together. Making people squint to see you in the dark will help your meeting fail. Lowering the lights will also have the added bonus of helping people feel sleepy during the meeting.
Avoid assignments. If you want your meetings to fail, about the last thing you want to do is to ask people to prepare for the meeting. People should walk into a meeting with no idea of what it is about, and with no ideas, topics, or research to share. Additionally, avoid making assignments during the meeting for work to be completed outside of the meeting.
Don’t read this book: Successful Meetings: How to Plan, Prepare, and Execute Top-Notch Business Meetings by Shri Henkel. Of all the books I found at the library to improve meetings, this one was fairly short, straight forward, and easy to follow. Anyone looking to have bad meetings should stay far away from this book. It is available from Amazon.com or from the Square Galaxy Store.
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