Category Internet

We don’t have 64 bit support for Linux in 3.5

That's for Tracemonkey, the new, somewhat faster javascript engine that's included with Firefox 3.5. Don't be alarmed then when Firefox 3.5 performs only marginally faster on javascript heavy sites than Firefox 3.0. No 64bit support for the new javascript engine, on the platform where Firefox pretty much dominates. In my view, that should've been Mozilla's first priority on Linux: many linux users choose 64bit because they are not hindered by missing drivers or applications. Linux users are typically more computer-savvy than your average windows or OS X users and could serve as good guinea pigs for a 64bit version of Tracemonkey. In any case, irrespectively of operating system, Tracemonkey 'feels' slower than Nitro (or v8) in 32bits too, but giving 64bit linux such a low priority is somewhat dumb, especially given the ever increasing interest and market share for 64bit linux among linux users (after years of requests Adobe released its exceptionally stable 64bit flash player for linux a few months ago). Hopefully a 64bit version of tracemonkey will be included in one of the minor upgrades before 2010, but I feel like Mozilla has made a mistake here. Update: It seems that there is no 64bit Tracemonkey code, linux or otherwise, which is surprising; I am not exactly clear as to what prevents them from releasing a 64bit version.

Positive Side-effects.

Perhaps the single positive thing that may come out of the continuing and utterly pointless legal wrangling between Microsoft and the European Commission is that the totally sub-par, archetypical Windows administrator will now be forced to either go on and download the equally sub-par Internet Explorer 8 or choose one of the far superior alternatives, instead of just sitting there idle, counting the number of hotfixes that have come out of Redmond in the last month. =)

Internet User Who Joins Service And Then Quits Immediately

Yep, it's about Twitter, one of the most, if not the most pointless, time-wasting fads that came out of the big ol' Web 2.0. Like it or not, more than half of Twitter's users never even posted a single tweet, let alone 'followed' anyone. Read the report at Ars.

Google Wave First Impressions

Google Wave, a new API/protocol and platform was presented on Google I It’s a hosted, embeddable communications and collaboration platform that introduces quite a few interesting features that are currently either not available or require multiple service vendors It was written in Java Google has made it clear that the protocol is going to be […]

Lopssi 2

Lopsided if anything. Yet another gross error in judgment from Mini Napoleon Wannabe. Yet another nail in the coffin of French Legislation. Much can be said of Sarkozy's predecessors; both Chirac and Mitterrand were accused of corruption, sleaze, excess etc. None were as classless, blatantly ignorant or downright corrupt as Sarkozy has proved to be in less than two years in office.

Defend the Open 'Net

I couldn't avoid posting this and I cannot stress how important it is. The web site may, at times, undoubtedly include the standard 'act now before we it's too late' text that's stereotypical of activists globally whenever some braindead lobby tries to threaten our hard earned liberties. Ignore that part. Don't ignore the fact that it is important that you and the people around you know what's happening in Brussels and Strasbourg, what's at stake. You should strive to stay up to date and --- last, but not least --- act. Do yourself a favour and read the linked page; filter the excessive parts, see beyond the sentimentalism. Then try to find out more about the proposed directive by reading the text [or a summary of the controversial amendments]. An open and neutral internet is way more important than any national election in Europe, even to those that have no clue what the internet really is. Act today. Call your MEPs and tell them how you feel about the internet. It doesn't matter which part of the political spectrum you identify with; the internet is part of everyone's life.

Roommating.

One of the better examples of great content online. Easily rivals most similarly themed TV shows. Great stuff!

Conceptual clutter of the Bad Kind.

If there’s anything like Good Clutter. Have you ever used Ubiquity for Firefox? It’s quite nice, yet somewhat inaccessible for most people. The idea is that with an easy key combination on your keyboard you can bring up a text field that can understand a large number of commands and bring you information related to […]

One in Ten Thousand.

The Silicon Alley Insider raises an important question, with regard to Radiohead's testimony against RIAA in a case against a college student: Would Radiohead be able to take that stance if they hadn't sold millions, "without the protection and promotion of an RIAA that Radiohead now blithely dismisses"? But while arguing RIAA's importance with regard to the vast majority of musicians is mildly amusing in its fallacy, the article doesn't stop there:
We love Radiohead, but we're not sure if the band realizes they're superstars, and the normal rules don't apply to them anymore. The band's "pay what you want" idea for the In Rainbows album may have been successful, but for every one Radiohead there's ten thousand would-be rock stars selling CDs out of the trunks of their car (or MP3s on some little-visited web site) and starving.
So, one Radiohead per ten thousand would-be rock stars. Apparently the authors ignore that this is exactly the status quo that the RIAA nurtured in decades past, exactly what the internet, mp3, file sharing and indeed Radiohead's testimony help change: total control over music promotion, repertoire selection, bias in favour of genres/artists by a few multinational corporations aimed at nothing more than profit maximisation. Put another way: A small minority of artists getting all the exposure [and some of them going bankrupt despite the megacorps' multi-million contracts], while millions more being unable to promote their music, make money, live off it. Those same approaches that have led to a just few hundred artists getting millions and the rest starving. If anything, testifying against the RIAA, especially if you've attained superstar status, goes against that. Lastly, Radiohead --- whether you like or dislike their music --- have proven their artistic integrity as well as their popularity time and again, most certainly without RIAAs help. There's no doubt that the interests of musicians around the world should be protected; RIAA never did that and most probably never will.

That's not how Western democracies work

Dealing with illegal file-sharing is a job for the police. It is their job to enforce the law. Now we have given private corporations the legal right to go after our civilians. That's not how Western democracies work.[...] In a study, 80% of people thought we shouldn't go after file-sharers. But ask them how they feel about taking money out of the pockets of musicians, authors or artists and that number falls by a significant amount. Ultimately we have to change peoples perception on file-sharing.
Indeed we do. But most importantly we have to change executives' in those media multinationals perception on culture, art, freedom of communication and privacy as well as protect our liberties from unbounded profit and greed. If file sharing did anything, besides rendering the status quo obsolete, it was to bring to the spotlight on how slanted and unfair the media industry is: favouring less than 1% of the artists globally, fixing prices to maximise profit, compromising on our very own cultural foundations through the systematic, condescending promotion of junk while at the same time making thousands of executives rich for no reason whatsoever. There's no doubt that stealing is bad, although I'm not so sure that not-for-profit sharing of digital copies is. What I am sure about is that what the industry is accustomed to doing --- and keeps trying to achieve, now through the institutions --- is worse.