Letters to the Editor
Sean SIberio
Published Letters: 155 Editor's Choice: 32
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YouTube not a medium
[Read the article: Is the iPod killing great paintings?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]YouTube is not a "medium", unless you think the multiplex and your local playhouse are a "medium", rather than a place that can be used (though not required) to stage a production of a certain medium. While YouTube has become an effective and popular distribution method, the insistence by many to say that its a revolutionary new "medium" is absurd. It's the same spectator sits and watches form of entertainment we've had for years. Videogames should rightly be considered a new medium, but not YouTube.
That said, I think Hockney has a point, in a round-a-bout way that a world where everyones attention is focused on small, technological gizmos is leading to a dearth of interest not merely in the visual arts, but in anything around you. The statement someone made that they have started looking around more with their iPod is still depressing; the world now has become your TV, accompanied with a full soundtrack; you have stepped back and become the ultimate spectator of life. Guy DeBord would not have been amused.
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The last panel is kind of true...
[Read the article: This Modern World]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Actually, I think the last panel is true, in so much as both racial and gender diversity help break down entrenched prejudices and discrimination. It's much easier to hate something thats distant, and portrayed in a a stereotypically evil way, than it is to hate someone you live next to, work with, and send your kids to school with. I think its one of the main reasons why those who spout racist claims (that "they" cause crime, disease, drug use, hate the idea of "them" moving into an area; cause they know they would be proven wrong).
So I say, bring on the immigrants, of whatever color, gender, sexual orientation, whatever. I'm ready to welcome them.
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Prior instances...
[Read the article: Freeing the iPhone the legal way]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The idea of circumventing such lock-outs has played out in another technology industry;video game consoles. In the early 90's a number of game companies got around Sega and Nintendo's licensing fee's by simply duplicating the access code that was fed to the console when it was turned on. What said developers discovered, funny enough, was that the access code WAS the trademark of the company they were trying to circumvent, leading to a whole host of other problems (the access code for the Genesis for instance, would display the Sega logo). In those cases (spurred on by Atari's then 3rd party division Tengen), the courts came down hard on publishers and essentially handed the keys console makers have had ever since. It's doubtful they would change their tune on cell phones.
And thats the rub; in no other industry does the use of a product come with such onerous rules and regulations. While misuse and modifications can void warranties, no car manufacturer would sue an individual for repainting their car without using an authorized dealer. Yet the electronics industry engages in this behavior all the time, justifying itself constantly with excuses ranging from disrupting innovation (read:drop in profit margins) to standards and platform compatiability chaos.
And the argument that you don't need a cell-phone is bollocks; like saying you don't exactly need a computer, a car, or even electricity. But try finding yourself a job, or any sort of livelihood, without using any of the aforementioned pieces of technology. To quote a favorite sci-fi movie of mine "I have a mean desire to eat".
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And its still less...
[Read the article: An iPhone surprise: Opening-day sales were slow]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...than the sales of every other embedded OS running in every other cell-phone. Despite all the hype, Apple's offering will become the same as its computer brother; an expensive, proprietary, locked down but press-coverage garnering electric hullabaloo. Why aren't we seeing any articles written about Linux growing by leaps and bounds in the smart-phone sector (from 5% in 2004 to 22% in 2005)? Or about the opensource Linux running iPhone clone OpenMoko? Because it would break the Apple navelgazing evidently.
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Oh Lord...
[Read the article: Apple's amazing earnings, and a "product transition"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Oh Jesus. Does this mean another 500 entries about whatever the hell doo-dad Apple is making? Interesting my arse.
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But allowing...
[Read the article: Sprint embraces Google, hints at an open network]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]But allowing someone to run any application is irrelevant when said application may have to rely off of closed development systems. While most phones that use Qt (and Windows CE to an extent) could see themselves opened up for programming, this is not so much the case with Symbian OS phones, which required some sort of shared code type deal to access. Java provides an outlet, but even that has its own licensing hangups and snafus.
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Marketshare is hard to determine and irrelevant...
[Read the article: Microsoft on Mac gains: Apple's not even close]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I find it hilarious that Apple users are proud of the fact that the company jacks them of large amounts of money (read the post prior about Apple's large margins; whose pockets is that taken out of?). Either way its all irrelevant, and market share is very hard to ascertain by any methodology. I mean what about free to download OS's? Should we count everytime someone downloads a Linux distribution or a copy of Minix? How about the thousands of people still running esoteric OS like BeOS, AmigaOS, or RiscOS? And the mainframe/high-end markets of Z38 and OpenVMS and the proprietary Unixes?
The reality is, as long as an OS has enough users and other support to make itself viable, its irrelevant what Microsoft (or Apple for that matter) does. This announcement isn't going to make anyone pack up and go home.
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Apple TV hacked...
[Read the article: Apple TV gets hacked: Use your USB drive]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...becomes, oddly enough, a copy of MythTV.
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Fantastic...
[Read the article: "Liveblogging" your child's birth -- taking Twitter too far?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I guess I'm out of the loop on this whole twitter thing. I mean, I thought a boring listing of what you were doing everyday was essentially what LiveJournal and Blogger were plying for the past couple years? Now I can get it at the speed of a message going around on a Blackberry? Fantastic. I bet all the post-ironic hipster tech-nerds reading Wired love this kind of dumb stuff.