Letters to the Editor
Saint Fnordius
Published Letters: 20 Editor's Choice: 7
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A half-hearted attempt
[Read the article: "Cars"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Cars was born as the last project Pixar was going to make for Disney, and there always was a feeling about it as if it was being forced, as if the heart of Pixar wasn't really in it. It wasn't all that long ago that there were rumors of Pixar going into 2D animation once free of Disney, and pundits were betting that Pixar was going to steal the animation crown.
I'm not surprised that Cars isn't all that great. Pixar may have had other ideas, but I'll never shake the feeling that they made this movie not because they wanted to, but because they felt forced to. It has this odour about it of a movie made for the merchandising and spinoff cartoon series, not that of a story in and of itself.
What interests me more is what will happen now? Will Disney kill the soul of what Pixar once was, or will Pixar's old emphasis on the story over technical trickery return and infect the rest of Disney? Let's hope it's the latter.
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Down also signifies discolouration
[Read the article: Zune: I am brown -- I am invincible]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In plastics and electronics, brown and yellow are also colours that indicate wear and tear. Stains. Grime. Part of why beige replaced white in the early 80's computers and stayed so long was that it could mask this effect. Beige (and to a lesser degreee, brown) have thus come to be signal colours for cheapness, for lack of imagination.
Actually, I think there's a sort of "uncanny valley" in colours as well as in anthropomorphics. The brown tone can look like elegant wood, or like a bad blotchy mistake. With Microsoft's reputation for making crap in the v1.0 of each product, it's no wonder that brown was associated with, well, turdiness.
I'm also not surprised that brown is selling so well among the Zune colours. Contrarians who choose the "anti-iPod" will choose the one colour that has been denigrated the most.
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The answer is a definite "maybe", really.
[Read the article: Ask the pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It all depends on the way the engines of the plane are arranged, and how they generate airspeed. After all, the plain needs airspeed, not ground speed.
Do the engines push air under the wings? Then the plane will actually be pulled downward. Do they generate an artificial wind? Then there is a chance the plane can take off. Is the treadmill also influencing airflow? If so, then that also may suck downward or aid takeoff, depending on the airflow regions. I also suspect terrain plays a role, influencing how well the engines can generate the needed artificial winds.
So, yeah. A definite "maybe". The whole point of the mental exercise, I think, was to get budding engineers to stop thinking about the wheels and groundspeed, and remember to think about airspeed for lift.
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Not counting their chickens is probably right
[Read the article: Big Oil gets punked]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You're probably right about not getting too excited about a bill until it becomes law. It still has to clear the senate and also get past Mr. Bush's veto.
It is a case for guarded optimism, though. Let's hope it's a sign of a sea change in American politics.
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It's a risky gambit
[Read the article: Steve Jobs' iTunes dance]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I saw in Steve Jobs' letter a gambit to pull an all-or-nothing gambit with all four studios at the same time, to get the entire music section of the iTunes Store free of DRM. It is typical of him to go for the big bet, to not settle for weak compromises.
After all, the lock-in of the iPod isn't really in the file formats. You stick with the iPod because the whole iPod/iTunes experience is so smooth and hassle-free. After using other MP3-players, it becomes obvious. My five gave up her no-name player (Maxfield or something similar) after playing with my iPod nano, and refuses to go back. My daughter also prefers using my iPod to her Walkman cell phone, simply because of the interface.
The FairPlay compromise was originally only a marriage of convenience, an attempt to get the Big Four to enter their libraries into the iTMS in the first place. I suspect Apple and Mr. Jobs both see DRM as a liability, given their contractual obligations to maintain it and also because of the heat in Europe all DRM systems are now facing. I would even hazard a guess that Apple would like to ditch the whole FairPlay tech from its players, a move that would mean less "moving parts" and tighter code. DRM means Apple has to obfuscate and limits their ability to add interoperability.
I hope Cory's wrong. I have a hunch that Mr. Jobs is now flexing leverage he didn't have when the iTMS was created, and now is getting ready to tell the studios that if the countries require DRM-free usage of the iTunes Store, he'd rather dump all DRM-only tracks and go 100% FairPlay-free. My secret wish is that there's a secret deal for a DRM-free Beatles Edition iPod that would force the other labels to scramble in a game of catch-up...