Public Address | Cafe | Hard News: Steve, 1999

Andrew E

Fri, 09 Sept 2011 12:04:00 +1200

“Why isn’t there an entry-level DAC that’s iPod-ready – i.e., an iPod dock with a third-party DAC? That would be good

Slightly cheaper than that expensive Wadia DAC, I just read about this US$249 iPod DAC. A bit more likely to be within my price range, and that of others,…

Kyle Matthews

Thu, 01 Sept 2011 21:04:36 +1200

Yes, I think Kyle is mathematically wrong, even given his assumptions. If someone wants to work it out, the formula is here.

Not maths, reading. I saw five words, and read five letters :(

As you were.

andin

Thu, 01 Sept 2011 08:08:24 +1200

Ouchies.

Well exactly, which is why I prefer second hand gear. Just gotta know which has stood the test of time.

Kumara Republic

Thu, 01 Sept 2011 02:16:31 +1200

Or alternatively, yes.

Not if you have an iPod Touch, unless you install a 3rd party app.

3410

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 19:27:58 +1200

Or alternatively, yes.

That's what I meant.

(I appear to have successfully erased most of the unpleasant memories of iPod ownership. :) )

recordari

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 19:09:07 +1200

The iPod does act as a USB drive, doesn't it?

No.*

Or alternatively, yes.

3410

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 18:35:49 +1200

The iPod does act as a USB drive, doesn't it?

No.*

Ian Dalziel

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 16:54:55 +1200

How to get ahead with an iPad...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLPMLJgGsiA&feature=player_embedded
(possible NSFW bit near the end)

Rich of Observationz

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 13:42:51 +1200

So, dock your iPod to a computer and play the files off it through an audio interface attached to the computer.

For $1000 you could get a neat little ITX box and a quality interface.

The iPod does act as a USB drive, doesn't it?

Russell Brown

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 11:38:35 +1200

I knew there were ipod dockable DAC's

But over $1000 at retail in NZ. Ouchies.

Russell Brown

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 11:35:53 +1200

Incidentally, the video was filmed at what used to be ControlData's Sydney office. Back in those days, ControlData was as big as IBM, HP and what is now Unisys. It never fully recovered from Seymour Cray jumping ship and going it alone

I will alert the editors at NZ On…

Kumara Republic

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 10:25:57 +1200

The future never looked so old...

andin

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 10:07:34 +1200

Are you just after improvements to audio quality?
My home stereo is just dandy thanks for asking. Would eat 99% of home theatre sound systems.
I knew there were ipod dockable DAC's

Lilith __

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 11:13:13 +1200

The future never looked so old...

Funny, I was just listening to that yesterday. Quaint, now!

Must have been around that time one of my big brothers was working for a computing outfit in Chch. That was in the days of punchcards, and for many years afterwards we used the…

Biobbs

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 10:12:31 +1200

No, it was not! And I'm not convinced Lou Reed is talking about computer games, either.

Well if you want computer games...why didn't you say so?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m8IOD-wk9g

The future never looked so old...

Kumara Republic

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 09:51:54 +1200

Are you just after improvements to audio quality? Get a professional sound card?

Here's a start.

Rich of Observationz

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 08:55:26 +1200

Are you just after improvements to audio quality? Get a professional sound card?

Lilith __

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 21:36:08 +1200

Hi Biobbs :-)

Was it red?

No, it was not! And I'm not convinced Lou Reed is talking about computer games, either.

Geoff Lealand

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 21:08:05 +1200

It would be helpful to have a glossary or Guide for Dummies so we can figure out what you guys are talking about sometimes ;-)

andin

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 20:56:06 +1200

“Why isn’t there an entry-level DAC that’s iPod-ready – i.e., an iPod dock with a third-party DAC? That would be good
Onkyo had been working on this in Japan, but they have still yet to progress from the digital media transport.

Snap Still need an external…

Biobbs

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 20:29:56 +1200

My first computer, in the early 80s, was a 48k Sinclair ZX Spectrum. It had a whole 7 colours, and unlike it’s predecessor (the 1k, monochrome, ZX-81) was marketed as a games machine! It had no monitor, the keyboard and joystick connected to your TV.

Was it red?

http://www.muzu.tv/gb/loureed/my-red-joystick-music-video/22663/

Simon Grigg

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 16:01:52 +1200

I haven't seen the same arrangement elsewhere.

They do offer refurbished models throughout S.E. Asia with warranty – or at least they did when I saw the advertising a year or so ago. I guess that still exists. JB Hifi in Queen Street was selling old model MBP 17"s at…

Rich of Observationz

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 15:21:15 +1200

No, but I did build a pirate ship

Rich of Observationz

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 15:19:06 +1200

The ring-bound tech manual which you could buy for the C64 was brilliant. It contained the information that most of the other manufacturers required you to discover for yourself, by disassembly and tracing circuits.

BenWilson

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 15:10:50 +1200

I've got a project on the shelf at the moment involving coding for the ATTINY13A , with a generous 1k of ROM and 64 whole bytes of RAM.

Heh, you anachronist, you. Do you also enact sword battles?

BenWilson

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 15:09:23 +1200

So did most people back then, as the computer sure didn't have a help menu.

Yup and it wouldn't have helped anyway, because I didn't have the computer. When I say I learned it from a book, I mean I knew the language before I had even seen a computer…

Rich of Observationz

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 15:01:53 +1200

I've got a project on the shelf at the moment involving coding for the ATTINY13A , with a generous 1k of ROM and 64 whole bytes of RAM.

recordari

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 14:55:07 +1200

I remember thinking it was terrifically exciting, although also quite hard work to have fun with. ;-)
The kids today, they have no fun-related work ethic.
Cue appropriate Queen song.

I learned to program from a book.
So did most people back then, as the computer sure didn't have a…

BenWilson

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 14:28:48 +1200

I had the predecessor ZX81. The hours of fun I had programming sine wave curves and playing Orbit.

Luxury. I learned to program from a book. Never even saw a computer up close until I'd gone right through several books on BASIC. Then a friend got the predecessor to the…

Lilith __

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 14:25:40 +1200

Love the video, Jack! A friend of mine had a ZX-81 before I got my Spectrum, and I remember thinking it was terrifically exciting, although also quite hard work to have fun with. ;-)

BenWilson

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 14:20:40 +1200

I will never be allowed to live it down if anyone ever hacks any computer-related account I have, no matter the actual result. I have lots of incentive to care.

LOL, well that makes sense.

recordari

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 13:08:01 +1200

My first computer, in the early 80s, was a 48k Sinclair ZX Spectrum.

I had the predecessor ZX81. The hours of fun I had programming sine wave curves and playing Orbit.

This video is so trippy, especially the flashback of the noise for the tape loading the game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPP-RhYWCUs&feature=BFa&list=PLBF128DEC16B25FFA

Lucy Stewart

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 12:54:18 +1200

Strikes me as an extremely unlikely thing to happen. The cost would not be great. The cost of entering long passwords adds up every day.

As Stephen says, identity theft is a real concern. Not as much in NZ as the States, but it's there. And there are a number…

Russell Brown

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 11:51:19 +1200

At this stage benefits are accruing to technophiles and shareholders but it appears that Apple has some way to go to improve its triple-bottom line business practice. Did Jobs share some responsibility in that? You would certainly have hoped so.

You would. And it does seem that Apple has been…

Rich Lock

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 11:10:05 +1200

I remember spending many hours happily playing Manic Miner , a rudimentary platform-and-ladders game, to the accompaniment of a tinny version of Hall of the Mountain King , played from a minute speaker hidden inside the keyboard.

Manic miner was the first thing I thought of when I heard the…

David Hood

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 11:06:47 +1200

My daughter fires up the Elite clone Oolite a few times a year to go privateering

Lilith __

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 10:59:17 +1200

Biobbs

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 10:55:42 +1200

By far and away the best game of that generation was this.

Chucky can shove his egg where the sun don't shine... :)

Well... that's what I used to tell him to do regularly, when I was playing the game.

Always thought Wing Commander et al should really have been…

Jim Cathcart

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 10:52:09 +1200

Apple is the highest-profile Foxconn customer, and thus takes most of the heat

Well, you would expect that. However, as Andy Grove points out, it’s the hollowing out of jobs in the U.S. computer industry where Apple and others have failed. At this stage benefits are accruing to technophiles and…

BenWilson

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 10:07:16 +1200

If nothing else, having something like your Facebook or Google account hacked might not be extremely costly, but it is really fucking annoying. (And can be used for some very malicious things.)

Strikes me as an extremely unlikely thing to happen. The cost would not be great. The cost of…

Rich Lock

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 09:59:53 +1200

My high school had BBC Micro's in the computer lab until 1990.

By far and away the best game of that generation was this.

Chucky can shove his egg where the sun don't shine... :)

Russell Brown

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 08:13:27 +1200

Steve Jobs record on workers rights.

Apple is the highest-profile Foxconn customer, and thus takes most of the heat, much as it was targeted by Greenpeace on the sustainability of its products (which improved markedly as a result of the scrutiny).

But the screen on your Kindle? That Asus netbook?…

Stephen Judd

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 07:21:11 +1200

Jim: thanks for that link.

Stephen Judd

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 07:12:25 +1200

One problem is that "lesser" accounts often give access to the information you need to successfully use social engineering on an important one.

Jim Cathcart

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 02:54:41 +1200

Steve Jobs record on workers rights.

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/11863/remembering_steve_jobs_record_on_workers_rights/

Lucy Stewart

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 02:16:34 +1200

Password security? Cracks me up how much people obsess about it. Only my bank account is even worth bothering on a strong password, and even then, it does lock up after 3 failed attempts anyway, and sends me a text.

There are plenty of things for which password security is…

Sacha

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 01:41:43 +1200

it does lock up after 3 failed attempts anyway, and sends me a text

taunting your failed memory

BenWilson

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 01:27:18 +1200

Smartphones still can't play MMOs

They can, I've spent a few hours testing one out over the last couple of months. I had an empire stretching from Avondale to Laingholm. But I gave it all away for a single kiss...

Password security? Cracks me up how much people obsess about…

Jim Cathcart

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 00:42:59 +1200

They’d be more competitive if it wasn’t for some questionable pricing:

Too true. Outside the Apple stores in Japan, it is possible to buy previous generations of brand new Macs under full warranty. It at least gives people a chance to buy within their budget. I haven't seen the same…

Paul Campbell

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 23:32:42 +1200

Here I get to point out that Apple didn't initially choose the ARM for the Newton, they had their own internal CPU project (a CRISP variant) for the Newton that was canned at the last minute – leaving, as always, a whole lot of pissed off engineers who'd just spent…

Biobbs

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 20:35:11 +1200

I still have a soft spot for the beeb and have a port of Chucky's Egg somewhere

I so loved Chucky's Egg! I wasted a lot of my life on that game- I'd've probably finished uni 6 months earlier if it wasn't for Chucky's Egg. And Frac. And that one…

Stephen Judd

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 19:18:03 +1200

Yes, I think Kyle is mathematically wrong, even given his assumptions. If someone wants to work it out, the formula is here.

Stephen Judd

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 19:17:07 +1200

It’s interesting that the Newton OS paradigm was dumped

I think we could make a case that iOS is a spiritual descendant from a UI POV. It's a long time since I had quality time with a Newton, mind.

Lilith __

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 19:00:42 +1200

That makes no sense to me. If you choose a 5 word password from a 40,000 vocab you have less than 40,000 passwords, not 10^23.

I don’t pretend to know anything about any of this, but isn’t the point that with a password made of 5 random common words put…

Russell Brown

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 18:06:33 +1200

Noting, of course, that the ARM processor core on which the A4 is based is licensed from Advanced Risc Machines — the company formed after the makers of the BBC Acorn landed a deal with Apple to produce a version of the Risc chip they'd made based on fresh ideas…

Stephen Judd

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 17:47:09 +1200

Kyle, Lucy: there is this assumption that the attacker knows a significant portion of users have simple consistently capitalised phrases in English as their passphrase. I don't think that's anywhere near true now, and I doubt it will be any time soon. I suppose I've outed MYSELF in this thread,…

Russell Brown

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 17:37:03 +1200

Oh and Apple’s design isn’t the story behind their commercial success anymore – it’s their supply chain and ruthless efficiency. Even with Ives’ gorgeousness Apple were never going to be the largest company in the world. The fact that they can now get great industrial design delivered rapidly to your…

Simon Grigg

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 17:09:05 +1200

The fact that they can now get great industrial design delivered rapidly to your hands in unthinkable volume at a close-to-competitive price is behind that.

They'd be more competitive if it wasn't for some questionable pricing:

Macbook Pro 17" ( = ex-VAT price in NZ $)
Hong Kong: HK$ 19,288…

Kyle Matthews

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 16:26:13 +1200

If you choose a five word password from a 40,000 word vocabulary you get ~10^23 total passwords. To get the same security from an ascii password you’d have to have to remember 12 random characters.

That makes no sense to me. If you choose a 5 word password from a…

Jim Cathcart

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 15:41:53 +1200

"Why isn’t there an entry-level DAC that’s iPod-ready – i.e., an iPod dock with a third-party DAC? That would be good

Onkyo had been working on this in Japan, but they have still yet to progress from the digital media transport. http://www.superfi.co.uk/index.cfm/page/moreinfo.cfm/Product_ID/5625

Paul Campbell

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 13:06:31 +1200

As I said elsewhere their margin is what the whole rest of the world is envious of – I think it's a difficult place to be – everyone wants to be the high margin leader in a market – but that costs in R&D, and potentially large failures and depends on…

Gareth Ward

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 12:24:34 +1200

even though they look (or have looked) like a small player they can do economies of scale that others can't
And they've been so strategic with it, where others use it just to cut a few cents (again, thanks to Cook). When the Nano was designed, they locked in $1.5billion…

Paul Campbell

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 11:47:31 +1200

partly this is because that they are larger than mostly any individual PC platform manufacturer – even though they look (or have looked) like a small player they can do economies of scale that others can't – they're also not afraid to pioneer new hardware where their competitors in the…

Sacha

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 11:25:41 +1200

a micro supply chain to every customer

So true, and iCloud completes the lock-in.

Gareth Ward

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 11:07:28 +1200

Meant to add – they also create a permanent supply chain to the consumer via their hardware. A series of devices that make it painfully easy to continue to buy content for them is effectively a micro supply chain to every customer.

Gareth Ward

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 11:05:05 +1200

The hifi industry still hasn't caught up to the (IMO) massive opportunity that AirPlay and iTunes represents. Why are there not AirPlay-enabled powered speaker boxes everywhere already? Sonos killers if they got it sorted – instead Sonos saw the threat and has responded in advance. Apple HiFi or whatever it…

Greville Whittle

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 10:16:29 +1200

My high school had BBC Micro's in the computer lab until 1990. They were heaps of fun, but the work was boring, mostly essays on computing and our teacher was the "read the first and last paragraph only" type. We confirmed it on more than one occasion by writing what…

Biobbs

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 21:17:07 +1200

I'd never thought of using song lyrics for passwords... like that, I have about 20000 songs in my collection so probably won't run out soon.

It also amazed me how fast all the dozens of different micro-computer brands people had available in the early 80s collapsed into just two market…

James Butler

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 20:20:48 +1200

For my passwords I use serial numbers and model numbers of things I'm a bit fanboi about (I won't say what kind of things, as that would narrow the attack space) – easily memorable to me, because I'm a geek, but to anyone else they're just strings of random letters…

Steve Barnes

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 19:01:42 +1200

I can get technical, hows yer tolerance

+/- 2.5%

andin

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 17:21:42 +1200

True but there is also a lot of bollocks talked about speaker position, sound image for instance.

But its SPL for me and I can get technical, hows yer tolerance

Steve Barnes

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 16:46:57 +1200

Your speakers and their placement plays more of a roll than most people give it credit.

True but there is also a lot of bollocks talked about speaker position, sound image for instance. Very few recordings benefit from accurate imaging and to try to achieve such in a home environment…

andin

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 16:14:46 +1200

Unfortunately Im a snob. “Stereo” never got 5.1 reached a peak in consumer minds a while ago now. You want a time line…later dude. Your speakers and their placement plays more of a roll than most people give it credit. u want good sound you are a slave to it.…

Steve Barnes

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 15:54:53 +1200

Sir are you suggesting I listen to music stoned!

This ltttle Dancette sounds brilliant Man.
;-)

andin

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 15:35:51 +1200

Sir are you suggesting I listen to music stoned!
Oh Ok then.
Exeter swede anyone……..?

Lucy Stewart

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 14:46:01 +1200

If you choose a five word password from a 40,000 word vocabulary you get ~10^23 total passwords. To get the same security from an ascii password you’d have to have to remember 12 random characters.

Using random words as a password works better than random characters because people are better…

Steve Barnes

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 14:32:16 +1200

Dont leave out the inner sleeve….

And always get the optional plastic cover to protect the artwork when assembling one of these.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PObknmaH9po

andin

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 14:18:00 +1200

my HDMI Apple TV seems to pass on a good signal

I love dem radio waves… but me, I no need it. Small space ‘n all. We’re talking radio and stuff right. HDMI differen plugs of course but I wasnt going to go there.
And if you got a DAC…

Steve Barnes

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 13:02:26 +1200

If you can afford it…They’re too not expensive one of these …they’re highly thought of, for a “blue collar” DAC.Or if you know someone handy with a soldering iron I use one of these

And I use one of These
The Apacer AL670 a snip at less than $100,…

Stephen Judd

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 12:13:41 +1200

Apropos passwords that comprise sequences of real words — I confess I do that. But I punctuate and use numbers.

I think something like this:

Goodness! Swiddening 5 hilltops causes Weltschmerz?

draws on a pretty big search space.

I used "swiddening" because it's a word I learned yesterday. I do…

Islander

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 11:54:50 +1200

nglish has a large enough vocab that if you picked from the entire available vocabulary – which is more like 100,000 word

Not sure what is meant by "entire available vocabulary."
Words recorded as being part of English top 1 million (a great number being archaic, dialectual, or specialist terminology.)…

Russell Brown

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 11:47:43 +1200

the DAC in the Apple TV

If you can afford it…They’re too not expensive
one of these …they’re highly thought of, for a “blue collar” DAC.
Or if you know someone handy with a soldering iron I use one of these

Why isn’t there an entry-level DAC that’s iPod-ready –…

Peter Graham

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 11:02:19 +1200

That meme has been going around for a while now. It sounds attractive, but it’s not actually true – if you think of the individual words as units (which dictionary attacks allow) then the security of a string of words is pretty low, especially considering most people’s active vocabulary (well…

andin

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 10:39:23 +1200

the DAC in the Apple TV

If you can afford it...They're too not expensive
one of these ...they're highly thought of, for a "blue collar" DAC.
Or if you know someone handy with a soldering iron I use one of these

Simon Bennett

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 10:26:22 +1200

I'm using an Apple TV synced with my laptop to play music through the stereo via RCA leads. Therein probably lies part of the problem – the DAC in the Apple TV is probably pretty rudimentary.

andin

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 08:22:58 +1200

I’ll still buy the CD for the richer sound.

There's this nifty device if you have an outboard DAC as part of your music setup. To listen to other music stored on your computer.
I hope your not using the headphone out to connect to a stereo.…

Lucy Stewart

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 06:54:01 +1200

A polyglot's question: If the words in the 'random' string were each from a different language, with preferably each language unrelated, would that beat, or at least delay, the dictionary attacks?

Oh, sure. The more languages you use, the more difficult it gets. English has a large enough vocab that…

Chris Waugh

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 23:57:34 +1200

A polyglot's question: If the words in the 'random' string were each from a different language, with preferably each language unrelated, would that beat, or at least delay, the dictionary attacks?

Andrew E

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 23:42:39 +1200

That meme has been going around for a while now. It sounds attractive, but it's not actually true

I'll take your word for it. I use a different method myself.

Lucy Stewart

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 23:28:40 +1200

According to XKCD, you wouldn't be far off the pace if you did choose that as your password.

That meme has been going around for a while now. It sounds attractive, but it's not actually true – if you think of the individual words as units (which dictionary attacks allow)…

Jeremy Andrew

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 22:00:06 +1200

I've just got home from TechEd (drinking the microsoft kool aid). I was twittering in the front row of a demo of Win7 slates, tablets & skinny lappies when the news about Jobs hit the wires.

About 25 mins later, the two Microsofters doing the demo showed some device off by…

Kracklite

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 21:55:47 +1200

If it matters (or even if it doesn’t, and the fact that it doesn’t, but people act as if it does, which is often the point of their satire, but I digress…), The Onion has something to say about it. Apple will survive or not based on the culture that…

HORansome

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 18:23:41 +1200

I filmed an awful lot of video on the iPad at the last party. The only thing stopping me from editing it on the iPad is how awful my singing is. Video editing on iOS is delightfully easy, though.

Russell Brown

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 17:25:37 +1200

Smartphones still can’t play MMOs or edit videos yet. It’s probably only a matter of time though.

And yet, one of the great things about PC gaming is its hackability. It's hard to see that happening in a mobile application.

And the iPhone 4 can edit video to some degree.…

Andrew E

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 17:24:26 +1200

Smartphones still can't play MMOs or edit videos yet. It's probably only a matter of time though

You can edit a video on your iPhone. Don't know about other phones though.

Kumara Republic

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 17:14:09 +1200

But the core PC getting-stuff-done market still exists, and is still a significant (and, I suspect, increasing) percentage of the population; and I think it will be some time before we see a better input device than a keyboard for those uses.

Smartphones still can't play MMOs or edit videos…

Simon Bennett

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 16:53:14 +1200

My bugbear with iTMS is that music can only be purchased at 256kbps. Not good enough for serious listening IMHO.

I'll download an album as an audition, and if I really like it, I'll still buy the CD for the richer sound. But I'm a dinosaur.

Russell Brown

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 16:40:29 +1200

My thoughts pretty much exactly – and frankly, even though eMusic didn’t kill my account (although no new accounts are available), its value has really become questionable. The major-label catalogues aren’t available here, and the Beggars Group catalogue disappearing altogether was a serious downer.

Beggars is the most alert music…

linger

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 16:37:00 +1200

I tried listing my Mac machines, and was shocked to realise I still have ten of them. (Almost all were second-hand; I'm a late adopter.)
There's the SE I started writing my thesis on, and the Centris I finished it on, both still in working order (for decades-old definitions of…

Simon Grigg

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 16:17:25 +1200

Off at a tangent: since we're not feeling the iTunes love, which legal download sites are worth the effort?

I was a fan of eMusic until they arbitrarily disconnected me a couple of years back. Perhaps an Indonesian IP at the time didn't help.

Beatport, Boomkat and Juno are fine…

recordari

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 15:47:01 +1200

From CNBC 7 Aug 2011.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WuXXCkKjbw
Part 2.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoDJ5LuR8so

My feeling is we will be talking about him in a different way soon enough, so I'll let others fly the flag for now.

Rich Lock

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 15:41:20 +1200

Off at a tangent: since we're not feeling the iTunes love, which legal download sites are worth the effort?

Andrew E

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 15:38:18 +1200

And my (recently deceased after 8 years of sterling service) Sony Ericsson P800 – with touch interface and Opera browser – was apparently much admired by Jobs back in 2003.

Simon Grigg

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 15:33:14 +1200

but the idea that that Apple succeeds because it puts form before function simply isn’t true.

Word. I resisted the move to Mac for years – just because I was being a curmudgeon – but when I finally made the jump, it was the function that made it worthwhile. I'm…

Simon Grigg

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 15:22:30 +1200

Now, smartphones are basically variations on the iPhone.

HTC had the finger touch screen Gene and Touch both out before the iPhone. In this part of the world at least they were the groover's choice and pretty much everywhere before the iPhone arrived. They caused quite a fuss.

From memory…

Andrew E

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 15:16:09 +1200

The best joke at the Edinburgh festival this year; "I had to choose a password with 8 characters, so I chose Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs".

According to XKCD, you wouldn't be far off the pace if you did choose that as your password.

There's some nice quotes from Jobs…

Sacha

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 15:13:43 +1200

Eron

not to be confused with iRon :)

James Butler

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 15:04:22 +1200

Not according to the research

Bring a gun to a knife fight why don't you.

Geoff Lealand

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 15:04:04 +1200

Now disused but somehow we can't discard our floral iMac. But I cannot get too sentimental about Apple these days as they have become a bit of a monster--for a brief period a couple of weeks back, they passed Eron as the world's richest company.
I do pine for my…

Russell Brown

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:46:11 +1200

Oh yes, I was really referring to hardware hacking, i.e. overclocking, disk configurations etc…

Ah yes. That would be the member of the household who just had to have two graphics cards ...

Russell Brown

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:44:24 +1200

the machines are just catching up to our standard human modes – gesture and voice

I suppose I’ll have to have a crack at driving Mac OS 10.7 with that multi-touch pad thing. My cheap mouse from Dick Smith still seems to work pretty well.

Unlike, it must be said,…

Peter Darlington

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:42:56 +1200

And yet, at Webstock, Foo, etc, there are a lot of people who can and do hack code, who carry a Macbook as their personal machine.

Oh yes, I was really referring to hardware hacking, i.e. overclocking, disk configurations etc...

Russell Brown

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:37:44 +1200

Since the Apple II I have never used Apple; not because its products are made in concentration cum work camps

I’ll be brief, because I’ve gone through this ad nauseum, but Foxconn, which does most of Apple’s assembly, almost certainly also manufactures the components in your computer. Or your gaming…

HORansome

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:26:37 +1200

Not according to the research; reading and writing are still hard to learn skills which we have no natural inclination to pick up (children only do well at it because their brains are much more plastic than adults).

Sacha

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:25:56 +1200

For sure, but it's more recent and still less widespread. I expect the proportion of time spent pointing and talking (especially via Skype, etc) to increase as interfaces and supporting infrastructure like affordable genuine broadband mature.

James Butler

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:07:52 +1200

Well IMHO the written word has become as much a native mode of human communication as either of those...

Sacha

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:05:44 +1200

which raise different accessibility challenges and possibilities

Sacha

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 14:04:05 +1200

the machines are just catching up to our standard human modes – gesture and voice

James Butler

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:59:17 +1200

keyboards are going to seem so ridiculous

Hmm. Consider that in the 80s and 90s, most of the people who bought home PCs were people who wanted to get stuff done – people who wanted to crunch numbers or process words, and realised that a computer was the most efficient…

Sacha

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:48:57 +1200

keyboards are going to seem so ridiculous

James Butler

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:46:31 +1200

it’s like telephones being attached to the wall #notnatural

Recently at MOTAT I tried to show my kids how to use a dial telephone. It was HARD.

Also, my kids are very used to me staring intently at a screenful of indecipherable scrolling text, followed by tapping out weird hieroglyphics.…

Rich Lock

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:39:09 +1200

Sure helps if you remember what monochrome command line interfaces were like; must mystify the young just like the wifi demo in Russell's story.

Ah, the halcyon days where 20 GOTO 10 was the height of sophisticated wit in the school computer lab.

Sacha

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:32:51 +1200

kids would have to be fairly young to not remember when it was unusual

it's like telephones being attached to the wall #notnatural

Sacha

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:30:30 +1200

matching their keyboard to the drapes

not a metaphor?

Lucy Stewart

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:27:58 +1200

Sure helps if you remember what monochrome command line interfaces were like; must mystify the young just like the wifi demo in Russell's story.

I'm juuuuuust old enough to really remember when having a computer with 256 colours was a Big Deal. I think there were a few computers running…

James George

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:25:45 +1200

Oh god let the fan bois have their moment. I mean who really cares which mega corp rapes yer wallet, thanks chiefly to abusing the loopholes which their lackeys insinuated into the plethora of insane bi-lateral trade agreements our pols foist upon us.
In a moment of utter stupidity I…

Paul Campbell

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:14:12 +1200

remember I said that "Apple eats its young" ... the fact that it has its eyes on a percentage from everyone who writes software for its platforms now seems to me to be an indication that, well, programmers are next ....

Russell Brown

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:11:08 +1200

And the market works. Apple do their thing brilliantly but there's also a big demand for cheaper commodity hardware, not so pretty but more open/modular so good for hacking, pimping and shipping on to keep up to date with changes in specs. People who like to do that don't buy…

Joe Wylie

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 12:42:51 +1200

. . . it was completely unrealistic that the receptionist at a medical clinic would have the latest Mac, but it did look cool.
It was the receptionist's Apple //c at a pretentiously overdecorated Auckland dental practice that fatally undermined my trust and drove me to seek treatment elsewhere. This…

James Butler

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 12:36:52 +1200

I'm trying to remember what model we had at home during my late Dad's brief stint as editor of the New Zealand Model Railway Journal – one of the early beige PowerPC separates I think. And I dearly loved the ancient ex-VUW Color Classic I had as a student -…

HORansome

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 12:25:51 +1200

Also, "Halo." Look what happened there.

(It's okay, though. I can now play "Marathon" on my iPad.)

Sacha

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 12:23:01 +1200

One of the best Macs ever. I sold mine to Chris Bourke, who used it to write his Crowded House book.

However I seriously don't recommend trying to use one to lay out a photo-intensive house of the year magazine. Not a fond memory.

Sacha

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 12:21:43 +1200

And the market works

Apple also had a lot to learn about the business side of their industry from Microsoft and others.

Russell Brown

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 12:16:59 +1200

to the LC575 with its CD-ROM drive

One of the best Macs ever. I sold mine to Chris Bourke, who used it to write his Crowded House book.

Sadly, it was followed by some of the biggest stinking piles of shit the company ever released. I had a black Performa…

Russell Brown

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 12:11:34 +1200

A great Macromedia technology called Flash

Heh.

Indeedy.

Peter Darlington

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 12:06:21 +1200

A triumph of leading with design and having faith that people will pay for a better product experience. Jobs talked about taking the time to honour the design process properly, which hardly any of Apple's competitors did.

And the market works. Apple do their thing brilliantly but there's also a…

Simon Bennett

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 12:03:01 +1200

I've never had any direct professional dealings with Apple, but Apple products have been my main work tools for the last 20 years.

I've worked in theatre, television and film and had hobbyist passions for photography, gaming, and music. So I'm probably the perfect target market for Apple, and it'd…

Tom Semmens

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 12:02:26 +1200

I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.

This last sentence looks frighteningly like a last goodbye from someone close to the end. That is sad, but it would…

James Butler

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 11:49:16 +1200

A great Macromedia technology called Flash

Heh.

Paul Campbell

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 11:47:12 +1200

well yeah – the first thing I did when I bought my Mac128 in '84 was to open it, up the memory to (a whole) 1Mb, and add a hard drive (a whole 10Mb)

Sacha

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 11:45:06 +1200

Apple's industry design process has always started deeper than that

Jobs insisted that design was deeper than the product's skin. Mind you, the degree of control that sometimes involves has annoyed legions.

Russell Brown

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 11:36:14 +1200

A triumph of leading with design and having faith that people wiill pay for a better product experience. Jobs talked about taking the time to honour the design process properly, which hardly any of Apple's competitors did.

The rush of "designer" Windows PCs after the iMac took off was hilarious.…

Paul Campbell

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 11:35:04 +1200

Apple forced all of their developers to buy CD roms within the space of about 2 months, they stopped shipping us documentation on paper. By the end of that year EVERY new mac had a CD rom in it and we all started shipping software on CD roms – PCs…

Russell Brown

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 11:31:21 +1200

One thing it's easy to forget now is how comically off the pace Apple was for a while in digital music. Steve thought the killer app would be people editing their home movies.

Eventually, they had to buy SoundJam from Cassady and Greene and turn it into iTunes. You know…

Joe Wylie

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 11:19:34 +1200

(BTW Apple also brought CD-roms, firewire, and of course mice and real graphical displays – these were other technologies that Apple pioneered and brought to the general PC market)
Don't know if I've somehow misread that, but my recollection is that Macs rather conspicuously lacked CD-roms for some months after…

Sacha

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 11:11:23 +1200

The one thing that Apple does and everyone is really jealous of is simply "high gross margins" they sell stuff at higher prices

A triumph of leading with design and having faith that people wiill pay for a better product experience. Jobs talked about taking the time to honour the…

Sacha

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 11:08:57 +1200

real graphical displays

Hard to credit how revolutionary that was until you see the crowd response during the original Macintosh launch – and realise that the pixelly big type scrolling across the screen is what they're raving about. Sure helps if you remember what monochrome command line interfaces were like;…

Paul Campbell

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 10:50:09 +1200

I worked in companies around Apple from roughly '84 to '94 and saw a lot of this going on – I had some of the first Mac 2 prototypes on my desk, and found/fixed hardware problems on them – Apple was always tough to work around – you worked with…

Robyn Gallagher

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 10:35:00 +1200

It was only 12 years ago, but yet sometimes it feels like 50 years ago:

More women will buy the iBook than any other computer ever. And only partly because it looks like a giant makeup compact.

Tee-hee. I'm a girl. I only buy computers that look like makeup.

The…

Public Address

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 10:35:00 +1200

Discussion from blog post.