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July 28, 2007

 Drunk Astronauts: So What?  

There's a big controversy over drunken Astronauts on takeoff. So what?

I still can't fly on a normal plane without a drink or four before takeoff -- and that's just a plane. Astronauts are strapped to giant takes rocket fuel. We don't even have to get into discussions on Challenger or Columbia. If I were an astronaut, I'd be drinking on the fucking launchpad, and I think I'd deserve it.

Not all astronauts are created equal -- you have pilots, you have scientists, you have all sorts. As long as the pilots weren't drunk or hungover, who cares? Seriously.

Posted by Jonathan at 12:02 AM | Comments (0)

July 20, 2007

 YouTube has customizable skins, nice work Geoff !  

Good friend & drinking buddy Geoff Stearns , previously responsible for YouTube working in the first place (for which they haven't given him 4 million dollars yet !!!) , and recent migrant to SanFrancisco to officially work for GooTube has just released some customizable skins for YouTube.

http://youtube.com/custom_player

This reminds me that everyone should join the Geoff Stearns fanclub -- SwfObject.org ; we're already the #3 search term for SwfObject , quickly closing in on overtaking the Adobe ranking and (ultimately) Geoff's official website!

Posted by Jonathan at 11:43 AM | Comments (0)

July 18, 2007

 How Harry Potter Dies. Really.  

I just read an advance because, well, I have the hookups.

Harry Potter dies. Its shocking, its tragic, and worst of all its preventable.

Here's how it unfolds: Harry Potter And Ron Weasley travel to London where they meet some 'cheeky birds' (read: girls) in a bar, hit things off, and wind up losing their virginities in the bathrooms. Its really an endearing scene... the jukebox played 'ooh ooh its magic....'

The girls were both attractive, or so Rowling claims. Harry took the blonde to the mensroom, while Ron and the brunette ventured to the ladies room.

Bad choice, Mr. Potter. Everyone knows you don't get busy in the mens room -- its not only dirtier, but the condom machines are never working , if they even exist at all.

Ron, however, is fortunate enough to find himself in a much cleaner bathroom with a condom machine. More importantly, he's neurotic enough to drop a few pence into the actual machine and get his 'magic wand' protected.

Harry is both a-bit-too-self-righteous-for-his-own-good, living dangerously with that scar on his head and all... and when damned by chance to bathroom with no condom machine, he simple remains unprotected.

And that my friends, is how Harry Potter dies. Harry Potter had unprotected sex with a stranger and got AIDS. Yes, the 'Master Wizard' dies from AIDS.

In Rowling's world, uf you're a normal person and contract HIV, you've got a few years to live. If you're rich, you've got a few decades. But if you're 'magical', you'll curl up and die from full blown AIDS in under a week - just like Harry Potter.

What a horrid, tragic, ending to the Harry Potter legacy.

It makes you think though... how awesome of JK Rowling.

Knowing full well what arrogant idiots American parents and the politicized education can be in regards to sex education, she slides a bit of basic 'get protected, it minimizes your risk' wisdom into her last book. ( note: Ron didn't get off unscathed , he caught crabs and his parents grounded him until he turns 18. Rowling made it very clear that risk was minimized, not non-existant)

Sadly, its the best bit of common-sense education many American children will get this year.

Posted by Jonathan at 1:40 AM | Comments (0)

July 16, 2007

 Do Patents Pay?  

An article on slashdot ( http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/15/1959230&from=rss ) concerning a book "Do Patents Work" seeks to suggest not.

I suggest the author, the commentators, and the NYT article are both "fucking morons" and "full of shit".

I've had enough with people framing this issue as something that is black & white. Its not, and treating it as such may make for great ratings ( re: web hitcount, nielsen ratings on debate shows, adspace prices in the nytimes ) -- but it cheapens the issue. I'll gladly put forth that anyone saying "Long live patents" or "Patents should be abolished" is a fucking idiot, completely shortsighted, and isn't worth reading.

Here's the truth of the matter -- patents make a lot of sense in some situations, and make no sense in others. There are many factors at play - I'm only going to touch on two of them.

a) Lets talk economics: The law of diminishing marginal utility. This is basic econ -- far before a 101 -- you should have learned this in high school. Simplest put, 1 patent is good, 2 patents are great, but you hit a tipping point where maybe 100 patents might not be so good, and with 101 patents you're spending more on filing fees and lawyers than income your patents generate. From a business standpoint, is the concept of patents bad because of this? No - but your legal team and middle management are idiots who should be fired.

b) "Evening the playing field". *Properly* used, patents promote innovation and reward innovation. They let the average person create and chance reward, instead of limiting invention to wealthy.

I'll contextualize this in terms close to me. I spent 3 years of my life with 'after hours' work, then quit my job and sunk 1 year of my life in 80hr weeks PLUS my entire life savings ( ~$100k ) developing what I felt was revolutionary software. A few months after I put my product online as a beta and started shopping it around for investment to make fully stable, it was was cloned by a group of people who raised $3 million dollars in capital. It was a clear clone - the entire public featureset, even the copy , appeared on the clone; the holding company that cloned the product formed weeks after I went public, and were directly connected to people that I pitched to.

Because of patents, I may not lose my entire investment -- and the moral/ethical crime of taking anothers work and showing it as your own may become legally enforced.

Anti-Patent activists will readily make light of the evils of patents -- how drug prices are too high, how web browsers have weird integration issues, how innovation is stifled be the fear of infringment.

What they CONSTANTLY fail to address are the benefits of patents -- how a pharmaceutical company is incentivized to spend 400 million dollars trying to cure AIDS, or how an ordinary person with a good idea but a limited income can take a rish and go out and create something /without/ fear of being stomped on by someone bigger.

A world without patents isn't the world of low-cost drugs and independant invention: Its the world where 'The Rich Get Richer' and 'The Establishment' is strong and abolute. Its the world where ideas and innovation are devalued by marketing budgets. Its the world of the ultra rich and ultra poor.

Likewise, a world with eternal patents & copyright isn't a world of fairness and prosperity. Its a world where innovation stops because of infringement and legal fear. Its a world daily activities become 'taxed' by usage fees. It , too, is the world of the ultra rich and ultra poor.

Patent law shouldn't be abolished, nor should it be eternal - it should be reformed in a way that best benefits society ; in a way that balances the needs and benefits of society as a whole, while it rewards innovation and safeguards risk.

Maybe I'm crazy, or maybe i'm just excercing the part of my brain not steeped in partisan rhetoric ( the part i like to call "common sense" ) but Intellectual Property isn't a black & white issue, nor is it one-dimensional. Its a complex beast that can't be simplified in 3-line slashdot postings , and shouldn't be polarized by fame-hungry authors and law professors with insatiable egos looking for fame.

Posted by Jonathan at 12:07 AM | Comments (0)

July 13, 2007

 MochiMedia Funded, Congrats Guys  

GigaOm reported today that MochiMedia did a Series A led by Accel.

Its nice to know that the deal is finally public. Bob and Jameson have been very secretive about everything business oriented for the past few months -- I can only imagine the relief they must feel. I just wonder who figured this out- they sure as hell didn't peep a word.

http://gigaom.com/2007/07/13/mochimedia/

Posted by Jonathan at 7:16 PM | Comments (0)

July 9, 2007

 iPhone Bug - Fee Based local networks  

copy of the ADC bug report that I filed.

My iPhone kept crashing at McCarren Park / McCarren Park Pool, because I STUPIDLY tried to join wifiny.net . WifiNY is one of those http login services that operate on an open network ; the iphone kept burning energy and stalling , trying to check email / etc as Wifi let me join , but would block / reroute / redirect traffic to their login page.

When I realized what was going on after I jumped on safari to check webmail , I found out that the iPhone can't disconnect from & forget a network in a sane/easy manner. I had to remove the network from the local known networks list, go into airplane mode, and then deny the connection.

The iPhone should, at the least, allow people to disconnect/forget networks from the settings panel. The 'forget this network' doesn't disconnect. It should also show a listing of all known networks -- not just local ones -- so people can forget them later on. Ideally, the iPhone would catch those bastard fee/login based wifi networks ( who either block ports or continually do http redirects until you login )

09-Jul-2007 01:49 PM Jonathan Vanasco:

Summary:
If a login / fee-based local wifi network is selected by the user, the system will hang when trying to check email , weather, etc -- as dns causes an error and ports are blocked.

Steps to Reproduce:
Accept a conneciton to an open network that is a login / fee-based local wifi network ( tmobile/sprint hotspot , http://wifiny.net ) that does login via http form + mac address routing , accept the connection through weather maps or mail , not safari.

The system will continually try to connect and fail. The iphone will get very vrey hot.

Expected Results:

There should be a no-route to host error, something else that auto-detects that the network is not delivering the correct packets, or realize that all data is being routed/ httpd redirected to a given server and allow people do disconnect from the network.

Actual Results:
The system will fail, repeatedly, locking up for periods of time. The iPhone can not disconnect from the networks , so it can not connect to edge. the only way to get off the network and find a new network/edge is to forget the network , jump into airplane mode , and then retry a wireless connection.

Notes:

The settings panel does not have a 'forget this network' feature , or a disconnect from this network feature --so it is then impossible to disconnect from the pay-network and use the AT&T Edge.

The only way to get off the network , is to remove the network from favorites, go into airplane mode, and then try to check mail/whatever and deny access to the fee-network. Or reboot. But shunting into airplane mode for a moment works.

Settings should have a 'disconnect from this network' feature.

Posted by Jonathan at 1:50 PM | Comments (0)

 Enough with the AT&T iPhone Bashing  

Every damn blog I read lately talks about how AT&T is the devil, and how its awful that the iPhone is locked into them for service.

Give me a fucking break.

Yes, AT&T is evil -- but name a cellphone provider that isn't ? Anyone who has dealt with customer service or billing at Sprint or Verizon will know that they are the fucking devil , and the only difference between them is that Verizon doesn't drop every other call or turn to seconds of pure silence or static mid conversation; T-Mobile has awful coverage, every other block in NYC seems to be a dead zone; are there even any other national providers?

Sure - AT&T were caught in that inexcusable NSA wiretapping incident... but does anyone think that Sprint, Verizon, or T-Mobile are out there protecting our privacy ? My money is that they did the same thing -- they just haven't been caught yet.

Aside from the insane rates for overseas calling , the AT&T package is a steal. They have perhaps the best coverage in the US, their network doesn't drop calls, and there's no constant static. The EDGE network is so slow its almost worthless, but it is the same thing the blackberry runs on... and for a fraction of the cost. AT&T is doing unlimited data on the iPhone for $20 a month... last i checked, most carriers wanted $30-50/month for that same service.

In a week with the iPhone I've had 0 dropped calls, 0 calls turn to static, and never been out of range in NYC. On any given day with Sprint , I had 5 dropped calls, 10 turn to static, and find myself constantly out of range. Just about everyone I know who used T-Mobile quit the next day, when they found out their apartment was a dead zone.

So quit the fucking griping about how awful AT&T is... if you're going to gripe, show me a better alternative in privacy or service. You can't - their service is top notch, and everyone is as bad about privacy as they are, if not worse.

Posted by Jonathan at 11:40 AM | Comments (0)

July 4, 2007

 I Dream of Shatner  

A buddy flick about America's best worst actors: William Shatner and Nicholas Cage.

To prepare for the reprise of an iconic William Shatner role in a modern-day remake, Nicholas Cage decides to shadow Shatner - to learn how he thinks, how he acts, how he reacts.

The film is a buddy flick, of sorts. Shatner reluctantly agrees to take Cage on a road trip which, at times is scary, at times is hilarious, and overall is hearwarming. The two play off of each others strengths, while playfully jabbing at their weaknesses. Two hours in, Shatner learns to be a little more like Cage, and Nicholas Cage learns how to be a little more Shatner.

Posted by Jonathan at 3:29 AM | Comments (0)