Disqus - Latest Comments for Rick

Re: Bread-and-butter programmers and functional programmers need better collaboration

Rick — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 04:41:10 -0000

Your entire argument is completely undermined by the extremely annoying and insanely repetitive use of the derogatory term "bread-and-butter programmers".

Did you really put in all this effort just to insult people? I would suggest the content of this post is worth more than that.

Re: Why does Apple get a free ride?

Rick — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 05:12:39 -0000

I think you've just answered your own question by using DVD Jon as an example. In the latter case we are talking about a complete industry that tries to impose more and more limitations.

In the case of Apple, we are talking about a single company, trying to impose limitations on it's own products. Unique products that get unique attention (there is no massively publicized "Nokia/Samsung/Motorola-hacking", there aren't entire online groups dedicated to reverse engineering other phones).

Neither does Apple have a semi-monopoly on anything like Microsoft (and the kind of social and economic power that comes with it), not even in the online music business since the vast majority of iPod owners fill it with mp3's instead of iTunes music.

Apple does not get a free ride. All the Tech-blogs are full Apple's latest stunts. But the reality is, Apple is not "The Man". I can ditch my iPod, my yet-to-be-aquired-since-i-live-in-Europe iPhone and any Macs without any problems. In fact, ditching them would make live easier for me in a Microsoft dominated world.

The reality is, despite all of its success and publicity, Apple is still the opposition, the "other guy". The fact that the more power Apple gets, the more it starts to act like "The Man" is something to be extremely critical of, but compared to the impact of DVD-encryption or Microsoft OOXML manipulations these are minor issues.

Blowing every bad move Apple makes out of proportion will only fuel Apple apologists.

Re: It’s Hulu vs. Brightcove, not YouTube

Rick — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 16:01:57 -0000

Having read most of the reviews, I can't escape the impression that Hulu is by far the most accomplished and impressive implementation.... of a dead end business model.

The fact that site-builders apparently knew what they were doing is itself is pretty unique for sites commissioned by major corporations, but that doesn't make the basic concept behind Hulu anymore viable.

Re: Google: All aboard the Open train

Rick — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 02:43:51 -0000

I absolutely concur with Ivan. In fact, the success of the internet is based on that fundamentally open architecture. What you are talking about are the alternatives back then, the walled gardens of AOL and Compuserve.

Mobile phone makers and operators are still trying to pretend that piece of history never happened, or that they can reverse history. In that way, this is the same issue as Facebook versus Open Social. It's a battle that has been raging ever since the breakthrough of the internet, on various fronts.

And there are still some battles to be fought: the internet desperately needs an open alternative to rich media stuff like Flash and streaming video, and get this out of the clutches of Adobe and Microsoft. And again, this is also directly in the interest of Google.

Looking forward to Googles next announcement... ;-)

Re: Why Lane Hartwell is wrong

Rick — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 11:12:14 -0000

I think the main issue here is not whether Lane Hartwell is right legal issues, but the fact that the law basically enables here to get the video taken down without any form of due process.

There are no lives at stake here, we have all the time in the world to wait for the outcome of normal legal proceedings to decide who's right and who's wrong.

What's clearly wrong here is the chilling effect of the current copyright laws, and the abuse of that by rights holders such as miss Hartwell. Even if she is legally right, this kind of action is way more unethical and damaging then Richter Scales alleged copyright infringement.

Re: The Pirate Bay: Is it illegal to point?

Rick — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 03:37:56 -0000

That kind of "pointing" has been ruled illegal in several European courts as aiding and abetting copyright infringement, and I don't see why Sweden would be so very different. What's relevant here is "intent". And it's going to be hard for the PB guys to credibly deny their intent...

Then again, it's never been quite clear to my why they felt so safe in Sweden, and why it has taken so long for them to be prosecuted. There must be some kind of loophole in Swedish law.

Personally, I hope they win, but I find it hard to believe that under current copyright laws Pirate Bay can be legal in any western country.

What's more worrying, if PB goes down it might trigger the next fase in the P2P arms race, like with Napster and Kazaa before. The ultimate result will inevitably be an anonymized, end to end encrypted, zero point of failure. 'all the data is in the clound' p2p network, with implications for law enforcement (ie, making it damn near impossible) well beyond mere copyright infringement.

Re: Sometimes the news can’t wait

Rick — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 03:33:48 -0000

"Was the person who changed the Wikipedia page committing an act of journalism, or divulging privileged information?"

How about neither? As far as I can tell, this person was simply engaging in normal 21st century social interaction. Using terms like "publishing", "journalism" and "news" just obscures the simple reality of it.

Re: studio.rizzn == new.media: /socnets: #AmazonFail: Is It Really a Conspiracy? [No, Idiot, It Isn’t]

Rick — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 04:30:30 -0000

I understand the technology perfectly well, since it's been my profession for a just a few decades. Technology is made by human beings, and is never, ever neutral. Technology is as biased as the people that made it. The fact that words like 'gay' or 'lesbian' score so high on this algorithm that there seems to be no need for any other trigger to flag it as offensive shows clear bias.

Never mind the fact that the entire scheme is clearly biased. Removing sales rank from erotic books, that's a political decision that has fuck all to do with business. Amazon has done fine for over decade selling all kinds of adult stuff.

Re: Want To Know Why Twitter Keeps Going Down? They’re All Stoned

Rick — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 09:48:40 -0000

Geez Duncan, just as I was impressed you were able to just make a joke of it without the vicious moralizing insinuations you used to add at Techcrunch, now you start your preaching in the comments.

Whenever sex or drugs come up, you start sounding like Tom Cruise.

Re: Why PHP as a templating language sucks

Rick — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 02:34:06 -0000

So basically you're advocating the use of Smarty to compensate for complete and utter incompetence, plus a total refusal to learn, plus refusing to follow instructions. Don't you think your problems may be elsewhere?

Where I work we have pretty strict job-protection laws making it very hard to fire people, but there are limits.

I'm not surprised though: I've always interpreted companies that list knowledge of Smarty as a job requirement as a euphemism for "we have no idea what the fuck we are doing and employ retards".

Even on a very, very, simple job, not using an existing MVC set-up or framework and coding completely from scratch, setting up the basics for separating business logic from presentation logic should take any half-decent PHP-dev a just a few hours. Yeah, it won't freaking Symfony, but not having "a proper MVC" setup is no excuse for not separating concerns.

Even worse, using stuff like Smarty and limiting language constructs usually results in horrible code where essential presentation logic is mixed with business logic because even as bloated as it has become, Smarty can't handle the complexity of the presentation. Separating the layout part of the presentation logic is a good thing, but not it should not result in presentation logic being all over the place. And don't even get me started about using AJAX in this context...

Smarty can't compensate for incompetence. Nothing can.

Re: Mistaeks I Hav Made: Complaining about Other People's Code

Rick — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:22:53 -0000

Although I like the article, and it's certainly something to be aware of, I ultimately agree with Bruce Goldstein's comment: there are just an awful lot of bad coders out there. I've worked exclusively in web development for the past 10 years, which means being surrounded by people that started making HTML-pages, and have never bothered to learn any decent software engineering skills. Don't get me wrong, some of these people are incredibly talented an create some awesome stuff, but most of their code is an unstructured, unreadable and unmaintainable mess.

The reality is: any bias aside, there's just an awful lot of really, really bad code out there. (Which by the way doesn't mean it's a good idea to rewrite it. I consider rewrites a last resort, after all else has failed, no matter how bad the code is.)

Re: 2007/04/19/petition-against-alexas-statsaholic-lawsuit/

Rick — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 05:30:55 -0000

Signing the petition. And I'm boycotting Amazon until they drop the lawsuit.

Re: 2007/04/19/upcoming/

Rick — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 08:26:38 -0000

First I had to register with Yahoo (I cancelled my Yahoo accounts when they started spamming under the cover of the CAN-SPAM act).
Then I find out my "metro" Amsterdam (a city that should not be entirely unknown to Americans, even if they can't point it out on a map) has now become the province "Noord Holland" (like anybody in Amsterdam cares what if anything happens out there).
And to top it all off, the free t-shirt is for North-Americans only.

I'm no marketing expert, but I don't think "we can't be bothered serving you eurotrash" is sound approach to maintaining customer loyalty...

Re: Last.fm to Start Charging International Users

Rick — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 16:17:43 -0000

Absolutely disgusting move.

Wouldn't have minded paying for the service, but paying because I'm from the wrong country? That's the most insulting business plan ever. Screw them.

Re: Delicious Founder: I Wish I Had Not Sold to Yahoo

Rick — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 16:10:32 -0000

Yahoo did a complete rewrite of Delicious. Since Yahoo employs some of the smartest devs in the business, they're know damn well a rewrite is a last resort, when the existing code is such utter and complete crap even the slightest change will make it fall apart. So maybe the founder is partly responsible for the fact that Yahoo couldn't do very much with Delicious.

Re: Microsoft sending free computers to bloggers?

Rick — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 15:11:37 -0000

Mmmm. There is a major difference between giving away a product for review, giving (small) gifts as tokens of appreciation or means of promotion, and giving away an expensive product worth many times the price of the product you are promoting.

Depending on the relationship between the giver and the receiver, the latter is usually referred to as either payment or a bribe...

Re: I think the Microsoft Vista giveaway is an awesome idea

Rick — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 10:36:39 -0000

Freebies handed out to reporters and bloggers are usually the product itself or a cheaper item related to the product. The laptops handed out by Microsoft represent a value many times higher then the product they are promoting.

Depending on the context, this is either payment or a bribe. If these bloggers were reporters or buyers on somebody else's payroll it would certainly be considered a bribe, and it would be improper to accept this "gift". And most tax-collecting authorities on this planet will certainly consider it payment.

I'm not suggesting malicious intend on the part of Microsoft, nor those who accepted the laptop, but it simply is what it is: they've been payed around $2000.

Re: Apple TV rocks

Rick — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 08:04:24 -0000

I don't get it.

What it does offer: integration with iTunes.
What it doesn't offer: about 99% of all of the other stuff I already do with video-content.

And I'm not even that interested in integration with iTunes, since I can plug all of my computers straight into my TV without extra equipment...

I love Apple products, but I really don't get the added value of Apple TV.

Maybe it's just me, but I never understood the need for any of these devices that are supposed to integrate computers with television. All computers I've bought since the '95 can be hooked up directly to the TV. Any old one will do to serve as a permanent interface between the TV and my home network.

Sure, Apple TV looks better then the old Asus laptop currently plugged into my TV and stereo, but it can play all of the content I want to see and hear instead of just 5 percent...

Re: Fear of Google

Rick — Mon, 07 May 2007 07:35:33 -0000

Sorry, but I can't get a case of the FOG. In fact I love to see Google get bigger and bigger.

Why? For over a year now I've been working in the field of old school media (print and broadcasting). Walking with dinosaurs so to speak. These were, and still are, big, powerful international companies.

Google operates in the same market as they do. The advertising market. The attention economy. But unlike traditional media, Google uses Information Technology. Media companies hate IT. They don't like it, they don't understand it and what's more, they refuse to either invest in it, or change their business practices and organisations to accommodate it. When they talk about investing in IT they talk about buying software and hardware as a commodity, like some new tv-studio equipment. The value of knowledge, and people with knowledge is completely unknown to them.

In other words: even though they have the money and the crucial relationships with both audience and advertisers, they simply refuse to get into the game if the game is called IT.

If the only company standing between Google and the advertising market is the IT company that has already shown it has no scruples about abusing its power, and has shown a blatant disregard for a healthy and open internet in which all can compete equally (the Silverlight monstrosity, however technically ingenious, being the latest example of this arrogant and destructive mentality), god help us. Why doesn't Microsoft bother to make decent competitive online services instead of their "Live" crap?

Right now, I'd rather have a company dominate the industry that actually makes the effort to a) build decent products, and b) knows the meaning of the word "ethics".

Google doesn't have any major competitors because those who should compete with them never even bothered to try. Not because Google is so powerful, but because they simple didn't want to, long before Google got this big. And they still don't.

It's not Googles fault that they are the only ones even trying hard enough. When Google starts to squash potential competitors with MS-like tactics, then there is a reason to get FOG.

Re: I’ve lost control of my comments…

Rick — Tue, 22 May 2007 14:13:23 -0000

Sorry if I sound jaded, but with these kind of issues like with the whole Kathy Sierra thing, I just find it extremely annoying leading bloggers seem to think they are the first that have to deal with these kind of issues.

Spam and misbehaving anti-spam filters and bots are stuff we've had to deal with for over a decade now on various internet-platforms.

No "commenting in blogging is broken". More like, move along, nothing to see...

Re: Not yet on TechCrunch: killer video search engine (ClipBlast)

Rick — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 06:39:59 -0000

Did two searches. Both of them did not only not return anything I looked for, I can't for the life of me figure out why it returned the utterly irrelevant "results" it did. Will never visit it again. Ever.

I seriously hope any Techcrunch review doesn't depend on how many results it returns for "Arrington"...

Re: If you are going to sell your soul…

Rick — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 03:33:43 -0000

Even disclosure only works if you're (seen to be) credible and trustworthy in the first place. And if you want your words, and therefor your disclosure to be credible, never, ever sell your words and your name together in the same package.

When you started working for MS, the words with your name on it were still clearly your words, even if heavily influenced, but the source and nature of that influence was fully disclosed.

If people start spouting phrases like "I was People Ready when...", they're no longer using their own words, even if the typed out the sentence themselves.
That undermines their credibility in a way no form of disclosure can compensate.

Re: Why Microsoft outplays Apple long term

Rick — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 02:06:40 -0000

Yawn... spoken like a true corporate kiss-ass living in the past. Developers want/need openness, not t-shirts, stickers and "free" (hah!) dev tools, and MS isn't delivering any more then Apple.

That's how MS got 90% market share? Now that's rewriting history...

Re: Facebook disabled my account

Rick — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 09:12:53 -0000

I'm getting more then a bit tired of people who willingly and knowingly enter a walled garden and then complain about the walls when they run into them.

You would think that more then a decade after the Internet defeated the walled gardens of AOL, Compuserve e.a. people should know better.

Re: Erased

Rick — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 06:15:14 -0000

"And people wonder why I love the open public Web"

Nope, I'm wondering *if* you actually love or even understand the open public Web, since you keep on using and praising closed services and walled gardens.

Maybe it's time you start being a bit more critical about the basic principles on which stuff you write about and companies you work for are founded.

People have called you on it time and time again, at the very least since way back when you started working for Microsoft. What were you thinking before Facebook turned of your account, that we were just a bunch of paranoid morons?

Re: Apple stabs Adobe in the back

Rick — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 17:21:31 -0000

Lets face it, Adobe have been screwing over Apple for a long time now, clearly putting more effort into developing their core products for Windows. Adobes refusal to release an Intel version when Apple made the difficult switch from PowerPC to Intel was a big "FU, we don't need you anymore" to Apple.

Adobe's arrogance means they are now fighting on four fronts: against Microsoft, Apple, against the proponents of a web based on open standards (hello Google), and against the upcoming competition of web-based alternatives for their desktop apps. Oh, and the Linux/open source community isn't to happy about their attitude either.

Adobe is going down. It's just a matter of time.

Re: WordPress vs. Movable Type: Open Source Blogging Software Showdown

Rick — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 03:45:56 -0000

MT distinguishes between "open source" and "commercial". That is usually PR-speak for "we don't like open source, we don't get open source but we feel we need to get on the bandwagon, so here's some code".

Inevitable, the "open source version" will be or become a crippled version, and MT will have to refuse to commit third party features that compete with the unique selling points of the "commercial" version. I mean, if you actually believe in the power of Open Source, you "know" the open source version will be better then the "commercial" version.

However, if MT4 is any good (and the source a lot less crappier then the last time I saw it), somebody might actually start a successful fork that's actually better then MT's commercial version. That's usually the way these thing go.

So MT, so long and thanks for all the sourcecode....

Re: WordPress vs. Movable Type: Open Source Blogging Software Showdown

Rick — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 17:50:39 -0000

Anil, what I am missing is any kind of justification (business or ideological) for having a separate "commercial" version at all. What is going to be the USP for the "commercial" version? Why would I want to buy a license? If it's support, why not just be straight and sell the support. If not, what's the secret ingredient in MT4 "commercial" that can't be open sourced? (This is not just a theoretical question, in my current job, I'm the one responsible for selecting the software for a number of high traffic blogs. And yes, we're currently using WordPress.)

And I seriously take exception to the distinction between "open source" and "commercial" as if they were opposites. That is newspeak from the "open source is communism" crowd. Call it "premium" or "supported"
or something like that, but don't suggest open source in general means non-commercial.

Re: Online Publishers Need To Set Their Own Editorial Standards And Stick To Them

Rick — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 04:33:19 -0000

I disagree the notion that they are not actually endorsing Microsoft. It's not a specific service or product they are endorsing, it's much much more then that. They are identifying themselves with everything Microsoft stands for. Phrases like "...then I became People Ready" are meant to send the same kind of message as "Ich bin ein Berliner". These ads, the way in which they are written and designed, are meant to say "these highly influential people stand shoulder to shoulder with us, Microsoft, and our ideology".

The fact that it's utterly lame and fails completely doesn't change that.

And the whole "conversational marketing" bit is just a smokescreen. It's pure 100% traditional advertising.