UntitledNo4

What is the relevance now, almost four years later?

Why do books carry a printed retail price anyway? Is there a reason why they can't be like CDs and other goods?

Musicians make a song listenable, but not necessarily a hit. There are many artists out there who write music that is as good (or sometimes better) as that written by artists who make it, and who will remain mostly unknown outside a circle of dedicated followers. If success depended on good music alone, they would be better known than they are. I guess there is more than one reason for this, image and marketing are just two.

Here, the journalist writes that "[Daft Punk] opted for their own small-scale marketing strategy", having billboards popping up all over the world and TV spots doesn't sound at all like a small-scale operation to me, just creative. I assume that a lot of recording artists out there would love to have access to such small-scale marketing strategy.

But that's just me, and what do I know?

+1 for Balsamiq.

The blog post was written on 19th May 2011, so I guess that the T-Shirt was either produced already, or that the whole project has been shelved. His last update to his post is from December 2012, and there is no mention about an actual T-Shirt that was produced. I would have also like to see the design of the T-Shirt, but I guess I never will.

I hope that the next social network will be real life and that online services will go back to what those things used to be: websites that do one thing good (see Flickr) rather than trying to buy our mortal souls. Or giving me (us?) the feeling this is is what they're trying to do.

Perhaps you're right, I don't know, but for me it's irrelevant. Someone wanted examples of OSS from Apple, and in my opinion it's the most important one when I was a Linux User. I was not trying to defend Apple. I think they deserve a lot of criticism they receive, but that they also deserve some credit. This is also true for most (if not all) other firms that are often discussed here. Just wanted to highlight that rarely are things black or white, but that we rather deal with a lot of different shades of grey.

And even more important - CUPS.

Do you have a demo for it somewhere?

Isn't that an O and an H?

I call myself a flexitarian. It's even in the dictionary http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flexitarian

http://google.co.uk works for me.

I don't have a car, but if you are willing to pay $60 per picture, I will be able to (legally) source pictures of neighbours' cars for you.

Eeeeee is the sound a dolphin makes. For the second one, please listen to Psycho Killer by The Talking Heads

And on the other hand, there are all my hairdressers over the years who asked me what I wanted and then did whatever it was that wasn't like anything I wanted.

So, flipping the allegory now, if a client comes to me and asks me to develop a Twitter, would it be OK if I deliver an eBay instead?

My conclusion is that it's probably time to treat our hairdressers like they're developers and instead of just saying "yeah, that's perfect" when we really hate the cut, tell them that we are not happy with the results and that we will be back once the hair grows for another iteration, and that we'll pay once we can go live with the haircut as we specified it.

Either that, or stop using irrelevant allegories.

Slightly related, Looper's Modem Song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3VzSv4ErEg

Well, I use the opposite strategy. I have 15+ (never counted) pairs of non-identical socks, but they're all very colourful. I prefer stripes, but I will consider other patterns. So, when I sort them out, one look at the laundry basket, it's so obvious which sock pairs with which, that no thinking or inspecting is required.

For reference, these are good socks in my book: http://www.happysocks.com/uk/combed-cotton-polka-stripe-14.h...

The advantage of having such socks is that, since I normally only wear black, it make me seem slightly less boring. The disadvantage is that it's hard to find really worthwhile socks. The secrets of the trade are:

1. Always be alert. If you pass by a sock shop, go in. I once did it on a first date.

2. If you see socks you like, buy them. Don't say "I'll come back later" or "I'll find them online". You'll soon realise it's a buy-now-or-get-heartbroken affair.

3.the Internet is your friend. Compile a list of brands who are more likely to produce good socks and online shops who sell them.

3.5 Pro tip: Swedish brands are very colourful-sock friendly.

4. Visit those online shops regularly to see if they have anything worth buying.

5. You can never have enough socks, so if you see qualifying socks, buy them. You can always store them and use them at a later date.

6. Never buy more than one pair of the same design. The only exception is if there is a pair you see you exceptionally like, in which case you can buy two pairs, but store one pair to when the first pair is too worn out to wear.

Edit: formatting.

Edit 2: this obviously also solves the problem of having to throw good socks out as their general population get worn out.

The problem is not with timing of shows, but with the British obsession with tea combined with the credits of a very popular show. In a million homes there are people (2.4 million?) who are suffering tea withdrawal symptoms and they all turn their kettles on at almost the exact same time. The Germans I know would probably just get a beer or open a bottle of red wine.

For the unblocking/encrypted features of Hola there is Tor, but in my experience it's more complex to install and much slower.

Submitter here. I read about this in Haaretz (http://technation.themarker.com/1.1899600) in Hebrew. For the non-Hebrew speakers here, I'll try to explain.

Basically, the app (Windows and rooted Android only currently) uses your computer/phone when idle to share your internet resources with other users of the app, by sharing your bandwidth and using your computer as cache for content. They say this will make your internet faster and more secure (since they encrypt 100% of communication passed by the software). As a Mac user, I cannot verify it. The concept reminded me a bit of SETI, only for your internet communication.

At the same time there is a Firefox/Chrome extension which allows you to circumvent geographical blocking of websites (BBC iPlayer, Hulu, etc.) since they can route the request through an exit node in the country where the service is not blocked. I have tried the plugin to access the BBC iPlayer, which I used to access using a proxy, and it's working great. Definitely faster than using a proxy (free or paid) and definitely cheaper than paid proxy (since it's free). They currently unblock the following websites: Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, BBC iPlayer and ITV Player. You can request more websites using their Facebook page and they say that soon they will allow users to set up unblocking for whichever websites they want.

Edit: formatting.

"I still think Canonical should do like many successful startups these days: make a large userbase and only then start to deploy the business model."

But isn't that exactly what they are doing? Ubuntu has been around for 8 years now, would many startups last for 8 years without being profitable? And when should they start deploying their business model? When we are happy with it?

I think that many of us are being two-faced about Ubuntu. We want Linux to succeed, but not Ubuntu. We want to prove that you can make money from open source projects, but object to Ubuntu doing so.

I guess they can do it at their leisure, according to WSJ their contract is until 2014. Source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/samsung-hits-apple-with-20-...

Finder? Really? I would never imagine anyone would miss using Finder. That's the bit of MacOS I found hardest to get used to. Looks good, but it's completely basic and featureless, and missed the versatility of KDE's Dolphin for quite a while until I found out about TotalFinder. Despite TotalFinder being a great improvement over vanilla Finder, I still miss some of Dolphin's features such as: the ability to browse remote locations (FTP, SSH) and the ability to run a terminal window within dolphin for the folder you are viewing.

I second Moom and there is also Cinch (http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/cinch/) which I have used before. They do roughly the same thing, but I prefer Moom since it involves less hand movement, but it's a matter of preference.

Moom people also have Witch for window switching management on Mac. Personally it's not what i was looking for, but worth mentioning.

Which should be called modern since Modern (uppercase M) refers, in the world of art, literature and architecture, to Modernism, which is not at all modern.

(this was written in jest)

Yes, I know the rates in USD/GBP/EUR, and that's why I was asking. I had a quick look at odesk and the rates are lower than I would normally charge myself for the things that I do.

That's what made me curious, but your answer makes a point, but then it means people are taking a punt on the Bitcoin.

I had a quick look at the jobs offered on the website and I found those as example: WordPress template: budget 12 BTC (~115EUR?) PHP: add more currencies to BT converter site: budget 5BTC(~50EUR?) DE to EN translation: 3BTC (~30EUR?) (conversions are very inaccurate, I just wanted to get an idea)

My question is: is there something about Bitcoin that I am missing that would entice people to work for such low rates? If someone came up to me and asked me to do any of those jobs for those EUR rates, I would decline unless they are either very good customers of mine or I really fancied them.

This is a serious question, not criticism. I'd like to know whether there is an allure to Bitcoin that I'm completely missing that would make people agree to work for less "real" (i.e. not-Bitcoin) money.

Thank you.

Not exactly what you are describing, but not too far off and probably can be used for the purposes you describe: Open Invention Network: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Invention_Network

To me, it's not about how many devices they have and whether that makes sense, it's about the fact that they had spent $200,000, which then generated $5,000 (this year only, don't know how long they've been at it), they had to move to a smaller flat, the guy had to get another job, and then they just had to buy two new iPhone 5s (which are mentioned later on in the article). Why? Can you justify spending that if your income from iOS development is $5,000 a year? That what gives me the feeling it's an addiction.

Now, I assume the new iPhone 5 is so different to the ones before it (screen size) that you have to test for it separately. If I was down $195,000 in a year (or two) and I felt this, I'd buy a new generation iPod touch instead. Or two, if they really can't share the device.

I also look at the picture and I question if they really need 5 computers between them if they only work on the two laptops.

Anyway, my point is not that having X amount of devices (Apple or others) per person is an addiction, if you can afford it, go for it and enjoy yourself. My point is that this couple seem to be struggling financially and cannot stop themselves from buying more devices. I'm trying not to be judgemental, but to me it sounds like an addiction.