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A merger of CNN and ABC’s news operations could produce an unmanageable organisation incapable of reacting quickly enough to events, senior figures on both sides have warned.

Interesting that neither side is all that sanguine about it, at least at the level of where the work gets done (Mr Eisner’s opinion is not as important).

But my favorite snippet was this one:
Earlier this year, ABC sought to replace journalist Ted Koppel’s respected news programme with David Letterman’s comedy show. Ultimately the plan failed when Mr Letterman refused to leave the CBS network. But inside ABC News the effort was seen as an indication that ratings had become more important than news.

Ratings have always been more important than quality on the entertainment side of things (how else do you explain Three’s Company or Married with Children?): why should news be any different?

Local news has been following the “if it bleeds, it leads” model for years: their latest trick is starting the local newscasts at 4:57, to make viewers who tune in at 5 PM think they’ve missed something.

I say scrap network news altogether: when there’s an event, people go to CNN on the air or on the web anyhow: why bother to fund an operation that no one cares about? When was the last time one of the networks broke a story, versus reporting an existing one?

.NET and GNOME

forebrain: Did I miss something? Archives

* What is Mono?

This is a long read, but worth reading as well as following up on the threads (Alan Cox of Linux fame weighs in on it).

The bottom line is that .NET and it’s publicly available counterpart MONO promise language independent programming: code in the language you are most comfortable with or that suits the task and get a portable, OS-agnostic program.

I dunno. It seems like there have to be some hidden compromises in there somewhere.

I thought this was cool enough.

Apple’s home media center solution?

Nicest of the Damned

Frank has been doing more market research/product development for Apple.

Apple has built an interesting product line, where you can (or have to) choose between the consumer models — the iMacs and iBooks — and the pro lines — PowerMacs and PowerBooks. Why not extend that model to the Xserve, introducing a consumer-oriented iServe?
[ . . . . ]
Such a product would bring the server to the consumer market, and could naturally be the mail server, backup server, firewall, file and print server, and web and domain server for a household.

This is an interesting concept and one I think Apple can pull off, through a combination of a household friendly form factor (cooler running PowerPCs are quieter and can fit into places where boxes with fans can’t) and a well-designed UI to manage all the services. They could easily use webmin as a basis for most of that and it would be a great showcase for Rendezvous and slp.

I think iServe is a great idea: rather than TiVO capability, I’d rather see Internet radio/satellite radio capability. The built-in video displays some of the crazy modders have added would be a requirement as well.

I think it would need to possibly include an Airport base station’s functionality with wireless and two network interfaces: ideally, you want it to replace an existing system that isn’t as useful or fill a need for multiple devices with this one.

Form factors? How about a wall-mount to be near the DSL or cable connection? Something the height of a hardcover book (remember the old IIci/cx machines?) to fit on a shelf would also work.

And since it would be a server with minimal graphics/UI needs, it wouldn’t have to be the fastest box: my gateway/webserver/print server is the slowest I have at 233 MHz. But lots o’ disk and a combo drive would be essential.

Think they can get it out by Christmas?

if it were only that easy

The Paul Wall : Eyeball to Eyeball with Hollywood; California Fine Whine

The Crying Game

Stewart Alsop comes out as a self-confessed California Whiner in his Fortune column, which is fine. He makes some legitimate points about today’s commercial software. What I’m wondering, though, and a question I increasingly ask Microsoft bashers, is simply this: Why live with the software equivalent of hemorrhoids? Have you actually tried an alternative? I remember Stewart’s famous columns announcing his switch from Mac to Windows. What about switching back? Or trying out Linux/open source?

It’s hard not to have to deal with stuff that 95% of the world uses. Bear in mind that their reach expands beyond the products they offer.

MSFT looks at Linux: must be Halloween again

Microsoft Memo Examines Linux Threat

Instead of trying to discredit open source software as a viable alternative to Microsoft’s proprietary software, Microsoft should emphasize the costs involved in maintaining open-source software systems, the document said. Saying that open source software has reached “commercial quality,” free software “poses a direct, short-term revenue and platform threat to Microsoft, particularly in the server space,” according to the document posted on the Open Source Initiative Web site (http://www.opensource.org/).

Does the author really mean that Linux et al are as good as MSFT’s offerings or they just willing to say it to steer the argument to this “costs of open source software” argument? Only by comparing equivalent offerings can you compare costs. So what are the costs? If you want to run Linux or FreeBSD unmodified, you need someone to run the various installers and handle administration of the systems: UNIX system administration is pretty well-documented and finding the right mix of seasoning and expertise is not too hard. Same goes for the Leading Brand, up to a point: the skillset is a moving target, in some ways.

If you want to modify or customize your infrastructure, having programmer/hackers on staff becomes a necessity. There are costs associated with that but there are also benefits, in that you can make modifications if you need to. It’s pretty well understood that a UN*X box wil deliver better performance than the Leading Brand, so there’s a hidden savings that you won’t be hearing about. The savings comes partly from the efficiency of the code base over 30 years of work, but also stems from the fine-grained control you get with these systems. You can control individual services in ways other OSes don’t offer, and with very little overhead (read: no GUI). I suppose the “hidden costs” will include some FUD about intellectual property and the risks of using GPL code, but IBM seems to be able to work with it just fine.

And if it really becomes an issue, there’s always the BSD license or just dropping any copyright references altogether.
Continue reading “MSFT looks at Linux: must be Halloween again”

Apple needs another switch campaign

Apple – Education – X for Teachers

Apple wants to provide every K-12 teacher in the United States with a free copy of Mac OS X v10.2. This program is designed to show teachers the stability and manageability of Mac OS X and how it gives them a powerful foundation for integrating technology into their classrooms.

Shame it won’t run on the 36 new Dell Celerons my son’s school just took delivery of . . . . . I wonder how the eMac compares with whatever’s in those boxes.

enneagrams

Out of the Box
I found this while I was looking for something else . . .

When you notice yourself sinking into your self-described “bitter feeling, as if I have been wasting my productive years in the wrong places or aiming at the wrong goals,” say to yourself, “Ah, I am inside a box where I am compulsively focusing on myself as an outsider, a misfit. I have bought into this belief to such an extent that I keep myself from seeing the light outside.” When you observe yourself feeling “disenchanted”, say to yourself, “Ah, I am inside a box again, playing out the belief that the grass must be greener somewhere else.”When you find yourself thinking of yourself as “odd,” say to yourself, “Ah, I’m in a box of focusing on my flaws.” When you find yourself saying, “Oh, God, I’m in this box again, I can’t bear it!” keep observing yourself until you can accept yourself as you [are].

I first looked into this a while back and I haven’t given it much thought since. But it still resonates when I read these pages. It goes a little deeper/further than Myers-Briggs, since it deals with psychological motivations, not just types in a vacuum. As noted, I’m a Four, just like these more well-known folks: Ingmar Bergman, Alan Watts, Sarah McLachlan, Alanis Morrisette, Paul Simon, Jeremy Irons, Patrick Stewart, Joseph Fiennes, Martha Graham, Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, Johnny Depp, Anne Rice, Rudolph Nureyev, J.D. Salinger, Anaîs Nin, Marcel Proust, Maria Callas, Tennessee Williams, Edgar Allan Poe, Annie Lennox, Prince, Michael Jackson, Virginia Woolf, Judy Garland, “Blanche DuBois” (Streetcar Named Desire).

Enneagram

I also found this on a possible link between MBTI and the Enneagram:

Is there a relationship between the nine Enneagram and sixteen MBTI types? If so, how can it best be characterized? In the course of laying the groundwork, in Part 1, for an answer to this question, we review previous hypotheses regarding the nature of the ‘triads’ in Enneagram theory and offer yet another (a ‘fifth’) approach to this crucial material.