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Robert X. Cringely says that what Microsoft is doing with the Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology in Vista is help the media companies reselling us stuff we already have. He talks about how the media companies have been successful at this once already: when we bought CDs to replace our vinyl records, and when we bought DVDs to replace our video tapes.

True.

Then he goes on to saying that all the new Vista DRM technology will form the basis for selling us the same stuff once more, but this time protected from piracy.

I would add the following: The original “re-sell” happened to work because we saw value in going from analog to digital. No more worrying about scratches on the records and deteriorating magnetic tapes. We got better sound and picture quality to boot. Deep down though, I think, we wanted to make sure that we got content that would survive “forever” and be ours “forever”. Well, the transition to digital accomplished that.

So what can possibly drive this next wave of reselling us the same stuff? High-definition digital video (I think Robert Scoble said something like this a while back too). It’s the last chance the studios have to resell us the same stuff once more. And this time they want to get it right: no piracy, hence all the DRM technology.

I can’t wait for the mass market to wake up and find out how buggy, error-prone and restrictive the whole high-definition-with-DRM thing will be. It may not happen until it’s too late. I’m almost hoping that things will be so bad that everyone will just say “I don’t need to own those stinkin’ movies or the expensive equipment to play them. I’ll just invite some friends over and we’ll make music together or tell stories”.

Nothing beats the high-definition of your imagination.

And maybe we should worry less about “owning” hollywood-generated content. Maybe we should focus more on generating our own.

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I splurged on an iRobot Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner this Christmas. It’s quite a neat thing to watch working. But I’d like some improvements made to it:

• A light that shows when the Roomba hits a virtual wall, so I can place the wall in just the right spot and at just the right angle to block the robot’s path. My house is full of door-less openings that would make the machine run out of juice if not stopped by virtual walls.
• A “wall following first” mode, so I could be sure it has done the edges of the room before embarking on it’s normal “random” cleaning pattern.
• Detection of area rugs. So far the Roomba gets stuck on our rag rugs and the Christmas tree skirt. Putting up virtual walls for these would be almost impossible.
• Seeing the model of the room that the robot builds up somehow. Also, how much of that model it thinks it has covered and how often.

Other than that I’m pretty happy with this high tech “toy” worker so far.

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I’m testing the beta version of the New York Times Reader (which I have a few beefs with, but I’m sure lots of people are already finding the same problems, so there’s little point in elaborating on those here). Beta testing it forced me to open a free account at the nytimes.com site. During the last few days the Reader happened to bring me this article about the challenges India faces in the software technology sector.

It got me thinking about my own experience with offshore software development outsourcing. Grossly simplified, what I see as the biggest problem is that the engineers you outsource the work to are good a cranking out code once they have a stable and very detailed requirements specification. But when it comes to testing and independent, creative work they fall quite short on what may be desired. If you don’t have detailed requirements, but loose goals, you’re in for a very bumpy ride in my experience.

Add to that the challenges of communicating clearly across time zones and cultures and you usually end up with delays and projects going over budget. Not to mention quality issues. It seems as if some coders don’t take responsibility for the initial quality they produce, but rely on testing at receiving end.

I’ve seen this personally in the last few months, and I’ve had reports from people I work with who have experienced pretty much the same thing. I know of several projects where the outcome was much much worse than expected.

I’m not saying that offshore outsourcing in general doesn’t work, but my experince tells me you need to be very very careful about who you pick as your contractor and you need to be even more careful about tracking the work on a week-by-week basis, possibly even a day-to-day basis.

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This just dropped in my mailbox yesterday.

I hate this tactic of attempting to get customers. 

I’m sure some unsuspecting people would think this is something they signed up for and have to pay. I know it says on there that it’s a solicitation, but making it look so much like an invoice is sure to fool some people. Which is what weasel companies like this count on. I mean, it even has a “Customer Number” on there for crying out loud.

Don’t be fooled. Don’t do business with these weasels.

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http://joelonsoftware.com/articles/BionicOffice.html

Here’s a guy who gets it regarding office space for software developers. But you kind of figured that, didn’t you? I mean, it’s Joel Spolsky.

I used to work for a startup that had an open office space for eXtreme programming (specifically pair programming), and I just loved working in that environment. It was easy to walk over to someone else’s desk, yet at the same time quiet enough to get work done. And there was space, ah wonderful space.

Big corporations don’t seem to get it. We’re about to move into another building where I work, and it looks like we’ll have less space than where we are now. I remember III talking about how personal space for software developers is the number one productivity enhancer miles ahead of anything else.

Sigh.

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“What the heck is CSA?”, I hear you cry. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, and it’s the wave of the future in food as far as I’m concerned. Okay, maybe that’s putting it a bit strongly, but if you care about your local environment and like to eat fresh, organically grown produce, hear this one out.

There’s been a big problem with e-coli infested spinach lately. Apparently this was tracked to a big company in California, which markets pre-washed, bagged spinach to a lot of supermarkets. I’m not sure if the FDA has pinned down exactly what the root cause of the problem is, but Andy, one of the farmers of the CSA we are a part of, says it may have a lot to do with the industrialized processes they employ to get the product out there. That, and the bags make a nice little greenhouse for the bacteria to grow in. For full details read his article on the matter. If you belong to a CSA, particularly twosmallfarms.com, you don’t have to worry about things like this.

The CSA farmers make sure that your food is grown organically and delivered to you in safe condition. One more reason to bypass big, industrialized processes and go small and local.

Go find a CSA near you (Search engines are your friend) and say goodbye to worries about food safety.

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According to this news.com story, Boeing is shutting down the division that built the in-flight Internet service Connexion by Boeing.

One of the airlines that picked up the service was Scandinavian Airlines. They charged $29.95 for Internet access during transatlantic flights.

Gee, let’s do some math: The flight from Seattle to Copenhagen probably takes about 12 hours. So that’s about $30/12 hours = $2.50 per hour. If you pay $46 for high-speed access at home per month (an expensive average, perhaps?) that’s $46/720 hours = $0.063888 per hour, or about 6 cents per hour (taking a month as 30 days, 24 hours a day). Even if you make the comparison a bit fairer by admitting that you don’t use the service 24 hours a day, but perhaps only four, that still is $46/120 hours = $0.38333 per hour.

Who at Boeing thought that people would be so hungry after in-flight Internet access that they would pay between six and forty times more than they do at home?

This quote tells you there seems to not have been much thought behind the whole thing: “Over the last six years, we have invested substantial time, resources and technology in Connexion by Boeing,” said Boeing Chairman and Chief Executive Jim McNerney. “Regrettably, the market for this service has not materialized as had been expected.”

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