Marco.org

Jul 05 2009 ∞

The CrunchPad: How different would the world be?

Fusion Garage, the soon-to-be-subsidiary of TechCrunch that’s building the OS for the CrunchPad, has a comically ridiculous motto:

What if the browser could boot without an OS? How different would the world be?

I’ll try to answer this question.

Technically, they’re probably just bundling a minimal, fast-booting OS (with a fast-booting BIOS, presumably, that can quickly wake from sleep) with a browser as the only application. They’re most likely not writing their own kernel or basic frameworks, since they can just use GNU stuff and Linux. And they’re definitely not writing their own browser, because that would be insurmountable by such a small team (and really stupid). They talk about running Flash, so it’s almost definitely just a stripped-down Linux distribution with the minimum support required to run a GUI, a custom-chromed Firefox (or Konquerer?), and an on-screen keyboard. So the OS is there — it just hopefully gets out of your way and you don’t need to know about it.

It seems like the worst combination of two products:

  • Netbooks: Extremely small, cheap, low-end laptops, usually running Linux.
  • Slate-type tablet PCs: Laptops without keyboards that run normal applications but rely on touch- or pen-input directly on their screens.

Geeks think both products are awesome and will take over the world, but neither have come close. The CrunchPad is much more like a slate-tablet than a netbook, but without the software flexibility. It has the terrible hardware of netbooks with the impracticality of not having a keyboard. If you’re going to spend $300 on a small, limited computer that you’ll only ever use for web browsing, I don’t see why you’d get a CrunchPad instead of a netbook. (An iPod Touch would probably be a much better choice than either.)

The presumption that this will change the world, at least on the software side, seems predicated on an implied shortcoming of browsers requiring operating systems. I don’t see why this is a problem, nor do I see how this would solve such a problem even if it existed.

Back to the original question: How different will the world be if they actually release this thing?

Well, Michael Arrington will have less money and a handful of geeks will have a $300 slate-netbook that they use a few times before it gets tossed in their gadget pile because everything it does is better accomplished with something else.

That’s about it.

Jul 04 2009 ∞
“ Palin’s resignation on July 3rd guarantees her a front page spot on basically every American newspaper on the most America-focused day of the year […]. She is playing on the emotions of her supporters and its a brilliant move. The x < 50% of the population that hates Barack Obama wants to get behind something, and right now she is it. This isn’t a scandal. This is her implicit 2012 announcement. It’s a wink to the republican base that absolutely adores her (Yes, New York and California: millions of people LOVE Sarah Palin). She’s playing on the emotions of her supporters who will be all about beating the secret-Muslim-deficit-spending-baby-killer on this Independence Day. […] If we don’t take this seriously, she can win. Do not brush this off.
—

Less is Mohrer: Regarding Palin’s rapid departure.

Good points, and it’s pretty convenient for that effect. I think the real story is more likely to be elements of both: she’s being forced to resign because of a scandal, and she chose the most convenient nearby time to do so.

Her supporters are so rabid, paranoid-delusional, and selectively attentive that she just needed to appear somewhat positive on her departure to maintain their support throughout the scandal that’s probably about to become public. They’ll be reminded of her image in this positive light on a nationalist holiday, and that’s all the help they need to convince themselves that anyone who says anything bad about her in the coming weeks hates America and hates freedom and hates women and hates the troops and eats babies and kicks puppies and loves Osama bin Laden.

As a result, most of the mainstream media, especially the television “news” outlets, will be extremely, negligently soft on their reporting of any scandal that comes out of this, because if they imply anything bad about her, all of her loud, idiotic cult supporters will foam at the mouth and write letters and make angry phone calls and rally their idiotic friends and boycott the networks for a day until they forget why they were angry and get lulled back into their fat corn comas watching their sorry excuse for news on their plasma credit-card-debt TVs in their giant subprime McMansions that are surrounded by nothing but other giant subprime McMansions and are a convenient 45-minute highway drive in their “compact” SUVs to their bullshit jobs at the insurance or financial-services companies that we love so much these days.

Happy 4th of July!

Jul 03 2009 ∞

Surreality Only Beginning

As with her speech itself, the tell is that the decision was apparently so rushed and sudden that there was not enough time to come up with a plausible cover story or to get out the word about what it was.

It looks like a duck and quacks like a duck. Either Palin is resigning ahead of some titanic scandal (which should emerge in short order if it exists) or her resignation was triggered by an even more extreme mental instability than we’d previously suspected.

I think Josh Marshall at TPM nails it with this. My bet’s on the scandal option.

+ ∞

Regarding Palin's rapid departure

Nobody suddenly announces a resignation on the Friday evening before a holiday weekend if it’s a positive thing.

This isn’t a bid for the presidency. It’s a scandal.

+ ∞
This is a window air conditioner, safely mounted, with the window open above it. You may not have known that this was possible. I sure didn&#8217;t — I just assumed that a window either had an air conditioner in it, or it could be opened, but not both. And this was very important as I tried to figure out how to cool my office, which only has one window. I looked into &#8220;portable&#8221; air conditioners, which are enclosed in cases and sit on the floor inside, just venting outside with a big plastic hose. I even bought a top-rated one from the internet and immediately returned it (which, given its size, wasn&#8217;t easy). They have three main problems: They&#8217;re incredibly expensive, at about $500 for one with the capacity to cool a small room. They&#8217;re huge. If you&#8217;re actually considering one of these, go to a store and see one in person first. The photos online are misleading because they hide much of their mass in large protruding butts that they rarely show in photos. This would have taken up a big portion of the room. They don&#8217;t work very well. They&#8217;re far less energy-efficient, cool much less effectively, and generally produce a lot more noise than traditional window units that cost half as much. It was clear, after trying the ridiculous &#8220;portable&#8221; unit, that my office needed a real window unit. I had accepted that I&#8217;d probably need to just give up the only window in the room. But it ends up that if you get professional installers*, and the air conditioner is reasonably small (this one&#8217;s 6,000 BTU), they can brace it against a bar that they install across the window frame instead of the window itself. My installers claimed that this is perfectly safe and just as sturdy as a window mount when done professionally. The total cost, with installation, was only about $400, and this is one of the highest-quality, best-performing air conditioners of this size: the Friedrich CP06E10. (Ignore the homemade cardstock deflector that I&#8217;ve taped to the front. It turns out that it&#8217;s a bit too cold when it&#8217;s blowing directly on you constantly.) * I used Expert Applicance Center in Brooklyn to install this, and a giant 14,700 BTU monster in the living room installed the usual way, since they were highly recommended by online reviews.

This is a window air conditioner, safely mounted, with the window open above it.

You may not have known that this was possible. I sure didn’t — I just assumed that a window either had an air conditioner in it, or it could be opened, but not both. And this was very important as I tried to figure out how to cool my office, which only has one window.

I looked into “portable” air conditioners, which are enclosed in cases and sit on the floor inside, just venting outside with a big plastic hose. I even bought a top-rated one from the internet and immediately returned it (which, given its size, wasn’t easy). They have three main problems:

  1. They’re incredibly expensive, at about $500 for one with the capacity to cool a small room.
  2. They’re huge. If you’re actually considering one of these, go to a store and see one in person first. The photos online are misleading because they hide much of their mass in large protruding butts that they rarely show in photos. This would have taken up a big portion of the room.
  3. They don’t work very well. They’re far less energy-efficient, cool much less effectively, and generally produce a lot more noise than traditional window units that cost half as much.

It was clear, after trying the ridiculous “portable” unit, that my office needed a real window unit. I had accepted that I’d probably need to just give up the only window in the room.

But it ends up that if you get professional installers*, and the air conditioner is reasonably small (this one’s 6,000 BTU), they can brace it against a bar that they install across the window frame instead of the window itself. My installers claimed that this is perfectly safe and just as sturdy as a window mount when done professionally.

The total cost, with installation, was only about $400, and this is one of the highest-quality, best-performing air conditioners of this size: the Friedrich CP06E10. (Ignore the homemade cardstock deflector that I’ve taped to the front. It turns out that it’s a bit too cold when it’s blowing directly on you constantly.)

* I used Expert Applicance Center in Brooklyn to install this, and a giant 14,700 BTU monster in the living room installed the usual way, since they were highly recommended by online reviews.

+ ∞

Becoming Minimalist

I had a thought last night that I wanted to wake up this morning and get rid of 75% of the ‘stuff’ that I own. […]

How do you start to get rid of these things?

Get some sort of external storage. The basement, a small rental storage unit, your parents’ place, or New Jersey. The less convenient it is to access, the better.

Put nearly everything you own there. Leave out only what you’d pack if you were going on a trip for 2 weeks.

From that point forward, remove only what you need, as you need it, from storage. You’ll almost never need to do this.

After a year, get rid of everything that’s still in storage.

+ ∞

Share your Instapaper favourites

Want more articles to read? Go here and enter your username, and browse others, so you can take advantage of the website’s (and Pro 2.0’s) new starred-folder sharing feature.
Jul 02 2009 ∞
Gridlocked: Rush Hour is a quick, fun iPhone game that David got me hooked on. It&#8217;s like a slightly faster version of Flight Control for car traffic. The road slowly gets flooded with cars and you control the red-light state of the 6 intersections. Just tap each intersection and the light changes to the other direction. That&#8217;s it. If too many cars get backed up for too long, you lose. Easy, right? My best score so far is 351 on Medium.

Gridlocked: Rush Hour is a quick, fun iPhone game that David got me hooked on. It’s like a slightly faster version of Flight Control for car traffic.

The road slowly gets flooded with cars and you control the red-light state of the 6 intersections. Just tap each intersection and the light changes to the other direction. That’s it. If too many cars get backed up for too long, you lose. Easy, right?

My best score so far is 351 on Medium.

+ ∞
Normally I&#8217;d take the extra 30 seconds to pixelate someone&#8217;s last name and personal email address, but I don&#8217;t think someone who would send this email to a stranger about a free web service will mind. Most of the emails I get are very nice, but occasionally one slips through that makes me question what, exactly, convinced someone that writing and sending it would be productive. (For whatever it&#8217;s worth, here are my browser stats from the month before I started displaying the not-supporting-IE message.)

Normally I’d take the extra 30 seconds to pixelate someone’s last name and personal email address, but I don’t think someone who would send this email to a stranger about a free web service will mind.

Most of the emails I get are very nice, but occasionally one slips through that makes me question what, exactly, convinced someone that writing and sending it would be productive.

(For whatever it’s worth, here are my browser stats from the month before I started displaying the not-supporting-IE message.)

+ ∞
Steve Rubel interviewed me about Instapaper today after an insightful discussion about Tumblr, publishing, and communities.
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