Such a fuss over new version of the Firefox web browser today and Apple opening a new shop in Sydney tomorrow! The feral goldfish are all a’flutter, feeling left out if they don’t have the latest news this very second. Thank the gods for Richard Chirgwin.
In a discussion about how digital rights management will affect sales of Vista, he writes:
The actual adoption of Windows-based broadcast TV recording among mainstream users is pitifully small. It’s easier in every way for Joe Sixpack to buy a black box hard disk recorder.
Hence, although in many ways I think Vista is a dead duck anyway, DNR flagging won’t change its future one way or the other…
I can’t get the excitement about media centres, myself. Quite simply, why would I rearrange the house or run cables just to hook the TV to the computer, when I can put the recorder where the TV is?
PC-based Media Centres, whether Apple or Microsoft or Linux, have a specific target market: people for whom getting this sort of crap to work creates a sense of achievement which serves as a surrogate for the ability to do things that are actually useful…
Hear hear!
In a follow-up, Avi Miller said:
I challenge you to find an HD-PVR with the same functionality, size and form of the Mac Mini.
“Challenge”, eh?
Yes, let’s issue “challenges” about arbitrary mixes of functionality in a particularly-shaped black (or, in this case, white) box. Lets “challenge” someone to find something that isn’t a Mac Mini that looks like (has the “form” of) a Mac Mini.
As first glance, this looks like precisely the kind of techno-macho-wank that Richard was talking about.
Running water and sewerage, people, then health care and education… and then perhaps we can worry about what shape the digital TV recorder is…
[Update 8.40am: Avi Miller writes: “Sorry, I seem to have misplaced the 🙂 in the original email. My reply was intended to be the exact techno-macho-wank previously implied.” Ah, irony! Such a tricky beast…]
“PC-based Media Centres, whether Apple or Microsoft or Linux, have a specific target market: people for whom getting this sort of crap to work creates a sense of achievement which serves as a surrogate for the ability to do things that are actually useful…”
thats a brilliant quote, exactly what I’ve thought for ages. for most geeky people PC-based Media Centres are an end in themselves to spend countless hours tweaking settings and drivers, not a means to watch TV
I like the idea of computer based TV recording, but wouldn’t really bother if it required extensive set-up.
I still can’t believe there are people QUEUING UP FOR A BLOODY SHOP, but eh, whatever makes people happy. Go you consumers go!
We just took a cab home past the Apple store to confirm the rumours. Yes, even though it’s 16.5 hours until it opens, even though it’s a cold winter night, even though the shop will have nothing on offer that isn’t already on sale at the same prices as this afternoon, there’s about 40 people camped out, waiting. Sure, it’s pretty to look at, but it’s a shop, people.
The six [?] Apple-paid private security guards must think this is the easiest gig ever. I mean, it’s not like they’re evicting violent, drunken bogans from Jackson’s On George at 0500 on a Saturday morning…
Didn’t know there was a new firefox out. Have downloaded it. It is nice. Nothing to get hot and bothered about though, it’s a BROWSER, not a new garden tool or kitchen gadget, or sports car or mistress. . .