Episode 24: Oatmeal All Over My Funny Junk

June 14, 2012 by justin | 13 Comments

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The Oatmeal raises $100,000 in a day, BitCoin’s prices stabalize, and Bill Gates’ legacy will outshine that of Steve Jobs. All this and so much more in episode 24 of Technophilia: Oatmeal All Over My Funny Junk.

This week: James outlines what big announcements Apple made this week, and Dave tells you about the games he managed to play at E3. Spoiler: none of them were for the Wii U. James also fills in UK listeners about a little-known trick for improving Netflix’s meager offerings in that country: use an American VPN.

But first, as always, the headlines:

FunnyJunk is suing The Oatmeal for defamantion, and demanding a $20,000 settlement. Wait, what? That must be backwards. It isn’t?
In reponse, The Oatmeal raised $20,000 in 64 minutes and donated it to charity. Two days later he had raised well over $150,000.
The RAM in the new Macbook Pro is non-upgradeable. James thinks this is an acceptable thing in a $2000 laptop, because he’s a fanboy.
Bitcoin prices are stabalizing. Dave disapproves of BitCoin.
IE 10 breaks the “Do Not Track” standard by being on by default. Could this be the beginning of the end for the standard?
In 50 years Steve Jobs will be unknown and Bill Gates will be famous for his charity work, according to Malcolm Gladwell. James thinks Gladwell is just looking for attention; Justin thinks curing malria is a bigger deal than touch screens.
Hate paying for textbooks? Better hope this patent doesn’t pick up traction.
Diablo III opened up it’s real money market. Dave can’t believe things are actually selling for $250.
Finally, Dave answers Dom’s question: “How did you get started in tech blogging?”. Feel free to ask any questions of any of us on Twitter, Facebook, or in the comments below.

Next week we’ll be talking with the crew at Movies.io. Have any questiosn for them? Let us know, on Twitter, Facebook, or in the comments below.

9 comments

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Scutterman

Usually the Enhanced Podcast images don't show in Winamp, but they are today. I guess the plugin is a bit hit and miss.

Articles with no dates annoys me too. It's amazing how many ones dealing with rapidly-developing software (like Magento for example) don't have either dates, or applicable versions, so I have no idea if the techniques being used are valid.

Current total for the Oatmeal fundraiser is 212,684 with almost two days left.

The new Macbook Pro is going to start off wildly expensive and buggy. It'll go through several iterations, fixing bugs etc. and slowly coming down in price, with each iteration being showcased as "Completely new and innovative" until it becomes affordable, at which point they'll release another "New Macbook Pro" and start the cycle again.

You can see the google doodle from the results page. If it looks interesting just click on it and go to the homepage.

The way I read the cookie agreement was that you can just put it in your privacy policy and terms of usage "We use cookies and this is how we use them", and it's compliant.

I don't think the "Buy a book, get a code" system will work. If you can buy a separate access code for used books, what's to stop people sharing books, and buying a used-book code so both get access to the online content? I hope it fails anyway, I know people who struggled to buy second hand books because they were doing architecture, which is a non-mainstream subject. I can't imagine how much those books would have cost with this system in place.

I stopped playing Runescape because the free version got too much about level grinding once the quests were done. I could have paid to get a whole lot more quests and items, but the grind element would still be there so I decided it wasn't worth it.

All apple products are designed for profit. They are all "ooh shiny" and then a couple years later it's like "that thing, that's not shiny any more. You have to buy this slightly different shiny thing", which is a valid business model, but the base cost is too much to spend on something that isn't going to last. I spoke to someone who tried to convince me to buy a mac. When I asked what they did when their £1000 product broke and they had to send it away rather than taking an hour to get some tech guy to fixt it, they told me they had a second mac for that. Apple sells hipster bait, pure and simple. And when people tell me that apple is popular, I point them to the fact that osX still has less than 8% of the market (http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-ww-monthly-201105-201205) even though the great Apple revival happened all of 12 years ago. >/rant<

James Bruce moderator

@Scutterman Totally not going to agree with you there. Regardless of marketshare, because no one said a majority needs to be had at all for something to be better (just look at every democracy in existence where the 99% idiots of the population dictate policies; social welfare for everyone, no real tax cuts, and any good moves for society gets the ruling party voted out in the next election, only to have those changes overrruled, and the cycle of idiocy continues). But I digress.

Apple are hugely profitable, because they make a great product. Their products may not suit everyone mind - obviously, you're not their target market - but that doesnt stop them from being immensely value-creating products. Put it this way: I never made money from computing when I was using windows. Perhaps I was gaming too much. When I got a Mac, I became hugely more productive, began creating websites seriously, began writing, and came to where I am today. That wouldnt have happened to me if I were still using Windows. I no longer spend every weekend reinstalling Windows or fucking around with hardware upgrades; I just don't my computer as something to tweak anymore - I just want to work on it, creating value, manage my sites, write my articles. And do that all safely, knowing I'm not gonna get a BSOD of death for touching the wrong part of my mouse.

For others, @Justin Pot for instance - he can get all that lovely writing and work stuff done on a netbook. I admire that, but that isn't going to work for me.

More importantly: I'm not a HIPSTER! I don't even like Starbucks!

Scutterman

@James Bruce @Justin Pot Okay, the hipster part was going too far, and I retract that. But I have to disagree with some of your other points.

"no one said a majority needs to be had at all for something to be better"

I was referring to claims of popularity, not whether or not it's better. So many times I've had mac enthusiasts come up to me and tell me how popular Macs are, which annoys me because they just assume Macs are popular without ever looking for proof.

"I no longer spend every weekend reinstalling Windows or fucking around with hardware upgrades; I just don't my computer as something to tweak anymore"

I rarely have to upgrade hardware, and I've never had to re-install Windows. But the freedom to know that I *can* do these things is a great piece of mind. It means I can boost my computer performance gradually without spending on a whole new computer at once. And I haven't dealt with a BSOD since XP, and even then it was an issue with the graphics driver rather than windows itself.

"immensely value-creating products"

I can't use Macs. I know that if I used them for long enough I would get used to them, but my work flow is pretty optimal right now, and I don't see how it could improve by using a system that imposes so many limits on users. And to have to pay extra to get that is clearly less value for money for me. It's been shown time and again that superior hardware can be put together for the price of a Mac, so the price tag is generally the cost of the aesthetic and the OS.

All of this is just opinion of course, and I realise that there are people who are more productive on Apple products, people who do need displays such as the Thunderbolt, and people who prefer the walled garden approach that Apple provides. I just keep getting told that "Mac is better" without anyone being able to quantify that beyond personal reasons and vague claims about "It's more productive". No-one yet has given me a reason why it'll be better for me, personally.

DomTC

It's certainly 'nice' to have Dave back (and I use nice in the loosest form of the word) :)

I had never heard of Funny Junk until I read about this. Whether right or wrong, I think what Inman is doing is awesome, and it is an amazing amount of money for charity! It is interesting to see how many lawyers have offered to support him. I don't know if you are aware of this update, but the lawyer who sent the letter is now suing Inman, Indiegogo (the company who are running the donations etc.) and the two charities the money is going to, although he is representing himself and not FunnyJunk (I don't know anything about law so if you want to read more, read some of the articles on www.popehat.com (eg:. http://goo.gl/1s6Ng)

Thank you for answering my question Dave, good luck in your aim for getting work with a big game blog.

Great episode as usual!

PS. Exams should be banned on the fact that they prevent listening to podcast to a optimal standard :) It has taken me 3 days to listen to this episode!