Episode 29: This Series Of Tubes

July 18, 2012 by jamie | 53 Comments

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Google builds the world’s biggest collection of pirated media, Yahoo gets its monthly new CEO and Microsoft adds ads to a service people are already paying for. It’s episode 29 of Technophilia: This Series of Tubes.

This week: Justin is back, meaning you get to hear some rants he’s saved up. And James is completely giving up on Windows so he installs OS X on his remaining PC using two tools: Unibeast and Multibeast. With these two tools and a legal copy of OS X Mountain Lion James claims he can get OS X working on almost any desktop PC. Try it out yourself and let us know if it works.

Google built the largest database of pirated media, accidentally. All requested takedown links are posted on chillingeffects.org, meaning that site has now amassed huge numbers of links to pirated stuff.
Penny Arcade is trying to go ad free by raising money directly from fans. Justin hopes alternative models like this can work; James thinks people don’t want to pay for content.
Europe is investigating Microsoft again. James says this isn’t antitrust before admitting he doesn’t know what antitrust is.
Marissa Mayer is Yahoo’s new CEO. If anyone can turn Yahoo around it’s probably her, but we’re still skeptical.
RIM to pay $147 million for patent violation. More bad news for the makers of the moderately intelligent phone known as Blackberry.
We discuss the moral case for drones as outlined by a recent New York Times analysis piece. Dave is surprisingly insightful; Technophiliacs contribute some great points to the discussion.
Eric Schmidt of Google says self driving cars will become the dominate means of travel. We discuss, and react to what listeners think.
London 2012 bans links with negative things to say.. If you can’t link to us saying something nice, don’t link to us at all. James goes on an anti-Olympic rant.
US Pursues Richard O’Dwyer, UK creator of TVshack.net. Why? No, seriously: why?
A recent Penny Arcade editorial on XBox advertising outlines how crazy profitable ads are on the platform.

All this and answers to your questions.

49 comments

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AKwasp

Just got home from the new Batman movie. If you weren't already planning to, I'm requesting some discussion on the new movie as I'm sure you've all seen it.

James Bruce moderator

@AKwasp I haven't actually seen it yet.

Latest blog post: I Want More For the iPad 4: Suggestions for the iPad's Future

jhpot moderator

@James Bruce @AKwasp Haven't seen it.

James Bruce moderator

@AKwasp I was kinda hoping Warner Brothers would give me a press pass or something. I went to a private viewing of dark night rises last week at the WB HQ in london, but they must be reserving the new viewings for really special people.

Latest blog post: I Want More For the iPad 4: Suggestions for the iPad's Future

Scutterman

I think that warfare will evolve to the point where it's basically machine vs. machine. This will end in a stalemate as technology and manufacturing advance at such a rate as to not allow anyone to win.

All war should be virtual. The Governments take the money they would use for war, and give it to a neutral middle ground in exchange for virtual resources. These resources are controlled on each side by highly skilled individuals (gamers) and the governments battle each other. The money goes into charities ndash; preventing famine and drought, aiding war-torn countries, and so on.

It probably won't take long for self-driving cars to appear, but I think that people will still drive real cars for recreational purposes. Maybe there will be specific roads for manual driving, or maybe there will be more tracks springing up.

Self-driving cars will be networked. A car will be able to broadcast it's actions, such as "I'm about to slow down", or "There's an obstruction, we all need to move in x way to get around it". Spoofing / hacking would be difficult to avoid, but there's a high risk of physical injury or death, so penalties of such will likely be very high, up to and including manslaughter or murder.

You guys should post the 2012 logo (linked to their TOS) below the words "We are not affiliated with London 2012, and according to their TOS we're not allowed to do this".

Linking policies were pretty common a while back, but I haven't even thought of them for years.

I have a great loathing for fresh memes, they are so overused and annoying. When they get a bit older and stop being quoted every other sentence, they are much more bearable.

JuanBarrera

I really enjoy, listening to y'alls podcast, is very interesting, and I find myself amused when I hear of apps or utilities I use be mentioned in the podcast, as well as I find really useful some of the apps you all review.

This podcast team could have not been better, Justin is the voice of sense and wisdom, who usually has the most objective point, Dave is the gammer, who is also physically active (kind of like me), has a great sense of humor and can be said to be the comic relief, who will always make me laugh, and James is the guy with vast knowledge and experience, although he's an apple fan boy.... but anyways I really love listening to this podcast, its the perfect combination of tech-news,app reviews, and humor.

Keep up the good work!!

James Bruce moderator

@JuanBarrera Now there's a compliment I can get behind! Thanks Juan!!! Do let us know if there's a particular topic you think might be an interesting discussion.

jhpot moderator

@James Bruce @JuanBarrera We're yet to get a compliment without mention of James being an Apple fanboy.

James Bruce moderator

@jhpot @JuanBarrera If I just go ahead and buy a Nexus 7 will you stop that already?!

Latest blog post: I Want More For the iPad 4: Suggestions for the iPad's Future

AKwasp

No Olympics nor World Fair has ever been profitable. This claim is highly subject to criticism and debate, but the bottom line depends on how one actually measures the costs. Instead of explaining it all here, I’ll link to a NPR article accompanied with a 3-minute clip that nicely summarizes financial studies surrounding the controversy. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113351145

James Bruce moderator

@AKwasp Interesting , I guess it confirms what I always thought. I think we should abandon the olympics altogether until we fix some more serious problems.

AKwasp

James, you seemed to have missed some compliments from my earlier email. Namely your advocating WordPress and helpful articles have persuading me towards choosing the content management system for my website. However, you haven’t written enough follow-up articles for really making the website “pop” once it’s all setup. I’d really appreciate some advice on customizing my website further and perhaps some plug-in and widget suggestions. I’d like to focus my time and energy on creating quality content and less on setup and maintenance of the website. http://AKwaspRS.com

James Bruce moderator

@AKwasp Apologies, I must have missed that. Did you already check out the list of best wordpress plugins I compiled? http://www.makeuseof.com/pages/best-wordpress-plugins - that's a great place to start. You're right though - perhaps "Making Wordpress Pop" would be a great title for a new guide; highlighting snazzy and world class plugins. Great idea.

AKwasp

@James Bruce Also yes, I read through most of that list once I first decided on getting started with WordPress. MakeUseOf's BestOf typically has some awesome gems in the lists and introduced me to some of my favorite apps, extensions, and websites. However the lists are most useful once you're already familiar with the parent topic, whether it's Windows, Android, Apple, websites, etc. With respect to WordPress, I'm largely unfamiliar with the platform and am unsure what's actually useful and what's more niche. There's also too many plug-ins that perform similar functions without a clear editorial of which is better.

AKwasp

@James Bruce I'd enjoy reading those sorts of editorials, and based on some of the comments of other confused readers I bet others would as well. Thanks for the feedback, I'll try your methods today/ tomorrow when I have some time and let you know if I am able to follow.

James Bruce moderator

@AKwasp That's difficult. There's no "better" plugin , it depends on your requirements and preferences. I could certainly write more showdown style articles to show the differences?

Latest blog post: I Want More For the iPad 4: Suggestions for the iPad's Future

AKwasp

@James Bruce The other specific I'd like to implement is with regard to the banner for the site. Currently it's text-based http://www.AKwaspRS.com and functions as a clickable area on the header of every page to return to the home page. I'd like to replace this with a version of my logo which would replace the text. However, then the properties (for lack of a better term) stop identifying part of my website title for purposes like bookmarking the site and meta data. I'm not how to implement my logo without loosing this functionality, hopefully you have a suggestion. I hope I described this well enough to understand.

James Bruce moderator

@AKwasp Common problem, yes. Usually we apply CSS to the logo text that makes it hide off screen, like -9999px left. http://webaim.org/techniques/css/invisiblecontent/

Latest blog post: I Want More For the iPad 4: Suggestions for the iPad's Future

AKwasp

@James Bruce I'd be glad to read it. There's actually 2 specifics I'd like to implement but am unaware of what keywords to search for, perhaps you can help me and feel free to use these as examples. First off, the various "pages" on my site (guides, video logs, giveaways, etc.) are also categories of my posts. I'd like these pages to function basically as feeds of new posts to the respective categories. Above the feed I'd like the page to start with a brief paragraph description of the page and an image, which would function similar to a "featured post" above the rest of the feed. Any thoughts how I could implement this?

James Bruce moderator

@AKwasp Easy, but you'll need to confident editing PHP. The first way is just to create specific templates for category archives - just duplicate the existing archives.php or even index.php if there isnt one, and call it category-slug.php (where slug is the name of the category). Edit your intro text directly onto the template, and it'l then show on the category archive. Won;t be editable from the front end though.

The other way would be to create a specific page template that create new wp-query loop to get posts from a specific cateogry. Then you apply this to your page (where you intro text is editable). Easier from the front end to edit intro text, but less flexible, harder programming.

I'd recommend creating a category specific archive page and just editing that. Do you need a more in-depth tutorial? I could write one up if you're not confident.

Latest blog post: I Want More For the iPad 4: Suggestions for the iPad's Future

AKwasp

Smart cars are awesome and I can barely wait for their practical implementation. They have a greater potential than we can even imagine today, with the promise of ending driving under the influence, reducing traffic collisions, and improving commute time with higher travel speeds and networked vehicles implementing computation fluid mechanics models. This is a distant dream though, but you could get a glimpse through creative illustrations such as those in the movie Minority Report. The more immediate future offers some exciting prospects for smart cars too. These cars will be more reliant on reactive control systems, utilizing some fancy sensor suites to identify the environment and respond accordingly. A primitive (although pretty awesome) version of this technology is already available today on commercial POV vehicles with automatic parallel parking, see http://youtu.be/GZCsSEJxHGs

koshyg15

@AKwasp I deeply believe that even now, roads and speeds limits must be designed taking into account fluid mechanics.

AKwasp

@koshyg15 Traffic engineers do exercise fluid mechanics when designing roads. Perhaps you've noticed periodic black straps on roads in your local city that look like dull spike strips - these actually survey the traffic flow on various roads at various times and all this data is incorporating into models that (among other features) aid in determining when road construction detours will minimize traffic jams. Most roads are designed for higher speed limits than posted, hence if you've noticed that winding turns on highways with higher speed limits have larger radii than turns on residential streets with slower speed limits. One of the bigger obstacles is actually litigation that enforces large safe factors with respect to speed limits, citing studies that correlate slower speeds with fewer, less severe accidents.

koshyg15

@AKwasp A problem with fluid dynamics when applied to roads is that the speed of traffic should be higher in smaller roads than in larger roads, as for a smooth flow the volume moving through per unit time should be the same same every where.

AKwasp

As for the military drone discussion, this is really just a modern version of bringing a gun to a knife fight. All the arguments you can use in favor of or against bringing a gun to a knife fight apply to military drones and has been debated for centuries and even longer. The root of this discussion stems from “jus in bello” proportionality morality, which can be summarized as using an appropriate amount of firepower in avoidance of overkill. A more revealing discussion might arise from a better understand of how we classify enemy combatants; you might be surprised at how broad a net we cast.

Technophilia Podcast

Yeah, there was a problem yesterday but if you re-download all should be well.

koshyg15

Removing Internet explore maybe good for windows (I would pay more for a OS that does not come with Internet explorer) It should not be illegal to couple Internet explorer with Windows.

Which is more important the Euro Crisis or Internet explorer(The reason that they chose Internet Explorer, might be that they can't get any work done on Internet explorer)

Dave actually ran Internet explorer (nightmares).

Yahoo is dead they can't come back Fewer people will use Flicker, if they knew, it was from yahoo. Like who would buy a car from a dying car company.

RIM is dead(It is a waste of time even taking about it)

Start a kicksater fundraiser to buy technophilia twitter account from the other guy.

What do you mean humanize. What is so special about humans. Its not like we have free will or anything, it just that the number of variables affecting our actions is large and so it appears as if we have free will but we don't have free will.

How dare anybody compare mario with angry birds.

jhpot moderator

@koshyg15 If you don't think humanity is inherently valuable there's probably no moral argument I can make with you about anything. But I would submit to you that humans are conscious, and that consciousness is amazing and something each and every one of us should be thankful for every day. We should do all we can to preserve human life for that reason alone, though there are others.

James Bruce moderator

1 Like

@jhpot @koshyg15 I would have to agree with Koshy there Justin; we may not understand it right now, but I firmly believe consciousness is just another section of the brain - a group of meta-neurons. Furthermore, there's a number of mammals shown to be conscious too; it's certainly not just a human thing. I see no reason why we won't be able to replicate that in time with strong AI. ~ This is the core of the strong/weak AI debate really - can we recreate a human like or better machine, or can we only make specific purpose machines.

Also, I don't like this notion that human life is inherently valuable simply because it is. That's the kind of weak ass reasoning that gets abortion doctors killed, and has led to the ridiculous levels of overpopulation we see today that will only get worse. Human life is not sacred, and a baby is not a little "miracle from god".

Though, I sense this has nothing do this drones at all, and we've taken a bit of a tangent.

James Bruce moderator

@jhpot Uh, no it isn't. The absence of love is indifference.There's a lot of people I don't love, but that doesn't mean I hate them.

Latest blog post: I Want More For the iPad 4: Suggestions for the iPad's Future

jhpot moderator

@James Bruce Hate is the absence of love, not its opposite. And now we're officially off on a tangent.

James Bruce moderator

@jhpot That's a good rule, Justin; though you're devaluing love if you don't hate as well.

Latest blog post: I Want More For the iPad 4: Suggestions for the iPad's Future

koshyg15

@jhpot Thank goodness you did not go to Denver to watch batman.

koshyg15

@jhpot Don't get me wrong,I am personally against violence of any kind.

jhpot moderator

@James Bruce I can love and be loved. I value any being capable of that, inherently. AI, alien, human – it doesn't matter. Destroying a being capable of love is morally wrong.

koshyg15

@jhpot I do not want to get into a long winded argument about this. But I believe that a conscious (or what appears to be a conscious) can be replicated, given a complex enough system.

Dave Parrack

Koshy, try the enhanced version. Working for me with no echo now.

yashdes

2 things. 1. James's car gets 38 us miles to the gallon for comparison and2. his car is ugly, sorry

James Bruce moderator

@yashdes ITS NOT UGLY YOU ££$^%$^&^£%$^$£%!!!

http://carhire.rentacar-canarias.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Grupo_d1.jpg

It's very cute, and practical.

DaveP

@James Bruce That car was clearly born ugly, hit with the ugly stick all the way through childhood, had acne through its teenage years, and then matured into an even uglier adult. Do you put a paper bag over it every time you drive?