Rarely do I find an article that so clearly expresses exactly my opinion as this article by Nerds 2.0 author Bob Cringely regarding the Mac Mini.

Yes, they buy into my Mini-as-server theory, but some of Cringely's "friends" also speculate on the Mini's place as an "entertainment appliance," sitting right there on the console next to your HDTV and cable modem.

Apple's strategy for years has been to make the Mac your "digital media hub," and until iPod and iTunes, most of that strategy centred around media creation. iPhoto, iMovie, and iDVD are all extensions of the media creation metaphor. But what they've done with those is get people more accustomed to seeing video on their computer. And if, as the article speculates, the next step is the Mac Mini as a repository for tons of high-definition video files that have been downloaded from the web, using a program called, for instance, iFlix or iShows, nobody should be surprised.

Convergence is happening, just not in the way current broadcasters and content providers (networks or channels in the current paradigm) speculated. Instead of a dedicated set-top box for whatever system you use -- be it satellite, cable, or whatever -- a unified set-top box suitable for playing or displaying any kind of content you wish seems to be the way it's going. A HDTV is really nothing more than a computer monitor. Infrared remotes for media computers already exist, as do wireless mice and keyboards. All you need is to make it simpler than Microsoft does with its pathetic "Media Center Edition" of Windows.

My money's on Apple to be the first to put an interface on this that people can actually use, and if they can carve out a market a fraction of the size of their iPod/iTunes quasi-monopoly, they'll make tons of money off it for years to come.

The pieces are falling into place, and somehow I can see Mr. Jobs sitting in his office with that "Excellent, Smithers" look on his face.

Posted by ElectricOrange at 5:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

According to Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela, Madrid is a hotbed of sin.

"In Madrid, there is sinning on a massive scale, sometimes with insolence, sometimes insouciantly," he told Cadena Ser radio station, without elaborating on what type of sins were being committed.

Next thing you know, the Cardinal will tell us there are pickpockets on the Plaza Mayor, all-night gay discos in Chueca, bar-lined streets in the Malasaña, and hash dealers in Lavapiés.

And don't get me started on the insolence and insouciance. When sin is committed with insolence, that's bad enough. But insolence and insouciance? Well, that's just the worst kind of sin there could ever, ever be.

I would like to send my personal thanks out to the Cardinal and the Catholic Church for blowing the lid off the sin situation in Madrid. And to all of you sinners in Madrid, you'll be in my prayers.

Amen.

Posted by ElectricOrange at 12:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

You may remember, a few posts back, I was talking about the Mac Mini. I said this:

To me, this looks like the lowest-priced dedicated unix server on the market. Servers don't really need keyboards, you don't need to keep them connected to a monitor, and wireless is not particularly important.

Well, today I was reading this cNet article about installing Mac Minis in cars, when I came to the following couple of paragraphs, buried at the end of the article:

Other commercial ventures have also cropped up around the Mac Mini. Texas-based Underwriters Technologies on Monday announced a Web-hosting service that uses Mac Minis as part of a server farm for companies that can't afford their own Xserve servers.

"The Mac Mini has more than enough power to handle the Web needs of 80 percent of the businesses in the world," Underwriters Technologies President Jay Menna said in a statement.

Well, congratulations to Mr. Menna and Underwriters Technologies for catching on to this. Apple's xServe is fine and good, but far more than a lot of people need. On the other hand, a Mac Mini can do all the things that the vast majority of small-to-medium-sized businesses need in a server. And, at $499 for the configuration you'd need to run it as a server, you can get cheap redundancy. And, if you install the right (free) software, the same machine could be your phone PBX system, your VOIP box, and a whole host of other things that otherwise would have to be standalone devices. And it can do them all at the same time.

My engineer-type friends might point out that you could do all of the same stuff with an Intel box running Linux or FreeBSD, and do it for less. This is true, but the big difference is that my father could set it up on the Mac, by himself, in a couple of hours. With Linux or FreeBSD, he couldn't set it up by himself in a couple of months.

The potential of this machine to be a viable solution for businesses that need or want to cut their costs by hosting and maintaining their servers themselves, with minimal outside assistance, is huge. It's certainly a hell of a lot cheaper than having to have an IT staffer/systems analyst type person on staff.

Car dashboard installations notwithstanding, it will be very interesting to see what other uses people come up with for this device, because it is the first time I can think of that so versatile and easy-to-use a device came in so small a package. Hell, if they strip out the optical drive, they could probably make one half the size. The possibilities are endless.

Posted by ElectricOrange at 11:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just got back from a very brief ski holiday in Les Menuires, part of the 3 Vallées region in the French Alps. I have to say, I was impressed.

I should note up front that it snowed about 18 inches (50cm) while I was there, which certainly helped the conditions. This was the first time I had set ski to fresh snow in many years, and it really makes the experience much more enjoyable than the typical ice and artifical snow.

But, beyond that, I really liked this resort. Les Menuires is divided into several villages that are actually surrounded by the slopes. Pretty much no matter where you're staying, you can ski in and ski out.

Additionally, the 3 Vallées lift pass entitles you to ski over the lip of the mountain into the Méribel resort, and then again over the next lip into the Courchevel resort (the third valley). This gives you access to an absurd amount of terrain, and you can get from one end to another in an hour and a half without rushing.

I'm not sure I'd ever want to stay in Courchevel, because the village seemed rather posh and snooty. But when you enter the Courchevel valley, you can easily see that this valley catches snow better than the other two. And, especially with the fresh snow, the skiing there was phenomenal and challenging.

As with any European ski area I've visited, the clientele was international, with a decent percentage of British and Dutch, but as it is not a "budget" area, the resort was not overrun by teenyboppers vomiting off of chairlifts.

The only downside was having to ski through Méribel to get over to Courchevel. It's a minor complaint, but as Méribel clearly gets the least snow of the three, and appears to be the most mass-market, it was a challenge at times to weave through the crowded pistes to get to the lift. Trails here were also poorly marked, making it a struggle to figure out where you needed to go to get back over to Les Menuires.

Anyhoo, consider it a big Yea vote for this ski area -- one I hope to get back to soon.

Posted by ElectricOrange at 6:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, several of the countries of the European Union have decided to hold referenda in their countries on the question of the new EU charter/constitution.

If the constitution passes these tests of public fire, the EU will win unprecedented political legitimacy. No longer will its critics be able to complain of a "democratic deficit" after hundreds of millions of Europeans have put the constitution to direct vote and placed their confidence in it.

I'll start being up front with my opinion on referenda: they stand contrary to the entire notion or republican government. Governments (even parliamentary and European ones) have checks and balances and even, in some cases, proportional representation. They're set up to protect the minority from the whims of mob/majority rule. Referenda offer no such protection. Also, populations have proven time and again how easily they can be manipulated in advance of a referendum, a fact that makes a dangerous situation worse.

But now that I've finished my disclaimer, my bigger question is: What are these countries that are holding a referendum thinking? Legitimacy, shmagitimacy. Every member country in the EU participated in the process that led to the constitution. Every sitting government in every EU country supports it. So, what's the fucking problem?

You've managed to get Blair, Chirac, Schröder, Zapatero and 21 others to agree on a document. But that's not enough for you. No. You want to press your luck, pray for no whammies, and risk it all so the likes of the UK Independence Party won't be able to whine about the new constitution after the fact.

Who hired these people?

Make no mistake: referendum or no, there will always be people in Europe who question the legitimacy of the EU "supergovernment." They will always be wrong, but they will always exist. So let them be wrong, but for the love of Brussels, don't have them vote on it. It's stupid, dangerous, a waste of time, and a waste of money.

Posted by ElectricOrange at 10:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Paging through the Libération daily today, I read this article (French) about the entry of a company called Wengo into the French telephone market.

Wengo, to my knowledge, is the first company to offer Vonage style voice over IP services to French customers. What that means is that the user gets a regular, geographic phone number, and a box to plug into their high-speed internet connection. When a standard landline phone is plugged into this box, it functions just like any other landline phone -- except the call originates through the internet and then connects through to any other standard telephone.

Amazingly, Wengo are offering unlimited calls to French landlines for €6 per month, and unlimited calls to fixed and mobile lines for €20 per month. This proposition has the potential to absolutely shatter the French telephone market.

For the record, Vonage entered the UK market last week as well, bringing a similar proposition of £9.99 for unlimited calls to UK and Irish landlines, but the only geographic numbers currently offered are in London.

Posted by ElectricOrange at 6:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I know I'm going out on a limb here, but judging from this article, filming for a third series of "Ali G In Da USA" appears to be well underway:

Introduced as Boraq Sagdiyev from Kazakhstan, he was said to be an immigrant touring America. A film crew was with him, doing some sort of documentary. And he wanted to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" to show his appreciation, the announcer told the crowd. Speaking in broken English, the mysterious man first told the decidedly pro-American crowd - it was a rodeo, of all things, in Salem, of all places - that he supported the war on terrorism.

"I hope you kill every man, woman and child in Iraq, down to the lizards," he said, according to Brett Sharp of Star Country WSLC, who was also on stage that night as a media sponsor of the rodeo. "And may George W. Bush drink the blood of every man, woman and child in Iraq."

Then the man took off his hat and sang what he said was his native national anthem. He then told the crowd to be seated, put his hat back on, and launched into a butchered version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" that ended with the words "your home in the grave," Sharp said.

By then, a restless crowd had turned downright nasty. "If he had been out there a minute longer, I think somebody would have shot him," Jaymes said.

Even more interesting than the fact that Sacha Baron Cohen continues to tempt fate stateside, is the fact that there remain this many people in the US who are so oblivious that they can still be conned by him. Sure, Virginia's a "red state," but you'd have to imagine that at least one person in the crowd gets HBO and might have seen the show.

Posted by ElectricOrange at 4:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In today's New York Times (free registration required), an article highlights a movement to standardise the Spanish workday with the rest of Europe.

Now some Spaniards are beginning to ask if a divided workday, with morning and evening sessions straddling an afternoon of scarce productivity, is compatible with the modern world and Spain's growing integration into Europe.

The Fundación Independiente, a research organization in Madrid, has started a campaign to do away with the marathon lunches and to align the Spanish work schedule with the 9-to-5 routine common in the rest of the European Union. "In a globalized world, we have to have schedules that are more similar to those in the rest of the world so we can be better connected," said Ignacio Buqueras y Bach, the group's president. "These Spanish lunches of two to three hours are very pleasant, but they are not very productive."

Are these people really that bored? I'm sorry, but the point of the EU is not (or, at least, should not be) to strip the member nations of any remaining vestiges of cultural individuality.

I lived in Spain, and I absolutely loved the way of life there. Because it was a way of living, not a way of working. In my experience, despite the "mañana, mañana" reputation, the Spanish work as hard or harder than any other Western European culture.

But they take the pause at midday because taking time to live life is important to them. The long lunches, the long dinners (not to mention the late nights out) are part of a lifestyle that focuses on enjoyment, but not to the expense of work. And as Spain has integrated more with the rest of Europe, there have been subtle changes that have not fundamentally altered the character of Spanish life. What's wrong with that? Perhaps the British model of not seeing daylight and then going out on the piss is what they'd prefer.

My advice to the Fundación Independiente is to take a long lunch, and possibly a nap, and dream up another campaign to occupy itself with.

Posted by ElectricOrange at 8:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I followed Steve Jobs' keynote speech at MacWorld Expo San Francisco yesterday, largely because I was interested in the rumoured "headless" Mac.

I'm a Mac geek. I own 2 Powerbooks, one of which I nearly ripped the monitor off of, so I use it as a server for this very website. I'm anxiously looking forward to the release of the Powerbook G5, whenever Apple sees fit to release it.

But this new "low-end" machine, called the Mac Mini is priced in the U.S. at $499, less than the highest-priced iPod. It intrigues me -- and not because I'm part of the PC-owning target market Apple wants to convert to buying its products. To me, this looks like the lowest-priced dedicated unix server on the market. Servers don't really need keyboards, you don't need to keep them connected to a monitor, and wireless is not particularly important. And because it runs the MacOS, it also works as a home media server.

What I didn't anticipate was the size. At 15x15x5 cm, it's the tiniest container for that powerful a machine I could ever have imagined. It's absurdly small. If it didn't have the optical drive, it could probably have been iPod-sized (and there has to be a market for that one). Two years ago, this kit was only available in a tower box about 8 times the size. Even the Mac Cube from a few years back was at least 3 times the size (and 3 times the price)

Anyway, I'll let you know what I think of it when I get my hands on it, but for the moment, I'm excited and impressed that Apple have released a machine with this price-to-performance ratio.

Posted by ElectricOrange at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Anybody who has visited Salon's Wednesday Morning Download (registration required) is probably familiar with author Thomas Bartlett's favourite free music download on the web. It's a piece of obscure soul music called "You Can't Blame Me" by an act from 70s-era Columbus, Ohio called Johnson Hawkins Tatum & Durr.

What you may not know is why this music is available and being preserved for your listening pleasure. There's a small record company called the Numero group, and they're committed to tracking down incredible, hard-to-find music, and making it available to today's listening public. So far, their focus has been on the small, local soul labels of midwest America. But while they're very dedicated to their work -- in one case, they spent a year tracking down a dead man's lone heir -- they're not married to rare soul.

In any case, I strongly recommend you visit the Numero Group site, and if you're so inspired, make a purchase. You'll be doing your part to support a bunch of good people who are doing everything they can to preserve great music.

Posted by ElectricOrange at 2:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I don't know why this gets in my craw more than, say, the attorney general nomination, but it does. Probably because it's so bloody sneaky.

This article lays out how the Bush administration has been paying a conservative commentator to develop propaganda for his "No Child Left Behind" education act. Which, as we know, left a lot of children behind. But that's beside the point. Read:

The Bush administration has promoted No Child Left Behind with a video that comes across as a news story but fails to make clear the reporter involved was paid with taxpayer money. It has also has paid for rankings of newspaper coverage of the law, with points awarded for stories that say Bush and the Republican Party are strong on education. The Government Accountability Office, Congress' auditing arm, is investigating those spending decisions.

The Government Accountability Office has twice ruled that the Bush administration's use of prepackaged videos -- to promote federal drug policy and a new Medicare law -- is "covert propaganda" because the videos do not make clear to the public that the government produced the promotional news.

Ugh.

Posted by ElectricOrange at 12:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You'll have to pardon me for reveling in tech geekery, but I have to say if there is one absolute joy about living in France, it is the low, low price of bandwidth.

For the past 14 months, I have been a DSL subscriber with free.fr. Free's offer is very simple: you pay EUR 30/month, and you get high-speed internet, VOIP telephone service, and basic cable television included. When I signed up, the offer was for 2mbps downstream bandwidth and 512kbps upstream.

But they keep raising the bandwidth without raising the price! Over the course of the year, the offer went up to 7mbps downstream and 640kbps upstream, which required no action on my part. Today, I received a new ADSL2+ modem, which has moved my service to 20mbps downstream and 1mbps upstream. For EUR 30 a month, with phone calls and basic cable included.

Free.fr are the best of the lot in France, in my opinion, but other providers have similar offers at similar prices. In other words, the market is in a bandwidth war, and the consumers are winning.

Why on earth can't other countries have services that compete with this? In the UK, you pay an arm and a leg for a fraction of the service I get. In Spain, you can't pay for the service I get as a residential customer -- even if you want it. Even in the US, if you want more than 1.5mbps down and 512kbps up, you have to pay a fortune.

Because of the bandwidth available to me, which included a fixed IP address, I can (and do) serve my own domain from home -- saving myself other costs in the process. Basically, for the EUR 30 a month, I no longer have to pay a separate phone bill, a separate cable bill, or a separate hosting bill.

Now, if they could just sort out their other bureaucracies here, we'd really be on to something.

Posted by ElectricOrange at 1:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)