Category Archives: Uncategorized

Being a closed, unique community: a rant on “corporate exceptionalism”

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This guy has a point, albeit founded upon shaky premises. Apple, as a company, possesses much more of a closed mentality than Microsoft in regards to how it relates to open source projects, at least as far as legally tying hardware to software is concerned.

However, I think it has already been pointed out in that post’s comment section that Apple contributes to, and uses, a number of open-source projects.

But I think that, while I find the premise of Apple being an "open-source enemy" to be presently and patently flawed, the company’s practices in regards to software do need to be assessed from an FOSS standpoint.

Apple makes use of a number of FOSS packages and contributes back to them. However, the company makes sure to use FOSS strategically, by only using FOSS packages that can boost Mac OS X from the ground up but gradually decreasing the usage of FOSS at the higher-level, more-visible layers of the operating system. One of the few visible FOSS components of OS X is the WebKit framework (used by Safari and Dashboard for web rendering), which is derived from several projects of the more Linux-friendly KDE.

Otherwise, Apple tries to use as many proprietary bits in OS X as possible; a prime issue (and one that even I’ve expressed concern about) is how X11-native applications, when ported to OS X’s (closed-source) pet API and toolkit, have to be derived as forks of the main branch of the application in order to "integrate" with the predominant look-and-feel of the operating system and GUI. Camino was derived from Firefox in this manner, as was Adium from Pidgin.

Even third-party closed-source programmers have to face this hurdle, as porting an application or application suite between Win32 and Cocoa (or Carbon) usually results in the distributors stating that they will not be able to deliver the next release of a software suite for one platform (usually, the one that goes lacking is OS X).

I particularly notice that, when an application has finally been rewritten for installation on OS X to fit in the user interface of OS X, the developers (and sometimes Apple) will state "such-and-such-app comes to the Mac."

Comes to the Mac? It was recoded for Aqua to Apple’s HUG, not brought to some obscure hardware platform!

And I think that is the answer: by keeping the toolkit closed-source and keeping the operating system (upon which the toolkit is dependent) tied exclusively to Apple’s Mac-branded hardware, Apple is attempting to give off that idea that an originally-cross-platform software application has been ported not just to a proprietary toolkit, but to an entirely-different hardware platform. It is a matter of image control, whereby Apple seeks to maintain and preserve this ideal image of a distinct and unique computing platform that is exclusive toward all other platforms. Even the transition from IBM’s PPC to Intel x86 didn’t dissipate or dent this image, as the maintenance of the hardware lock-in+toolkit dependency would ensure that anything for OS X would also be for "the Mac".

Personally, this would lead me to assume that Apple is a hardware company with a higher degree of exceptionalism for its own operating system and application software.

It reminds me of how Macromedia (now merged into Adobe Systems since 2005) was an application software company that had a higher degree of exceptionalism for its own webware and file formats.

The trouble of this approach is that, if another company with the same approach (in this case, Microsoft, an operating system company that had a higher degree of exceptionalism for its own application software, webware and file formats) and a larger size and budget to grow on, decides to edge into your market (.NET 3.0, with the much-touted Silverlight, XAML and other such graphic niceties), what are you to do? How do you react, and with whom should you ally? Macromedia, which already had Flex, Flash, AIR, MXML and other resources, was bought by long-time rival Adobe (which was previously touting SVG as a competitor to Flash prior to the acquisition), with a gradually-open (and open-source-friendly) approach being adopted by Adobe in order to compete for influence with Microsoft in the multimedia production arena.

Apple, however, doesn’t need fear any such competitive threat from Microsoft or Adobe. At present, no other desktop computing hardware distributor has such a high degree of exceptionalism for its own operating system and application software as does Apple.

Many in both the FOSS and Windows user communities view any higher degree of exceptionalism for a company’s own proprietary trimmings as "arrogance", "pomposity", "bigotry", "ignorance", "hypocrisy", etc. But any company, IMO, would take such an approach if they could afford losing potential sales opportunities; Adobe and Microsoft have historically taken such an approach towards their own stacks as well.

Plus, a higher exceptionalism for your own stack often results in loyal, high-paying customer bases, rumor communities and vigilant keyboard armies. Apple, Adobe and Microsoft all have such customer bases and fandoms, all of which are accused of being as shrill and arrogant as the companies to which they give such fealty, devotion and attention.

So a better question to ask of Apple would be this: "is Apple’s corporate exceptionalism a bigger open source enemy than Microsoft’s corporate exceptionalism?"

And my answer would be "Yes. Yes it is."

Ideas for October 18th

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  • Peer-side scripting – Have any programmers come across this idea yet? Simply put, you automate the user interface and functionality of your P2P software application with scripts.
  • Student-owned schools – Especially useful for colleges and universities. It would make more sense than corporately-owned or state-owned schools, especially technical/community colleges.
  • XUL controls for SVG animation and Ogg playback – I’m hoping that the Mozilla folks have planned on this idea (for Firefox 4, which looks like it will have SMIL and Ogg playback), which should be feasible given the fact that XUL, as both a runtime and a markup language, is mostly dependent upon JavaScript and XML (the latter being what SVG is dependent upon) for interpretation.

That’s it for now.

Burying vs. Wu wei

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Went to the doctor yesterday, going to get an MRI soon. Hope for the best.

Anyway, there has long (over two years, actually) been an active and heated discussion about Digg’s bury brigade, which is seen more as a demonym for a large and disparate group of Digg users who are united only by their fondness for organized "burying" (downmodding) of recently-posted URLs based on their different agendas or impulses.

Continue reading Burying vs. Wu wei →

I’m tripping balls…

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Had a dream last night. Involved some playful tummy scritching.

Couldn’t tell if it was furry or human, but I saw a bit of beefcake and chest hair in it. It was cute; it personally reminded me of a Japanese yiff pic that I’ve seen often.

Sinus drainages can have you feeling really happy (and crappy), I guess. Looking forward to another sick-day dream (I should become a Hunter S. Thompson-type psychonaut).

Also, WikiFur will hit its 10,000 article in a short while. Congrats to greenreaper, the immediate wikifur community and other contributors for heading this project toward such an occasion, and I’m glad to be a contributor (or a helper-upper, if you prefer).

Correction to previous post on my nephew

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Just found out that my nephew is going to a psychiatric facility in Douglasville (right next door to Atlanta) rather than the one in Savannah. Apparently, it is closer to Columbus.

Also, the bailout bill passed the House today (after the Senate approved it earlier this week).

Dammit.

At least it included some provisions for protecting homeowners, although I don’t expect that to placate the "No Bailout" campaign, which wants to jail the bankers (which I don’t mind, except that its a rather populist approach).

Also, I found out the difference between a web host and an FFmpeg host, and wrote a wiki article on it. Then wrote some more wiki articles on LGBT wings and affiliates of political parties.

And I found out, through a little "strenuous activity" in the bathroom and a later subsequent look on Wikipedia, that I have a subarachnoid hemorrhage, one that I’ve actually had for over a year or more. Of course, I only hit upon what the effect of such a hemorrhage after I felt a tremendous "thunderclap headache" right after the orgasm, but I surmised that I’ve had it for far much longer because I usually feel sore in the back of my head and neck when verbally talking to someone alot (I previously attributed this to shortness of breath, so I try to breathe in before I continue talking).

I’m hoping that this doesn’t get worse, though, or that this doesn’t lead to a life-threatening situation for me (the symptoms look pretty grim, though). I’m certain that internal bleeding in the back of your head is not an ideal situation to find yourself in.

Two happenings

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Today, the House defeated the bailout plan. It has divided both the conservatives into two camps (pro-corporate and nationalists), as it has also split the liberals/progressives in similar fashion (anti-corporate and pro-nationalization). I guess that a "¡No pasarán!" is warranted?

Also, I found out, on his birthday, that my oldest nephew has been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome. Being told that he will spend around a year in a psychiatric facility in Savannah after this weekend was a bit….sudden. No wonder my sister has brought him up to the base here to see a psychiatric doctor.

Plus, it reminds me of this post from back in May. Funny that I talk about the autistic spectrum earlier this year only to find out four months later that my nephew has symptoms that reside within it as well.

Now his mother is comparing his behavior to that of Napoleon Dynamite.

Working on dead wikis

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I work on at least two dead wikis:

It’s quite a labor of love for me, coming back to these wikis to create new categories and articles. At the LGBT Info wiki, this involves the creation of categories that leave out "LGBT" for non-redundancy.

However, this is complicated by the fact that LGBT-relevant articles need to be imported from Wikipedia and recategorized without "LGBT", and by the fact that, other than myself, there are very few other editors or administrators on LGBT Info, and activity is low on there as well. Plus, LGBT Info already has well over 4,000 articles.

Same goes for the Danny Phantom wiki, except that it has around 80 articles.

It’s not a thankless job, though. Besides the indexing by Google of articles both imported and original, it bring greater visibility to more specific and minute details of the overall subject than would be provided by Wikipedia’s own coverage (which regularly dismisses and deletes those details that are "non-notable").

Smaller wikis like those hosted on Wikia, however, need greater activity, in addition to far-better documentation on the import of complicated templates and bot support.

I’m simply working with two which don’t. But I intend to work with them until they can become attractive to new editors again.

Ghostpunk: a proposal

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As you can see in this list on Wikipedia, cyberpunk has multiple derivative genres.

However, I wonder if a new subcategorization of speculative fiction could be created for art, literature, television, film and other media which deal with the combination of ghosts, spirits and the afterlife with literary elements that have been associated with cyberpunk, steampunk and other derivatives: urban settings, overbearing governments, high technology, innovative resistance methods, etc.

I call it "ghostpunk". However, it might also be a subcategory of "mythpunk".

I would say that something as benign and kid-friendly as Danny Phantom would be a good candidate for a Ghostpunk television series, or at least the beginning of a ghostpunk media.

on Bolivia and opportunism; and Toonami

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I think that supporters of both Morales and the opposition in that country are overplaying their ideological hands, or at least the rhetoric of both sides are showing their age.

Also, this has been a month of change:

  • Tsvangirai has negotiated his way into a coalition government with Mugabe.
  • Mbeki’s resigning in South Africa.
  • Olmert is resigning and is being replaced as leader of his party by his foreign minister
  • Toonami has been axed by Cartoon Network.

And on that last note, I wanted to add this:

When Toonami first premiered in 1997, anime wasn’t as ubiquitous in the US as it is now. You already knew about Voltron, Robotech, , Speed Racer, Astro Boy, stuff that had existed for a long time; plus, Sci-Fi channel also showed English-dubbed anime series earlier in the 90’s. But it was one of the first to bring it to such a massive youth audience at such opportune time slots: weekday daytime, weekday nighttime/latenight, weekend morning, weekend afternoon, weekend nighttime/latenight. At its heyday (2000/2001, I believe), Toonami practically had everything that was action-oriented under its wing.

It was also in 2001 that Cartoon Network launched Adult Swim (which premiered Cowboy Bebop that same year). Today, Adult Swim has usurped Toonami’s role as the premier anime block for the network, with Toonami relegated increasingly into the background throughout the 2000s, until its cancellation on September 20. This transition of anime premieres from a primarily children’s/teen’s perspective (Toonami) to a primarily adult perspective (Adult Swim) may reflect many things:

  • The maturation of the Western anime fandom, and its general tastes, within the decade
  • The development of anime from just "kids’ stuff" to cinematic-grade high art
  • The increasing ubqiuity of anime and pseudo-anime on the animation blocks of competing networks
  • The availability of the Internet, as anime is usually distributed long before it is dubbed and premiered on US television (of course, Adult Swim’s website has had a forum board for years, while Toonami’s few Internet-based presences included the Flash (Shockwave?) games that were shown on the website and the more recent Jetstream streaming service)
  • The thinning of the creative thinkers at Williams Street/Cartoon Network/Turner Broadcasting/Time Warner.

Many factors came into play, I’m sure, in the gradual shifting of anime from Toonami, a block on CN that didn’t evolve as much as it could, to Adult Swim, a block that is given its own focus as a separate channel by Nielsen Ratings. How this will pan out in the coming few years will be an interesting thing to see.

And I like how Tom, the long-time host of the Toonami block voiced by Steven Jay Blum, gave a not-too-subtle nod of ironic consideration to the last spoken word of Spike Spiegel, the lead character of the first anime series to premiere on Adult Swim – Cowboy Bebop, which Blum also voiced in the English dub: "Bang".