Commentary: Pirates of Silicon Valley

I just finished watching Pirates of Silicon Valley. Undeniably Steve Jobs came out pretty poorly from the film.

From the cult of personality that Jobs would appear to have been fostering, to the abandonment of his child, Bill Gates and Microsoft came out pretty much unscathed. There were some dirty business tactics, that much is true, but nothing so damning.

Docu-drama of course, this should be taken with a pinch of salt, but wikipedia seems to verify much of the details. I’ve always been highly suspicious of the apparent cult of mac and its been quite unclear where it started, this film definitely explained that aspect of Apple for me.

Have you watched Pirates of Silicon Valley? What were your thoughts?

DevDays 2009 iPhone Developer Workshop

image courtesy of Apple

[SiliconRepublic] reports that On the 23rd and 24th of April, Digital Circle, in conjunction with the Digital Media Forum and Create Ireland, are holding Ireland’s first iPhone developers’ workshop in both Dublin and Belfast.

DevDays 2009 is Ireland’s first iPhone developers’ workshop, hosted by Digital Circle, in conjunction with the Digital Media Forum and Create Ireland. Catering for everyone from complete novices to experienced hands looking for some extra advice, this free event gives attendees the chance to meet iPhone developers and interact with official Apple engineers.

read more at [devdays] via [siliconrepublic]

Irc Operators: the scurge of civilised communication

There are people I know who will remain nameless, who have at one point in time operated Internet Relay Chatrooms (IRC). These people could be ordinary folk in regular conversation, perhaps a little socially awkward, but not always or obviously so. Transport these very same people into the dank cave-like environment where IRC resides and they transmogrify themselves into Golems.

I should mention, for the unintiated: IRC is an ancient (by Internet standards) communication standard which lets people from all over the globe create chatrooms and talk about how emo they are, or how particularly important their world view is, despite how disjointed or warped. Just like everywhere else on the Intertubes, only seedier.

I cant explain it and I dont know why but as soon as ordinary people are given even a minute amount of power over others, regardless of the context or environment, they go bonkers. absolutely.

It has been so rare that I have experienced a civilised, well thinking and sensible person in an IRC channel, that I cant be entirely sure that I didnt imagine them out of pure desperation.

Of those who I have known to become moderators, operators and/or admins of IRC servers, once they believe they have power they go power mad. Sabre rattling as and when the mood hits them, ostensibly claiming omnipotence over all that is ‘the chat’ and omniscience over everything else.

One can easily lose faith in humanity with the types of individuals that lurke in the cellar of the Internet that is, the IRC channels.

IRC is only of value whilst it lets people talk freely without despotic administration or political back biting. To those who think that IRC is the be-all and end-all, you need to re-evaluate yourself, there are more important things in life than watching a monitor waiting for someone to slip up so you can crack down your personal brand of justice upon them.

The Internet is meant to be about the free exchange of ideas, not an exercise in ‘how best can I control my sheep so they worship me most’.

Omegle – Exactly what your mom told you to avoid

Omegle is yet another Web 2.0 social networking experiment. Visitors are anonymised to the monikers ‘You’ and ‘Stranger’, such that your almost guaranteed to always be talking to someone new… and strange.

Omegle is essentially an ajax chat portal where you are more than encouraged to talk to strangers, thats the only people you can talk to.

There is something strangely intriguing about talking to absolute strangers, that you know nothing about and who also know nothing about you. It does have some negative drawbacks, as would any site based on such a minimalist concept, namely spammers and for some unknown reason alot of non-english speaking people trying to learn english, mostly Chineese for some reason.

If your bored, why not give Omegle a go, worst thing that can happen is you’ll purpetually be accused of being a 57 year old pervert.