"A patent pool is being assembled to go after Theora and other “open source” codecs now."

That's kind of scary.

Yeah that sucks, but maybe there's a lesson to be learned here:

Don't purchase streaming services for a one-time cost. Streaming services should be subscription services. Just don't do this. Let the industry know that if you're to purchase something, you should have infinite access to it — otherwise it should be a subscription service.

Btw, Apple probably wouldn't buy a streaming service unless they're planning to offer one themselves. Not that it changes your situation in any way. Just saying that they probably didn't do it just to shut it down.

Building things that people want is overrated. A person can derive great pleasure and satisfaction from ripping things apart instead. That's the gig we're offering. We work with some of the most interesting companies, along with lots of companies with interesting technology you've never heard of.

This job has had me write compilers, learn Scala, reverse and interoperate with freaky network protocols, test chipsets, write hypervisors, extend debuggers, and crawl through the heating ducts and garbage chutes of several of the biggest web apps out there. It is a very cool gig.

http://www.matasano.com

And, I have news! Since last I posted this appeal, we've opened a Bay Area office. I'm hiring in NYC. I'm hiring in Chicago. And I'm hiring in SFBay.

We're looking first and foremost for people who can code and who have a deep interest in software security. I've been thrilled with the quality of people I've gotten to talk to on HN. You can't possibly waste my time. My contact info is in my profile.

Irrelevant. The relevant question is, are unattractive people on trial more likely to be guilty?

"Luh was also formerly employed by Apple on the Final Cut Pro team. He said that because Adobe’s Flash Packager didn’t use Apple’s toolchain to create apps, the resulting code would not work well on an iPhone or iPad. A simple "Hello World" app created in Flash and compiled to work on the iPhone would take up 8 MB, he said, when it should be no longer than a few KB. (Wired.com verified this figure with two other developers who have tested the iPhone Packager tool in CS5.)"

8 MB for a simple binary? Really? That alone is almost enough justification for me. I frequently end up downloading apps directly via my iPhone - a massive increase in download time for no actual gain in value would hurt the experience.

As background: Charles Stross is a prolific science-fiction author. He's a smart guy with a lot of interesting things to say about the future of technology.

I disagree. Microsoft is a company that is about saying yes, to everyone. Apple is one of the few companies which says no on various subjects to reduce the problem space. Eg apple strategically obsoletes stuff like Carbon. I think this has a dramatic effect on the companies involved. Microsofts feature + backward compatibility matrix is so huge (theyre supporting applications that were written for Windows 3.1) that theyre stuck solving an unsolvable problem. Actually interesting anecdote - Simcity depended on a bug in windows 3.x for correct operation, the bug in question was fixed in windows 95. However in testing Microsoft found that simcity breaks and added code as a special case to emulate the bug if simcity is run. (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000054.html).I am not favoring either approach, just saying that there is a big difference. Those that favor backwards compatibility have their adherents (big businesses etc) and those that stay nimble because of periodically cutting dead wood have their own followers (early adopters, technophiles).

As a long-time PHP developer (12+ years, yuck it up PHP haters) I look at this with a combination of awe and disappointment. Awe that someone would be willing to take on implementing a version of PHP that can run on the JVM much like Quercus. Disappointment because what they are doing is not PHP.

If the goal is to recreate the "let's build a better runtime" situation that exists in Ruby but in the PHP world, that is admirable. But if you really want the project to get any sort of traction, creating almost-PHP isn't the way to go.

If you can't run your existing PHP code in this thing, then what's the point?

The big lesson here that might be more pragmatic is to avoid quasi-working, the state of half-working that feels like full-bore work without actually getting much done.

I think this whole situation was summed up for me by a slashdot comment:

Steve Jobs: "We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers."

Yet, it is just fine with Steve Jobs if every iDeveloper is at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when their enhancements will be made available to their customers.

> "Apple's cloud will be federated"

In a sense, it already is.

A friend's Macbook Air SSD died. We plugged her Time Machine to a Mac Mini, restored into a new account, and she had "her" computer. Had been a day or two since her last backup, but MobileMe brought her latest appointments, contacts, and bookmarks back down from the ".Mac" cloud.

She missed having the portable Air, so walked into a BestBuy, got an iPad, logged into MobileMe, and was immediately checking her half dozen email accounts along with, again, all her bookmarks, appointments, and contacts, because those settings were stored in the cloud. Plugged it to the account on the Mac Mini, and now had her 5GB of photos and 20GB of music.

Three weeks later, Apple gave her a fixed Macbook Air. At boot it asked if she owned another Mac, and she plugged in her Time Machine drive. Slightly less than 9 minutes later, a reboot, and "her" Mac was back, again with every app and tweak. MobileMe sync ran, and by the time she opened her iCal, it was up to date.

The hardware essentially didn't matter. "Her" settings, "her" data, were accessible to her across phone, tablet, other person's computer, and a replacement for her own computer, all with zero I.T. effort.

Best part -- she didn't even notice this was remarkable. She just logged into the Macbook Air and started doing email, right at home, without a second thought.

As for that little monolith? Maybe it's already here -- Time Capsule is an Airport Extreme with built in dual channel 802.11a/b/g/n and another guest WiFi DMZ, includes TimeMachine wireless backup, offers a USB printer hub, and gives remote access that also syncs to MobileMe (which stores documents and personalization in the cloud).