Re: [Fsfe-uk] Explanation of Tivosiation and problems - comments sought

[Nic James Ferrier]

Chris Croughton <address@hidden> writes:

> Why do you not trust the computer diagnostics of the dealer?  That's
> about the only part of car manufacturers' 'approved' dealers I'm at all
> confident is OK.

Gee, let me see. Do you trust a politician not to lie?


> My point exactly, they don't care and neither should they care.  The
> thing is an appliance, what they care about is whether it works and does
> what they need or want.  It's a very small proportion who want to fiddle
> with it beyond changing the colour and font.  Do you know (or care) what
> operating system your TV uses?  If so, why?

My TV is just a monitor for the television reception box I built
myself out of a PC, Linux and MythTv.

I think customization is very popular. You're really underestimating
the popularity of hacking. It is big and it is getting bigger. Just
because "most" people don't want to hack, doesn't mean that the number
who do isn't a large scalar number.

"Most" people don't want to shoot live animals. But the number who do
is large. "Most" people don't drive Ford cars. But the number who do
is large.


Interestingly, television has been an unusual technology so far in
that it has not had many hackers. Think canal boats, steam trains,
cars, radio - all have good hacker communities. But that is changing
and changing fast. Look at online video. It's massive. The content
side is driving interest in the hardware/software side because they
are inextricably linked.

On Friday I was having a conversation with a musician friend of mine
who wanted help in ripping his content out of youtube in a particular
way. Really technical stuff, he's going to alter an XMLRPC template I
sent him.

Another friend wanted a detailed understanding of QoS (quality of
service) issues to see if he had any chance of collaborating live in
music playing. People will drive these things. Many people won't be
involved because they're off shooting animals or driving Ford
cars. But many will because they're interested in it.

In other words: the world is bigger than you appear to think it is.


> Yes, it will make mobile phones as useful as CB radio.  

But it will still happen.

As an example, my wife's phone has a music player. She's not technical
but she knows that the quality sucks compared to the CD she's playing
a copy of. She prefers the phone because it's more portable and then
she doesn't have to carry 2 devices. But she would like it if I wrote
an ogg based player for her because then she'd get better quality. 


> It was fine while it was limited to a few, but once all the oiks got on
> it the thing became unusable.  I can just see the potential for
> unscrupulous individuals to flood the mobiles with advertising, jam the
> phone and data to the point where it is as bad as email is now.

And I don't get spam from my phone company now? I think the cost of
calls is what's limiting that. Not the software. Even with fablabs
it'll take us a while to build a free 3g network.

Now wifi on the other hand...


> Although I suspect that your 'soon' and mine are not the same, I doubt
> that it will be economical to build your own phone in the near future
> even with standardised parts.

I dunno... you can already change the software on the phone
completly. I have a bunch of hardware hacks that I'd like to perform.

I expect that commercial pressure from alternative mobile mediums will
cause the a very hackable phone to be available within 2 years.

-- 
Nic Ferrier
http://www.tapsellferrier.co.uk   for all your tapsell ferrier needs