Luci Sandor's blog

Nashi

lucisandor — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 12:58:45 +0000

A common joke, a few weeks ago, was that Chelsea FC players are known, among Russian government, as Nashi, that is Our boys, because Abramovich, the owner of the London team, pays those huge salaries with his Siberian-originated fortune. I saw Manchester United playing yesterday and I realized that Americans have their Nashi, whom they pay straight from the federal budget, through the insurance company AIG, 80%-owned by "New Labour" US government.

Liestation

lucisandor — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 13:25:54 +0000

In theory, Microsoft Research developed a new, free, high-quality mean for live TV distribution over the internet. In practice, Livestation will play only content that Windows Media Player already plays on your computer, and you will have to install Silverlight to figure that.

Correct me if I am wrong

lucisandor — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 04:21:44 +0000

Yet another use of fMRI is documented on a recent news item published by the BBC. In both the people with diagnosed OCD, and their relatives, the amount of activity (in a specific area of the brain, the orbitofrontal cortex - my note) was much lower. In an interview, the author declares What it could do is help test the effectiveness of interventions for OCD. Does it mean that this method can also measure the effectiveness of interventions against familial history of OCD?

Risktaking and back to communism

lucisandor — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 04:13:34 +0000

I recently read with interest the FT article on recent developments at CME (”Communism to risktaking”, July 10). Adrian Sarbu, a Romanian manager in the company, gets a well-deserved praise from his boss, Michael Garin. However, I found intriguing the inset mentioning that Pro TV, the main CME channel in Romania, “broadcasts 24 hours a day online”. Visiting the ProTV website today is an experience no different than many years ago: three-minutes news and new book reports, five-minutes show fragments, and a huge amount of 30-seconds promos. The horoscope is broken down into signs, probably to save bandwidth or on a need-to-know basis. The station still does not stream live at all and does not to offer full records of any but a few shows, while the two main competitors offer both these services freely. This hardly makes an “internet virtuoso”. It is true that another CME station, ProTV International, a niche channel for the diaspora, streams over the internet, but it is not much of a technical accomplishment, when looking at a price tag starting at 9.50 dollars a month for a program including soaps that were on ProTV two years ago. One theory would be that ProTV uses geographic filters in order to prevent access me and anybody outside Romania from viewing for free its most valuable programmes. That is uncommon in Romanian market, but resembles iPlayer’s unavailability outside UK. Another, more likely, interpretation is that we are witnessing a return to practices from Communist times. During the last years of the Ceausescu regime, rationing and hour-long queues for bread were common across the country; at the same time, a large majority of the state-owned farms’ managers reported to “the Centre” and bragged on TV about yields of more than 20 tonnes of wheat per hectare, in order to be awarded medals as “Heroes of the New Agrarian Revolution”. We know the outcome of that “revolution”: the Centre saw it as a success, the deprived citizens - less so. In December 25, 1989, a more real Revolution, supported by millions of New Agriculture unsatisfied consumers, lead to the execution of Ceausescu. Oblivious, until his last moment, the man at the Centre did not believe there were bread shortages. Alas, with the fall of communism, that is a trial the London-based CME Centre and the credulous Mr. Garin will not have to go through.

What IT means to some

lucisandor — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 04:06:58 +0000

A reading of the interview of the AOL Europe chief manager, Dana Dunne, makes your day. I will not delve into the long passages which describe at great length his life experiences, as they indeed sound very well and also boring at times. More interesting is what AOL pretends to be.

The interview, edited in the FT manner, says AOL is a well-established, well-respected brand whose name, in the US at any rate, is practically synonymous with service provision over the internet. No, in US AOL is known an internet provider, not as an internet-borne services provider - and a cheap and lousy if we get to that. Also AOL is a CD provider - they will send you a CD right away, too bad it will be already written.

The reading goes on like this: The plan was to convert the former ISP into an internet portal, a free service providing compelling content that would be paid for by online advertising. According to Mr Dunne, the change has been successful and rapid. Funny, stock market prices would not confirm the “success”, revenue wouldn’t either. Market share for internet search, web-based email or IM is microscopic, amazing for a major player only a few years ago. This happened even before Mr. Dunne joined AOL, in 2005, but continued throughout. True, Winamp or Netscape, some of the most used PC applications, have lost their appeal long before 2005, but it is since then that they were killed thoroughly. Netscape’s plug was pulled this year, and Winamp died, unofficially, in the beginning of 2005, when the last original developer left. Ever since, Winamp did not change, did not improve, and was replaced even by bloated garbage such as today’s Windows Media Player or Itunes.

Speaking of Winamp. The interview mentions it: He points to the company’s Winamp media player as an example of its new approach. The software which drives the player was written in the US, Europe, India and China. Furthermore, the code is open – other companies can write “plug-ins” for it, special programs which extend its capabilities. Now it is possible to stream music off your PC remotely to your mobile phone using a Winamp plug-in. To be more specific, Winamp was extensible way before AOL messed it. The first version after AOL bought it was incompatible with plugins already written, and that led to a market share collapse. Next iteration brought back compatibility with older plugins, but it was years too late and users already found more reliable replacements. Maybe this way of breaking and repairing whatever customers found useful in your product is the so-called new approach, but my guess is that it is not an optimal one. And, of course, now it is possible to listen to music on your mobile - it is called Comes with Music, and it doesn’t require an computer powered on, running a bloated application.

He points, however, to the fact that from a mere three European countries when he took over, AOL is now present in 13. Let me see if I got it: a few years ago, if you typed “AOL.com” in your browser, you would have to be in the right country, otherwise AOL would not be “present” for you. Even today it is almost the same, but the number of countries where the website doesn’t exist is smaller. Even inside the Schengen area or the eurozone, some countries will see AOL as “absent”, whatever that is.

Last year AOL issued four big upgrades of its e-mail application. This made me laugh. After so many years of hostile treatment, even conservatory grandmas left AOL’s email, and the four upgrades won’t turn them back. Maybe some more four of those.

The company [...] has the advantage of a chief executive knowledgeable about technology. Poor thing, I bet he uses at work both Google search and Microsoft-powered Exchange email. Maybe he assumes those are AOL products?

BBC World Service closes Romanian service

lucisandor — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:43:25 +0000

After 69 years of Romanian radio, BBC decides to withdraw from Romania. Official reasons are the loss in general radio audience and BBC market share (less than 3%). There is no mention of how the Bucharest office became the playground of the Romanian government, and how inconvenient journalists were dismissed at the request of Romanian authorities. (Citing US State Dept: In November [2003], the Romanian service of the BBC did not renew the contract of a long-serving reporter, Traian Ungureanu. Ungureanu was respected for his political analyses and known for frequent criticisms of PSD policies. Press colleagues believed Ungureanu’s removal was linked to these criticisms; the BBC responded by saying that Ungureanu, a 14-year veteran, had failed a routine voice test. Several reporters and an editor at the BBC resigned to protest the dismissal. This happened in the same era when Tony Blair pressured the Romanian PM to sell a huge state-owned steel mill to Mittal.)

All other 31 localized, foreign-language services, will be maintained until these pesky Iranians will learn what democracy is.

Need new reasons to buy Microsoft software?

lucisandor — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:14:47 +0000

A recent article from Microsoft’s website writer sdfJuliaasdasd Francis shows how "Office XP is great for Home users". From the Knowledge Base article 556099, summarized "Office is so handy, I love it", one may learn that in fact "sadf asdf" and various other things that one can type with only four keys. This makes sense especially when read backwards, or upside down.

Comissioner Reding: you could pay to receive a phone call

lucisandor — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 04:21:52 +0000

A stupid idea which essentially makes me to reject any call from unknown phone numbers: US mobile phone customers pay for mobile phone calls, no matter whether they called or were called. A worse idea is that one has to pay for a received text message (SMS), and there’s no straightforward way to reject these messages. Armed with a plan like mine (unlimited free texts), one could send you thousands of text messages, until you go bankrupt, and there’s nothing you can do about it. EU telecom comissioner, Viviane Reding, declared for the FT that she thinks this double-charging practice is fit for European customers too. After inflating hundreds of millions of cell bills, Ms. Reding must feel very satisfied.

Live blogging from the train (2)

lucisandor — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 01:17:05 +0000

I am on my way to write a series of blogs from the train. A horribly hot/humid day which beats hands down all horrible weather I have witnessed in NJ/NYC in the recent years triggered power shortages which affected computers and trains alike. According to the conductor of the train that I am riding just now, no train moves between Philly and NYC. I shall be stuck somewhere midway along with some other hundreds of late commuters. NJtransit.com confirms that, Amtrak.com does not publish such information about the lines they own and operate.
Later edit: Only 40 minutes delay! That’s almost normal business.
Even later: The other Newark - New York City train, the PATH, just announced 20 minutes delays, after cancelling its other line for the whole day. With the whole 4 dollars a gas gallon fuss keeping leisure drivers away from the wheel, it will soon be faster to drive into Manhattan.

Tri-team game

lucisandor — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 17:41:14 +0000

According to Livescore.com, in a game featuring Romanian and French national teams in Zurich, “the home team have had 45% of possession compared to the away team’s 55%.” That probably meant that Swiss players were on the field too.