I spend a good bit of my time thinking about the future and game consoles have been a big topic of interest for me over the years. I'd like to make a few predictions on the next generation of systems and what will happen in general as far as hardware is concerned in the gaming industry.
So right now depending on how you look at it, this generation has 2 very successful systems: the Wii and the Xbox360. The reason there is no clear winner right now is because the two focus on fairly different markets. On the one hand you have the 360 and the PS3 which try to be impressive, powerful, HD capable hardcore gaming machines. Nintendo however decided to just not even compete at all with them this generation and sell what is basically an over-clocked GameCube and focus their attention on a new controller paradigm with the "wii-mote." Nintendo's focus on casual gaming and making their system more accessible to those who may have never owned a system before really helped the system flourish. However, as while the system has technically done very well as it has sold about as many as the 360 & PS3 combined have...it's not selling many games. And what good is a game system if no one really buys any games for it? Also another problem for the system is that it has not aged well. As the Wii was very similar to the GameCube (in both design and power) developers had already maxed out it's potential within its first year of release. More importantly though is its lack of HD capabilities. When the Wii launched not many people had HDTVs yet, but today they have become commonplace in the US and it's getting rare to find someone that doesn't have a TV that pushes at least 720p. This makes the Wii with it's max of 480p (anamorphic) look awfully "jaggie" and/or blurry to someone who's grown accustomed to a higher resolution.
Sony went the opposite route in trying to make the PS3 the premium game console aimed almost strictly for hardcore gamers. This would have probably worked, if the system was even noticeably more powerful than the 360, which came out a year before it did. Hardcore gamers always want the best of the best experience (just look at how much money PC gamers spend every year on hardware), but even they have a tough time telling the difference between the graphics, physics and AI on the two systems. Top on then the fact that PS3 has always been the most expensive, mainly thanks to the inclusion of BluRay and has stayed above $300 until just recently (which many have claimed to be the most you can possibly sell a successful console for). There are many other things I could say about the PS3, but they're beyond the scope of what I'm discussing here today.
I would call the 360 the most successful console, even though the Wii has sold more systems, as they sell more actual games. First off they beat the other two to the party by a year and established a first mover advantage. But, more importantly I'd say is that they focus on the entire gaming market. Nintendo may be content with the casuals, and Sony tries really hard to win over the hard-core, but Microsoft being who they are want the entire pie to themselves. Luckily here, unlike the PC realm, this benefits everyone as it causes them to compete more aggressively. Almost every 3rd party developer I've read about says that the 360 has the easiest development environment of all the systems. Nintendo has the middle here, but they've done what it always has done and that is focus on selling their own games, and seemingly could care less if any 3rd parties are really successful or not. And Sony, from what I understand, has the most difficult of them all...which they also had in the last generation, but they could get away with it then as the PS2 had a huge market-share advantage that they don't have this go round. The other big advantage the Xbox has is the Xbox Live service, which some would say is the number one thing they have going for them. Sony's PlayStation Network still seems to be playing catch up and Nintendo's online services are all but non-existent.
Anyway, enough about the past/present...what will these guys be doing in the future? Next Christmas Microsoft and Sony will both be releasing their own motion control systems to finally compete directly with the Wii. Microsoft has opted to go completely controller free with it's Project Natal (codename) using a 3D camera system and motion recognition software, and Sony seems to be trying to find some sort of middle-ground with a very complex remote/pointer combined with the eyeToy. This has grave implications for Nintendo. Also, as while I'm not so sure about Sony, Microsoft has been trying very hard to cater to Nintendo's userbase with the addition of more casual/arcade games and even an Avatar system that is ridiculously similar to Nintendo's Mii system.
With the 360 and PS3 directly competing with the Wii now, Nintendo will be forced to respond. With it's competition capable of much more advanced graphics, let alone a 1080p resolution the appeal of the Wii will become almost non-existent unless you're wanting to play a first party game. As while Sony announced a lofty 10 year life cycle for the PS3 and similar expectations are unofficially expected with 360, Nintendo never made such claim. They're practically the originators of the 5 year life cycle so if they follow their past tradition we should already be expecting a new system in 2011. This will also give them just enough time to see what their competition's final motion systems look like in case they want to borrow something for their next system. I would be absolutely shocked if we do not see a new Nintendo system just in time for the 2011 Christmas season. I wouldn't be that surprised if it even showed up next year as a supposed refresh called "WiiHD" or something of that sort, that merely builds on top of what the Wii has done but adds the ability for 1080p (at the very lease 720p) resolution with a bit more RAM and maybe even a dual-core version of the current processor. They might even market it as if it wasn't even really a new system...but simply an upgrade. Whatever they do, it will have to be able to compete with the 360 and PS3 more directly in terms of graphics. I can only hope they do it right and give us something that actually surpasses them, more importantly in the realm of physics, which matter alot more when you are quasi-interacting with them somewhat physically rather with simple button presses. They will also have to have a hard drive built in, there really is no excuse anymore. But, at the end of the day...even if the next Nintendo system is on par or even a little better than the 360/PS3 it won't matter long when the other guys release their next systems.
Next up I'm going to talk about the PS4 and the next-gen Xbox at the same time, as they're already so similar. As some people have trouble differentiating between the graphics of a PS2 and a PS3 or an Xbox vs an Xbox360, they're all really gonna have to try hard to give the average gamer a reason to upgrade. First off, games need to run at 60 fps rather than the 30 we've grown accustomed to as good-enough. Next up 1080p is here, and gamers expect not just 1920x1080 resolution, but good anti-aliasing on top of it. As Microsoft required a minimum of 4xAA@720p with the 360, MS needs to require 8xAA@1080p on their next system. Next up more dynamic animation systems need to become the norm. A few games played around with the first generation of this via Natural Motion's Endorphin, but now it's time to take it to the next level, which faster processors and more RAM will certainly help with. Not only do canned animations need to be all but done away with, but we need actual muscular/skeletal simulation systems like they use in pre-rendered CG movies. Obviously much more advanced physics and particle effects will help too. The next thing that needs to become the norm is the use of High Dynamic Range (HDR). 24-bit color scenes with 32-bit shading and textures (sometimes not even that) might fly for now, but the next gen needs to take advantage of 64bit rendering techniques and the 30 & 36 bit color HDTVs many people now have sitting in their living rooms. Another big thing will be real 3DTV. As Sony's already talking about doing it with the PS3, the next gen will have to be able to support your new Shutter Glasses, Vertical Stereo Prism LCDs or maybe even some Video Goggles.
Now all these graphical details are nice, and in my opinion should be pretty much mandatory for any new systems that launches as of you reading this, but what will really take things to the next level will be Real-Time Ray Tracing (RTRT). People have been doing experiments with it for years, but now it's almost within our grasp. If you have a cluster of PCs you can already do it. I've seen one demo that uses 3 PS3s, so obviously a triple-core Cell processor (with 21 SPEs) should be capable of it...but triple-core? Isn't that what the 360 already has? And many PCs are now coming with quad-core CPUs (6 & 8 core as soon as next year)...so obviously they'll have to out do that...right? I also expect both Sony and Microsoft to have new systems no earlier than 2012, and no later than 2014.
I have a big hunch Microsoft will return into the arms of Intel with it's next system. It tried to make it's own custom chip with the 360, but from what I've read it hasn't saved them nearly as much money as they had hoped as commodity chips' cost have dropped much faster. I expect the next Xbox to have at least a quad, if not an octo-core Intel i9 CPU. However, I could be wrong...like I said I have no actual information to point me to this. They could very well license a new 6-core version of the IBM chip they have plus some of the Cell's SPEs (vector co-processors) tacked on. Anyway, assuming they go the Intel route my gut tells me they will, I could also see them easily go for using the upcoming Larrabee GPU too. Intel's still-unreleased Larrabee can run traditional rasterization (Direct3D/OpenGL), but it really shines when used for RTRT. I also expect Microsoft and Sony to finally come to some sort of agreement so that the Xbox will finally have a BluRay drive in it too.
Now Sony will almost definitely go with a new revision of the Cell processor, as they spent so much time and money helping develop it, I don't think it will be too easy for them to abandon it, especially after they failed to really make any money off it this generation. If they do they'll certainly want a more powerful setup, but luckily the Cell has always been designed to scale up for larger multi-core configurations. I'd expect about somewhere between a 4 to 8 core configuration here as well. And as while the PS3 had 7 SPEs, I couldn't see this one having any less than 16, probably more like 32, maybe even 64 as Sony will really want to try to do a better job of one-uping Microsoft on having the more powerful system. Then they'll probably put another Nvidia GPU in the system, maybe even a dual-core there too. Now on the flip-side I did see a rumor recently that Sony's courting Intel to let them have the Larrabee GPU exclusive to the PS4, so maybe I've got the two backwards? I do seriously doubt though that Sony would use an IBM CPU paired with an Intel GPU...if someone goes Larrabee, they'll most likely be using an Intel processor too.
Now what I'd really love to see here is Nintendo come and surprise us out of left field using AMD's next generation CPU that has GPU/vector processor cores built-in to it all in one chip...but I'd call that one a long shot as I seriously doubt it will be ready in time for the timeframe I'm expecting the next Nintendo system out by...but they have surprised us before I guess. I completely expect them to stick with the Wii-mote concept, but maybe they'll come up with something even cooler, like real VR Gloves (not that PowerGlove bullsh*t)?
One last thing...RAM. Both the Xbox360 and PS3 have a total 512MB of RAM available to both the system and graphics card. The 360 has an additional 10MB embedded in it's GPU (think sort of like how the CPU has L2 & L3 cache). Then the poor Wii only has 91MB of RAM. As the average PC today comes with 3 or 4 GB of RAM and most video cards have a gig of their own RAM too, I'd expect both the 360 and PS3 to have about 4GB total (shared), and I really hope Nintendo's next system has at least 1GB, if not 4 like the others.
Regardless of what happens...the future is as always, exciting...and it's gonna be all about even higher quality graphics that makes you glad to own a HDTV; multiple-core processors that can do much more realistic physics and better AI, more focus on internet connectivity whether that be in multiplayer or direct downloads...and if I'm right, it'll all start to show up pretty damn soon. I expect to see a new Wii in 2011, followed by a new Xbox in 2012 and then a new PlayStation in 2013. Personally, I'd like to see everyone work together on one unified standard, but for all we know Cloud Gaming may swoop in and eliminate the need for even needing much of a console in the next 5-10 years.
2009-07-24
Google's ChromeOS: O3D Integration Changes Everything...
Ok, so like many I've been extremely skeptical ever since it was first announced that Google was planning on building their own Operating System centered primarily around Chrome and the web. Obviously this would be fine for a netbook, where a browser's all you really need, but when they claimed people would use it on their desktops too, that's when I was confused. People expect a desktop (or full fledged laptop for that matter) to do alot more than just browse the web, especially when it comes to multimedia and gaming.
Well yesterday it was announced that the Chromium developers plan to make O3D a built-in standard component for a future release...probably Chrome 3 I'd be willing to bet, and probably the same version that will show up in the first edition of the Chrome OS. That's when it finally clicked...this could change everything. As I researched the topic today I stumbled also across Google's Native Client (NaCl for short, so should I just call it Salt from here out I guess?) which looks to add faster performance than a javascript engine will ever be able to accomplish, but more importantly could add the ability to use other languages like C/C++ or maybe even Python (my personal fav) right in your web apps.
And now it's all coming together. A year ago we all questioned...why is Google bothering releasing their own browser? Why not just work with Firefox? Then a couple weeks ago we once again thought...why is Google bothering creating it's own OS? They could just work with Ubuntu? When they announced O3D, I thought to myself...oh, neat...that could be really cool one day. But, now I've finally gotten a glimpse of the big picture. Combine all of this together and they just might be able to pull off things we never thought could happen, at least not any time remotely soon.
With Chrome having this new Native Client ability in combination with O3D (not to forget HTML5 audio/video support too), you might actually be able to make the next generation of web apps really compete directly against native desktop apps...and this makes the concept of a Chrome OS suddenly much more feasible... If you could play Xbox360 and PS3 quality PC games right in your browser, if you could have silky smooth GL powered interfaces for web apps...it all gives things much greater potential than what the ol' Web2.0 & AJAX revolution a couple years back have provided us with so far.
Not only this, but since all 4 of these projects are open source, it won't be limited to just Google. Unlike Flash & Silverlight, these technologies will be able to be modified to work really well across numerous operating system and hardware architectures, and be used by other developers and products beyond just Google. Java's new JavaFx platform was looking potentially promising at one point, but as there's yet to be any code released to the public (as far as I'm aware) and with all the uncertainty surrounding Sun's acquisition by Oracle that may never come to fruition. Now Mozilla's also working on some similar technologies, but I'd be willing to wager in a couple years Mozilla and Google will take these new 3D and local/native abilities to the W3C for inclusion in HTML5+1 and find a common ground.
One more interesting concept to also consider is the kind of services all these upcoming cloud gaming services are planning to offer. The more you think about it, the more feasible the concept of only having thin-client cloud computers for everything becomes. All we need now is for our pesky ISPs to pick up the pace with some more bandwidth, and more importantly: much less latency.
This is all very exciting to think about, but we have to remember to still take it with a grain of NaCl as it'll still take quite a few years for these new things to develop and take off with the web development community. Also don't forget that Google will probably have some pretty stiff competition from Microsoft and Apple who obviously won't easily relinquish their current power over general computing. However, the once dreamy picture of a cloud filled future seems to be less a question of if, and now just when? It might just be sooner than we all thought ;)
Well yesterday it was announced that the Chromium developers plan to make O3D a built-in standard component for a future release...probably Chrome 3 I'd be willing to bet, and probably the same version that will show up in the first edition of the Chrome OS. That's when it finally clicked...this could change everything. As I researched the topic today I stumbled also across Google's Native Client (NaCl for short, so should I just call it Salt from here out I guess?) which looks to add faster performance than a javascript engine will ever be able to accomplish, but more importantly could add the ability to use other languages like C/C++ or maybe even Python (my personal fav) right in your web apps.
And now it's all coming together. A year ago we all questioned...why is Google bothering releasing their own browser? Why not just work with Firefox? Then a couple weeks ago we once again thought...why is Google bothering creating it's own OS? They could just work with Ubuntu? When they announced O3D, I thought to myself...oh, neat...that could be really cool one day. But, now I've finally gotten a glimpse of the big picture. Combine all of this together and they just might be able to pull off things we never thought could happen, at least not any time remotely soon.
With Chrome having this new Native Client ability in combination with O3D (not to forget HTML5 audio/video support too), you might actually be able to make the next generation of web apps really compete directly against native desktop apps...and this makes the concept of a Chrome OS suddenly much more feasible... If you could play Xbox360 and PS3 quality PC games right in your browser, if you could have silky smooth GL powered interfaces for web apps...it all gives things much greater potential than what the ol' Web2.0 & AJAX revolution a couple years back have provided us with so far.
Not only this, but since all 4 of these projects are open source, it won't be limited to just Google. Unlike Flash & Silverlight, these technologies will be able to be modified to work really well across numerous operating system and hardware architectures, and be used by other developers and products beyond just Google. Java's new JavaFx platform was looking potentially promising at one point, but as there's yet to be any code released to the public (as far as I'm aware) and with all the uncertainty surrounding Sun's acquisition by Oracle that may never come to fruition. Now Mozilla's also working on some similar technologies, but I'd be willing to wager in a couple years Mozilla and Google will take these new 3D and local/native abilities to the W3C for inclusion in HTML5+1 and find a common ground.
One more interesting concept to also consider is the kind of services all these upcoming cloud gaming services are planning to offer. The more you think about it, the more feasible the concept of only having thin-client cloud computers for everything becomes. All we need now is for our pesky ISPs to pick up the pace with some more bandwidth, and more importantly: much less latency.
This is all very exciting to think about, but we have to remember to still take it with a grain of NaCl as it'll still take quite a few years for these new things to develop and take off with the web development community. Also don't forget that Google will probably have some pretty stiff competition from Microsoft and Apple who obviously won't easily relinquish their current power over general computing. However, the once dreamy picture of a cloud filled future seems to be less a question of if, and now just when? It might just be sooner than we all thought ;)
2009-07-01
Firefox 3.5 Benchmarking in Linux
So I know there are tons of benchmarks already out there about the just released Firefox 3.5, but most of them are Windows focused. So if like me you run a Linux OS there's still a little more to know perhaps?
I know most benchmarkers prefer to do everything very cleanly with nothing but the browser running and maybe even a fresh reboot for each test...but I'm doing this more real world with other programs running in the background and no reboots. Just for reference though, none of the other programs running were changed during the tests to maintain some semblance of scientific objectivity.
I run Ubuntu 8.04 (LTS) still, and so the only official Firefox available to me thru Canonical's repositories is FF 3.0.11. In theory this one should be optimized specifically for use with Ubuntu, but as others have pointed out in the last few months, FF seems to run a bit slower on Linux than Windows of all things. Most believe this to be a matter of optimization, so I am trying out SwiftFox for the first time today too. The version I'm testing is 3.5rc3 and optimized to my Pentium D (prescott, 32bit) CPU, so supposedly it will be faster than the one Ubuntu has shipped and the vanilla binary from Mozilla's website, which is where I got the copy of 3.5 I'll be using for this test. And then on top of those three I'm also going to run the same tests on Google's new Linux alpha version of Chrome (ver:3.0.190.2).
So first off, just for curiosity's sake, let's see how they all do in the ACID3 test:
Firefox 3.0.11: 72%
Firefox 3.5.0: 93%
SwiftFox 3.5.rc3: 93%
Chrome 3.0.190.2: 99.9%
As expected Firefox 3.5 and SwiftFox get the same score as they're technically the same version of the rendering engine. Chrome actually says 100/100, but then it says "linktest failed" below that and there is a big X in the top-right corner, so I've marked it down to 99.9% as I don't know what that really constitutes a score of.
Next up, we'll be running Google's own V8 Benchmark, and the scores are rather surprising.
FF 3.0: 119
FF 3.5: 194
SF 3.5: 230
Chrome: 2492
So, first off the difference between Chrome's score and the other Mozilla based browsers is almost ridiculous. As Google created this benchmark themself, it almost makes you suspicious if they specifically put in tests they knew V8 would handle better than TraceMonkey? So I'll take that portion with a grain of salt. Also these "points" don't have any real intrinsic definition as to how they are calculated, more being better obviously. As for the other three, FF 3.5 doesn't even score twice as high as 3.0 did. Swiftfox however finally proves that it is indeed much better optimized that the other 2 by scoring almost 40 points more than the vanilla build.
Last we'll go with the tried and true SunSpider benchmark provided by the WebKit team.
FF 3.0.11: 5,583ms
FF 3.5: 2,421ms
SF 3.5: 2,111ms
Chrome: 986ms
Here FF 3.5 shows it is clearly much faster than 3.0 by completing the series of tests in less than half the time it took it's older brother. Once again SwiftFox shows us it is certainly faster than its not-so-well optimized cousins. And here Chrome really shines with completing the tests in less than a second! This is over twice as fast as Swiftfox, so maybe that V8Bench score wasn't as artificially bloated as I thought?
There are obviously many other browsers I could have included here, but decided not to bother with. When Konqueror finally switches to WebKit and Squirelfish it may be worth writing about, but for now is last decades' browser. Projects like Midori are also much too new to worry with at the moment. Safari nor IE have native ports for Linux, so they're obviously right out. And last there's Opera... This is a philosophical question for most, but I refuse to use a proprietary browser when there are open source options just as good if not better, so I personally could care less about Opera at all, that and their javascript performance is still quite far behind the likes of TraceMonkey, SquirellFish & V8 from what I understand.
To conclude, Chrome is still extremely alpha at the moment, with no plugin support so it's not really viable for daily use. With no Flash nor HTML5, half the web quickly becomes unusable, so we'll see what the situation is looking like when they finally make their first stable release for Linux based OSes. For now, I know I'll be using SwiftFox from now on ;)
I know most benchmarkers prefer to do everything very cleanly with nothing but the browser running and maybe even a fresh reboot for each test...but I'm doing this more real world with other programs running in the background and no reboots. Just for reference though, none of the other programs running were changed during the tests to maintain some semblance of scientific objectivity.
I run Ubuntu 8.04 (LTS) still, and so the only official Firefox available to me thru Canonical's repositories is FF 3.0.11. In theory this one should be optimized specifically for use with Ubuntu, but as others have pointed out in the last few months, FF seems to run a bit slower on Linux than Windows of all things. Most believe this to be a matter of optimization, so I am trying out SwiftFox for the first time today too. The version I'm testing is 3.5rc3 and optimized to my Pentium D (prescott, 32bit) CPU, so supposedly it will be faster than the one Ubuntu has shipped and the vanilla binary from Mozilla's website, which is where I got the copy of 3.5 I'll be using for this test. And then on top of those three I'm also going to run the same tests on Google's new Linux alpha version of Chrome (ver:3.0.190.2).
So first off, just for curiosity's sake, let's see how they all do in the ACID3 test:
Firefox 3.0.11: 72%
Firefox 3.5.0: 93%
SwiftFox 3.5.rc3: 93%
Chrome 3.0.190.2: 99.9%
As expected Firefox 3.5 and SwiftFox get the same score as they're technically the same version of the rendering engine. Chrome actually says 100/100, but then it says "linktest failed" below that and there is a big X in the top-right corner, so I've marked it down to 99.9% as I don't know what that really constitutes a score of.
Next up, we'll be running Google's own V8 Benchmark, and the scores are rather surprising.
FF 3.0: 119
FF 3.5: 194
SF 3.5: 230
Chrome: 2492
So, first off the difference between Chrome's score and the other Mozilla based browsers is almost ridiculous. As Google created this benchmark themself, it almost makes you suspicious if they specifically put in tests they knew V8 would handle better than TraceMonkey? So I'll take that portion with a grain of salt. Also these "points" don't have any real intrinsic definition as to how they are calculated, more being better obviously. As for the other three, FF 3.5 doesn't even score twice as high as 3.0 did. Swiftfox however finally proves that it is indeed much better optimized that the other 2 by scoring almost 40 points more than the vanilla build.
Last we'll go with the tried and true SunSpider benchmark provided by the WebKit team.
FF 3.0.11: 5,583ms
FF 3.5: 2,421ms
SF 3.5: 2,111ms
Chrome: 986ms
Here FF 3.5 shows it is clearly much faster than 3.0 by completing the series of tests in less than half the time it took it's older brother. Once again SwiftFox shows us it is certainly faster than its not-so-well optimized cousins. And here Chrome really shines with completing the tests in less than a second! This is over twice as fast as Swiftfox, so maybe that V8Bench score wasn't as artificially bloated as I thought?
There are obviously many other browsers I could have included here, but decided not to bother with. When Konqueror finally switches to WebKit and Squirelfish it may be worth writing about, but for now is last decades' browser. Projects like Midori are also much too new to worry with at the moment. Safari nor IE have native ports for Linux, so they're obviously right out. And last there's Opera... This is a philosophical question for most, but I refuse to use a proprietary browser when there are open source options just as good if not better, so I personally could care less about Opera at all, that and their javascript performance is still quite far behind the likes of TraceMonkey, SquirellFish & V8 from what I understand.
To conclude, Chrome is still extremely alpha at the moment, with no plugin support so it's not really viable for daily use. With no Flash nor HTML5, half the web quickly becomes unusable, so we'll see what the situation is looking like when they finally make their first stable release for Linux based OSes. For now, I know I'll be using SwiftFox from now on ;)
2009-04-29
Death & Taxes
The US tax system is really screwed up. I technically work for an accountant (computer biz I work for is a side company of his), but I am quite far from an expert in such things to be upfront about it. Still...
A business gets to right off any kind of operating expenses when doing their taxes, this can be anything from paying employees and the power bill, to advertising and "business meetings" at fancy restaurants. However, you don't get such liberties with your personal filing (as far as I'm aware). In theory, I should in all fairness you would think, be able to write off all my rent, food, power bills, gas, clothing, etc...as they are all operating expenses of my daily life.
I'm curious if I could get away with creating a small LLC called Derick's Life or something, and have it registered as the owner/operator of all my personal expenses. I could even go so far as to contract myself so that I am employed by Derick's Life, LLC and then my real employer pays a contractors fee equivalent to my current pay rate. Then DL corp could pay me officially only what's left of my paychecks after all my bills and living expenses are paid for and budgeted out. Now, at the end of the year Derick's Life, LLC could list my rent, doctors bills, phone bills, car note, etc as expenses (even my sub-paycheck I receive from the LLC ..aka.. spending money/disposable income) and a gross profit of whatever my real employer paid for me to work there.
In theory the company should have to only pay a very small pittance in taxes, compared to what I might have to. Now of course this rant is all silliness in the end as I'm actually getting a refund this year, but still...if I were to actually make the average middle-class wages (which are double what my wife and I both made combined in 2008) I wonder if one could be better off in such a scenario. To sum up my sentiment here if you haven't already inferred it on your own...it seems like the US government give businesses and organizations a better deal than individuals when it comes to taxes...and I just think that's totally backwards of the way it should be ;)
</rant>
Addendum: Yes, I know you can itemize your deductions for personal taxes, but I'm pretty sure things like food, rent and insurance don't count....otherwise why would politicians have even been talking about tax credits for insurance in this past fall's election?
PPS: I'm an odd Libertarian....I guess you could call me a left-leaning, moderate libertarian, as I'm not against taxes completely...I just think they should be minimal and fair ...aka... the poor to lower-middle class shouldn't have to pay any, and the same goes for very small business ;)
I may post my theory on what I consider to be a fair "Dynamic Tax Graduation" in a future web log...
A business gets to right off any kind of operating expenses when doing their taxes, this can be anything from paying employees and the power bill, to advertising and "business meetings" at fancy restaurants. However, you don't get such liberties with your personal filing (as far as I'm aware). In theory, I should in all fairness you would think, be able to write off all my rent, food, power bills, gas, clothing, etc...as they are all operating expenses of my daily life.
I'm curious if I could get away with creating a small LLC called Derick's Life or something, and have it registered as the owner/operator of all my personal expenses. I could even go so far as to contract myself so that I am employed by Derick's Life, LLC and then my real employer pays a contractors fee equivalent to my current pay rate. Then DL corp could pay me officially only what's left of my paychecks after all my bills and living expenses are paid for and budgeted out. Now, at the end of the year Derick's Life, LLC could list my rent, doctors bills, phone bills, car note, etc as expenses (even my sub-paycheck I receive from the LLC ..aka.. spending money/disposable income) and a gross profit of whatever my real employer paid for me to work there.
In theory the company should have to only pay a very small pittance in taxes, compared to what I might have to. Now of course this rant is all silliness in the end as I'm actually getting a refund this year, but still...if I were to actually make the average middle-class wages (which are double what my wife and I both made combined in 2008) I wonder if one could be better off in such a scenario. To sum up my sentiment here if you haven't already inferred it on your own...it seems like the US government give businesses and organizations a better deal than individuals when it comes to taxes...and I just think that's totally backwards of the way it should be ;)
</rant>
Addendum: Yes, I know you can itemize your deductions for personal taxes, but I'm pretty sure things like food, rent and insurance don't count....otherwise why would politicians have even been talking about tax credits for insurance in this past fall's election?
PPS: I'm an odd Libertarian....I guess you could call me a left-leaning, moderate libertarian, as I'm not against taxes completely...I just think they should be minimal and fair ...aka... the poor to lower-middle class shouldn't have to pay any, and the same goes for very small business ;)
I may post my theory on what I consider to be a fair "Dynamic Tax Graduation" in a future web log...
2009-04-04
To blog or not to blog
I honestly have never been a big blogger. I guess putting a big long winded rant or article up where everyone can read it, makes me feel compelled to put a lot of time and effort into it, as well as the general obsessing over wording and typos. But, now that I've been tweeting for the past 9 months it seems more apparent what the division is. Most of the time I, and probably you too, want to express an opinion/ideas about something, but don't feel like putting all the effort into a big long blog post...so now with the magic of "micro-blogging" we can say our opinion simply, not worry about explaining ourselves so well, and move on.
I'm honestly tweet crazy these days, I check for Twitter updates about once an hour if not more frequently. I post things constantly there, and I don't worry so much about typos and such since I'll just end up posting something else pretty soon thereafter. It's really kinda freeing. Somehow the limitation of characters has helped me be able to express more than a blog ever did. For example, I haven't really said too much in this post yet the total character count is 1425. I'm thinking that blogs now can be reserved for the few topics that actually need a lot of explaining and going on about, and 99% of the time we can just spurt out whatever we really wanted to say in a little status update.
PS: the "statusphere" sounds much more clever to me than "blogosphere" ever did ;)
I'm honestly tweet crazy these days, I check for Twitter updates about once an hour if not more frequently. I post things constantly there, and I don't worry so much about typos and such since I'll just end up posting something else pretty soon thereafter. It's really kinda freeing. Somehow the limitation of characters has helped me be able to express more than a blog ever did. For example, I haven't really said too much in this post yet the total character count is 1425. I'm thinking that blogs now can be reserved for the few topics that actually need a lot of explaining and going on about, and 99% of the time we can just spurt out whatever we really wanted to say in a little status update.
PS: the "statusphere" sounds much more clever to me than "blogosphere" ever did ;)
Preditions for Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles (season 2)
I'll try to be as spoiler free as I can with this, but if my predictions turn out to be true...then I guess that would technically make them spoilers too ;)
So I've been thinking this for a while now, but what "Ms, Weaver" said to Ellison in the elevator in episode 20 makes me almost certain of it now. Through out the series they have hinted and alluded that perhaps there are some computers/robots/ai that wish they could find a way to live in peace with the humans in the future. I believe Weaver/T1001 was sent back to create a new AI that would be able to stop SkyNet from starting the war. The only way to beat a malevolent AI, is to make a benevolent one with empathy and compassion that will defend us. This is what I think John Henry is meant to be. This is why they have now revealed his "evil brother." That AI, which is apparently already killing people in full force and mighty powerful, is the one that will become SkyNet. John Henry's purpose is to prevent SkyNet from ever setting off Judgement Day. This would also explain why Weaver has shown no interest in looking for the Connors.
Unfortunately, what will probably happen is that Sarah, John and/or Cameron will kill John Henry by the end of the season, only to learn afterward he was meant to be their protector.
If I'm right, I'll be extremely happy with this narrative-wise. It has always bothered me that people just assume a SkyNet/Matrix like future is inevitable if we create true AI one day...but no one ever thinks about how to prevent it, offering a solution rather than just an empty warning. iRobot (the recent movie, not neccessarily the book as I've yet to read it) kind of hinted at this before, but I think it needs to be explored more. Why do humans not kill all the "lesser" life forms below us? Sure we need food, and we have the forethought to know we couldn't live without some of them...but the real core reason is empathy. It's built into our dna. When we empathise with things, when we humanize things that arent human, we give them some sort of importance. We value their life. So if we're going to create real AI someday, even if it's hundreds of years from now...empathy must be a fundamental feature of that program. And perhaps the writers of TSCC have realized this too?
Update 2009-04-11 (Spoiler Alert!):
Ha! I was totally right about Weaver and John Henry....and I'm very glad to see they didn't kill him off like I was expecting. I also just realized that Weaver is the T1000 that was in "the box" on Jesse's sub. Now where they've taken it...wow, I have no idea what's next. It's looking like we get to see a future without John Connor. I'm loving this show right now, I really hope Fox doesn't kill it off
So I've been thinking this for a while now, but what "Ms, Weaver" said to Ellison in the elevator in episode 20 makes me almost certain of it now. Through out the series they have hinted and alluded that perhaps there are some computers/robots/ai that wish they could find a way to live in peace with the humans in the future. I believe Weaver/T1001 was sent back to create a new AI that would be able to stop SkyNet from starting the war. The only way to beat a malevolent AI, is to make a benevolent one with empathy and compassion that will defend us. This is what I think John Henry is meant to be. This is why they have now revealed his "evil brother." That AI, which is apparently already killing people in full force and mighty powerful, is the one that will become SkyNet. John Henry's purpose is to prevent SkyNet from ever setting off Judgement Day. This would also explain why Weaver has shown no interest in looking for the Connors.
Unfortunately, what will probably happen is that Sarah, John and/or Cameron will kill John Henry by the end of the season, only to learn afterward he was meant to be their protector.
If I'm right, I'll be extremely happy with this narrative-wise. It has always bothered me that people just assume a SkyNet/Matrix like future is inevitable if we create true AI one day...but no one ever thinks about how to prevent it, offering a solution rather than just an empty warning. iRobot (the recent movie, not neccessarily the book as I've yet to read it) kind of hinted at this before, but I think it needs to be explored more. Why do humans not kill all the "lesser" life forms below us? Sure we need food, and we have the forethought to know we couldn't live without some of them...but the real core reason is empathy. It's built into our dna. When we empathise with things, when we humanize things that arent human, we give them some sort of importance. We value their life. So if we're going to create real AI someday, even if it's hundreds of years from now...empathy must be a fundamental feature of that program. And perhaps the writers of TSCC have realized this too?
Update 2009-04-11 (Spoiler Alert!):
Ha! I was totally right about Weaver and John Henry....and I'm very glad to see they didn't kill him off like I was expecting. I also just realized that Weaver is the T1000 that was in "the box" on Jesse's sub. Now where they've taken it...wow, I have no idea what's next. It's looking like we get to see a future without John Connor. I'm loving this show right now, I really hope Fox doesn't kill it off
2009-01-03
Netbooks, UMPCs, and the like will converge with the new smart phones
I made a little tweet about this yesterday, and apparently I need to expound upon the idea a little from all the negative response it got.
In the next couple years, maybe even this year, the niche market that netbooks and UMPCs have been working to fill will shift to the new generation of smart phones including the iPhone and the Android G1.
Next week at CES, it is undoubted that many new phones of this class will be announced and shown to the world. Motorola is already working on moving most of their new high-end smart phones to the Android platform, and surely other companies will be doing the same. This new class of phone is hard to define right now, but lets just say the iPhones and the G1 are pretty much the only phones that qualify at the moment. The Blackberry Storm tries to do it, but from reports I've seen it doesn't quite make the grade and worthless little knockoffs like Samsung's Instinct are definitely out. Eventually though, a common name will come up for the class, we may even want to go back to the dated term "pocket pc" at some point, or perhaps just MobilePC would suffice since apparently outside of the US most people already refer to cell phones simply as "mobiles."
Now, the primary purpose a netbook or UMPC is supposed to fill is to allow you full fledged web browsing on the go. Some may say the UMPC never really took off here, and for the most part you'd be right, but Nokia's N700 and N800s have sold fairly well, even if the more powerful (and more expensive ones) didn't. Clearly the iPhone and G1 already meet this requirement, albeit a little slower with the current gen's lackluster processing power and RAM. The only thing they are both missing is Flash support, which for many sites is an absolute requirement. I'm fairly confident this will change in the next year, if not for the iPhone, then definitely for Android powered phones.
The next thing netbooks/UMPCs are used for is email/chatting/IM, which both the iPhone and G1 already have numerous options thanks to their app repositories. Some would argue Android is lacking here with no support for things like Microsoft's Exchange server, but businesses aren't really the ones buying netbooks and UMPCs in the first place.
Some people use their UMPCs and netbooks for multimedia (primarily video or music playback) and obviously Apple's iTunes/iPod inspired iPhone does this to a pretty decent extent assuming you are using the Apple approved file formats. I'm not sure what the state of this is on the G1 right now, but I'm sure it can hold it's own.
Now, anything beyond these features really goes outside the scope of what these devices are being sold for. Yes, you can take notes and write papers on the netbooks, but forget about it on a UMPC. In fact many people still complain the keyboards of most netbooks are still too small to do any "real" typing. In the case of our smart phones many people are already working on solutions to the problem, although they're still not quite there yet. I personally think a nice roll-up keyboard would be the perfect accessory for these phones if they had proper USB ports and support from their OSes.
Another thing people complain about is that these phones' screens are still too small, and I guess that's really subjective. I currently own an iPhone, and 9 times out of 10, the screen size really hasn't been a problem for me like I thought it would. There are rumors right now of 4" and 6" models of the iPod Touch coming out this year, so if that turns out to be true, Apple will probably try the same with their 3rd generation of iPhones too (current model is just over 3"). Just remember, at the end of the day, no matter how big we would like these screens to be, at some point it stops fitting in your pocket. I think 4"-4.5" is the sweet-spot personally.
Now obviously these smart phones can boast they have things most UMPCs and netbooks (not counting what are referred to as ultra-mobile notebooks....that's a different class) can't do, like play videogames, work as a camera/camcorder (jailbraking required in the case of the iPhone) and of course, making phone calls.
No matter how much we fight it, people love convergence. The ability to carry just one device in your pocket is great. Just a few days ago on New Years Eve I saw one of my friends carrying around both a semi-smart phone and a separate digital camera and it's sad because you would think that'd be the easiest thing to add to a smart phone. There are already some cell phones, like the Nokia N82, with nice camera abilities, but they're still too expensive. My current gen iPhone's camera is damn near pathetic at only 2 megapixels, no flash, no zoom...but I'm sure the next revision will have to finally try a little harder in that department if Apple knows anything about what its customers want. And with the diversity Android brings to the table, there's no doubt a few companies will get it right.
The only other hurdles right now are price and wireless availability, and I don't think these will be much of a problem for too much longer. In fact this is the one part of my prediction I'll be so bold to say will definitely happen this year... AT&Ts 3G service is already plenty fast, and many other companies are already working toward 4G. Sprint already started rolling out their WiMax service in a couple test cities last year, and hopefully we'll see AT&T and Verizon do something worthwhile with the 700Mhz spectrum they bought up almost a year ago now. Even here in rural Mississippi, there are many places where you can not get a broadband land-line, but you can pick up a decent signal for broadband wireless (3G/EVDO/etc...but I don't count Edge, it's pathetically slow).
In the price department, we were already close in 2008. The iPhone 3G sells for $199.99 and the T-Mobile/HTC/Google G1 sells for just $179.99 (with a two year contract of course). This year, I can almost guarantee you'll find someone drop these guys down to $100 or less, and that's when these things will start to go mainstream. Remember when the Razor came out and people ooh'd and aaahh'd, but no one bought them because they were $500 at launch? Then when they dropped below $100, everybody and their momma (literally) had one. Expect the same thing to happen when iPhones and Androids hit that price point.
At the end of the day, people just want a small portable computer that they can get online with no matter where they are, and while the netbook took on that mantle briefly this past year, I think they've already hit their saturation point and the new gen of smart phone WILL fill that need in 2009. If these phones aren't capable of doing what you want/need, then a netbook or UMPC wouldn't have cut it for you either... I can't wait to see what new unknown goodies get announced next week ;)
In the next couple years, maybe even this year, the niche market that netbooks and UMPCs have been working to fill will shift to the new generation of smart phones including the iPhone and the Android G1.
Next week at CES, it is undoubted that many new phones of this class will be announced and shown to the world. Motorola is already working on moving most of their new high-end smart phones to the Android platform, and surely other companies will be doing the same. This new class of phone is hard to define right now, but lets just say the iPhones and the G1 are pretty much the only phones that qualify at the moment. The Blackberry Storm tries to do it, but from reports I've seen it doesn't quite make the grade and worthless little knockoffs like Samsung's Instinct are definitely out. Eventually though, a common name will come up for the class, we may even want to go back to the dated term "pocket pc" at some point, or perhaps just MobilePC would suffice since apparently outside of the US most people already refer to cell phones simply as "mobiles."
Now, the primary purpose a netbook or UMPC is supposed to fill is to allow you full fledged web browsing on the go. Some may say the UMPC never really took off here, and for the most part you'd be right, but Nokia's N700 and N800s have sold fairly well, even if the more powerful (and more expensive ones) didn't. Clearly the iPhone and G1 already meet this requirement, albeit a little slower with the current gen's lackluster processing power and RAM. The only thing they are both missing is Flash support, which for many sites is an absolute requirement. I'm fairly confident this will change in the next year, if not for the iPhone, then definitely for Android powered phones.
The next thing netbooks/UMPCs are used for is email/chatting/IM, which both the iPhone and G1 already have numerous options thanks to their app repositories. Some would argue Android is lacking here with no support for things like Microsoft's Exchange server, but businesses aren't really the ones buying netbooks and UMPCs in the first place.
Some people use their UMPCs and netbooks for multimedia (primarily video or music playback) and obviously Apple's iTunes/iPod inspired iPhone does this to a pretty decent extent assuming you are using the Apple approved file formats. I'm not sure what the state of this is on the G1 right now, but I'm sure it can hold it's own.
Now, anything beyond these features really goes outside the scope of what these devices are being sold for. Yes, you can take notes and write papers on the netbooks, but forget about it on a UMPC. In fact many people still complain the keyboards of most netbooks are still too small to do any "real" typing. In the case of our smart phones many people are already working on solutions to the problem, although they're still not quite there yet. I personally think a nice roll-up keyboard would be the perfect accessory for these phones if they had proper USB ports and support from their OSes.
Another thing people complain about is that these phones' screens are still too small, and I guess that's really subjective. I currently own an iPhone, and 9 times out of 10, the screen size really hasn't been a problem for me like I thought it would. There are rumors right now of 4" and 6" models of the iPod Touch coming out this year, so if that turns out to be true, Apple will probably try the same with their 3rd generation of iPhones too (current model is just over 3"). Just remember, at the end of the day, no matter how big we would like these screens to be, at some point it stops fitting in your pocket. I think 4"-4.5" is the sweet-spot personally.
Now obviously these smart phones can boast they have things most UMPCs and netbooks (not counting what are referred to as ultra-mobile notebooks....that's a different class) can't do, like play videogames, work as a camera/camcorder (jailbraking required in the case of the iPhone) and of course, making phone calls.
No matter how much we fight it, people love convergence. The ability to carry just one device in your pocket is great. Just a few days ago on New Years Eve I saw one of my friends carrying around both a semi-smart phone and a separate digital camera and it's sad because you would think that'd be the easiest thing to add to a smart phone. There are already some cell phones, like the Nokia N82, with nice camera abilities, but they're still too expensive. My current gen iPhone's camera is damn near pathetic at only 2 megapixels, no flash, no zoom...but I'm sure the next revision will have to finally try a little harder in that department if Apple knows anything about what its customers want. And with the diversity Android brings to the table, there's no doubt a few companies will get it right.
The only other hurdles right now are price and wireless availability, and I don't think these will be much of a problem for too much longer. In fact this is the one part of my prediction I'll be so bold to say will definitely happen this year... AT&Ts 3G service is already plenty fast, and many other companies are already working toward 4G. Sprint already started rolling out their WiMax service in a couple test cities last year, and hopefully we'll see AT&T and Verizon do something worthwhile with the 700Mhz spectrum they bought up almost a year ago now. Even here in rural Mississippi, there are many places where you can not get a broadband land-line, but you can pick up a decent signal for broadband wireless (3G/EVDO/etc...but I don't count Edge, it's pathetically slow).
In the price department, we were already close in 2008. The iPhone 3G sells for $199.99 and the T-Mobile/HTC/Google G1 sells for just $179.99 (with a two year contract of course). This year, I can almost guarantee you'll find someone drop these guys down to $100 or less, and that's when these things will start to go mainstream. Remember when the Razor came out and people ooh'd and aaahh'd, but no one bought them because they were $500 at launch? Then when they dropped below $100, everybody and their momma (literally) had one. Expect the same thing to happen when iPhones and Androids hit that price point.
At the end of the day, people just want a small portable computer that they can get online with no matter where they are, and while the netbook took on that mantle briefly this past year, I think they've already hit their saturation point and the new gen of smart phone WILL fill that need in 2009. If these phones aren't capable of doing what you want/need, then a netbook or UMPC wouldn't have cut it for you either... I can't wait to see what new unknown goodies get announced next week ;)
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