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It’s odd. Quite a few things are around which I like for no good reasons. And it even seems like I shouldn’t, perhaps.
First there’s the A380 which seems to be able to fly. Having been a plane geek since I was little I think that’s very cool. And I’m looking forward to flying in that plane – although I haven’t even managed to fly in a A340 yet.
In a way I think it’s cool that those planes are made in Europe and that people managed to negotiate a way to split the work and profits between countries. On the other hand, looking at how these planes are made – with parts being shipped all across Europe (apparently by ship now for the A380 while they used that ‘guppy’ plane for the large parts of smaller planes) – makes it seem a bit absurd. It’s most likely not the most efficient or ecological way to do this. But then again, building planes isn’t eco-businesss, I suppose.
I really do wonder how Boeing doesn’t manage to simply beat Airbus on price as they should have much more potential to be efficient. Boeing is a tricky topic anyway. On the one hand, supporting American weapons companies seems even worse than supporting our own. But on the other hand they make the jumbo jet which remains the pretties plane there is (and the A380 won’t change that for sure). On the one hand again, they also make the 737 which seems to be insanely successful but which I consider to be one of the ugliest planes.
Another area of curious interest where it shouldn’t be is Apple. With the waiting for X.4 happening these days and anticipation being high, it is hard to deny that I am interested in that company. On the other hand, I am embarrased that I am. With the company panicking about some copies of X.4 shipping early, boring details about upcoming computers being visible a few days early and their boss being upset about a ‘non-authorised’ biography you do start to wonder to which extent the ‘cool’ label can apply to them – if at all. Perhaps Mr Jobs should fire the hysterical marketing droids who came up with these ‘strategies’ and beat some sense in the company.
Extra secret hint for thos top-secret computer details: don’t send anything out of your company before you want the public to know about it. If you do, something is bound to leak. So they’ll just have to make up their minds whether top secrecy is more important than being able to sell their stuff quickly. And as for their touchy boss… it seems that even Bill Gates might be cooler about critical comments on himself. I am surprised that Steve Jobs was aiming for that kind of status.
Concerning Microsoft, I don’t really care too much. But apparently they want to put pretty badass customer unfriendly DRM stuff into future versions to make sure you can’t enjoy the media you paid for. The excuse for this of course being that the media industry demand it. Some EFF guy seems to have asked them whether they couldn’t use their market power to just dump all that DRM crap. No good answer to be had from Microsoft on that topic. Which is a shame. If anyone has the power to stop the crippling of technology for the (supposed) profits of the media industry it is Microsoft. Why don’t they just say ‘no’? Developing this stuff will cost them and their customers a lot of money. It’ll also have extra bugs without doubt. Heck, if they duped the media people, they might even be able to enjoy seeing all the anti-MS people stumble not knowing how to see the bad aspect of that…