Thoughts - IT & Design

I don't know if it's deliberate or what, but when will the IT industry realise that if you want people to buy a product, stop making it look like a computer.

Case in point - when digital camera's first appeared, none of them looked like a camera - and surprise, surprise - hardly any sold.

Fast forward to today and the advance of HTPCs. Locally, Harvey Norman made a move into them 18 months ago and failed. Why? Because they were selling them as HP towers!!! You've got to be joking aren't you. WAKE UP EVERYBODY. If you want people to use a computer as a consumer electronics device, make them look like one (so it integrates into your AV equipment).

Imagine spending truckloads on Receivers, Tuners, etc and then be forced to wack a ruddy ugly PC tower on the floor. When will we learn??? We have to take the technology fear away from what people are experiencing. Make it easy, make it familiar - and you'll see them in droves...

Thoughts - IT's Obsession With Reinvention

I'm a strong believer in Open Software - it is clearly leading the path in innovation in IT. Yet, when will the industry wake up to making things simple.

I was considering MythTV recently (rather than waiting for the Packer's and Murdock's to stop trying to bury Digital TV and allow a decent PVR/DVR recorder into the country) but got no further than the Hardware heading in the doco. What a load of shite. There are thousands and thousands of entries, comments, forums and doco regarding the topic, but do you think I can find an idiot sheet I can use to minimise the pain? Nup.

Instead, I'm expected to reinvent a process that (probably) hundreds have tried and struggled with (many talk of 33 hours installation dramas). Yet, given a specific specification, I dare say it would almost take no more than 1-2 hours in reality.

And we see this everywhere - Wiki's, CMS, etc - truckloads of documentation but none of it useful if you just want to get in and install it.

Wake Up People - We'd have SOOO much more leverage if we simplified these installs for mug punters...

Pixie Garden - Tax Reform Enquiry

We've had plenty of tax inquiries over the years - they usually run for months and still fail to achieve anything.

Yet, we're to believe, that we can review and compare the tax systems in other major economies in just 5 weeks?

Yep, the Pixies are alive and have green thumbs this week...

Wots On? - PM Barracking for Hanson Voters?

Okay, what's the deal? Today we've had Howard proclaiming that "Hanson's supporters weren't racist" - you'd think we were heading into an election. So why is he sucking back up to the Hansonite's? Is he weary of the conservative vote splitting (which is why he plundered their policies in 1999/2000). Does he feel under threat again?

I wonder, after the RU486 vote, if Family First aren't digging in the screws (for being screwed - they did, after all, hand the VSU vote to him on a platter). It was interesting to hear that Family First would be entering candidates in ALL 78 seats in the coming Queensland Election. Yep, it's Hanson all over again.

Thoughts - What's Going on in Iraq?

Robert Risk, on Lateline tonite, made an interesting observation about the looming civil strife in Iraq. He argued that the we need to "question the narrative" currently coming out of Iraq and question "is it real?" or at least, to think about things more broadly.

So who is pulling the strings? Robert seemed to be arguing that the Coalition Forces are driving the insurgency. That it is they who are paying the death squads in an effort to encourage a Civil War. But why? Then it dawned on me - pull out.

If Iraq was to fall into civil conflict, it may infact give the Americans a reason to leave. Why stay and stand in the way?