animeclasicos.net

Ruby is a scripting, or dynamic, language, which means that it can be slower than Java or C for some applications. The trade-off is that in general it’s faster to write code with. Rails, meanwhile, is a Web development framework optimized for speed.

We have some limits, and we’re adding more. Legitimate users should never notice them, but these new limits should help mitigate the worst case failures and attacks.

Ruby still makes sense for much of what Twitter does–essentially sending messages around the Web–but the company has left the door open to using other languages. The Twitter developer blog says this:

Twitter performance problems have brought heaps of scorn from the busy Web 2.0 digerati. That has prompted the company to disclose more technical details like today’s Q and A format blog.

The outages and slow performance are due to “popular” members of Twitter with many followers who “tweet” a lot all at once, according to Twitter. Because of that, the company says will put some limits on what some users can do, but it should not be noticeable.

We’ve got a ton of code in Ruby, and we’ll continue to develop in Ruby with Rails for our front-end work for some time. There’s plenty to do in our system that Ruby is a great fit for, and other places where different languages and technologies are a better fit. Our key problems have been primarily architectural and growing our infrastructure to keep up with our growth. Working in Ruby has been, in our experience, a trade-off between developer speed/productivity and VM speed/instrumentation/visibility.

In the Twitter developer blog on Thursday, an engineer said that Ruby on Rails still rocks as a Web development platform. The service’s woes are due more to a creaky architecture, he said.

Are Twitter’s performance problems due to flimsy engineering or the choice of Ruby on Rails to build the application?

Many people have questioned whether choosing to write the application using Ruby on Rails was a smart move and whether Twitter should shift to a different Web development technology.

Many Chinese faces were moist when Liu Xiang, a very pretty 110-meter hurdler, suddenly withdrew from the preliminary heats of the Olympic competition.

So how do you think Nike reacted to this Yahoo posting? Ignored it, perhaps? Launched a PR campaign featuring Liu Xiang hopping on his good ankle? Not quite.

It all looked a little odd. He was apparently seen kicking an iron door in an aggressive manner shortly before the race. He went out onto the track and suddenly declared his ankle wasn’t up to the task. He limped off in apparent agony.

And I wonder what the “government departments” will do to the person who posted this tale.

Which suggests that Nike either has a good suspicion as to the person’s identity. Or not.
It might also suggest to some that Nike has temporarily lost the part of its inner brain that judges when to stir things up and when to move right along.

Mr. Brooks told The Guardian newspaper: “This isn’t about a debate on freedom of speech. It’s simply helping us to identify the person who posted it.”

Now the odd thing is that this isn’t the first time someone has accused Nike of having more than a digit in live sporting decisions.

Nike, once the brand that championed all who challenged authority, seems to have suddenly taken on the mantle, as well as the athletic supporter, of a regime not known for its fondness for allowing people to just do it.

What can Nike gain from behaving like a granny who’s just had her handbag stolen by a tiny teenager and asked a big, burly policeman to find the man who took it? The company’s actions serve only to highlight the issue more, when letting a sleeping blog lie might have allowed for this little conspiracy theory to waft its way into the annals of obscurity.

I will pause now to allow you to perform your best double take.

The story begins with tears and might end in many more.

It all just feels so very, very unNike. Think about it.
A brand that so many still admire thanks to Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Spike Lee, and remixes of old Elvis tracks, working together with “government departments.” In China.

OK?

When a curiously subdued, possibly drugged, and entirely sleep-walking Ronaldo played for Brazil in the 1998 World Cup Final, there were more than a few commentators willing to debate whether the only reason he had been on the field at all was because Nike, the team’s sponsor, had insisted.

(Credit: CC bbaunach)

Shortly afterward, someone who claimed to be a member of Nike’s inside lane, wrote a post on a Yahoo message board that accused the company of being complicit in Liu Xiang’s sudden exit.

I wonder if they called Jerry Yang first to see how this blogger nonsense works over there. (Web debate on this subject in China is already being, how can one put it, edited.)

Yes, Nike, the brand that prides itself on the iconoclastic and fantastic, has asked the not fantastically democratic Chinese government to root out this rogue and, well, shake him by the sleeves of his t-shirt, perhaps.

“We have immediately asked relevant government departments to investigate those that started the rumor,” said Nike spokesman Charlie Brooks.

When the rebel becomes king, it doesn’t mean the people will suddenly be smiling.

Unless, of course, it isn’t a conspiracy theory at all, and they fear that this one little rumor might give credence to a quite staggeringly cynical story.

Community service in a sweatshop, perhaps?

The suggestion was that Nike knew Liu Xiang couldn’t win, so they told him not to run, as a disappointing performance would harm their investment in him far more than a heart-tugging withdrawal.

The company will market the cars in China, Europe, and the U.S. as an everyday vehicle, comparable in size and performance to popular gasoline cars, said Albert Lam, the CEO of Detroit Electric and the former CEO at British sports car designer Lotus Engineering.

“In 2007, we adopted the Detroit Electric name and revived it because it brings us in line with the vision and essence of electric driving they had,” Lam said on Friday. “We want to produce an affordable, practical pure electric car.”

The company plans to establish dealer networks in the U.S., China, and Europe and position their cars as electric alternatives to popular sedans, according to Marianne McInerney, North American president of Detroit Electric.

A century later, nearly all automakers are developing all-electric or hybrid cars aimed at mainstream buyers, which will start coming out next year.

Detroit Electric, though, is taking a different route than established auto companies, choosing a business model that relies on contract manufacturing and a network of partnerships, according to Lam.

Detroit Electric, an auto brand once favored by Thomas Edison, is mounting a 21st century comeback with electric cars aimed at U.S. soccer moms and Chinese city dwellers.

(Credit:
Martin LaMonica/CNET)

Detroit Electric's planned all-electric sedan will have a range of 110 miles and a top speed of 110 miles per hour.

Virtual corporation

Rather than build cars itself, Detroit Electric’s engine and battery pack will be fitted onto Proton’s existing cars and manufactured in Malaysia by Proton. Detroit Electric will modify the styling to distinguish its cars.

The cars will first be launched in Europe and China in the first quarter of 2010 and then made available in the U.S. by the third quarter of the year, he said. That’s a delay from the 2009 target the company set last year to deliver both electric sedans and trucks when it announced its production plans.

A signing ceremony in Kuala Lumpur to mark the partnership with Proton, whose majority shareholder is the Malaysian government, will be attended by Malaysia’s prime minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi who has driven an early Detroit Electric prototype.

In 1900, 28 percent of all cars produced were electric, but 20 years later the industry was all but dead, according to Michael Brian Schiffer, author of a history of electric cars in the U.S. The original Detroit Electric went out of business in the 1930s.

“Contract manufacturing is the future of the auto industry,” Lam said. The business model will allow it to bring cars to market faster and eliminate the need to raise the money to build those facilities, Lam said.

(Credit:
Detroit Electric)

A 1914 Detroit Electric which was owned by electricity pioneer Charles Steinmetz.

(Credit:
Martin LaMonica/CNET)

Detroit Electric will offer a compact four-door, based on an existing Proton model, with a range of 180 kilometers (110 miles), for between $24,000 and $26,000. An extended-range option will go 320 kilometers, or about 200 miles, and cost $4,000 to $5,000 more. The company also plans to make a hatchback.

In terms of performance, the cars will have the peppy acceleration typical of electric powertrains, going from zero to 60 miles per hour in less than 8 seconds. The top speed will be 110 miles per hour and they will seat five people.

The car will use lithium-polymer batteries supplied by a Korean manufacturer and run on an engine developed by Detroit Electric’s Netherlands-based engineering team.

In its first year, the company plans to manufacture 40,000 cars a year and increase volume from there, Lam said. He added that the company is in discussions with other manufacturers in Asia.

Albert Lam, CEO of Detroit Electric.

An oft-cited statistic is that most U.S. citizens don’t drive more than 40 miles in a day, which this car will allow people do do, she noted. “This car has been designed to appeal to appeal to the broadest audience possible.”

In early part of the 20th century, Detroit Electric was one of a number of electric car manufacturers. These cars drove only about 20 miles per hour and had limited range but were considered suitable for city use and, by some, easier to drive than gasoline
cars, which required a manual start.

The electric motor and controller offer are relatively light weight at 18 kilograms for 200 horsepower and designed with very few components, he said.

The company on Monday is expected to announce a partnership with Malaysian auto manufacturer Proton Holdings to introduce an all-electric sedan next year.

Assuming the report is spot-on, and Blockbuster attempts to make this transition to digital content, it’s time to wonder how much longer physical media will be a factor for mainstream movie renters.

But The Hollywood Reporter says Blockbuster may be giving customers more reasons not to visit its stores. The rental chain is said to be making a set-top box that will allow video content to be streamed directly to a television. The announcement should come sometime later this month, according to THR

Trips to the video rental store may be a thing of the past sooner than thought.

(Credit:
Blockbuster)

No matter the details of the how the device would work, this represents a new direction for Blockbuster and the video rental market. Money spent on DVD ownership and rentals has been decreasing steadily for the past four years, according to the Digital Entertainment Group, which tracks sales of disc media. And though there’s no indication Blockbuster would eliminate its brick-and-mortar stores, a streaming video service would clearly cannibalize some of that business.

The service would take advantage of video-on-demand technology from Movielink (which Blockbuster bought last year) that allows movie downloads from Universal Studios, Paramount, Sony Pictures, MGM, and Warner Bros.

There was no mention of price or how such a service would work in the report. But let’s think about this: to compete with Apple TV or Vudu, the device would have to cost around $200, and rentals of movies and TV shows should be around $3 to $4 each, which would be slightly cheaper than rentals of new releases from Blockbuster currently. The big advantage Blockbuster would enjoy over Apple TV, Vudu, and TiVo, it seems, would be selection. Considering its longstanding relationships with the studios, it would likely have the largest library of films and TV shows to choose from. See my colleague John Falcone’s excellent comparison of set-top rental boxes.

Netflix and Blockbuster are already offering DVD rental service by mail. Amazon.com, Microsoft’s
Xbox Live, and Netflix deliver movies directly to the PC. TiVo, Vudu, and Apple TV–not to mention cable and satellite companies–are doing the same for TV sets. Local independent stores notwithstanding, the only major brick-and-mortar options left for renting discs are Hollywood Video/Movie Gallery, which is close to bankruptcy, and Blockbuster.

A Blockbuster spokeswoman said it is “talking to numerous companies” about ways it can provide “access to media content across multiple channels–from our stores, by mail, through kiosks, through downloading, through portable content-enabled devices–so it’s not surprising that there are rumors out there.”

CODE gives the music consumer options, by including many different formats, including 24-bit/96-kHz WAV files, uncompressed 16-bit/44.1kHz files, AAC, and MP3 on a single disc. What Burnett has done is show consumers that there are options, more than perhaps they are aware.

(Credit:
CNET)

“People who actually put on music and listen–whatever form it’s in–they hear more because they’re giving it their undivided attention,” he said. “Once people really listen, they care about (sound quality) more. Whether you’re listening to an
iPod or $20,000 turntable, it doesn’t really matter. But that’s sort of the beginning of everything.”

Neil Young says the tech industry doesn’t care as much about music quality as it should.

*Download quality file formats. Now that you can get music players with 160GB of storage, file size isn’t really a huge issue anymore. MP3 files are generally regarded as the lowest-quality music file since the audio uses a lossy compression process to make the files smaller, meaning some of the data is left out, like higher frequencies.

Young and Burnett are certainly vocal, but aren’t the only people dissatisfied with the listening experience offered by today’s cheap, one-off music downloads. So we checked in with our own resident audiophile, Steve Guttenberg, who writes at CNET Blog Network’s Audiophiliac. Here are his suggestions for hearing music the way it’s meant to be heard.

*Think outside the iPod. Though there’s nothing wrong with Apple’s portable music player, it’s not the only device out there. Besides other brands of players, you could get super pro and go with a set of turntables. And you don’t have to spend a ton. There are USB-equipped turntables that go for around $100–cheaper than most iPods.

*Buy used CDs. Though CDs probably aren’t Neil Young-approved, it’s a vastly better quality experience than MP3s. Plus, it’s kind of a deal, Guttenberg says. “It’s cheaper than buying iTunes (songs) and certainly sounds a million times better.”

Perhaps that’s because the average iPod-toting iTunes customer doesn’t give a second thought to whether the digital file of the latest single they just bought is uncompressed or lossless.

*Listen. Well, sure, that’s the point right? But Guttenberg means really listen, as in, don’t have it playing in the background while you’re filling in spreadsheets at work, or scrubbing your shower. Once you do, you’ll actually notice how much is missing from a compressed MP3 file.

He’s not the only one who feels that way. Grammy-award-winning producer T-Bone Burnett (who says audio nowadays is so degraded it’s akin to viewing “a Xerox of a Polaroid of a photograph of a painting”) is spearheading CODE, a new high-definition audio format distributed on a DVD.

*Listen to it live. If the other options still aren’t getting it done, you can always go see your favorite act in person. But Rule No. 1 still applies: Actually listen. A lot of people “talk because they’re used to music being in the background, they don’t just shut up and listen to it.”

Young told a bunch of tech luminaries gathered for an industry conference as much on Wednesday: “People’s understanding has been skewed by MP3s and convenience. It’s important to get music out there…but not at the expense of quality.”

Luckily there are alternatives: Apple lossless for iPods compresses the files, but losslessly (which means it sounds exactly like uncompressed, but is actually compressed, Guttenberg says); AAC, which is a lossy compression encoding process, but is generally accepted as better than MP3; or OGG (no, no relation to me), which is another lossy compressed file format, but is open source and is known for its higher fidelity. And then there are WAV files, which are completely uncompressed and sound exactly how they’re “supposed to,” according to Guttenberg.

The big question, of course, is whether Spore can continue to sell over time and justify EA’s stated hopes that the game could end up becoming a full-scale franchise along the lines of The Sims.

Still, for a game with what some might see as a wonky or overly intellectual theme–the evolution of species and the colonization of space–a million copies sold in just 17 days is a good sign.

Spore, the new evolution game from Electronic Arts, has sold a million units since its September 7 launch, the publisher said Wednesday.

However, the sales numbers don’t match those delivered by recent hits like Grand Theft Auto IV, from Rockstar Games and Guitar Hero III, from Activision, which sold multiple millions of copies right off the bat.

And early indications from retailers around the country showed that the game was selling well in its first few weeks on store shelves.

The results are impressive and important for EA, especially given the heavy expectations that awaited the game, which was first announced in 2005 and was first expected in 2006, and also because the game has been beset by some controversy surrounding its DRM (digital rights management) restrictions.

The sales figures are for copies of the game on the PC, the
Mac, and the Nintendo DS.

(Credit:
Matt Asay)

commentary

Mindless sheep that I am, I’m now on his blog.

I emailed a media friend today to ask if he’d have time to meet when I’m in New York next month. The reply? Classic.

As a nod to MySpace’s popularity with emerging artists, band profiles now let rockers and crooners post tour dates and details from the road, including the venue, address, and ticket price. (The profile is accessible from the Menu button.)

To download the free application, point your BlackBerry browser to http://blackberry.com/myspace. If you already have the app, the update will be pushed to your phone the next time you open MySpace for BlackBerry.

Version 1.5 adds a new navigation icon for viewing friends’ updates from within the app. In addition, when you click the thumbnail photo next to a friend’s status message, the app moves you to a full-screen version for more leisurely reading. This has been a top-requested feature since version 1.0 was released, and all we can say is, it’s about time.

Messaging has also gotten some fine-tuning in this version. You’ll now be able to save drafts of your messages to finish compiling later, and manage the draft as you would an e-mail to delete, re-edit, and send the message. MySpace for BlackBerry also gets a boost of velocity in the notification and updates department, cutting down the lag time between when an update or message was sent and when it’s received.

Finally, BlackBerry for MySpace gets continental in version 1.5 with support for German, French, Spanish, and Italian.

This week, MySpace released an update to MySpace for BlackBerry that pads the original downloadable app with more speed, convenience, and a bit of European flair.

It’s not a surprise: Bebo, the social network acquired by AOL earlier this year, already supports OpenSocial, and is being tightly integrated into other AOL communication properties like AIM and ICQ.

The online service-turned-media brand will join pretty much every big player in online media that isn’t Facebook: MySpace and Yahoo, for example, were major partners when Google spun OpenSocial off into its own nonprofit organization.

More details are forthcoming. AOL is not issuing a formal press release, representatives told CNET News.com Wednesday. The announcement will be in the form of a post on the OpenSocial blog later in the day.

AOL will officially support OpenSocial, the developer standard created by Google for social-networking applications. The announcement was hinted at by Google Director of Engineering David Glazer in a speech at the Google I/O conference Wednesday.

(Credit:
BandBoston.com)

“I sent my MySpace page link to the Boston camp, and I also offered to sing my song at the tribute show, never thinking I’d get a reply,” DeCarlo says on Boston’s official Web site. “I did end up getting one about two weeks later thanking me for the offer, but at this point there were not going to be any additions to lineup.”

“My wife was at her computer playing our tunes, and I asked whether it was us playing live,” Scholz told USA Today. “She said, ‘It’s some guy in North Carolina singing your songs.’ I said, ‘I know Brad’s voice, and that’s Brad.’”

That was enough for Scholz. He dropped DeCarlo an e-mail and invited him to the tribute, where DeCarlo impressed the band with his covers (see a YouTube video clip of his performance below). He starts his new job on Friday when the band kicks off its summer tour in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

And that was the end of DeCarlo’s rock ‘n’ roll fantasy–for a few weeks, anyway. Boston founder Tom Scholz’s wife was fiddling around on her PC when something caught her husband’s ear.

For Tommy DeCarlo, a credit manager at a Home Depot in North Carolina, it was literally a dream come true. DeCarlo, 43, had been a fan of the band since his childhood, often singing along with CDs or the radio when songs came on the air.

When Boston lead singer Brad Delp committed suicide last year, DeCarlo recorded his own karaoke versions of Boston songs and uploaded the MP3s to his MySpace page as a tribute. A friend who heard the recordings later encouraged him to contact the band.

DeCarlo, who had never been in a band and whose recent singing experience consisted of performing for a couple of dozen bowlers in a bowling alley, wasn’t too confident.

One MySpace page gave the rock band Boston more than a feeling about an amateur singer. They ended up hiring the man as their new lead singer.

Tommy DeCarlo lands singer gig with Boston, thanks to MySpace page.

While it’s a rather unorthodox way to replace a band member after a tragedy, the practice of a Web audition could become more common. The band Journey recently hired a new lead singer based on a video clip posted to YouTube.