Wednesday stuff

[yendi]

Wow. Everyone and their brother seems to be talking about Google Talk, to which I can only shrug. So it's a way to use the Google servers with a jabber client. So? Since there's no Google-specific version for the Mac, there's not a single new feature available to me, and if I'm going to use iChat, why not use it with a buddy list that's already fully populated?

On the plus side, good for Google for actually highlighting the other clients that work with their service, at least. And in the long-run, I like the potential of this move to push chat towards something resembling standards (of course, there was a time when there were standards, and we all used irc, and we liked it, dammit!).

I've gotten two emails from old college friends over the last couple of days. Weird. Nice, but weird.

I'm not doing that "list songs from the year you graduated" meme because A) I hate memes, and B) the #1 song in the year I graduated was "Hold On," by Wilson Phillips. 1990 was a Musical Year of Suck, yes it was.

Watched two more eps of House last night, and although I liked 'em, I got really annoyed at the resolution of the Chi McBride and His Money plotline, as it involved financial shenanigans that just didn't seem plausible. That said, I'd love to see Erin Foster's character return -- she completely stole her one scene. And considering that the only other role I've seen her in was as Zack's idiot girlfriend on Gilmore Girls (the one who told Lane that she'd love to spend three years reading, to which Lane replied, "which book?"), she's got range.

Also caught two more Cowboy Bebops. I've watched up through episode 11.

Still reading The Big Over Easy. Favorite passage:

"He spent the greater part of his life campaigning to have respelt those words that look as though they are spelt wrongly, but aren't."

"Such as . . . ?"

"Oh, skiing, vacuum, freest, eczema, gnu, diarrhea, that sort of thing. He also thought that 'abbreviation' was too long for its meaning, that 'monosyllabic' should have one syllable, 'dyslexic' should be renamed 'O' and 'unspeakable' should be respelt 'unsfzpxkable.'

Work beckons like an evil thing what beckons. Although I'm not sure evil things beckon unless they're trying to trap you. Sorta like that woman in Ghost Ship who beckons Isiah Washington to his death. Maybe work's really just bullying me.

Comments

[tfcocs.livejournal.com]

(of course, there was a time when there were standards, and we all used irc, and we liked it, dammit!).

...and we walked ten miles in the snow every day to go to school AND WE LIKED IT, DAMNIT! ;-)

I guess IRC isn't lucrative enough for "the powers that be". Shrug. Back in the day, when I still used Windoze (before RedHat 5), I used to use a great program called PIRCH. I think it is orphanware now. 'Tis a pity.

[aurora-lamour.livejournal.com]

Up hill, BOTH WAYS!

[amokk]

pIRCh has been orphaned since like 1998.

I use xchat now, on linux and mac.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

But "diarrhea" *is* spelt wrong, since (as any fule kno (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A245620)) it should be spelt "diarrhoea" (http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/diseases/facts/diarrhoea.htm). =:o}

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Heh. I've just realised: Molesworth created the L33T 5P3AK (or however you "spell" it) of his day... =:o}

[yendi]

And, in fact, the American edition of the book removes the British spelling, thus reducing the impact of that joke. The editor should actually have pulled the word out of the list.

[envoy.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'm glad you reminded me, what protocols does iChat support? Do you use that for your IMming, or do you use a different program?

[yendi]

The pre-Tiger version supports AIM and Rendevous, as well as mac.com ones (using the . The Tiger version adds jabber.

I use iChat as my only chat program, although I don't tend to even use it very often. I've tried some of the other (Adium, etc), but nothing has overwhelmed me.

[crystalrowan.livejournal.com]

Oooooh, Cowboy Bebop is probably my all-time favorite anime series. Excellent writing, excellent music and great characters.

I've started watching Full-Metal Alchemist which is turning out to be really good as well.

[yendi]

I've resisted the urge to get into FMA. I only have so much time for addictions!

[crystalrowan.livejournal.com]

Yes, indeed. Obsessions must be prioritized!

[dotgirl.livejournal.com]

We just caught two full episodes of "House" last night as well. I'd seen bits and pieces of it, and thought it looked great (also, I love Hugh Laurie), but last night was the first time we'd watched entire episodes.

I loved it, and so did Chris, so I went to Amazon and bought Season 1 on DVD. Which doesn't come out until next Tuesday, and had better arrive at my house in time for me to watch it whilst I recover from having my wisdom teeth out.

[yendi]

Welcome to the addiction!

Even if the DVD doesn't arrive in time, there are two more eps next week, including one of my favorite episodes of the year, the penultimate one, in which House teaches a class of med students.

[pnh.livejournal.com]

I'm an immediate enthusiast of Google Talk because it doesn't allow binary file transfers, the thing that forced our systems department to block AIM use after an AIM-transmitted virus brough the conglomerate to its knees.

As of this morning, a significant number of Tor employees are up and running on Google Talk, breathing sighs of relief at having easy-to-use IM capacity once more.

[yendi]

I definitely see the corporate environment as the initial target audience of Google Talk (the use of Jabber was a big hint there, as well), for reasons much like the ones you cite.

That said, I think they need to have another hook to get it out to the public. With a huge entrenched user base, AIM and Y! users don't have much incentive to go to another network (although the propagation of gmail accounts over the last year has done a nice job of creating an initial network of users), and the lack of file sharing, for many users, is a drawback, not a feature (although as webdav and similar tools take off, that should become less of an issue). Of course, the corporate element will influence this to an extent (if I want to chat with a friend at Tor, for example, it's either Google Talk or -- Heaven forbid! -- the asynchronous slowness of email), but I suspect that Google will need another hook or two to really approach ubiquity.