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  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.


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Sunday, December 1, 2002
03:16 - Sore Thumb
http://www.denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2002/12/EuropeanDecline.shtml

(top) link

Where is Europe's Intel? Where is Europe's Microsoft? Where is their IBM? Their Dell? Their Applied Material?

It's tunnel vision on my part, it's nit-picking; I know it is. But I just couldn't help-- couldn't help but notice the conspicuous absence of a particular company whose mention would only have helped bolster the overall point of this article.

Guess this is what Apple gets for placing a high value, throughout its life, on internationalization, separable text strings and multi-forked apps and files for easy localization, and a unified text input system extensible to pretty much all the world's languages, years and years ago. That's what disqualifies them from being exemplary of ingenious innovative American companies: they're not Ameri-centric enough.

Yes, yes, I'm being facetious. But c'mon. I'm sure I'm not the only one who wonders where Europe's Apple is, in the same context.

Anyway, I note that some companies that aren't mentioned by Den Beste are the Content Czars: AT&T, Verizon, Bertelsmann, Amazon, Disney. They're truly entities which know nor respect no national bounds-- they are nations unto themselves, operating under rules they write for themselves, using technology developed by others (or for other purposes). Microsoft wants to be in among these, but Apple doesn't-- it sees the value of front-loading the cost of a product or service so the customer doesn't have to contend with it on a daily basis. The price of entry is high so the price of usage is low, monetarily as well as in terms of annoyance. Apple gets this, and Lileks gets that:

Five: launching too soon. I admire the idea; I will welcome it, some day. I like to take pictures. I like to take movies, listen to music while mobile, make calls, play games. But I am utterly certain that the devices they are offering, and the service on which they depend, is inferior in every way to the tools I have now. My iPod: more capacity, no bandwidth charges. My camcorder: high-quality video, and reasonable quality stills. My camera: high quality pictures. My cellphone: it’ll do. I would rather tote four devices that perform separate functions extremely well than carry one device that does everything poorly.

Yup. True, this leads to utility-belt-ism; but for some, that's not a problem (the more gadgets, the merrier); and for others, like me, you don't need all your gadgets at once, nor does a single person need to own every gadget and its functionality. I rely on my iPod to regulate my heartbeat and breathing, but I only carry my camera when I'm going somewhere where I'll want to take pictures-- and it'll be a dark, windy, rainy day in Hell before I'm caught in one of those clinics where for a paltry few thousand simoleons they take a few inches out of your head (possibly by removing the middle section) so a three-inch cell phone can reach from your ear to your mouth without your having to shout for everyone else in the line at Taco Bell to absorb every word of your side of the conversation.

Anyway, I don't mean to pick nits or appear as though there's only one issue that I ever think about, be it appropriate or not. But hey-- it's 3:15 AM, and vacation's over-- I gotta get up in a few hours to trudge back into the bit mines. What am I supposed to do-- sleep, or something?

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