Charles on… anything that comes along

I came across Flickr signup: From human to droid in a Yahoo moment? - Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals) last night, and thought it interesting: it details how the easygoing, yet informative signup to Flickr has changed since Yahoo! took it over into the sort of registration nightmare that leaves you tearing your hair out and swearing, as it asks for your mother’s maiden inside leg name. Stupid, stupid, stupid, I thought.

But Yahoo! just keeps piling Pelion on Ossa. In Quicktime’s hot tips there’s a link to the forthcoming Fiona Apple album (’Extraordinary Machine’ has been re-produced), which has a video, which is on Yahoo!.

You’re probably catching the drift already.

So I go there, and search for the video, and it’s here. So I click to play it.

No, says the dialog, if you’re on a Mac, you must use Netscape 4.7x to view this. Huh?? Netscape 4.7 is from the Classic era - that means it’s more than four years old. Talk about not having your customers’ interests up front. I tried pretty much all I could with Safari, masquerading as Windows IE 6 and Netscape 4.79; no dice.

I conclude that Yahoo is thoroughly, corporately, borked. They can’t do signups; they can’t do browsers. What, exactly, can they do well?

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• Doing the math on music videos: surprisingly cheap (17 February 2005; score: 91.84%)
• At last, a Flickr account (11 May 2005; score: 62.61%)
• Another prediction comes right: iTunes Music Store now selling videos (10 May 2005; score: 62.2%)

There’s loads of people wondering what the hell is going on as the meta-plot of the TV series ‘Lost’. Are they really just survivors of a random plane crash? Or could it be that they’re the subjects of a Government Secret Experiment? Or that they’re in purgatory, but don’t yet know it?

I haven’t been around the web to see what the answer appears to be; I know the US has already finished the first series and is working on to the second. (I’ve got my fingers in my ears, OK? Don’t tell me what happens. If I wanted to know, I’d read any of the websites.)

So, what the hell’s going on? How have they all survived with barely a scratch between them? Howcome there’s nobody else, no civilisation, but just the right amount of survival gear? What’s the big scary mysterious monster? Howcome Locke was disabled, but wakes up from the plane crash to find his legs work perfectly (I would say again, but we’re not sure if they ever worked.. are we)?

OK, here’s my take. They’re not there at all. They’re on a spaceship.

Yes. You read that right. But here’s the other thing: they’re on a spaceship, and they’re all asleep, having a dream that’s being fed to them by a computer, Matrix-style.

Why? Because it’s a way of passing the time. If they were awake, they’d be sitting around bored as hell; perhaps the spaceship has itself only just survived a crash, and they’re in orbit in the middle of nowhere, with no hope of rescue. Or only a little hope if they stay in suspended animation long enough. And meantime, have a big collective dream.

This works as an explanation, yes? You can have anything happen that you like. Polar bears, big scary monsters, big blue seas, disabled people who recover the use of their legs… and it would also explain why the ‘English’ accents were so excruciating in the flashbacks in the latest episode. No computer can do an English accent.

True, it does take some of the narrative drive away if you remind yourself that it’s not really happening, that it’s just some artefact. But solipsism is the best way to make sense of what it laughably called the plot.

And please, don’t tell me what happens - though you can say what the rival theories are. (No spoilers though please. I want to give it up of my own accord.)

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• So what's that about many eyes making bugs shallow? (25 July 2004; score: 34.36%)
• Ian Hobson succumbs to the lure of "and what's more..." (28 July 2005; score: 33.31%)
• Netimperative: what's wrong with government telling us about technology (12 February 2005; score: 32.27%)

• Apple supports video podcasting
  ..ah, but you can’t transfer it to an iPod.
  Yet.
• Cocoalicious: A Cocoa del.icio.us Client for Mac OS X
  OK, I’m going to try this stuff if it kills me. Tag me! Tag me now!
• Camino browser hits 1.0 alpha 1
  Which should mean “chock full of bugs” - but this is the best browser I’ve ever used

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• Podcasting - now you too can hear voices in your sleep (28 June 2005; score: 55.95%)
• Apple's video iPod comes nearer... at least online (22 July 2005; score: 49.02%)
• Thoughts on podcasting: harder than it sounds (11 April 2006; score: 47.07%)