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Thursday, November 7, 2002 |
Lileks kicks Windows booty I enjoyed this rant:
There are millions of happy customers who'd throw themselves in front of a bus rather than switch platforms. But as I've said before, the keyboard-map problem is fascinating to me and the techs because there is no reason it should be happening. In fact, it can't. I'm accessing a local program, not one on the network. There is nothing in the start-up procedure that overwrites old preference files. There is no reason that replacing the keyboard map should make the OS unable to find the parent program. This is where computers meet the realms of philosophy: if a thing is impossible, yet appears before you, then it obviously is not impossible. Yet it is not possible for it to be possible. All those philosophers who wondered if it was possible for God to create an object He could not move are missing the point. If God is running Windows, then He will just get an error message informing Him that the object does not exist.
And, being God, He will have known in advance He would get that message.
Just as I know every day I will get the error message.
Use Windows, and draw closer to God!
The cursing tends to even things out, though.
4:12:46 PM 
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Since when does the NY Times run advertorials? Okay, this annoyed me pretty badly.
For years now David Gelertner ~ computer scientist and Unabomber victim ~ has been flogging his idea that the "desktop" should go away in favor of an interface whose underpinnings are chronological.
I think that might work great for some people (like Gelertner, whose office is apparently a morass of towering piles of paper), but it definitely wouldn't be helpful as a primary interface for me. Would it be helpful as an option? Sure (6 Degrees, etc.).
But the validity of his (wretched and incorrect) idea is not what has me so irked. No, it's that the NY Times decided it was okay to have him author an article essentially hawking his own damned software. Where oh where was the editorial judgment on this one?
And as if THAT weren't enough, he goes into a long rationalization on why they decided to build their incredibly wonderful and innovative systems on top of Windows.
Windows is no tool for the future and doesn't claim to be. Technology's future can't possibly be based on treating computers as if they were hyped-up desks and file cabinets - passive pieces of ugly furniture. Computers are active machines, and information-management software had better treat them that way. But Windows can play a central role in giving the future a leg up. It can supply a stable, ubiquitous platform for the future to stand on.
We built our system on Microsoft Windows because Windows is a reliable, solid, reasonably priced, nearly universal platform - and for the software future, "universal" is nonnegotiable. We need to run the system on as many computers as possible and manage the maximum range of electronic documents.
Of course, another operating system, Linux, is also clamoring for attention. Linux and Windows are both children of the 70's: Linux grew out of Unix, invented by AT&T; Windows is based on the revolutionary work of Xerox research. In technology years, these loyal and devoted operating systems are each approximately 4,820 years old. (Technology years are like dog years, only shorter.)
Each is nonetheless still solid enough to be a good, steady platform for the next step in software. But Windows is the marketplace victor and has now won a decisive legal imprimatur. There is no technical reason for us to move to Linux; why should we switch? Why should our customers?
Some argue for Linux on economic and cultural grounds: Microsoft, people say, has driven up prices and suppressed innovation. But this is a ticklish argument at best: after all, over the decade of Microsoft's hegemony, computing power has grown cheaper and cheaper. Innovation has thrived. Our software is innovative; it has not been suppressed. On the contrary, more and more people get interested.
Operating systems are the moldy basements of computing. We used to live down there, but are now moving upstairs to healthier quarters. We rely on the courts and antitrust laws to keep Microsoft from abusing its enormous power. We need Microsoft itself to be the universal stepladder that lets us climb out of our hole and smell the roses.
I challenge you, O Faithful Readers to enumerate the errors of fact and judgment in the above paragraphs.
All I have to say is:
Credibility total: 0
[Update: Now Scripting News is pointing to Aaron Swartz pointing to Gelertner's article. The only significant difference between my article and Aaron Swartz's seems to be that he doesn't think Gelertner's ideas suck.]
12:47:16 PM
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Everything New is Old Again What's up with the Retro Radio look, you ask?
I will refrain from boring you with the whole saga. Suffice it to say that right after I achieved happy happy joy joy with DSL my weblog went to hell (not that I think there was any connection between the two events). A radio.root update failed, making it impossible to update. The things I did to correct the problem compounded it instead. I lost all my custom templates.
I've had it with the Radio black box. You'll have to put up with this generic look until I get it together to build my own weblogging environment. I'll be using Filemaker, NetWireNews, and probably Fetch for FTP. I may change commenting systems (I had been using YACCS, although this current Userland template uses the Userland server system). In any case, I'll soon be in an environment where I'll be able to take the reins.
When that happens, all my pages will be moving to the both2and.com domain. That means any links you have to items or archive pages will be wrong. I'm really sorry about that. You'll be able to make them right by swapping "http://www.both2and.com/" for "http://radio.weblogs.com/01001595/". But all this is some days or weeks a way. I'll let you know.
Thanks for bearing with me. And sorry for the very uninteresting look. I'm now officially behind in EVERYTHING.
1:30:41 AM
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Wednesday, November 6, 2002 |
DSL Rocketh What it goes to show is, you have to make a huge pest out of yourself. Nicely.
You have to be willing to spend hours on hold, crack jokes with the tech folk, and generally have The Patience of a Saint.
You must call every day at 11 pm and just sit there repeating the same stupid troubleshooting procedures even though YOU KNOW they won't work any better the umpeenth time than they did the umpteen-1st time.
Also, you mustn't speak too soon, and you must ask that the trouble ticket remain open for 24 hours lest everything go south overnight.
But may I say in the meantime: WOOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOOOO!!!
12:14:30 AM
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Tuesday, November 5, 2002 |
DSL, as if Okay, I was going to restrict myself to mere updates of the previous Doing DSL post. But there's only so much flashing of amber and green, of endless hours on hold listening to tasteful classical and jazz music, and interactions with tech support whose assumptions clearly range from "She's probably a bored housewife" to "Maybe she has actually done some wiring as she claims."
After the last call, which came to an unsatisfactory conclusion at 11:45 tonight, my restraint has been overwhelmed with peevitude.
I will, however, give a shout-out to my Earthlink tech man Gene in Harrisburg, PA who at least has a decent sense of humor and was sympathetic to my plight without being smarmy about it. Not that I feel somehow that this will lead to improved results or anything.
My line is apparently marvelously noiseless and swift, so if I do actually ever manage to hook up with the server, well, it should be all greased lightning after that. Perhaps I'll wake up tomorrow morning to a glorious steady green glow of connectivity. Hope springs eternal.
Yeah, right.
12:10:35 AM
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Monday, November 4, 2002 |
Killer App for .Mac I submitted this idea to Apple awhile back, but I'm getting impatient, so I thought I'd share it with you lovely people as well.
I think we can agree that, even if their version 1.0 software often leaves a bit to be desired, Apple ultimately does a great job with bundled basic consumer software (iTunes, iPhoto, even iCal). So what would get people to sign up in droves for the somewhat pricey .Mac service?
Really good weblogging software. (iBlog, anyone?)
Think about it: it's a natural. Everyone wants a blog. Everyone wants nice spiffy templates designed by some of the best in the business. Everyone wants to have an excuse to use all those megabytes of webserver space.
Apple currently provides pagemaking facilities for .Mac, but they could be so much better. How cool would it be to have all this stuff available in a nice intuitive weblog package right "out of the box," as it were? Integrated with iPhoto and iCal as a bonus, it could be a knockout.
So, those of you who subscribe to .Mac, won't you please go and add your $.02 in the suggestion area?
1:34:56 PM
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You Know You Want It Okay, maybe you don't.
But I'm still cranking it out anyway: another Dennis chunk hits the web.
2:12:02 AM
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Sunday, November 3, 2002 |
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Saturday, November 2, 2002 |
More things I don't understand... ...but wish I did. I love this attitude though:
Everything sufficiently beautiful is connected to all other beautiful things! Follow the beauty and you will learn all the coolest stuff.
That comment comes from the website of John Baez, who is a mathematician and physicist. I wound up there following a link from boing boing about the Voynich manuscript, which is apparently one of Baez's many interests.
He also looks at the ongoing Bogdanov uproar in the physics community.
Those topics I can just about get the gist of. By the time I started looking at what he does for work, and hit "spin foam models," my eyes were rolling back in my head and I gave up in defeat.
More Instant Humility.
12:40:16 AM
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Friday, November 1, 2002 |
British Blues Radio Wow. I've just discovered another bonus of being a Mac user: I'm listening to British Blues Radio, one of the built-in iTunes internet radio stations.
I'm making quite the fool of myself at my desk, groovin' and movin'. I'm impressed by how good the sound quality is over the fast connection. And not many commercial interruptions either.
7:19:55 PM
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Installment 1 Yes, I have begun. And may God have mercy on my soul.
6:40:04 PM
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© Copyright 2002 Pascale Soleil.
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