I like being able to look at the oft-refreshing traffic maps on my cell phone so that I can see where the accidents are, just before causing one myself.:)
Regarding Linux on the desktop, I can say that I've had similar 'experiences' over the years. That was before Ubuntu 6.1 "Edgy." Every piece of hardware that I've installed it onto worked flawlessly with only one exception and that was the sound chipset built into the Intergraph GX1 450 (that required a small edit of one config file but, still, too much for the typical home user). I think Linux on the desktop is nearly there. I understand Linspire is very nice but, according to Mark Hatch in "Hacking Linux Exposed," most of this distro runs as root so it's not recommended.
There seems to be two forms of software, to me: typical software with a typical interface and those that have been dumbed-down to be absolutely "idiot proof." The problem with the latter is that, a user with any reasonable amount of experience in using PC software becomes easily frustrated with trying to use this dumbed-down software because of not being able to find functions in the usual fashion.
Thus, the design intent of the OLPC. Jeff Raskin also wrote on this and began the Archy project in response, calling it well past due for a new approach to GUI. Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archy
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I like being able to look at the oft-refreshing traffic maps on my cell phone so that I can see where the accidents are, just before causing one myself. :)
Regarding Linux on the desktop, I can say that I've had similar 'experiences' over the years. That was before Ubuntu 6.1 "Edgy." Every piece of hardware that I've installed it onto worked flawlessly with only one exception and that was the sound chipset built into the Intergraph GX1 450 (that required a small edit of one config file but, still, too much for the typical home user). I think Linux on the desktop is nearly there. I understand Linspire is very nice but, according to Mark Hatch in "Hacking Linux Exposed," most of this distro runs as root so it's not recommended.
There seems to be two forms of software, to me: typical software with a typical interface and those that have been dumbed-down to be absolutely "idiot proof." The problem with the latter is that, a user with any reasonable amount of experience in using PC software becomes easily frustrated with trying to use this dumbed-down software because of not being able to find functions in the usual fashion.
Thus, the design intent of the OLPC. Jeff Raskin also wrote on this and began the Archy project in response, calling it well past due for a new approach to GUI. Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archy