I use linux over 10 years and still think it is the best operating system for me.
If I had to single out one single reason why linux did not become main stream:
shov in a DVD and expect it to run. This reason does not apply to most slashdot
readers (as I learned a few years ago, when I mentioned it) but it does to Ma
and Pa Kettle. Here is my current list of three top good-bad-ugly issues with linux:
The good:
rock solid stability if a system is well configured, no latency,
User generated news stories enrich the field of journalism, it does not replace traditional
journalism. It has been stated before, but there are in general
differences between amateurs and professionals, partly due to
amount of time available to research and partly due to reputation.
The reputation ("Karma"...) is an important point. Examples
I pay attention to article by Rich in the NYT not only because it is
well written and documented, but also because for a long time already, articles
have proven to be accurate and reliable, also after years.
I don't pay attention to an article of Dvorak on technology mainly
because experience has shown that the predictions were wrong.
Reputation is difficult to gain as "user" or "reader" and therefore,
user generated news will always have to be valued less. But it is valuable:
for reflecting and discussing news it is good to have access to blogs
or discussion forums like slashdot. For finding interesting news, sites
like digg are useful. News media already tap the potential today,
when readers can contribute video or pictures from cell phones.
Still journalism is a serious profession which needs to be learned and earned.
It involves researching a subject in depth, looking at it from many angles
and comparing many sources. If a subject is more complex, a journalist
has to consult with specialists and have contacts with insiders. It needs time to write
a good article and it needs time to gain the reputation.
Tuftes mantra: To clarify, add detail.
is exactly, what makes most interfaces f... up.
Both his new weather and stock information examples
are what one will probably see on a Zune clone soon.
Tasteless clutter.
The apple mantra is: To clarify, hide detail
Thats what I like at the interface. I did not have
the iphone interface, it is almost obvious.
It is not a matter of the generation. Searching for
something and getting no results back is frustrating.
Database search could still learn a lot from Google,
whether the search is in news media, online shops,
libraries or when searching for a song in iTunes.
there is something to "have it immediatly". It had been the
reason why I had bought a Dell 10 years ago in Austin in a factory
outlet. I seldom leave an apple store without a spontaneous buy.
An other reason for the success is the "paradox of choice". I never
had second thoughts after the buy in an apple store because I knew
the prize is the same as online prize for Apple products (the iphone
prize drop was an exception). When I visit
a Dell online shop now, I get evertime a
different prize offer for pretty much the same setup. Coupons, special
deals, business or home prizes etc make buying things painfully confusing.
There is in genreal too much choice.
I like the warmer light of light bulb. The spectral
distribution of fluorescent light is different and I
personally consider it more aggressive light. It might
be due to higher spikes in the spectral distribution.
Hallogen light is the worst. I find it aggressive.
Banning incandescant light makes sense but I want to
be able to buy alternatives which have a similar feel
and spectral distribution.
When comparing fluorescent, incandescant and LED light
one always focuses on the cost and efficiency and not
also on the effect it has on people.
As pointed out, the posed question is rhetorical. Having proofs (as long
as they are not too tedious) is always useful. Interesting would
be the question, whether Wikipedia should allow proof attempts and
maybe get a proof of a previously unproved conjecture. The Web as a
gigantic seminar, a modern Bourbaki group: Bourbaki 2. Currently,
original material is not encouraged.
This fits well into other cases, where one has attempted to
trademark common vocabulary:
"You have mail" AOL
"Hall of Fame" National Baseball Hall of Fame
"Entrepreneur" Entreprenour Media
"Windows" Microsoft (ruled generic 1993)
"Memory game" Ravensburger (a website I maintain was involved in that once)
Tradmarking common vocabulary is as questionable as patenting common
tasks. The problem is that it is often cheaper to pay off than
go through a legal fight. And that encourages the litigators.
The good thing is that such battles usually are PR desasters for the companies
involved.
Programmable pocket calculators have become awfully
clumsy to use. It would be nice if one could move
to iphone type interfaces or include a (maybe stripped down)
computer algebra system. They survive only because they have
become cheep,rugged and robust and can be used in schools
early on. I loved to play with these toys when
I was younger. But thats what they have remained: toys.
In other news: Backups Don't Ensure your data are safe.
"In an new report from the Information Technology and Innovation
Foundation they say that backups can increase
costs and can actually reduce the chances that users data
have to be recreated."
Using technology is like telling jokes. Some people can deliver, other better
do not.
Teaching is complex. Not everybody can handle the additional challenge
of technology additionally to the organisatorial and pedagogical parameters.
Most of us have experienced bad use of technology. I certainly have produced
disasters myself.
It is often not the technology which produces the failures but the lack of a
backup plan. Technology often fails. The advantage of the "good ol blackboard"
is that it always works. Even white-boards fail when markers are dry.
Overuse of technology is like dishing up the same meals again and again.
The benefits of technology can wear off, if the novelty is gone.
I use the rule of thumb: technology can improve a lecture by 20 percent,
but adds the risk to losing 80 percent. This risk makes the use of technology
exciting and worthwile.
Seems like a consolidation also in the manufacturing business.
Not a good thing. In the last few years, the focus definitely has
not been on anti trust issues:
Graphic software: Adobe, is now practically a monopoly.
Prizes have become insane since.
Media consolidation: Murdoch owns 175 newspapers. Big media
are now allowed to become even bigger. Wall street journal is next.
Chips: down to 2: Intel and AMD. If AMD would drop the
towel, there would be a monopoly. Prizes are still reasonable.
Imagine Intel alone.
Internet access: in many areas monopoly. Prizes are
still high.
Operating systems: still a MS quasi-monopoly. Hopefully
Apple and OS operating systems will pick up.
Phone companies: soon an ATT monopoly?
Airline companies: serious consolidation.
Delta--American Air-AmericaWest-USAir etc
Airline prizes will certainly go up.
Search engines: hopefully the competition to google will
stay. A monopolistic search engine would not be good, but it would
not be surprising if google would be allowed to buy yahoo in the current
clima.
Imagine the gasoline type would match only
your car brand. Cars would be cheap to buy
but you were forced to use the manufactures gas.
Thats how ridiculous the situation with the
printer ink is.
It was a nice surprise for me to see that google desktop does not eat too
much resources, even when indexing the harddrive. Better than beagle
or even slocate. Also, it works witout needing KDE or Gnome on light desktop
managers (who start it up automatically). I use blackbox and the google desktop server
by hand with "gdlinux start" from the terminal and double allows
searching without an additional gui from the browser. An other surprise
was that it works both on firefox and mozilla. Not many extensions do that.
no wonder, they become obsolete. In a time, when many DVDs are available for 8 dollars or less, a
typical CD is just too expensive. Burn it onto DVD and sell it for half of what it costs now, sell it
"previously viewed" on the street like many DVD shops do now. I would not be surprised if profits would
go up.
the story should be looked at carefully by whoever
designs nuclear or chemical wast storage areas. 50 years
is nothing in comparison to the time frames deposits
should last. In this case, there was the unexpected puncture
of the hull, which was devastating. It shows how difficult
it is to see all aspects of the problem.
I actually hoped that Leopard would have case sensitivity
by default. Case insensitivity, files like "makefile" and "Makefile"
are considered the same is a pain, when using OS X together with other OS.
I lost many files due to case insensitivity (i.e. back up a directory on OSX,
then move things back).
While it is possible to enable case sensitivity, there are still
too many things which break
when doing the switch on the boot drive and this is no surprise because many
applications depend on insensitive FS. What about allowing the user to have certain folders to be
case sensitive?
>I don't know anyone who would submit or accept raw LaTeX source.
Most mathematics papers are now written in latex and the submission
often by latex source.
This is good news.
I can not wait to have affordable solar cells
to power a laptop. On board colar panels until
now only can extend battery life for a laptop.
There are foldable panels which generate enough
power (26 watts) for a power friendly laptop:
http://www.ascscientific.com/solar.html
For a laptop with solid state harddrive and
power friendly CPU, onboard solar cells might
soon be enough.
Again the Streisand effect
but with an other twist: while every lawyer by now knows about this phenomenon, they take
it into account but still chose legal action is taken to prevent other people to repeat this.
What they do not realize yet is that advertisers or product managers will in future even more
try to use names and pictures close to successful other pictures in order to use the free
publicity from a lawsuit.
One can not stop those services like that. Its as if one wanted
to get rid of doping in sports by forbidding the advertisement of doping.
Having part or all of a theses written from a ghostwriter is very
similar to doping. It is cheating. For PhD thesis, where the research
has to be defended in a seminar with experts, the fraud is probably difficult.
For term papers, schools will have to adapt and add oral
examinations for papers which look suspicious. Students will have
to sign a statement that they wrote the theses without having payed
for outside help and violators will be denied a degree. Like in sports,
where doping violators have their titles removed.
By the way: sanctioning has the risk of the
Streisand effect.
By forbidding the adds, Google has made the best publicitiy for the services.
Slashdot Mirror
The good:
- rock solid stability if a system is well configured, no latency,
- solid office and graphics software: firefox, ooffice, latex, gimp, inkscape, etc
- peace of mind, being in control of all processes, own the machine
The bad:- presentation software. there is a long way towards something like Keynote on the mac.
- games. Will I ever see games like "crysis" be sold for linux?
- propriatary software like Flash, photoshop, dreamwaver, tax or business software
The ugly:- I pay attention to article by Rich in the NYT not only because it is
well written and documented, but also because for a long time already, articles
have proven to be accurate and reliable, also after years.
- I don't pay attention to an article of Dvorak on technology mainly
because experience has shown that the predictions were wrong.
Reputation is difficult to gain as "user" or "reader" and therefore, user generated news will always have to be valued less. But it is valuable: for reflecting and discussing news it is good to have access to blogs or discussion forums like slashdot. For finding interesting news, sites like digg are useful. News media already tap the potential today, when readers can contribute video or pictures from cell phones.Still journalism is a serious profession which needs to be learned and earned. It involves researching a subject in depth, looking at it from many angles and comparing many sources. If a subject is more complex, a journalist has to consult with specialists and have contacts with insiders. It needs time to write a good article and it needs time to gain the reputation.
Tuftes mantra: To clarify, add detail. is exactly, what makes most interfaces f... up. Both his new weather and stock information examples are what one will probably see on a Zune clone soon. Tasteless clutter. The apple mantra is: To clarify, hide detail Thats what I like at the interface. I did not have the iphone interface, it is almost obvious.
It is not a matter of the generation. Searching for something and getting no results back is frustrating. Database search could still learn a lot from Google, whether the search is in news media, online shops, libraries or when searching for a song in iTunes.
- Individual chips can be identified by the characteristics of the radio transmissions.
- Chips can be cloned. In England, Biometric passports were already cloned.
- The shielding is not well enough if the passport is closed. So companies start selling stronghold bags.
- Its possible to track people. Tags can possibly be read in distances of meters.
- Forgery of digital passports could become a lot easier.
- The worst case scenarios of a data breach are a nightmare.
Some links:there is something to "have it immediatly". It had been the reason why I had bought a Dell 10 years ago in Austin in a factory outlet. I seldom leave an apple store without a spontaneous buy. An other reason for the success is the "paradox of choice". I never had second thoughts after the buy in an apple store because I knew the prize is the same as online prize for Apple products (the iphone prize drop was an exception). When I visit a Dell online shop now, I get evertime a different prize offer for pretty much the same setup. Coupons, special deals, business or home prizes etc make buying things painfully confusing. There is in genreal too much choice.
I like the warmer light of light bulb. The spectral distribution of fluorescent light is different and I personally consider it more aggressive light. It might be due to higher spikes in the spectral distribution. Hallogen light is the worst. I find it aggressive. Banning incandescant light makes sense but I want to be able to buy alternatives which have a similar feel and spectral distribution. When comparing fluorescent, incandescant and LED light one always focuses on the cost and efficiency and not also on the effect it has on people.
The problem with postscript is that it can be alife.
As pointed out, the posed question is rhetorical. Having proofs (as long as they are not too tedious) is always useful. Interesting would be the question, whether Wikipedia should allow proof attempts and maybe get a proof of a previously unproved conjecture. The Web as a gigantic seminar, a modern Bourbaki group: Bourbaki 2. Currently, original material is not encouraged.
nice idea, but I could imagine the noise problem as a major obstacle.
- "You have mail" AOL
- "Hall of Fame" National Baseball Hall of Fame
- "Entrepreneur" Entreprenour Media
- "Windows" Microsoft (ruled generic 1993)
- "Memory game" Ravensburger (a website I maintain was involved in that once)
Tradmarking common vocabulary is as questionable as patenting common tasks. The problem is that it is often cheaper to pay off than go through a legal fight. And that encourages the litigators. The good thing is that such battles usually are PR desasters for the companies involved.Programmable pocket calculators have become awfully clumsy to use. It would be nice if one could move to iphone type interfaces or include a (maybe stripped down) computer algebra system. They survive only because they have become cheep,rugged and robust and can be used in schools early on. I loved to play with these toys when I was younger. But thats what they have remained: toys.
In other news: Backups Don't Ensure your data are safe.
"In an new report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation they say that backups can increase costs and can actually reduce the chances that users data have to be recreated."
I'm both enthusiastic as well as sceptical (and wrote and talked about it [PDF]). Here are some major points for me:
Jesus!
Imagine the gasoline type would match only your car brand. Cars would be cheap to buy but you were forced to use the manufactures gas. Thats how ridiculous the situation with the printer ink is.
It was a nice surprise for me to see that google desktop does not eat too much resources, even when indexing the harddrive. Better than beagle or even slocate. Also, it works witout needing KDE or Gnome on light desktop managers (who start it up automatically). I use blackbox and the google desktop server by hand with "gdlinux start" from the terminal and double allows searching without an additional gui from the browser. An other surprise was that it works both on firefox and mozilla. Not many extensions do that.
no wonder, they become obsolete. In a time, when many DVDs are available for 8 dollars or less, a typical CD is just too expensive. Burn it onto DVD and sell it for half of what it costs now, sell it "previously viewed" on the street like many DVD shops do now. I would not be surprised if profits would go up.
the story should be looked at carefully by whoever designs nuclear or chemical wast storage areas. 50 years is nothing in comparison to the time frames deposits should last. In this case, there was the unexpected puncture of the hull, which was devastating. It shows how difficult it is to see all aspects of the problem.
I actually hoped that Leopard would have case sensitivity by default. Case insensitivity, files like "makefile" and "Makefile" are considered the same is a pain, when using OS X together with other OS. I lost many files due to case insensitivity (i.e. back up a directory on OSX, then move things back). While it is possible to enable case sensitivity, there are still too many things which break when doing the switch on the boot drive and this is no surprise because many applications depend on insensitive FS. What about allowing the user to have certain folders to be case sensitive?
>I don't know anyone who would submit or accept raw LaTeX source.
Most mathematics papers are now written in latex and the submission often by latex source.
This is good news. I can not wait to have affordable solar cells to power a laptop. On board colar panels until now only can extend battery life for a laptop. There are foldable panels which generate enough power (26 watts) for a power friendly laptop: http://www.ascscientific.com/solar.html For a laptop with solid state harddrive and power friendly CPU, onboard solar cells might soon be enough.
Again the Streisand effect but with an other twist: while every lawyer by now knows about this phenomenon, they take it into account but still chose legal action is taken to prevent other people to repeat this. What they do not realize yet is that advertisers or product managers will in future even more try to use names and pictures close to successful other pictures in order to use the free publicity from a lawsuit.
One can not stop those services like that. Its as if one wanted to get rid of doping in sports by forbidding the advertisement of doping. Having part or all of a theses written from a ghostwriter is very similar to doping. It is cheating. For PhD thesis, where the research has to be defended in a seminar with experts, the fraud is probably difficult. For term papers, schools will have to adapt and add oral examinations for papers which look suspicious. Students will have to sign a statement that they wrote the theses without having payed for outside help and violators will be denied a degree. Like in sports, where doping violators have their titles removed. By the way: sanctioning has the risk of the Streisand effect. By forbidding the adds, Google has made the best publicitiy for the services.