It was a mistake to ask him for an interview to begin with. It's rather obvious that this guy lives on seeing his name in print, so giving him any attention at all is just feeding him exactly what he craves.
Slashdot ain't me call, but I've got to recommend that Rob & Co. pick and choose their interviewees a bit more carefully. There are a ton of people out there who'd be an insightful read, even beyond the Three Initial Mafia (you know, RMS, ESR, JWZ, etc... what the hell is Linus' middle name?). JP is more of a thug than a creator -- he represents an awful lot that is contrary to/.'s principles: lawsuits, legal threats, shameless self-promotion, misinformation, collaborating with government hoods, etc.
This is an interesting incarnation of the Amusing Forigner Concept, which was (so far as I can tell) perfected in the late 1980s with the rush of shows like Perfect Strangers and the appearance of that one Russian guy (Yankof Smirnof, or something like that) on Night Court.
Pretty simply: There's something we in the US find amusing about forign concepts -- in the enlightened United States, the concept of a man kissing us as we access his web site to be a hoot rather than a cultural insight of any kind. Those crazy backwards forigners!
Obviously, the more you can drag it out the better -- that's where the broken english, etc. come in. Interestingly, this concept can also be applied to sub-groups within the United States. For proof, look at Fargo, Raising Arizona, the Dukes of Hazzard or any episode of the X-Files involving the midwest or Texas (note: the Texans deserve it, IMHO).
I feel that this will only be the first of a slew of web sites dedicated to cashing in on this interesting concept. In fact, I'm working on my own "Stupid Midwesterner" web site as we speak (well, as I type). Oh yeaa, doncha know. We here in Wisconsin are enjoyin' this whole Microsoft kit-and-kibootle. Look for it to start hauling in the hits -- I'm looking for a high-paying banner ad agreement as we speak. Maybe I could even do the MP3 web site thing; "To see more of the wacky Wisconsinite's site, click on the first three banners and get the first word of the second paragraph of each site that pop up in the new annoying windows...".
I like the idea of jwz winning this year -- it's good for a movement like this one to get the occassional reality check, and I think he provided that with his analysis of the problems with the Mozilla project (yeah, I know, you're using Mozilla right now and Mozilla rocks or it will rock in six months. Whatever.)
Moving beyond blind advocacy is essential for any movement like OSS. Of all the people on the list (except Bill G, who I suspect is on the list as a joke), jwz seems to me the best example of this.
Tim O'Reilly is my second choice. Thanks to him, OSS has a real voice out there in the publishing community. There's nothing to impress your boss like a large number of Linux books next to all the "Be an MCSE in 30 days!" crap at Barnes and Noble. Besides, hard copies make me smile.
Sorry folks, but anyone who has used both IE and Netscape any time in the last few months could have told you this. I worked at an ISP up until four months ago and I had to be really framiliar with both broswers as we supported them both. As much as I hated to admit it, Netscape couldn't hold a candle to IE.
At least on the Windows platform (which is really one of the only two platforms that are relevant to this discussion), IE is faster, more stable and overall more functional. When it was first released, IE was just a pale shadow of Netscape; just a photocopied feature set. That's not the case anymore.
I have hopes for Mozilla, but I'm beginning to come around to seeing that the delays in getting a production version out are really hurting it. No matter how progressed it is, there needs to be a shipping version within, say, six months. If this is not accomplished or if that version sucks, Netscape will have lost such serious ground that it will have difficulty catching up. Already we can see that their reputation as being a quality product is being damaged.
Man, I hate saying that sort of thing; admitting that MS is better in this case makes my teeth ache.
Man, I really hope that Corel becomes identified as a Linux stock. I could really deal with seeing my 520 shares jump from like $6-$7 a piece to to $100+ range. Personally, I don't really care that the market is horridly overvalued so long as I get rich. =)
I'm hoping that they will when they show off their distro at Comdex -- Cowpland is talking right after Bob Young, so I have hope.
Okay, this sounds pretty cool (if not really tacky), but...
1. I'd rather live in a functional 747. It would be the ultimate home for someone who travels a few hundred days a year. Hell, I'm a bit surprised now that I think about it that some company hasn't bought one for their frequently-flying execs. Bill Gates spends a lot of time abroad (even when he's not getting pied) -- if he were like me, he'd prefer framiliar surroundings to even a ritzy hotel. I think a more homey Air Force One would be gangbusters -- convert the press and secret service areas into a master bedroom and a living area. Once I had it set up, I could continue with my scheme to finance SETI work and send Jodi Foster to the center of the galaxy...
2. This place can't hold a candle to the outfit offering the converted missile bases. The ability to have a T1 installed and to withstand a direct nuclear hit is just overwhelming. If those BATF guys think they had trouble getting the Branch Davidians to come out, just you wait until I lock this thing down for the evening.
Granted the Linux is still missing a few apps, but as the Linux marketshare keeps increasing this will get better -- products will be ported either by the companies or by outfits like Loki pretty routinely within the next two years or so.
Open source seems to work best on the operating system level or in replacing old, bloated software. Cutting-edge from-scratch development isn't OSS's strongpoint, but once a project does catch up and does become modern, it's usually the best choice out there.
Of course, buying into an IPO is risky business, no matter what all the "experts" who cleaned up on RHAT (having opened their E*Trade accounts the previous week) tell you.
Cobalt might be a good long-term. The idea of network appliances like the Cube could very well be the Next Big Thing -- boxes that serve web and don't do anything else are a fairly big step towards simplifying the information environment of a small to medium sized company. The fact that they're using Linux as an underpinning proves only that they know how to be frugal.
That said, we'll have to see how well they're managed before we declare them the next Cisco. What they manage for a line of follow-up products is the Big Question...
Hey, lay off the Wallace and Gromit penguin (Feathers McGraw). As cute and cuddly as Tux is, it was just fantastic to see how they could make an expressionless penguin a villain just by giving him a menacing musical score.
Maybe we could brand Feathers as the unofficial mascot of any future releases of a "MS Linux"-type product -- that'd be so perfect. Like Tux, just that somehow you just know he's evil...
The discussion fairly early in the article about public/academic review vs. the focused efforts of the NSA reminded me quite a bit of the Thumb from the Hitchhiker's Guide -- half the scientists in the galaxy are trying to come up with new ways to jam the Thumb, while the other half are trying to come up with new ways to jam the jamming.
What really worries me about the NSA is the seeming lack of oversight. Their charter should protect me against them (I'm a US citizen, and no I don't care about the rest of you =) ). Does anyone really know what mechanisms exist to keep this agency in check? I mean, Echelon must intercept my email whenever I send a "whazup" to anyone overseas; how can I be sure that my privacy rights are being protected?
Hell, how can we be sure that this agency isn't involved in even deeper black ops? I've heard the NSA described as basically a think-tank for the other government agencies like the CIA, BATF and FBI, but is this really true? It seems rather ironic that I'm paying for someone to spy on me.
Of course, this is just a symptom of the government's larger problem: routinely keeping secrets from the people. There was probably a time when this really was in the interests on National Security, but in an era where newspaper articles are routinely stamped "Top Secret", it seems to me that this is no longer the case. Time to reform the system, but it won't happen 'cause Americans just don't care.
However, unless there's some compelling reason (approaching blindness, you're a football player, etc.) why you need to lose the glasses/contact and quick, I don't see a reason to rush into what seems to be still a rather immature area of medicine.
Glasses and contacts are a hassle, but the unknown long-term effects of laser vision correction should scare the bejezus out of you -- what would you do for a living if your eyes didn't work right ten years from now? The point is, we have thousands of years experience with letting eyesight get gradually worse, and we can generally predict when things about about to go seriously wrong. Until you get to that point, why risk something so important?
That said, I must admit that I dream about the day that I'll be able to wake up in the morning and see my clock again (without accidently leaving my contacts in, that is). Never having to clean my glasses or deal with a cat hair on my contact ever again is a really appealing prospect. Just not sp appealing that I'd risk making my situation worse.
Actually, this does sound a lot like Microsoft's plan to charge per use for their office software, etc. Fortunately, however, we don't have to go out and invent a revolutionary new paradigm in software development to defeat this one.
Why, oh why can't I just get my mits on a componant for my stereo stack that will play MP3s? I'd be happy with a normal CD Player that would also play MP3s burned onto a CD. I'm on the verge of just flat-out building an extra box to do this, but I don't know how I'd set up the remote control.
Actually, maybe a DVD Player with the CD and MP3 capability built in would be best; I could add it without having to buy a new cabinet to fit it all in, plus one could build in cool stuff like on-screen programming or song selection. There are a lot of PCs selling these days with CD burners for an extra $50, and you can get a new HP CD Burner for under $100 these days if you know where to look. I'd think that anyone with the know-how to find and use WinAmp and MP3s in general would have the technical level needed to burn CDs, so why is nobody swinging at this one? The DVD players already out must have some substantial processor power under the hood -- I'd be willing to pay $50-$75 more for one that could play MP3s over my stereo.
The things I do to avoid moving my computer closer to my TV... Actually, if anyone has used that X10 device that broadcasts MP3s on a 2.4 gigahertz channel, I'd love to hear if you're happy with it (or if it's fuzzy).
500 GB? Nope, not even before Taiwan started sinking to the bottom of the ocean and memory prices skyrocketed.
It wouldn't be too tough to come up with a more intelligent network setup, though. Picture a setup with a couple dozen smaller servers chewing up most of the processing connected to a disk farm by gigabit ethernet. It's not impossible to do.
I just think it'd be killer. Picture walking anywhere on campus and having your desktop just a few seconds away - you could buy ten of these things for what my university pays for a standard desktop.
All you should need it fast networks and a fairly intelligent clustered-server network design (of course, the "intelligent" part puts it forever out of the reach of our CNS department).
The problem is that new, really scalable (by which I mean on the order of thousands of processors, not eight) hardware is going to require more and more of this sort of thing. My friend's patches (which are really patches from SGI's development team in general) are coming with an eye on SGI's own ccNUMA architecture. You might consider it a risk to do so, but for SGI to make money from Linux, Linux has to run on its custom (and might I add, damn cool) machines.
It's not difficult to foresee us getting to the point where apps work under one kernel rendition and not the other; SGI is probably just the tip of the iceburg. Wait for IBM or Sun (it could happen) or any other "big-ass server" maker to start eyeballing Linux for their own machines. It could go nuts - picture having ten variations of the Linux kernel, all running their own sets of applications. That's what forking is, and its very possibility should scare you. After all, is Linux still Linux if one version runs Lightwave and another can't, or is it just suddenly another fragmented UN*X?
I remember seeing a demonstration of a thin client Sun on ZDTV that got me thinking, "yeah, that's how it should work". The thing had a card reader; you swipe your card, you get your session back exactly where you left off without much of a wait. Yeah, I do think the card reader idea is an exceptionally bad one. It's the other part that rocks.
My university currently has a large NT network deployed, all authenticating and file serving off 2 servers (for 10,000 students). It takes upwards of 15 minutes to log in -- the 486s that were hanging around when I started here actually let me get my work done faster (but God do I feel old saying that).
Anyhow, this NT network doesn't do this (unfortunately, neither does Linux yet). I still have to close my apps before I can log out and start them up again when I log back in. I *like* the idea of just sitting down anyplace and picking up exactly where I left off - the same documents, the same web sites, the same work.
It seems to me that these things are mistargeted. They should be all about seamless desktop computing at an enterprise scale, not a "cheap" computer targeted at people who can't afford a machine. Chances are that if I can scrape together $200, I can afford to do something else (like one of those pimp-myself-to-Prodigy deals). After all, if I'm dropping my hard-earned cash on a computer, why not get one that my kids can play Quake on?
NCs belong in the office. The first business that really seriously starts targeting them as such will make a killing.
This isn't the only place this is happening, yano.
I have a friend who works at SGI, and we were just talking the other day about how their development people have been frustrated lately about their inablility to get certain scalability-oriented bits included in the kernel. So, essentially, SGI's Linux is headed for this same sort of fragmentation for the same sort of reason.
I told 'em that if he killed Linux I'd slash his tires, but I don't think he took me seriously.
We in the community have nothing to fear but fragmentation itself. The 10,000 faces of UNIX is what originally killed it as a server operating system -- that's why I refer to Linux as being the Second Coming of UNIX so often. The really key thing is that it runs on a common platform (Intel) and it's not the mess that the commercial UNIXes evolved into during the last decade.
I don't know how to stop this from happening, only that it must be stopped.
Okay, let's begin by admitting that running an arcade emulator on your digital camera is, at best, silly. Oddly enough, however, it is silliness which most often seems to point to where we're headed.
See, the fact that a camera has enough horsepower to run Rampage now indicates that the whole personal device market is not immune to Moore's Law. Personal devices will start having more and more power to spare as the applications we run on them become more and more demanding.
Picture a world where all of your personal devices can talk to one another -- take a few shots with your camera, and your cell phone will detect that you're not using it ad take the opportunity to blast a few backups to your home server. Pretty soon, the individual user becomes the center of a small network universe - it's just a matter of some powerful processors and a lot of good coding. Hell, maybe some day your socks will even let you know that they're mismatched before you walk out the door (I can see the average geek's house: "Excuse me, sir, but I've noticed that you are committing 21 violations of common dress-sense, three in particular of which will keep you from ever getting laid.").
I actually would choose Dell at this point over anyplace local.
Maybe its just my area (I live in the typical American middle-sized town; so typical that we're one of the major test markets), but the caliber of the people who own/work in the local computer stores is really disappointing. Prices are high, the service is rather sluggish and the quality of the end products leaves something to be desires. Add to that the fact that two of the local places (and I don't mean like Best Buy here, I mean local) routinely sell illegal copies of software -- one of them even got raided by the feds last year.
Given the choice of walking into a store and having some high school student in a stupid shirt try to push the most expensive system or going to Dell's website and choosing exactly what I want for a lower price... Well, that's a no-brainer. It goes against my instinct which tells me that mom-and-pop shops ought to be supported, but the factors which beg against my local options are just overwhelming.
That said, I know that there are a few really good local shops (we had one in Madison, where I grew up), but I find they are exceedingly the minority. Maybe it just has something to do with the sort of person who would go out and start a local computer place; maybe it's just a matter of the stress of maintaining a storefront and competing with a thousand other companies all making due with razor-thin profits; maybe I'm just sick of dealing with high schoolers. In any event, mailorder computers rule the way they're done today.
No, the best example I can come up with that will be easily understood by as many people as possible is a set of fictional characters. It's got something to do with the amount of exposure TV characters get as opposed to actual people.
I *could* have said, "The best example I can think of for this sort of relationship is my friend Mike and his girlfriend Sarah", but that would only be effective to the people who know them (a relatively small sample). Trollboy.
Are you kidding? Man, if you *really* want to keep a woman, be able to cook. Nothing impresses a woman so much as a guy who can whip up a decent meal on short notice.
We need what are now called "old fashioned girls" who don't mind cooking our meals, rubbing our sore shoulders, and running our bath water for us. There are plenty of these women out there. They're as eager to find you as you are to find them. The trick is sorting through the 6 billion people on this planet to find the woman who is right for you instead of wasting your time on women with whom you cannot possibly build a long-term, mutually beneficial relationship.
Got to disagree with you there, Roblimo. I'll disclaim by stating that everybody has different tastes in what they're looking for in a SO, but here's my take on this one:
Find someone who can and will drag your ass out of your chair every so often. Find someone who you feel is on par with you - they don't have to know computers, but they'd better be able to hold the line in a decent discussion without all of this "well, I'm sure you know best" crap that some people seem to be stuck with (my experience is with women, but I know guys who are like this).
IMHO, the best lover and companion isn't someone who caters after you 24/7. It should be a tit-for-tat type deal; I wash, you dry. Hell, some of the best relationship moments I've had have even revolved around disagreements -- remember, competition is a Good Thing(tm). If she just lets you win all the time, you'll get soft. Of course, the caveat to this is that you both always have to know that, in the final analysis, you're always on the other person's side before anyone elses.
It's sappy, but the best example I can think of for this sort of relationship is from "Mad About You", that series with Helen Hunt and Paul Riser. Love each other, support each other, but most important: be one another's best friend.
Slashdot Mirror
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It was a mistake to ask him for an interview to begin with. It's rather obvious that this guy lives on seeing his name in print, so giving him any attention at all is just feeding him exactly what he craves.
Slashdot ain't me call, but I've got to recommend that Rob & Co. pick and choose their interviewees a bit more carefully. There are a ton of people out there who'd be an insightful read, even beyond the Three Initial Mafia (you know, RMS, ESR, JWZ, etc... what the hell is Linus' middle name?). JP is more of a thug than a creator -- he represents an awful lot that is contrary to /.'s principles: lawsuits, legal threats, shameless self-promotion, misinformation, collaborating with government hoods, etc.
In short, we ought to be ignoring this guy.
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Pretty simply: There's something we in the US find amusing about forign concepts -- in the enlightened United States, the concept of a man kissing us as we access his web site to be a hoot rather than a cultural insight of any kind. Those crazy backwards forigners!
Obviously, the more you can drag it out the better -- that's where the broken english, etc. come in. Interestingly, this concept can also be applied to sub-groups within the United States. For proof, look at Fargo, Raising Arizona, the Dukes of Hazzard or any episode of the X-Files involving the midwest or Texas (note: the Texans deserve it, IMHO).
I feel that this will only be the first of a slew of web sites dedicated to cashing in on this interesting concept. In fact, I'm working on my own "Stupid Midwesterner" web site as we speak (well, as I type). Oh yeaa, doncha know. We here in Wisconsin are enjoyin' this whole Microsoft kit-and-kibootle. Look for it to start hauling in the hits -- I'm looking for a high-paying banner ad agreement as we speak. Maybe I could even do the MP3 web site thing; "To see more of the wacky Wisconsinite's site, click on the first three banners and get the first word of the second paragraph of each site that pop up in the new annoying windows...".
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Moving beyond blind advocacy is essential for any movement like OSS. Of all the people on the list (except Bill G, who I suspect is on the list as a joke), jwz seems to me the best example of this.
Tim O'Reilly is my second choice. Thanks to him, OSS has a real voice out there in the publishing community. There's nothing to impress your boss like a large number of Linux books next to all the "Be an MCSE in 30 days!" crap at Barnes and Noble. Besides, hard copies make me smile.
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At least on the Windows platform (which is really one of the only two platforms that are relevant to this discussion), IE is faster, more stable and overall more functional. When it was first released, IE was just a pale shadow of Netscape; just a photocopied feature set. That's not the case anymore.
I have hopes for Mozilla, but I'm beginning to come around to seeing that the delays in getting a production version out are really hurting it. No matter how progressed it is, there needs to be a shipping version within, say, six months. If this is not accomplished or if that version sucks, Netscape will have lost such serious ground that it will have difficulty catching up. Already we can see that their reputation as being a quality product is being damaged.
Man, I hate saying that sort of thing; admitting that MS is better in this case makes my teeth ache.
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I'm hoping that they will when they show off their distro at Comdex -- Cowpland is talking right after Bob Young, so I have hope.
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1. I'd rather live in a functional 747. It would be the ultimate home for someone who travels a few hundred days a year. Hell, I'm a bit surprised now that I think about it that some company hasn't bought one for their frequently-flying execs. Bill Gates spends a lot of time abroad (even when he's not getting pied) -- if he were like me, he'd prefer framiliar surroundings to even a ritzy hotel. I think a more homey Air Force One would be gangbusters -- convert the press and secret service areas into a master bedroom and a living area. Once I had it set up, I could continue with my scheme to finance SETI work and send Jodi Foster to the center of the galaxy...
2. This place can't hold a candle to the outfit offering the converted missile bases . The ability to have a T1 installed and to withstand a direct nuclear hit is just overwhelming. If those BATF guys think they had trouble getting the Branch Davidians to come out, just you wait until I lock this thing down for the evening.
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Open source seems to work best on the operating system level or in replacing old, bloated software. Cutting-edge from-scratch development isn't OSS's strongpoint, but once a project does catch up and does become modern, it's usually the best choice out there.
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Cobalt might be a good long-term. The idea of network appliances like the Cube could very well be the Next Big Thing -- boxes that serve web and don't do anything else are a fairly big step towards simplifying the information environment of a small to medium sized company. The fact that they're using Linux as an underpinning proves only that they know how to be frugal.
That said, we'll have to see how well they're managed before we declare them the next Cisco. What they manage for a line of follow-up products is the Big Question...
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Maybe we could brand Feathers as the unofficial mascot of any future releases of a "MS Linux"-type product -- that'd be so perfect. Like Tux, just that somehow you just know he's evil...
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What really worries me about the NSA is the seeming lack of oversight. Their charter should protect me against them (I'm a US citizen, and no I don't care about the rest of you =) ). Does anyone really know what mechanisms exist to keep this agency in check? I mean, Echelon must intercept my email whenever I send a "whazup" to anyone overseas; how can I be sure that my privacy rights are being protected?
Hell, how can we be sure that this agency isn't involved in even deeper black ops? I've heard the NSA described as basically a think-tank for the other government agencies like the CIA, BATF and FBI, but is this really true? It seems rather ironic that I'm paying for someone to spy on me.
Of course, this is just a symptom of the government's larger problem: routinely keeping secrets from the people. There was probably a time when this really was in the interests on National Security, but in an era where newspaper articles are routinely stamped "Top Secret", it seems to me that this is no longer the case. Time to reform the system, but it won't happen 'cause Americans just don't care.
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However, unless there's some compelling reason (approaching blindness, you're a football player, etc.) why you need to lose the glasses/contact and quick, I don't see a reason to rush into what seems to be still a rather immature area of medicine.
Glasses and contacts are a hassle, but the unknown long-term effects of laser vision correction should scare the bejezus out of you -- what would you do for a living if your eyes didn't work right ten years from now? The point is, we have thousands of years experience with letting eyesight get gradually worse, and we can generally predict when things about about to go seriously wrong. Until you get to that point, why risk something so important?
That said, I must admit that I dream about the day that I'll be able to wake up in the morning and see my clock again (without accidently leaving my contacts in, that is). Never having to clean my glasses or deal with a cat hair on my contact ever again is a really appealing prospect. Just not sp appealing that I'd risk making my situation worse.
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Just carry a water bottle.
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Actually, maybe a DVD Player with the CD and MP3 capability built in would be best; I could add it without having to buy a new cabinet to fit it all in, plus one could build in cool stuff like on-screen programming or song selection. There are a lot of PCs selling these days with CD burners for an extra $50, and you can get a new HP CD Burner for under $100 these days if you know where to look. I'd think that anyone with the know-how to find and use WinAmp and MP3s in general would have the technical level needed to burn CDs, so why is nobody swinging at this one? The DVD players already out must have some substantial processor power under the hood -- I'd be willing to pay $50-$75 more for one that could play MP3s over my stereo.
The things I do to avoid moving my computer closer to my TV... Actually, if anyone has used that X10 device that broadcasts MP3s on a 2.4 gigahertz channel, I'd love to hear if you're happy with it (or if it's fuzzy).
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It wouldn't be too tough to come up with a more intelligent network setup, though. Picture a setup with a couple dozen smaller servers chewing up most of the processing connected to a disk farm by gigabit ethernet. It's not impossible to do.
I just think it'd be killer. Picture walking anywhere on campus and having your desktop just a few seconds away - you could buy ten of these things for what my university pays for a standard desktop.
All you should need it fast networks and a fairly intelligent clustered-server network design (of course, the "intelligent" part puts it forever out of the reach of our CNS department).
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It's not difficult to foresee us getting to the point where apps work under one kernel rendition and not the other; SGI is probably just the tip of the iceburg. Wait for IBM or Sun (it could happen) or any other "big-ass server" maker to start eyeballing Linux for their own machines. It could go nuts - picture having ten variations of the Linux kernel, all running their own sets of applications. That's what forking is, and its very possibility should scare you. After all, is Linux still Linux if one version runs Lightwave and another can't, or is it just suddenly another fragmented UN*X?
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My university currently has a large NT network deployed, all authenticating and file serving off 2 servers (for 10,000 students). It takes upwards of 15 minutes to log in -- the 486s that were hanging around when I started here actually let me get my work done faster (but God do I feel old saying that).
Anyhow, this NT network doesn't do this (unfortunately, neither does Linux yet). I still have to close my apps before I can log out and start them up again when I log back in. I *like* the idea of just sitting down anyplace and picking up exactly where I left off - the same documents, the same web sites, the same work.
It seems to me that these things are mistargeted. They should be all about seamless desktop computing at an enterprise scale, not a "cheap" computer targeted at people who can't afford a machine. Chances are that if I can scrape together $200, I can afford to do something else (like one of those pimp-myself-to-Prodigy deals). After all, if I'm dropping my hard-earned cash on a computer, why not get one that my kids can play Quake on?
NCs belong in the office. The first business that really seriously starts targeting them as such will make a killing.
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I have a friend who works at SGI, and we were just talking the other day about how their development people have been frustrated lately about their inablility to get certain scalability-oriented bits included in the kernel. So, essentially, SGI's Linux is headed for this same sort of fragmentation for the same sort of reason.
I told 'em that if he killed Linux I'd slash his tires, but I don't think he took me seriously.
We in the community have nothing to fear but fragmentation itself. The 10,000 faces of UNIX is what originally killed it as a server operating system -- that's why I refer to Linux as being the Second Coming of UNIX so often. The really key thing is that it runs on a common platform (Intel) and it's not the mess that the commercial UNIXes evolved into during the last decade.
I don't know how to stop this from happening, only that it must be stopped.
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See, the fact that a camera has enough horsepower to run Rampage now indicates that the whole personal device market is not immune to Moore's Law. Personal devices will start having more and more power to spare as the applications we run on them become more and more demanding.
Picture a world where all of your personal devices can talk to one another -- take a few shots with your camera, and your cell phone will detect that you're not using it ad take the opportunity to blast a few backups to your home server. Pretty soon, the individual user becomes the center of a small network universe - it's just a matter of some powerful processors and a lot of good coding. Hell, maybe some day your socks will even let you know that they're mismatched before you walk out the door (I can see the average geek's house: "Excuse me, sir, but I've noticed that you are committing 21 violations of common dress-sense, three in particular of which will keep you from ever getting laid.").
Cool time to be alive.
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Maybe its just my area (I live in the typical American middle-sized town; so typical that we're one of the major test markets), but the caliber of the people who own/work in the local computer stores is really disappointing. Prices are high, the service is rather sluggish and the quality of the end products leaves something to be desires. Add to that the fact that two of the local places (and I don't mean like Best Buy here, I mean local) routinely sell illegal copies of software -- one of them even got raided by the feds last year.
Given the choice of walking into a store and having some high school student in a stupid shirt try to push the most expensive system or going to Dell's website and choosing exactly what I want for a lower price... Well, that's a no-brainer. It goes against my instinct which tells me that mom-and-pop shops ought to be supported, but the factors which beg against my local options are just overwhelming.
That said, I know that there are a few really good local shops (we had one in Madison, where I grew up), but I find they are exceedingly the minority. Maybe it just has something to do with the sort of person who would go out and start a local computer place; maybe it's just a matter of the stress of maintaining a storefront and competing with a thousand other companies all making due with razor-thin profits; maybe I'm just sick of dealing with high schoolers. In any event, mailorder computers rule the way they're done today.
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I *could* have said, "The best example I can think of for this sort of relationship is my friend Mike and his girlfriend Sarah", but that would only be effective to the people who know them (a relatively small sample). Trollboy.
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Got to disagree with you there, Roblimo. I'll disclaim by stating that everybody has different tastes in what they're looking for in a SO, but here's my take on this one:
Find someone who can and will drag your ass out of your chair every so often. Find someone who you feel is on par with you - they don't have to know computers, but they'd better be able to hold the line in a decent discussion without all of this "well, I'm sure you know best" crap that some people seem to be stuck with (my experience is with women, but I know guys who are like this).
IMHO, the best lover and companion isn't someone who caters after you 24/7. It should be a tit-for-tat type deal; I wash, you dry. Hell, some of the best relationship moments I've had have even revolved around disagreements -- remember, competition is a Good Thing(tm). If she just lets you win all the time, you'll get soft. Of course, the caveat to this is that you both always have to know that, in the final analysis, you're always on the other person's side before anyone elses.
It's sappy, but the best example I can think of for this sort of relationship is from "Mad About You", that series with Helen Hunt and Paul Riser. Love each other, support each other, but most important: be one another's best friend.
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