It will happen with OS X before it will ever happen with Linux. Why? People who know nothing know what Apple is all about. Dependable, useable, pretty.
Linux has something of an image problem to overcome. Not to say Linux can't be made to be all of these things as well, but it doens't seem that it has this perception about it with anyone I've ever talked to with anti-Linux on the desktop leanings.
Software offerings for certain niche markets are still one of the biggest shortcoming for OS X. Windows software has a lock on the litigation support market, for instance. Why doesn't anyone develop apps for OS X or Linux for a market like this? I'd try 'em if they existed and competed with Windows equivalents, but nothing even attempts to compete. There are a lot of small but high-margin markets waiting for software to be developed such as this. Where's the software?
Maybe. The type of luser I was describing would be just as lost in front of a Mac as anything else. Although "Mail" for an app name makes e-mail boneless enough for them even. Simplicity has it's advantages, for certain.
Friedman: The No. 1 misconception is that usability is a major barrier to adoption and that's not true. It used to be. There was a study done recently with a group of 20 users who had never used a computer before. Ten were put at a Windows PC, 10 at a Linux PC and they were given a list of simple tasks like sending an e-mail, surfing to a Web page and the usability results were pretty much the same.
Yes! This is so true. A lot of users I've had to support over the years have trouble doing the very basic tasks Mr. Friedman describes. Why would it make any difference which desktop OS they get minimal training on to do these tasks with?
If serious inroads are ever made in the US the argument for staying with Windows for compatibilty with clients or customers would fade pretty quick, weather this happens with Linux- or OS X- or whatever-on-the-desktop.
Even more likely to take off if more people start using Apple's at home. They're less afraid of this when things they make with their computer are as useful at work as they are in their livingrooms.
Most users getting nailed by this stuff aren't ready to be educated about spyware. They're typically the same people who still need clarification about the differences between "Shutdown," "Restart," "Shutdown and Restart," "Shutdown and Power Off," "Logoff."
You've got a long road ahead with most people before you'll be ready to proctor the "Why spyware is bad" lesson.
I don't think we can hope to effectively fight this battle anymore. The students in this equation just don't care.
I hate it that I've arrived at this conclusion, but it's the only one that makes sense based my experience. So what do we do? I can't see an easy answer.
Prison sentences for non-violent crimes seem like a bad idea from every angle I look at them. Prison sentences for stealing a single copy of the new Madonna song sound incredibly stupid.
Yeah for that non-violent crime, sure. But if come into my house and steal my furniture -- even if you don't kick my ass -- I still want you to go to jail.
The parent comment is only insightful if you know dick about the American legal system.
Amen! What are the mods smoking today? The parent to your comment, and other ones I've seen in this discussion seem to demonstrate a basic aspect of human nature that we attack we don't understand. There is a grand lack of understanding of our legal system on/., by and large.
Neither of us are perfect either but much closer than the mean around here.
What sucks about this is that when people engage in the sort of behaviour I describe, they also seem to close themselves off to further understanding of the thing they belittle. If we don't engage to a point where we understand what we want to change, it won't ever change.
On the other side of the debate would be our congress, legislating away on technology they don't understand.
There were separate trials that made use of the same evidence, so it's not entirely accurate to say one decision would be based off another necessarily. It probably varies from jurisdiction to juridiction, state to state, state versus federal, etc. to some degree.
It's quite common to restrict the use of other unrelated criminal activity as evidence in trial due it's potential to unfairly prejudice the outcome of a particular trial.
Are for this:
My question is, does the civil court have the authority to evaluate guilt in a criminal act on the way to proving liability? Is this common?
I don't know the answer, or if there is even a single answer. I'm a geek that works for lawyers. I know more about trial work than your average geek but, alas, IANAL. It's a great question though.
If people stole CDs from Wal*Mart in the same volumes they shared mp3s, they'd be facing grand larceny charges instead of infringement of copyrights. Yikes! Comparable prison sentences, felony conviction, no more voting rights... not a great prospect. I wouldn't want either one on my permanent record, but I know which one I'd pick given the choice.
This misses the point somewhat in the rationale laid out on Senator Hatch's page. The argmument being that people who wouldn't otherwise walk into Wal*Mart and grab the biggest stack of CDs they could carry and run out of the store are effectively doing the same thing online because they can more easily get away with it and in many cases, don't even realize what they're doing isn't strictly legal.
Or depending on how you look at it, (at least somewhat) more fair. So I have to ask, how is it silly? Nothing else on Earth is so cut and dried. Why would a legal system be? It has to be this granular to assure there is some way to provide an appropriate level of justice in every case.
I think OJ was probably guilty. In my opinion, an appropriate level of justice probably would have included a conviction and prison term. But thanks to sloppy evidence collection and some bungling by the prosecution, that wasn't possible here.
At least he didn't get away with it completely. Without a lower standard for liability he probably would have.
On the flip side, it's a Good Thing(tm) the standard for being found guilty of a crime is higher than for being found liable of a tort or infringement, etc. If it weren't there would be a lot more wrongfully convicted people unfairly saddled with criminal records, or worse yet, in prison (with the potential for being executed in some cases).
There's nothing uniquely American about the concept that money can go a long way to manipulating the process of jursiprudence. But in spite of that we still have perhaps one of the fairest systems there is. Unless you get rid of the concept of money altogether, there isn't a way to effectively eliminate it's influence on anything. Much less in a process where people's lives are literally hanging in the balance.
Actually, I believe the lobbying efforts are more geared toward appropriation of lands and monies to fund the building of additional prison space more so than for extending prison terms for particular crimes. Much of the prison business has been outsourced from government control to corporate businesses that promise to do it cheaper and better.
The companies building, maintaining and staffing the outsourced prisons are behind a lot of the lobbying.
He wasn't found guilty. You cannot be found guilty in a civil court. The word you're looking for is liable. The burden of proof for being found liable of something is much lower than the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard applied to criminal cases. All you need for a finding of liability is a preponderence of the evidence.
The civil court determined that most of the evidence in OJ's case likely made him responsible for the death of his ex-wife. There were just enough inconsitencies in the evidence (i.e. non-fitting bloody glove, investigators successfully painted as racially biased), sympathetic jurors and slick representation in the criminal trial to make most of the same evidence not meet the standard for reasonable doubt.
Hence, you have a not guilty verdict in one court, and a finding of liability in another.
Obligatory disclaimer: IANAL - but I work for them at trials.
And you don't think that slow ascent could have been because you studied the wrong thing in school?
No. English literature would have been The Right Thing(tm) if that's what I had a passion for then. I did time on a helpdesk for two years and learned a lot: about tech, human behaviour and psychology, and how to make office politics work for you instead of against you most notably. Two years isn't all that much time to spend when you're learning valuable lessons.
Besides, I was working on a long-term project above my payscale which, once successfully completed, was my ultimate springboard to bigger things. I'm patient, and it's always paid off in the end.
School's never really ended for me, only the formal variety.
The description of your path isn't all that unlike my own. I took a hobby and leveraged it into a part-time tech job, which I then leveraged into a career in IT. I found I was much happier when I stopped chasing dollars and started focusing on non-economic interests. I rose even faster when I was happier within my own skin and not focused on things I couldn't control.
Are you sure the thing you for which you got your degree will always be "the right thing?" My interests certainly changed over time. But I've tried to take the important things I've learned through the pursuit of each of them with me when I move on to the next one on which I'll focus intently. Don't let your degree box you in. Adpaptability and being open to new things have served me better than anything else in the corporate climb.
And now I'm fairly well off too, emotionally and materially.
It was a very small liberal arts school. At the time there wasn't much of anything offered in the way of CS beyond two or three programming classes, an AI class and if memory serves, a robotics class. In total, about 5 courses, all offered through the math department. There was no CS major; you had to design one through guided study and interdepartmental curricula. So I certainly don't speak with any authority as to what would consist of a typical CS degree program.
Things have changed dramatically since then. They now have a rather well respected computer science department with degree tracks in two or three distinct areas of CS.
I liked statistics and mostly focused my degree on that. I came that direction from the biology department, which is what I initially intended to declare as my major.
I tended to close myself off to things for admittedly irrational reasons then. I ended up majoring in math after promising myself I'd never touch it again once I got out of highschool. Not unlike my attitude toward CS when I was infatuated with math. It's probably as dumb as it sounds and I can't really explain it beyond the generalization that in both cases, I met someone at a critical point in my development as a human who presented both math and CS in a light I hadn't previously considered them in, completely reversing my previous perceptions.
I've never had any formal CS training beyond a couple rather lame community college courses which were basically geared toward making you learn the basics of C++, or VB, or something. Everything tech I've learned that really matters I've learned on my own (the hard way) or by geeking with friends in my spare time (the best way?).
Maybe that clarifies where I'm coming from somewhat.
And for the record, I worked my way up from a helpdesk job through the tech bubble. I didn't always like being there, but I loved what I was doing. And I got paid crap until I paid my dues and demonstrated competency and motivation. I'm just getting to a point where I'm sort of pleased with what I make moneywise.
When you love your work, that's just gravy on top of it all. It didn't matter then, it doesn't so much matter now.
In my opinion, Getting Rich Quick(tm) working in tech was always a bit of a myth anyway. Most of the people who managed it during the bubble aren't anymore.
It's decent -- maybe nicer than a lot of other careers -- but as a concept it's far from bulletproof.
Logic, abstract reasoning, problem solving, and mathematics are the "specialized knowledge" taught in CS. Heck, CS is basically a branch of applied mathematics.
I didn't mean to say that it wasn't. In fact, that's more or less what I discovered when I realized how much I like IT. It's what drew me to it in the end.
What's interesting is the lack of these basic skills in so many people I've encountered with CS degrees in my working life.
It's downright shocking, even, how unadaptable some of these people are. Many BS in CS people I've worked with spent all their time learning (insert programming language of choice here) and failed to learn the basic lessons programming teaches. It seems like a lot of these people missed the forest for the trees, which is part in parcel to the point I was driving at.
As for loving what they do, in my IT department of ~50 people, I'd say a scant 15% of them are interested enough in what they do for a living to work on something related but outside the scope of their actual 9-5 required teching. I couldn't be happier that I've found something I like enough that when I hang it up for the day at the Windows shop, I want to go home and mess with my Debian box, or hack an XBox, or read advisories on www.cert.mil, or post on/. or whatever.
Seems like most of my colleagues can't punch out fast enough so they can forget about tech for another day.
Grandparent, don't listen to the parent. Study what you find interesting. Then find a job and adapt what you enjoyed learning about to the job you get.
You might get a job as a patent lawyer, where you'll have to adapt what you learned in your comp. sci. cirriculum to your real-life job.
I majored in math and work in IT now. I shunned all comp sci offerings while I was at school, but I loved math while I was there. I've worked at aquiring skills a typical comp sci person has straight out of school, but you know what, I've got a big advantage over a lot of them because of skills I learned studying math, logic and basic problem solving. Basic abstract reasoning skills are far more important than specialized knowledge.
I'd do it exactly the same way if I had to do it again.
This is the problem with IT anyway, and probably the reason for this.
Too many people have been studying it because they can make bundles of cash when they get done.
Bzzzzt. Wrong!!! Do what you love, the money will come. Anyway, it won't matter so much if it doesn't as long as you love what you're doing.
If people are flocking away from engineering and comp sci in droves, I say GOOD, since they're probably the ones pricipally motivated by the perceived economic advantage of it anyway! Maybe we'll get someone to come out with a degree in one or the other that cares about something other than the paycheck for a change.
Education should be and end in itself, not a means to an end.
You have the civic obligation to protest and fight unfair laws, not respect them. Ever wondered why civil disobedience is a recognized form of protest?
Uh, sorry to say, but that is complete and utter bullshit.
You are correct to hold that there is a civic obligation to protest and fight unfair laws, but you still ultimately have to respect the rule of law, regardless of how you feel about a particular law. Enough people lose site of that and you'll have anarchy.
Civil disobedience may be a "recognized form of protest," as you put it, but that didn't stop Thoreau from getting thrown in the slammer when he practiced it.
Schools really ought to put Civil Disobedience on the reading list after they've covered the idea of the rule of law a bit better in the useless government classes they make everyone take.
Good! Your idealism is laudable. However, I don't know about this being the best way to change laws as much as it is a way to bring attention to laws that need changing. And only as a last resort, I would add.
At present, the only way to change law is through a legislative body of some sort, and in a more indirect way, through ruling on existing law by a court.
In fact, the best way to change the law is to use whatever influence you have to influence your congressperson to do your bidding. This means writing, calling, faxing, e-mailing, etc. to make him or her aware of your position. Better yet, pool your influence with people who think like you do, just like the media companies are doing.
Fight fire with fire.
But anyway, I have to know, are you willing to back it up? Will you go to mat for your ideal if you ever find yourself standing tall before the Man?
I, for one, would chip in for your legal defense if you would.
A minor nitpick: it's copyright, not copywrite. As in, "you have exclusive right to works you produce" for a currently ridiculous, disgraceful, and obscene amount of time in the US.
You're not writing copy! Likewise, you do not get works you author copywritten. These are two common mistakes that bother me whenever I see them used and perpetuated. These are rights, not writings. It's commonly confused because the rights at stake often pertain to writings.
Copyright means nothing more than a right to control copies of your work.
Sorry to rant at you. Nothing personal. I totally agree with your argument/position, in fact. It just loses some of its force when this particular word is wrong.
>Your attachment to material posessions is an >obstacle to forming attachments to real people.
Mine aren't. Maybe gazuki's aren't either. In fact it pretty much works the opposite for me. The gadgets most people are talking about here seem to be communication tools at their root. Sure some people live the paradox of complete wiredom and absolute isolation, but it doesn't have to be, isn't always, and shouldn't be that way. If you're disposed to forming attachments in meatspace, gadgets can facilitate that. If you're not, they can certainly serve to isolate you too. The point I'm driving at: these are tools, nothing more nothing less. Their utility is determined by the person who picks them up.
Furthermore, it's okay to like "things." I am my bank account, my ikea furniture, my data, and I AM my fucking kakkis, Tyler Durden. I'm certainly more than that, as well. If living in a room with bare walls and floors helps you make personal attachments, well, then that's great for you. Making attachments with people and their tech works for me, and other people here too.
Nirvana is hard to obtain. Good luck with that. My goals are much perhaps simpler, but I manage to attain them more often than not. I know I'm happy, are you?
Cables are key. Not to mention ways to manage them and make them not take much space. I have to worry about db9, cat6, rj-11, firewire, iLink, USB (powered, unpowered). For myself and other people I travel around with. It would be pretty nice to have a cable (probably more like a housing that contains the differnet types) with interchangeable ends that's retractable and fairly flat when wound up. Make it reach out about fifty feet and I'd need nothing else. I have software to deal with that feeds data over nothing but serial (sometime 50' away). Some of the cabling in the article would come close to doing that. The rolly cables he had in the article looked beter than what I'm carrying now. Just wish they had some different options on them.
Maybe
Slashdot Mirror
Linux has something of an image problem to overcome. Not to say Linux can't be made to be all of these things as well, but it doens't seem that it has this perception about it with anyone I've ever talked to with anti-Linux on the desktop leanings.
Software offerings for certain niche markets are still one of the biggest shortcoming for OS X. Windows software has a lock on the litigation support market, for instance. Why doesn't anyone develop apps for OS X or Linux for a market like this? I'd try 'em if they existed and competed with Windows equivalents, but nothing even attempts to compete. There are a lot of small but high-margin markets waiting for software to be developed such as this. Where's the software?
And no, I'm not writing my own.
Maybe. The type of luser I was describing would be just as lost in front of a Mac as anything else. Although "Mail" for an app name makes e-mail boneless enough for them even. Simplicity has it's advantages, for certain.
They're trying to use the Linux desktop with their feet??? Maybe that's why it's not working for anyone yet.
Yes! This is so true. A lot of users I've had to support over the years have trouble doing the very basic tasks Mr. Friedman describes. Why would it make any difference which desktop OS they get minimal training on to do these tasks with?
If serious inroads are ever made in the US the argument for staying with Windows for compatibilty with clients or customers would fade pretty quick, weather this happens with Linux- or OS X- or whatever-on-the-desktop.
Even more likely to take off if more people start using Apple's at home. They're less afraid of this when things they make with their computer are as useful at work as they are in their livingrooms.
Most users getting nailed by this stuff aren't ready to be educated about spyware. They're typically the same people who still need clarification about the differences between "Shutdown," "Restart," "Shutdown and Restart," "Shutdown and Power Off," "Logoff." You've got a long road ahead with most people before you'll be ready to proctor the "Why spyware is bad" lesson. I don't think we can hope to effectively fight this battle anymore. The students in this equation just don't care. I hate it that I've arrived at this conclusion, but it's the only one that makes sense based my experience. So what do we do? I can't see an easy answer.
The restaurant analogy is a nice piece of work. Bravo.
But I won't concede it's 'silly.' Hardly, in fact. Are you confusing my comment with someone else's? I called Cameroon out for calling it silly.
Neither of us are perfect either but much closer than the mean around here.
What sucks about this is that when people engage in the sort of behaviour I describe, they also seem to close themselves off to further understanding of the thing they belittle. If we don't engage to a point where we understand what we want to change, it won't ever change.
On the other side of the debate would be our congress, legislating away on technology they don't understand.
It's quite common to restrict the use of other unrelated criminal activity as evidence in trial due it's potential to unfairly prejudice the outcome of a particular trial.
Are for this:
I don't know the answer, or if there is even a single answer. I'm a geek that works for lawyers. I know more about trial work than your average geek but, alas, IANAL. It's a great question though.Anyone with a JD out there have something to add?
This misses the point somewhat in the rationale laid out on Senator Hatch's page. The argmument being that people who wouldn't otherwise walk into Wal*Mart and grab the biggest stack of CDs they could carry and run out of the store are effectively doing the same thing online because they can more easily get away with it and in many cases, don't even realize what they're doing isn't strictly legal.
I think OJ was probably guilty. In my opinion, an appropriate level of justice probably would have included a conviction and prison term. But thanks to sloppy evidence collection and some bungling by the prosecution, that wasn't possible here.
At least he didn't get away with it completely. Without a lower standard for liability he probably would have.
On the flip side, it's a Good Thing(tm) the standard for being found guilty of a crime is higher than for being found liable of a tort or infringement, etc. If it weren't there would be a lot more wrongfully convicted people unfairly saddled with criminal records, or worse yet, in prison (with the potential for being executed in some cases).
There's nothing uniquely American about the concept that money can go a long way to manipulating the process of jursiprudence. But in spite of that we still have perhaps one of the fairest systems there is. Unless you get rid of the concept of money altogether, there isn't a way to effectively eliminate it's influence on anything. Much less in a process where people's lives are literally hanging in the balance.
The companies building, maintaining and staffing the outsourced prisons are behind a lot of the lobbying.
The civil court determined that most of the evidence in OJ's case likely made him responsible for the death of his ex-wife. There were just enough inconsitencies in the evidence (i.e. non-fitting bloody glove, investigators successfully painted as racially biased), sympathetic jurors and slick representation in the criminal trial to make most of the same evidence not meet the standard for reasonable doubt.
Hence, you have a not guilty verdict in one court, and a finding of liability in another. Obligatory disclaimer: IANAL - but I work for them at trials.
Besides, I was working on a long-term project above my payscale which, once successfully completed, was my ultimate springboard to bigger things. I'm patient, and it's always paid off in the end.
School's never really ended for me, only the formal variety.
The description of your path isn't all that unlike my own. I took a hobby and leveraged it into a part-time tech job, which I then leveraged into a career in IT. I found I was much happier when I stopped chasing dollars and started focusing on non-economic interests. I rose even faster when I was happier within my own skin and not focused on things I couldn't control.
Are you sure the thing you for which you got your degree will always be "the right thing?" My interests certainly changed over time. But I've tried to take the important things I've learned through the pursuit of each of them with me when I move on to the next one on which I'll focus intently. Don't let your degree box you in. Adpaptability and being open to new things have served me better than anything else in the corporate climb.
And now I'm fairly well off too, emotionally and materially.
Things have changed dramatically since then. They now have a rather well respected computer science department with degree tracks in two or three distinct areas of CS.
I liked statistics and mostly focused my degree on that. I came that direction from the biology department, which is what I initially intended to declare as my major.
I tended to close myself off to things for admittedly irrational reasons then. I ended up majoring in math after promising myself I'd never touch it again once I got out of highschool. Not unlike my attitude toward CS when I was infatuated with math. It's probably as dumb as it sounds and I can't really explain it beyond the generalization that in both cases, I met someone at a critical point in my development as a human who presented both math and CS in a light I hadn't previously considered them in, completely reversing my previous perceptions.
I've never had any formal CS training beyond a couple rather lame community college courses which were basically geared toward making you learn the basics of C++, or VB, or something. Everything tech I've learned that really matters I've learned on my own (the hard way) or by geeking with friends in my spare time (the best way?).
Maybe that clarifies where I'm coming from somewhat.
When you love your work, that's just gravy on top of it all. It didn't matter then, it doesn't so much matter now. In my opinion, Getting Rich Quick(tm) working in tech was always a bit of a myth anyway. Most of the people who managed it during the bubble aren't anymore.
It's decent -- maybe nicer than a lot of other careers -- but as a concept it's far from bulletproof.
What's interesting is the lack of these basic skills in so many people I've encountered with CS degrees in my working life.
It's downright shocking, even, how unadaptable some of these people are. Many BS in CS people I've worked with spent all their time learning (insert programming language of choice here) and failed to learn the basic lessons programming teaches. It seems like a lot of these people missed the forest for the trees, which is part in parcel to the point I was driving at.
As for loving what they do, in my IT department of ~50 people, I'd say a scant 15% of them are interested enough in what they do for a living to work on something related but outside the scope of their actual 9-5 required teching. I couldn't be happier that I've found something I like enough that when I hang it up for the day at the Windows shop, I want to go home and mess with my Debian box, or hack an XBox, or read advisories on www.cert.mil, or post on /. or whatever.
Seems like most of my colleagues can't punch out fast enough so they can forget about tech for another day.
It's lame, and sort of sad.
You might get a job as a patent lawyer, where you'll have to adapt what you learned in your comp. sci. cirriculum to your real-life job.
I majored in math and work in IT now. I shunned all comp sci offerings while I was at school, but I loved math while I was there. I've worked at aquiring skills a typical comp sci person has straight out of school, but you know what, I've got a big advantage over a lot of them because of skills I learned studying math, logic and basic problem solving. Basic abstract reasoning skills are far more important than specialized knowledge.
I'd do it exactly the same way if I had to do it again.
This is the problem with IT anyway, and probably the reason for this. Too many people have been studying it because they can make bundles of cash when they get done.
Bzzzzt. Wrong!!! Do what you love, the money will come. Anyway, it won't matter so much if it doesn't as long as you love what you're doing.
If people are flocking away from engineering and comp sci in droves, I say GOOD, since they're probably the ones pricipally motivated by the perceived economic advantage of it anyway! Maybe we'll get someone to come out with a degree in one or the other that cares about something other than the paycheck for a change.
Education should be and end in itself, not a means to an end.
You are correct to hold that there is a civic obligation to protest and fight unfair laws, but you still ultimately have to respect the rule of law, regardless of how you feel about a particular law. Enough people lose site of that and you'll have anarchy.
Civil disobedience may be a "recognized form of protest," as you put it, but that didn't stop Thoreau from getting thrown in the slammer when he practiced it.
Schools really ought to put Civil Disobedience on the reading list after they've covered the idea of the rule of law a bit better in the useless government classes they make everyone take.
At present, the only way to change law is through a legislative body of some sort, and in a more indirect way, through ruling on existing law by a court.
In fact, the best way to change the law is to use whatever influence you have to influence your congressperson to do your bidding. This means writing, calling, faxing, e-mailing, etc. to make him or her aware of your position. Better yet, pool your influence with people who think like you do, just like the media companies are doing.
Fight fire with fire.
But anyway, I have to know, are you willing to back it up? Will you go to mat for your ideal if you ever find yourself standing tall before the Man?
I, for one, would chip in for your legal defense if you would.
You're not writing copy! Likewise, you do not get works you author copywritten. These are two common mistakes that bother me whenever I see them used and perpetuated. These are rights, not writings. It's commonly confused because the rights at stake often pertain to writings.
Copyright means nothing more than a right to control copies of your work.
Sorry to rant at you. Nothing personal. I totally agree with your argument/position, in fact. It just loses some of its force when this particular word is wrong.
Peace.
>Your attachment to material posessions is an >obstacle to forming attachments to real people. Mine aren't. Maybe gazuki's aren't either. In fact it pretty much works the opposite for me. The gadgets most people are talking about here seem to be communication tools at their root. Sure some people live the paradox of complete wiredom and absolute isolation, but it doesn't have to be, isn't always, and shouldn't be that way. If you're disposed to forming attachments in meatspace, gadgets can facilitate that. If you're not, they can certainly serve to isolate you too. The point I'm driving at: these are tools, nothing more nothing less. Their utility is determined by the person who picks them up. Furthermore, it's okay to like "things." I am my bank account, my ikea furniture, my data, and I AM my fucking kakkis, Tyler Durden. I'm certainly more than that, as well. If living in a room with bare walls and floors helps you make personal attachments, well, then that's great for you. Making attachments with people and their tech works for me, and other people here too. Nirvana is hard to obtain. Good luck with that. My goals are much perhaps simpler, but I manage to attain them more often than not. I know I'm happy, are you?
...and when it comes to cables of all types, longer is better.
Cables are key. Not to mention ways to manage them and make them not take much space. I have to worry about db9, cat6, rj-11, firewire, iLink, USB (powered, unpowered). For myself and other people I travel around with. It would be pretty nice to have a cable (probably more like a housing that contains the differnet types) with interchangeable ends that's retractable and fairly flat when wound up. Make it reach out about fifty feet and I'd need nothing else. I have software to deal with that feeds data over nothing but serial (sometime 50' away). Some of the cabling in the article would come close to doing that. The rolly cables he had in the article looked beter than what I'm carrying now. Just wish they had some different options on them. Maybe