I've heard that traditionally these "old-people" disease are ignored in research because they are considered uninteresting. Maybe option to live to you're 140 would kick-start more research on these diseases (:
First of all, note that the auhtor here does have an agenda. From the end of the article:
"Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and author of The Deniers"
The book he wrote does make a clear statement about how he feels about the current debate.
In any event, none can say that this development is linear. Beyond a certain point, maybe the balance between heating caused by CO2 and the increased plant consumption looks very different, and turns around. The complexity of these systems are not to be underestimated, and reading this article as "Some more CO2 might be good for us!", or at least reading it as a excuse not to do anything (like all those SUV owner might), would be bad.
According to this: http://www.svd.se/nyheter/inrikes/artikel_176865.svd (content in Swedish) 849 persons in Sweden developed cancer as a direct result of the Chernobyl accident according to a joint effort by two (Ã-rebro and LinkÃping) universities. The SRPA were sceptical on the result since they had predicted about 300 cases.
That is very interesting (: 849 of a total of 22 400 people with cancer, in a study of 1,14 million people. One question is if these people would develop cancer anyway, just a different type and a bit later. One other interesting thing to look at is not just how many cases of cancer develops, but how much it cuts of the life expectancy/quality of the people who get it, and in the population at large.
I once read that the number of people who died from Chernobyl is 47. That where those who died fighting the fire, and from direct exposure to massive radiation. Loads more have their life-spans shortened, but in the entire population affected, the impact was very small, and that compared to the energy produced, the danger to peoples lives from nuclear is tiny compared to effects from other common energy sources.
Or maybe the people where the coconut washes ashore have a life-expectancy lower than that of the west, and the increased cancer risk that comes with eating it is minor, and irrelevant. Cancer largely develops late in life, and is of more concern to populations living as long as we in the first world than most other places around the globe.
Even if you killed of all the coconuts, the cost of the operation could be high. Maybe, in terms of people's life quality, the money would be wiser invested covering other issues of health in the region, giving more people higher quality of life, rather than lengthening the life expectancy of a few unlucky individuals by a matter of days on average.
Would be interesting to look at how long expected development time for the cancers you could get from these coconuts would be. Maybe for people over 65-70, the food is perfectly safe to eat! (:
I once heard something fascinating. After the Chernobyk accident, the radioactive cloud that contaminated (mainly) the north of Norway caused allot of fear in people, and for people's health. The gouvernment continued to slaughter and burn massive amounts of raindeer and livestock.
A friend later told me that the meat was actually fully usable, and that it's destruction may have been unnecessary. She suggested we should have fed it to the elderly population, which did not have time to develop cancer from the meat anyhow.
There will be allot of talk in this discussion about the fear of radiation, and that is why this discussion is so good. Life does well with increased radiation! Humans don't however, by virtue of the way we look at human society and human worth. What it does say however, is that fear of nuclear energy, a power source that may have dramatically less consequence for life on this planet than most other energy sources, prevents us from progressing in the energy debate! (and maybe also in space exploration, given worries of launching nuclear-powered space craft)
Check this news item for a similar case to the coral reef in the article.
"People in the first world have convinced themselves that chemicals and radiation stand in the way of their personal immortality" - James Lovelock
So this is why we nerds are allowed to live?;) Seriously thought, it's brilliant. You ensure the best genes are selected, yet take advantage socially of all those who didn't turn out to be the best in providing care. I'm sure reality is more complex though. It tends to be.
Interesting this. I'd recommend reading the paper, it's just 21 pages long, and the discussion / results section is pretty easily read.
The findings are basically that men have problems catching the subtle signs that distinguish sexual intent from plain friendly intent, in both directions. I assume then, that men capable of reading the sign better will be more successful (as seen by our current ideals), both in making more friends and getting sex.
I think from personal experience in other situations that if you are relaxed, not stressed and feel comfortable, you are capable of catching on to a wider spectrum of subtleties and details. Experience also matters a great deal. Translating this into socializing, it underlines the importance of experience, feeling secure, comfortable and stress-less on social occasions. My friends who are nice people in combination with honestly and deeply having no social inhibitions, posses all these qualities. Subsequently, they tend to both make new friends and get laid at a high rate.
Or, if you are a true alpha male, the error's boyfriend would be the one left behind in the dust. Now that's natural selection for you. Sad principle upon to build a stable, peaceful society thought, so let's raise above that;) Me being a spindly nerd has nothing to do with this view of course.
An interesting follow up would be to look at men and womens abilities to communicate their emotional states to others of the same sex, and also broaden the range of "intents" studied towards the opposite sex. It's that men from Mars, women from Venus thingy.
Also, how about looking into this across cultures? Maybe the portrait of women as sexual predators that tend to flourish in the media conditions falsely and desensitizes to the subtelties in non-verbal communication on this, and other, subjects. Anyone remember the episode of Friends where they got free porn?;)
Here's my theory: power users are few and far between.
The iPod has traditionally not been a very complex device, and of course the lock-in with iTunes prevents many power users from enjoying a good ride. But ordinary people love the device, just because of it's simplicity. This also applies to many applications people are expected to use in business. Many of them could have been dramatically simplified and improved interface wise to make "power-user-features" into features ordinary people find, use and are not intimidated by.
A PDA not made for power-users may be a better PDA than those our there today. Imagine the simplicity of iTunes, but now also for your documents and calendar. This is why the Touch does the job more than well enough for me right now.
I also used to own a Palm, and find Cocoua Touch much more user friendly (while the palm wasn't bad either). I do think the interface offers an incredibly intuitive and fast experience that is way beyond my old Palm. Apple has traditionally been very good at this. Most people I know that have begun using Macs end up preferring Apple's interfaces, and the iPhone OS is of the same breed. That said, I've not used palms for a while, and experience is of course subjective.
It does make a poor PDA for documents etc, but as a planner and email client, I find it very very good (I allready reply on iCal).
An many people care about style and class. It's important for the feeling of quality as I see it. Products made with passion for both functionality and appearance tend to be very appealing. It's like food, where both taste and presentation is important (:
Using my iPod Touch as my PDA for a while now, I can testify that the device itself (and it's brother the iPhone), is a plain revolution in terms of style, usability and class amongst these devices. The article only mentions a single problem: background tasks. Apple obviously run them themselves, such as download in the background and email fetching, so maybe it's just a matter of time before they get a "tasks" framework ready.
Even if they didn't, the device itself could pack more than enough Cocoa Touch enabled power-apps that will not depend on this function to stay ahead of the competition for a long time. I'm personalty waiting for iWork Touch, which it would greatly surprise me if didn't show up by the end of the year.
A bit unrealted: how brilliant of Apple to sneak in a PDA through it's iPod market. For most consumers, it's easier to buy an iPod with PDA features, than a PDA which can play a bit of music. This will be Apple's next step in the digital lifestyle philosophy. You can no longer only carry around your music and photos, but also your docs and planner.
Using Macs on and off for a number of years, I think I understand at least some of why the fan boys get so bloody defensive all the time:
Macs are fun. They are enjoyable to use, and easy to spend more time on comparing to PCs. They easily become a large part of your life.
Explaining to others about some part of your life you truly enjoy, only to see it observed with skepticism because it is different, is very frustrating.
This breeds a feeling of being misunderstood, secluded, and "tribal tendencies" to seek out your peers, and close mindedness.
Feeling secluded for your views often feeds back into itself as you loose your patients, ability to explain the advantages, and your greater perspectives.
You may also suspect that in environments where productivity is not to highly valued, such as a place with less reputation to maintain, too much resources, or just sloppy culture, there will be more socializing and less work.
(We tend to see this here in Norway I think, with a generation of "oil-drugged" young people and a society where everything works out alright no matter what)
I'm not sure if the article meant that all top scientists abstain from drinking beer though. That would be even more interesting. "Say it ain't so!";)
Well said sleeping123. Like always when reading such studies, or at least before jumping to conclusions, read through this page.
It kind of reminds me of a ski-race my dad does every year. It goes over 90 km in the Swedish wilderness, and is extremely exhausting. Now, an article in a magazine he receives once stated that "people doing Vasalöppet (the race) are more healthy than others". When I asked him whether he thought the race wasn't getting unhealthy for him, as an old man, he quoted the article, claiming the race must be good for him.
It may or may not be that the race is healthy for him, but in my view, the article simply says "healthy people run this race", which is pretty obvious when you see the lack of 150kg+ people skiing 90km in a few hours (:
Thank you for a very interesting comment! It made me think of the recent talk (at least here i Norway) on my generation, the so called "millennials" and our lack of respect for old ways. Sadly, I fear it's not combined with a appreciation for knowledge and patience needed to create real breakthroughs.
Any ecological population in nature that grows towards the capacity of what the environment can sustain encounters growth regulating factors that limits growth, and eventually levels the growth at certain numbers. These factors are: competition, decease, predation and stress (dogs eating puppies, harder territorial fights etc). This leads to improvements in the genetic pool, keeping the overall population strong as specimens that are sickly, weak or have other non-benefitial mutations are removed from the pool, and provides nutrition for those who make it. It also stimulates long-term adaptation to the environment. It's really quite stunningly beautiful...
That is, unless your apply it to humans of course, and live by modern society values such as human rights (which we hold dear, and are bloody well right to do so!). I'm afraid the times coming up will try us very hard, and in the process make sparse what today defines being a good human: love and respect, a chance for everyone, right to personal development and education, right to equal share of good life and resources, forgiveness.
People who have tried to apply purely biological principals of the strong man's right to survive has gone down in history to be seen as demons that once walked amongst us.
It would be filled with something that does not shine, nor reflect light (: if you consume all the matter and energy (also inbound), I'd bet it would look at bit like that.
Could it possibly be that someone unleashed an exponentially growing pack of machinery that does nothing but turns the matter it find into more copies of itself...? Should give you a pretty nice bubble filled with nothing.
Given enough time, it's not totally unlikely this is bound to happen, also by human hands.
Anyone know if 1984 is censored in China? Surely there must be people making the connection.
I wonder though... No oppressive one-party-state (outside the USSR) comes to mind that has ever had such trade benefits and developmental progress as China. I wonder if the state's firm grip on the country will be a good or a bad thing in the long run. If it turns out good, maybe the virtues of democracy will be harder to convince people about (especially given the aggressive behavior of some democracies).
Or maybe doctors will be more like engineers? (: Lawyers on the other hand will be wiped out as soon as nanotechnology sophisticated enough to make a plague specifically targeting certain professions arrives.
When it is as easy to kill your enemy as it is to press the yellow button on your XBox control pad, you've eliminated 50% of the horrors of war.
And it's already going on. Cruise missiles take out unseen targets daily. Now how does an enemy respond to that? Can anyone say terrorism? Can anyone say anti-Americanism? If you see thousands of your people destroyed by an unseen, elitist enemy that you cannot direct your anger at due to their superiority, wouldn't it make sense to support someone going carrying a suitcase-nuke to downtown NYC as payback?
I'm not saying it's right in any way, just that maybe terror can't be forced back by causing more reason for grievance?
But what we got instead was robots taking our jobs without a safety net for the displaced workers. Humans, it seems, don't fit in the future.
When you retire a generation of workers by robots (somehow a development I suspect is being delayed by something called "outsourcing to the developing world") there will of course be a gap in which a generation of workers need to reeducate. Now, most of those in question will be quite old (as they didn't see the change coming, and thought the job had a future), so obviously there will be problems like this.
It doesn't mean it's not worth it. After some time, people won't educate to the job that are now replaced by robots. In the future, I suspect the only jobs out there will be engineering, sciences and art. That's not to bad, is it?
(Personally I do however have a more bleak view of the future related to overpopulation, but that is off-topic)
I enjoyed this article and it's related ones. I use Linux and MacOS at home with great enjoyment, and often wish I could run Ubuntu at work. Sadly, I develop ASP.NET solutions, and am completely dependent on Visual Studio to run flawlessly.
However, I do not see our IT department even considering adopting Linux here. They have the money to support the licenses (we're academic, saving us some), and apart from the Mac users, everyone uses Windows at home. However, what happened here with Firefox shines some light at what it may take to push Linux to wider desktop/workstation use.
In the beginning, we on the technical side were the only ones using Firefox. We loved it. It was, and still is, quite simply a better experience than Explorer to the user, in terms of speed, not getting in your way, and interface design.
So, Firefox gained momentum. Sometimes, I would personally recommend it, and install it. Some times, people picked it up at home. Once a few users got going, is spread pretty fast. It is still amazing to me to go around here and see people with no strong computer-inclination at all now using Firefox. Why? a.) They learned about it. b.) They found it honestly better than Explorer c.) It was easy to get and install. I remember a similar situation with Netscape Communicator back when it was still alive.
It's worth noting that initially, nobody cared about me recommending Firefox. It had to get famous enough first. Seems sheep-power is stronger than nerd-power.
Linux will become a big big thing once it reaches critical mass, get's enough really good applications (think Apple's iLife), and becomes super-easy to install. The guy in the article is a pioneer, and it may be guys like him that make the revolution happen. I'm not sure it's just yet thought. I think Gnome is appealing enough now to actually feel better than the windows GUI, but the apps are still lacking. If only Gnome could make a super-suite of integrated apps for photos, movies, music, finance, contacts, personal organization etc. It would have to be very good thought, peer of the iLife suit, both in usability and technical quality...
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I've heard that traditionally these "old-people" disease are ignored in research because they are considered uninteresting. Maybe option to live to you're 140 would kick-start more research on these diseases (:
First of all, note that the auhtor here does have an agenda. From the end of the article:
"Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and author of The Deniers"The book he wrote does make a clear statement about how he feels about the current debate.
In any event, none can say that this development is linear. Beyond a certain point, maybe the balance between heating caused by CO2 and the increased plant consumption looks very different, and turns around. The complexity of these systems are not to be underestimated, and reading this article as "Some more CO2 might be good for us!", or at least reading it as a excuse not to do anything (like all those SUV owner might), would be bad.
That is very interesting (: 849 of a total of 22 400 people with cancer, in a study of 1,14 million people. One question is if these people would develop cancer anyway, just a different type and a bit later. One other interesting thing to look at is not just how many cases of cancer develops, but how much it cuts of the life expectancy/quality of the people who get it, and in the population at large.
I once read that the number of people who died from Chernobyl is 47. That where those who died fighting the fire, and from direct exposure to massive radiation. Loads more have their life-spans shortened, but in the entire population affected, the impact was very small, and that compared to the energy produced, the danger to peoples lives from nuclear is tiny compared to effects from other common energy sources.
Or maybe the people where the coconut washes ashore have a life-expectancy lower than that of the west, and the increased cancer risk that comes with eating it is minor, and irrelevant. Cancer largely develops late in life, and is of more concern to populations living as long as we in the first world than most other places around the globe.
Even if you killed of all the coconuts, the cost of the operation could be high. Maybe, in terms of people's life quality, the money would be wiser invested covering other issues of health in the region, giving more people higher quality of life, rather than lengthening the life expectancy of a few unlucky individuals by a matter of days on average.
Would be interesting to look at how long expected development time for the cancers you could get from these coconuts would be. Maybe for people over 65-70, the food is perfectly safe to eat! (:
I once heard something fascinating. After the Chernobyk accident, the radioactive cloud that contaminated (mainly) the north of Norway caused allot of fear in people, and for people's health. The gouvernment continued to slaughter and burn massive amounts of raindeer and livestock.
A friend later told me that the meat was actually fully usable, and that it's destruction may have been unnecessary. She suggested we should have fed it to the elderly population, which did not have time to develop cancer from the meat anyhow.
There will be allot of talk in this discussion about the fear of radiation, and that is why this discussion is so good. Life does well with increased radiation! Humans don't however, by virtue of the way we look at human society and human worth. What it does say however, is that fear of nuclear energy, a power source that may have dramatically less consequence for life on this planet than most other energy sources, prevents us from progressing in the energy debate! (and maybe also in space exploration, given worries of launching nuclear-powered space craft)
Check this news item for a similar case to the coral reef in the article.
"People in the first world have convinced themselves that chemicals and radiation stand in the way of their personal immortality"
- James Lovelock
So this is why we nerds are allowed to live? ;) Seriously thought, it's brilliant. You ensure the best genes are selected, yet take advantage socially of all those who didn't turn out to be the best in providing care. I'm sure reality is more complex though. It tends to be.
Street wisdom: Ugly girls wants nice boys. Pretty girls want rich boys.
;p
Those in the middle swing both ways. This is also called "land of possibilities"
Interesting this. I'd recommend reading the paper, it's just 21 pages long, and the discussion / results section is pretty easily read.
The findings are basically that men have problems catching the subtle signs that distinguish sexual intent from plain friendly intent, in both directions. I assume then, that men capable of reading the sign better will be more successful (as seen by our current ideals), both in making more friends and getting sex.
I think from personal experience in other situations that if you are relaxed, not stressed and feel comfortable, you are capable of catching on to a wider spectrum of subtleties and details. Experience also matters a great deal. Translating this into socializing, it underlines the importance of experience, feeling secure, comfortable and stress-less on social occasions. My friends who are nice people in combination with honestly and deeply having no social inhibitions, posses all these qualities. Subsequently, they tend to both make new friends and get laid at a high rate.
Or, if you are a true alpha male, the error's boyfriend would be the one left behind in the dust. Now that's natural selection for you. Sad principle upon to build a stable, peaceful society thought, so let's raise above that ;) Me being a spindly nerd has nothing to do with this view of course.
An interesting follow up would be to look at men and womens abilities to communicate their emotional states to others of the same sex, and also broaden the range of "intents" studied towards the opposite sex. It's that men from Mars, women from Venus thingy.
Also, how about looking into this across cultures? Maybe the portrait of women as sexual predators that tend to flourish in the media conditions falsely and desensitizes to the subtelties in non-verbal communication on this, and other, subjects. Anyone remember the episode of Friends where they got free porn? ;)
Here's my theory: power users are few and far between.
The iPod has traditionally not been a very complex device, and of course the lock-in with iTunes prevents many power users from enjoying a good ride. But ordinary people love the device, just because of it's simplicity. This also applies to many applications people are expected to use in business. Many of them could have been dramatically simplified and improved interface wise to make "power-user-features" into features ordinary people find, use and are not intimidated by.
A PDA not made for power-users may be a better PDA than those our there today. Imagine the simplicity of iTunes, but now also for your documents and calendar. This is why the Touch does the job more than well enough for me right now.
I also used to own a Palm, and find Cocoua Touch much more user friendly (while the palm wasn't bad either). I do think the interface offers an incredibly intuitive and fast experience that is way beyond my old Palm. Apple has traditionally been very good at this. Most people I know that have begun using Macs end up preferring Apple's interfaces, and the iPhone OS is of the same breed. That said, I've not used palms for a while, and experience is of course subjective.
It does make a poor PDA for documents etc, but as a planner and email client, I find it very very good (I allready reply on iCal).
An many people care about style and class. It's important for the feeling of quality as I see it. Products made with passion for both functionality and appearance tend to be very appealing. It's like food, where both taste and presentation is important (:
Even if they didn't, the device itself could pack more than enough Cocoa Touch enabled power-apps that will not depend on this function to stay ahead of the competition for a long time. I'm personalty waiting for iWork Touch, which it would greatly surprise me if didn't show up by the end of the year.
A bit unrealted: how brilliant of Apple to sneak in a PDA through it's iPod market. For most consumers, it's easier to buy an iPod with PDA features, than a PDA which can play a bit of music. This will be Apple's next step in the digital lifestyle philosophy. You can no longer only carry around your music and photos, but also your docs and planner.
Using Macs on and off for a number of years, I think I understand at least some of why the fan boys get so bloody defensive all the time:
In the end, I think the fan boys end up with a superiority complex. You know, a bit little like "driving by a car accident, knowing you're the only one who can really help" ;)
You may also suspect that in environments where productivity is not to highly valued, such as a place with less reputation to maintain, too much resources, or just sloppy culture, there will be more socializing and less work.
;)
(We tend to see this here in Norway I think, with a generation of "oil-drugged" young people and a society where everything works out alright no matter what)
I'm not sure if the article meant that all top scientists abstain from drinking beer though. That would be even more interesting. "Say it ain't so!"
Well said sleeping123. Like always when reading such studies, or at least before jumping to conclusions, read through this page.
It kind of reminds me of a ski-race my dad does every year. It goes over 90 km in the Swedish wilderness, and is extremely exhausting. Now, an article in a magazine he receives once stated that "people doing Vasalöppet (the race) are more healthy than others". When I asked him whether he thought the race wasn't getting unhealthy for him, as an old man, he quoted the article, claiming the race must be good for him.
It may or may not be that the race is healthy for him, but in my view, the article simply says "healthy people run this race", which is pretty obvious when you see the lack of 150kg+ people skiing 90km in a few hours (:
Thank you for a very interesting comment! It made me think of the recent talk (at least here i Norway) on my generation, the so called "millennials" and our lack of respect for old ways. Sadly, I fear it's not combined with a appreciation for knowledge and patience needed to create real breakthroughs.
Any ecological population in nature that grows towards the capacity of what the environment can sustain encounters growth regulating factors that limits growth, and eventually levels the growth at certain numbers. These factors are: competition, decease, predation and stress (dogs eating puppies, harder territorial fights etc). This leads to improvements in the genetic pool, keeping the overall population strong as specimens that are sickly, weak or have other non-benefitial mutations are removed from the pool, and provides nutrition for those who make it. It also stimulates long-term adaptation to the environment. It's really quite stunningly beautiful...
That is, unless your apply it to humans of course, and live by modern society values such as human rights (which we hold dear, and are bloody well right to do so!). I'm afraid the times coming up will try us very hard, and in the process make sparse what today defines being a good human: love and respect, a chance for everyone, right to personal development and education, right to equal share of good life and resources, forgiveness.
People who have tried to apply purely biological principals of the strong man's right to survive has gone down in history to be seen as demons that once walked amongst us.
It would be filled with something that does not shine, nor reflect light (: if you consume all the matter and energy (also inbound), I'd bet it would look at bit like that.
Given enough time, it's not totally unlikely this is bound to happen, also by human hands.
Anyone know if 1984 is censored in China? Surely there must be people making the connection.
I wonder though... No oppressive one-party-state (outside the USSR) comes to mind that has ever had such trade benefits and developmental progress as China. I wonder if the state's firm grip on the country will be a good or a bad thing in the long run. If it turns out good, maybe the virtues of democracy will be harder to convince people about (especially given the aggressive behavior of some democracies).
Or maybe doctors will be more like engineers? (: Lawyers on the other hand will be wiped out as soon as nanotechnology sophisticated enough to make a plague specifically targeting certain professions arrives.
And it's already going on. Cruise missiles take out unseen targets daily. Now how does an enemy respond to that? Can anyone say terrorism? Can anyone say anti-Americanism? If you see thousands of your people destroyed by an unseen, elitist enemy that you cannot direct your anger at due to their superiority, wouldn't it make sense to support someone going carrying a suitcase-nuke to downtown NYC as payback?
I'm not saying it's right in any way, just that maybe terror can't be forced back by causing more reason for grievance?
But what we got instead was robots taking our jobs without a safety net for the displaced workers. Humans, it seems, don't fit in the future.When you retire a generation of workers by robots (somehow a development I suspect is being delayed by something called "outsourcing to the developing world") there will of course be a gap in which a generation of workers need to reeducate. Now, most of those in question will be quite old (as they didn't see the change coming, and thought the job had a future), so obviously there will be problems like this.
It doesn't mean it's not worth it. After some time, people won't educate to the job that are now replaced by robots. In the future, I suspect the only jobs out there will be engineering, sciences and art. That's not to bad, is it?
(Personally I do however have a more bleak view of the future related to overpopulation, but that is off-topic)
I enjoyed this article and it's related ones. I use Linux and MacOS at home with great enjoyment, and often wish I could run Ubuntu at work. Sadly, I develop ASP.NET solutions, and am completely dependent on Visual Studio to run flawlessly.
However, I do not see our IT department even considering adopting Linux here. They have the money to support the licenses (we're academic, saving us some), and apart from the Mac users, everyone uses Windows at home. However, what happened here with Firefox shines some light at what it may take to push Linux to wider desktop/workstation use.
In the beginning, we on the technical side were the only ones using Firefox. We loved it. It was, and still is, quite simply a better experience than Explorer to the user, in terms of speed, not getting in your way, and interface design.
So, Firefox gained momentum. Sometimes, I would personally recommend it, and install it. Some times, people picked it up at home. Once a few users got going, is spread pretty fast. It is still amazing to me to go around here and see people with no strong computer-inclination at all now using Firefox. Why? a.) They learned about it. b.) They found it honestly better than Explorer c.) It was easy to get and install. I remember a similar situation with Netscape Communicator back when it was still alive.
It's worth noting that initially, nobody cared about me recommending Firefox. It had to get famous enough first. Seems sheep-power is stronger than nerd-power.
Linux will become a big big thing once it reaches critical mass, get's enough really good applications (think Apple's iLife), and becomes super-easy to install. The guy in the article is a pioneer, and it may be guys like him that make the revolution happen. I'm not sure it's just yet thought. I think Gnome is appealing enough now to actually feel better than the windows GUI, but the apps are still lacking. If only Gnome could make a super-suite of integrated apps for photos, movies, music, finance, contacts, personal organization etc. It would have to be very good thought, peer of the iLife suit, both in usability and technical quality...