Month: October 2005

outrunning the bear

There’s the old story about the two management trainees in the woods, surprised by a bear. The two of them take off, but one stops to change into running shoes. The other says, “you’ll never outrun a bear.” The other replies, “I don’t have to outrun the bear: I only have to outrun you.”

New Mac:
I suppose Apple doesn’t have too much to worry about, most people who’ve gotten used to an OS X laptop aren’t going to be driven back to Windows because it runs a little faster. But I’m not most people; I use this sucker for heavy lifting, and as soon as there’s some x64-based meat-grinder running Solaris that turns on instantly after sleep and and anti-aliases well and Just Works with whatever wifi, and doesn’t make me download drivers to do basic stuff, I may be outta here. Unless of course, Apple manages to get their act together and start shipping laptops that are delightful, not merely adequate.

So will Apple keep making hardware that sucks less than the other guys? That’s the real question. There may be some platonic ideal — What Tim Wants — that’s worth striving for, but in the here and now, computer makers just need to make their stuff better than the other guy, which in a world with MSFT and DELL, ain’t exactly impossible.

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I’ve been called worse names

You fit in with:
Humanism

Your ideals mostly resemble that of a Humanist. Although you do not have a lot of faith, you are devoted to making this world better, in the short time that you have to live. Humanists do not generally believe in an afterlife, and therefore, are committed to making the world a better place for themselves and future generations.

20% spiritual.
40% reason-oriented.
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the 50 page rule

Nancy Pearl, local — and national — celebrity, is the first person who I heard refer to the “50 page rule.” If you pick up a book, either at someone’s recommendation or through your own devices, it’s OK not to finish it, but try to get through 50 pages before deciding. A good idea: if the author doesn’t hook you right away, give them a chance, but don’t feel obligated to slog through the whole thing.

Freakonomics passes the test. I read the first 50 pages as soon as I sat down to see what it was like. Informative and fun. There’s been a lot written about it, but it’s worth a first-person experience.

So I finished it later that night. Highly recommended.

forks, aimless

I saw a posting on a mailing list where someone said he used “Gentoo linux” and wanted to know how to do something in a different OS (OpenDarwin). I wondered, how many linux distros are there? I have always thought there were too many, so I put the question to Google.

Opinion: There are too darned many Linuxes:

By my count, there are one million, two hundred and seventy thousand, and four hundred and seventeen Linux distributions.Nah, I’m kidding. There are only, by my quick count, one hundred and forty one Linux distributions. Currently shipping. For the Intel platform. In English. Is it just me, or is something wrong here?

Though opinions differ:

Currently, there are a total of 386 Linux distributions and 9 BSD distributions in the database. Of these distributions, 50 have been officially discontinued, or the distribution’s web site (or product information) simply disappeared, or became inactive (i.e haven’t released a new version in over 2 years and their web sites don’t give indication of work in progress). These are: Aleader, Antomic, Ares, Beehive, Blue, Blue Point, BYO, Caldera/SCO, Corel, DemoLinux, Dynasoft, Eagle, Eridani, EvilEntity, Happy, HP Secure, Immunix, JAMD, JBLinux, Kondara, LASER5, LGIS, LinuxInstall.org, LinuxPPC, LRs, Luminux, Madeinlinux, Merdeka, MUMi, Neat, N-ix, OEone, Polar Bear, Red Office, Shabdix, Slackintosh, SmartPeer, Spectra, Stampede, Storm, SuperRescue, TrX, United, uOS, Virtual, Virux, Voodoo, WinBi and Zeus). These distributions will not be included in the statistics that follow. That gives us a total of 345 Linux and BSD distributions for which facts and figures have been compiled.

What’s up with that?

I couldn’t name the 9 BSDs (I only know of Free, Open, and Net as extant). But what’s with all those distinction w/o a meaningful difference distros in the Linux world? What are the reasons to fork yet another distribution in an increasingly crowded (and not exactly competitive: do any of these charge for anything but media?) marketplace?

What it the point?

new project: DRM clearinghouse

I’m sure some clever people are on this already, but mention it here to vote for it.

Mossberg Takes on DRM, Urges CD-DRM Boycott:

To make it happen, people need to learn which CDs use DRM and which don’t. One way to tell on CDs is to look for the official CD logo on the package. If the CD logo is missing, the disc probably doesn’t comply with the CD standard, and the noncompliance is probably caused by DRM. Alternatively, somebody could set up a website with information about which discs used DRM. It would be nice, too, to have a site with information about DVDs, to keep track, for instance, of which discs force viewers to watch movie previews before seeing the movie they bought.

It can’t be too hard to set up such a site. If you put ads on it, you could probably make a profit. Who wants to build it?

Yes, I bet this would make a few bucks: seems like an obvious fundraider for EFF, either directly or on their behalf.

if death is your business

. . . bodies and blood represent market share.

The Open-Source War – New York Times:

IN September, the Defense Department floated a solicitation for a company to build a “system of metrics to accurately assess U.S. progress in the war on terrorism” and make suggestions on how to improve the effort. As a software executive and former Air Force counterterrorist operative, I began thinking: how would I build this system and what would I recommend?
My first task would be to gauge our progress in Iraq. It is now, for better or worse, the epicenter of the war on terrorism. By most measurements, the war is going badly.
[ . . . ]
If an open-source counterinsurgency is the only strategic option left, it is a depressing one. The militias will probably create a situation of controlled chaos that will allow the administration to claim victory and exit the country. They will, however, exact a horrible toll on Iraq and may persist for decades. This is a far cry from spreading democracy in the Middle East. Advocates of refashioning the American military for top-down nation-building, the current flavor of the month, should recognize it as a fatal test of the concept.

Interesting perspective. So much for our MBA president and his flowchart/flipchart management style.

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