Somebody asked me how to recruit folks in the Atlanta area to move to Ontario. It was a great move for us – our situation required that we leave the states, as my husband is not a US citizen and we couldn't stay there any longer. So Canada was great for us on that level, and for gay people a whole hell of a lot better place to live in general. Not having to listen to constant anti-gay rhetoric in our daily life is quite liberating, and we don't miss the constant reminders of second-class citizenship in every official capacity, from taxes to insurance to hospital visits. Similarly, Black and Hispanic friends who have left the states for Canada have been generally happy, as have various non-US people who went there to work for a while (particularly Moslems, and some Asians and eastern Europeans, and notably expatriate Canadians sick of the states).
Progressive/liberal straight white Americans like to say they want to move, and I've read stories about them, but I've never actually seen it happen (they're kind of like unicorns). The tax disadvantage is quite profound, with the mortgage interest deduction in the states, the lower federal and state income taxes, sales taxes, etc. The real estate situation in Atlanta is hard to beat, especially if size is your criteria and you don't mind driving for hours a day. Livable communities are a lot easier to find in Canada, but for homeowners the price would be very difficult: Atlanta's in a slump, so they'd have to unload their gargantuan white elephants in a buyer's market, then buy a crackerbox in a seller's market in Ontario (or rent, which isn't so bad). Very few straight white folks would be feel any urge to make a switch at present. The healthcare system is a possible magnet, though Americans have been fed a line of fear on that one too. Perhaps people who want to desert from the armed forces, or skip out on their student loans? Maybe people who don't like having a lot of retail selection but do like paying more? (I'm reaching here. :)
So disenchanted minorities of all stripes, recent immigrants without green cards or citizenship (the process here is much faster and easier), recently graduated international students... there's the sweet spot. Otherwise, I would think it would be hard to sell an Ontario opportunity in Atlanta.
30 May 2007
27 May 2007
Less gas, more ass
The World Naked Bike Ride is June 9. The event is to call attention to the way we are all indecently exposed to automobile emissions, and how cyclists are vulnerable to vehicular homicide on a daily basis. The Vancouver ride starts at Sunset Beach (Beach and Bute) at 1pm.
26 May 2007
Lembranças do Brasil
Three months later, tiny grains of golden sand are suddenly coming out of my ears again. Such sweet souvenirs seldom stay so long. I like to think that they are from Ipanema.
25 May 2007
Feature creep and bloated products
James Surowiecki has a lovely piece in the New Yorker this week about feature creep and bloated software. He talks about the "internal-audience problem":
the people who design and sell products are not the ones who buy and use them, and what engineers and marketers think is important is not necessarily what’s best for consumersThe article mostly refers to physical artifacts, and he doesn't call out the major motivation that feeds software feature creep: the desire for annual upgrades. In the packaged software world you have to motivate customers to buy your product again and again, preferably every year. With subscription-based or free software, you just have to keep up with the competition, but with licensed desktop software you are competing against the version they have already purchased. via BoingBoing
23 May 2007
Sun gets it
Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz gets it: software patents are bad juju, and he's promising to use his patent portfolio to protect Red Hat and Ubuntu from the depredations of the Beast. Here's a guy that understands the business, and although his company has seen some hard times since the party ended back at the beginning of the century, Sun is taking risks and trying hard to ride the free software commodification wave. The earlier you bend to the inevitable the more likely you are to survive. Sun is showing admirable flexibility; sometimes a sharp downturn gives you license to take bold steps that a gradual decline does not.
Nortel's continued sad decline
Once-proud Nortel is back in the news, this time with a funny story about how they have a hard time keeping their former subsidiaries as customers. This is especially funny since Nortel's big successes in the go-go 90s were selling switches to Baby Bells who defected from Western Electric when they needed more switches.
For a while there it seemed like half the people I knew went to work at BNR/Northern Telecom/Nortel, and then just as quickly, none of them worked there anymore. The telecom boom died, and everybody had more than enough expensive circuit-switched almost-obsolete equipment depreciating noisily in their expensively airconditioned telecom equipment rooms – around the same time that people really started using blackberry and VOIP in a serious way. The Bay Networks acquisition never fared well against Cisco. Nortel never managed to come out with anything that resonated in the marketplace again, and their financials reflect that.
The telecom industry has become very rapidly commodified, and Nortel's half-cousin and arch-enemy Avaya has become the standard for awful, expensive local PBX solutions, while Asterisk-based solutions are ruining the party for all of the lumbering giants. Nortel could have ridden the wave of open source to become a new low-price leader, but instead seems intent on circling the wagons and riding its customer base down the drain.
And back to the earliest item: they apparently don't have any competent public relations staff. That's pathetic.
For a while there it seemed like half the people I knew went to work at BNR/Northern Telecom/Nortel, and then just as quickly, none of them worked there anymore. The telecom boom died, and everybody had more than enough expensive circuit-switched almost-obsolete equipment depreciating noisily in their expensively airconditioned telecom equipment rooms – around the same time that people really started using blackberry and VOIP in a serious way. The Bay Networks acquisition never fared well against Cisco. Nortel never managed to come out with anything that resonated in the marketplace again, and their financials reflect that.
The telecom industry has become very rapidly commodified, and Nortel's half-cousin and arch-enemy Avaya has become the standard for awful, expensive local PBX solutions, while Asterisk-based solutions are ruining the party for all of the lumbering giants. Nortel could have ridden the wave of open source to become a new low-price leader, but instead seems intent on circling the wagons and riding its customer base down the drain.
And back to the earliest item: they apparently don't have any competent public relations staff. That's pathetic.
19 May 2007
Greenscaping gets a free pass
A polluter bribes a wildlife group to provide PR cover, then pays a newspaper to treat it as great news.
I read in Wednesday's Metro* that Land Rover built their four millionth vehicle and donated it to the Born Free Foundation (a wildlife nonprofit). This was reported as straight news, right from the teat of the press release, apparently with no other sources, and presented with no other context. The vehicle in question will be used as a "'Rapid Response Rescue' vehicle for deployment across the UK and Europe". Whatever that means – sounds like a lot of driving around.
So allow me to do the "newspaper's"** job by providing additional context. In the fifty-seven years that Land Rover has been producing its four million vehicles, the climate of this planet has changed dramatically, and the ongoing holocene extinction event has eliminated between 20,000 and 2,000,000 species in that same time. The four million vehicles that Land Rover has produced will vent 228 megatonnes (2.28x1011 kg) of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (conservatively speaking, as that figure is for average vehicles that run for 240 Mm, and Range Rover sells heavier-than-average vehicles with poorer-than-average fuel efficiency). That single car "donated" will itself vent 57 tonnes of CO2. As any reporter or editor should know, CO2 is a greenhouse gas which is demonstrably causing mass extinction. So how can it be that a nonprofit that aims to be a Lorax sells out endangered species... for a free car? And why doesn't the "newspaper" call attention to this screaming contradiction?
It is obvious that Born Free likely has more than a passing interest in the corporate wellbeing of Range Rover. It is also clear that Range Rover wishes to position itself as a supplier of choice to environmentally sensitive gas-guzzler drivers everywhere (tread lightly indeed). So there are lots of troubling aspects to this deal, and the "newspaper" is kind enough to preserve our peace of mind by not questioning them. Even if one were to presume innocence and claim that the "newspaper" is simply incompetent doesn't explain this episode completely.
Which raises the deeper question: why would a "newspaper" present such a piece of bald PR as a news story? Ford (owner of Range Rover) advertises*** in the publication, and the press release was handed to the editor by the PR department of the dealership/manufacturer and told to run it, which the "newspaper" did unquestioningly. Their reasons for printing this press release nearly verbatim are obvious and two-fold: publishers are beholden to advertisers, and publishers are notoriously lazy about producing articles.
So why the outrage? News media is in bed with advertisers – like, wow. But I call attention to this particular case because it exemplifies how the news media, "environmental organizations" and polluters are colluding to the detriment of our living environment and the destruction of the very things they depend upon to survive: paying customers. The results of the supremacy of short-term corporate profit and damn-the-consequences growth, coupled with a compliant and quiescent public and subservient news media, is a hellishly clear path to destruction.
*^Powers, Lindsay. "Four million and counting: Land Rover gives animal welfare a helping hand" Metro News Vancouver, 2007-05-16, p 13.
**^Why am I using "scare quotes" around the word "newspaper"? Because the "newspaper" in question is freely distributed and not taken very seriously, although the circulation is pretty good for these publications. They are an attempt by the failing newspaper industry to maintain some sort of advertising market as they are eaten alive by television and internet news infotainment. The "scare quotes" denote my contempt for this source of "news" as biased and unprofessional, with the article as a case-in-point. But because they have the word "news" in the title, people confuse it with a professional news reporting organ, which plainly it is not since professional news reporting organizations have standards of journalistic professionalism about disclosing conflicts of interest.
***^In this issue there are no actual Ford ads that look like paid advertisements, though there is a Ford vehicle on the cover, and four glowing articles that mention or feature Ford vehicles.
I read in Wednesday's Metro* that Land Rover built their four millionth vehicle and donated it to the Born Free Foundation (a wildlife nonprofit). This was reported as straight news, right from the teat of the press release, apparently with no other sources, and presented with no other context. The vehicle in question will be used as a "'Rapid Response Rescue' vehicle for deployment across the UK and Europe". Whatever that means – sounds like a lot of driving around.
So allow me to do the "newspaper's"** job by providing additional context. In the fifty-seven years that Land Rover has been producing its four million vehicles, the climate of this planet has changed dramatically, and the ongoing holocene extinction event has eliminated between 20,000 and 2,000,000 species in that same time. The four million vehicles that Land Rover has produced will vent 228 megatonnes (2.28x1011 kg) of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (conservatively speaking, as that figure is for average vehicles that run for 240 Mm, and Range Rover sells heavier-than-average vehicles with poorer-than-average fuel efficiency). That single car "donated" will itself vent 57 tonnes of CO2. As any reporter or editor should know, CO2 is a greenhouse gas which is demonstrably causing mass extinction. So how can it be that a nonprofit that aims to be a Lorax sells out endangered species... for a free car? And why doesn't the "newspaper" call attention to this screaming contradiction?
It is obvious that Born Free likely has more than a passing interest in the corporate wellbeing of Range Rover. It is also clear that Range Rover wishes to position itself as a supplier of choice to environmentally sensitive gas-guzzler drivers everywhere (tread lightly indeed). So there are lots of troubling aspects to this deal, and the "newspaper" is kind enough to preserve our peace of mind by not questioning them. Even if one were to presume innocence and claim that the "newspaper" is simply incompetent doesn't explain this episode completely.
Which raises the deeper question: why would a "newspaper" present such a piece of bald PR as a news story? Ford (owner of Range Rover) advertises*** in the publication, and the press release was handed to the editor by the PR department of the dealership/manufacturer and told to run it, which the "newspaper" did unquestioningly. Their reasons for printing this press release nearly verbatim are obvious and two-fold: publishers are beholden to advertisers, and publishers are notoriously lazy about producing articles.
So why the outrage? News media is in bed with advertisers – like, wow. But I call attention to this particular case because it exemplifies how the news media, "environmental organizations" and polluters are colluding to the detriment of our living environment and the destruction of the very things they depend upon to survive: paying customers. The results of the supremacy of short-term corporate profit and damn-the-consequences growth, coupled with a compliant and quiescent public and subservient news media, is a hellishly clear path to destruction.
*^Powers, Lindsay. "Four million and counting: Land Rover gives animal welfare a helping hand" Metro News Vancouver, 2007-05-16, p 13.
**^Why am I using "scare quotes" around the word "newspaper"? Because the "newspaper" in question is freely distributed and not taken very seriously, although the circulation is pretty good for these publications. They are an attempt by the failing newspaper industry to maintain some sort of advertising market as they are eaten alive by television and internet news infotainment. The "scare quotes" denote my contempt for this source of "news" as biased and unprofessional, with the article as a case-in-point. But because they have the word "news" in the title, people confuse it with a professional news reporting organ, which plainly it is not since professional news reporting organizations have standards of journalistic professionalism about disclosing conflicts of interest.
***^In this issue there are no actual Ford ads that look like paid advertisements, though there is a Ford vehicle on the cover, and four glowing articles that mention or feature Ford vehicles.
16 May 2007
Microsoft: Patent Troll
Desperation is never sexy. It is sad (if unsurprising) to see that Microsoft has stooped to becoming a lowly patent troll. They've been moving in this direction for a while, starting their patent portfolio as a purely defensive measure, but then trying to intimidate the Samba project, then financing SCO to be their stooge in a battle against GNU/Linux. But so far, they had just been using their patent portfolio as a FUD tool. 
But now they've turned a corner and decided to monetize their paperwork, shaking down big scaredycat organizations. Then they decided to subvert Novell. Now they're setting the stage to take their campaign wider and try to scare individuals.
It's a sad state of affairs for the once-proud company that released great products like Windows for Workgroups and Excel. No, Microsoft was never really innovative, but they were at least competently derivative: at one time they could take somebody else's concept and improve upon it. Remember how they took on Netware and destroyed it (with a better product)? Today all they seem capable of doing is screwing up their products and taking out their frustrations on their customers.
Microsoft is apparently taking theatrical cues from Joseph McCarthy. "I have a list here of 235 patents the communists are infringing." Of course they won't say what they are, because if they do, those patents will be immediately challenged with prior art and worked around by the open source community. Plus, their competitors will unleash hell with their own patent portfolios.
The funny thing is that if Microsoft still had decent prospects it wouldn't dare resort to this sort of two-bit shakedown operation. Microsoft made an empire by appropriating the good ideas of others and incorporating them into its products (then using cross-subsidy and vendor lock-in to exterminate the competition, the tools of a convicted monopolist). By doing so they added value and met the needs of the end user. But they seem incapable of doing that anymore, so now they resort to intimidation. It's a sad end to a once-proud company.
But now they've turned a corner and decided to monetize their paperwork, shaking down big scaredycat organizations. Then they decided to subvert Novell. Now they're setting the stage to take their campaign wider and try to scare individuals.It's a sad state of affairs for the once-proud company that released great products like Windows for Workgroups and Excel. No, Microsoft was never really innovative, but they were at least competently derivative: at one time they could take somebody else's concept and improve upon it. Remember how they took on Netware and destroyed it (with a better product)? Today all they seem capable of doing is screwing up their products and taking out their frustrations on their customers.
Microsoft is apparently taking theatrical cues from Joseph McCarthy. "I have a list here of 235 patents the communists are infringing." Of course they won't say what they are, because if they do, those patents will be immediately challenged with prior art and worked around by the open source community. Plus, their competitors will unleash hell with their own patent portfolios.The funny thing is that if Microsoft still had decent prospects it wouldn't dare resort to this sort of two-bit shakedown operation. Microsoft made an empire by appropriating the good ideas of others and incorporating them into its products (then using cross-subsidy and vendor lock-in to exterminate the competition, the tools of a convicted monopolist). By doing so they added value and met the needs of the end user. But they seem incapable of doing that anymore, so now they resort to intimidation. It's a sad end to a once-proud company.
12 May 2007
100 yummy web apps
The Freelancer’s Toolset: 100 Web Apps for Everything You Will Possibly Need lists most of the usual suspects (Basecamp, FreshBooks) but some unexpected goodies as well.
8 May 2007
Body Text, Body Text, Body Text, Char
Paul says:
My seven sins:
1) You can't see what you've selected in the collapsed combobox
2) It is hard to differentiate the styles vs indents vs fonts
3) Are there really as many styles as the scroll bar would imply? Egad!
4) What useful purpose is served by all of the styles being the same on every single line?
5) The combobox droplist obscures the entire window. What was I doing?
6) Provided you were able to select the perfect style, how would you ever find that one again?
7) Type-ahead to match in the combobox is useless if they all have the same label.
and a bonus answer:
8) Aiiiieee! Cash through the mail is always a felonious pyramid scheme used to fund terrorism!
... how many usability issues can you find in this screen grab? Winner gets two crisp United States dollar bills, mailed to them in a No. 5 security envelope with an Elvis stamp affixed to it. (Fat Elvis only, sorry.)
My seven sins:
1) You can't see what you've selected in the collapsed combobox
2) It is hard to differentiate the styles vs indents vs fonts
3) Are there really as many styles as the scroll bar would imply? Egad!
4) What useful purpose is served by all of the styles being the same on every single line?
5) The combobox droplist obscures the entire window. What was I doing?
6) Provided you were able to select the perfect style, how would you ever find that one again?
7) Type-ahead to match in the combobox is useless if they all have the same label.
and a bonus answer:
8) Aiiiieee! Cash through the mail is always a felonious pyramid scheme used to fund terrorism!
7 May 2007
Unexpected vacation; media abdication
Check out a satirical comic about Maher Arar's extraordinary rendition by Tom Tomorrow today on Salon.
I was in the states listening to National Public Radio when the Canadian government apologized to Arar for their role in his kidnapping and torture. Anne Garrels read a brief story about the case, saying that he had been deported to Syria "where he was allegedly interrogated." I had a moment of radio rage. Allegedly interrogated? Is that all it was? See, I was under the impression that the "allegations" were of torture. I didn't think there was even any question that he had been interrogated.
But you see, that's the state of journalism today. Even NPR which is supposedly so very liberal, independent and trustworthy has deteriorated to the point where it abuses language to avoid reporting news that government and corporate masters would rather not be heard. It seems like NPR is reporting news, because it still calls itself news and NPR once did something resembling news, but it has become little more than a pack of politicized corporate cheerleaders.
If you have been listening continuously to NPR for the past ten years or so you might not have noticed the change. With a little bit of distance you notice the ever-lengthening advertisements ("sponsorships") for pharmaceutical companies, defense contractors, and agriculture conglomerates (they started out as five-word blurbs, but then they grew inexorably – in length and frequency). The subtle shift in language when dealing with political matters is harder to quantify, but is definitely there. Evidence of partisan skulduggery at NPR is well documented, but you don't have to be a researcher to notice the effects in the types of commentators now invited to voice their opinions. Where opinions were once balanced and questioned, they now reverberate unanswered, especially when they deal with United States foreign policy and international investment, legal and trade agreements.
Media conglomeration in the US has resulted in less diversity of opinion and less real commentary in the official mainstream press. At the same time, public radio has been dragged down to the point where it provides no meaningful competition to commercial media organs. None dare call it conspiracy, because there is nobody left standing to do so. Instead, corporate cheerleaders with airbrushed makeup and great hair read sanitized newsbytes without context, and bejowled father-figures terrify and scold, providing judgments without bothering to inform. In short, certain interests control the medium and the message, and don't bet they're doing it in your best interests.
I was in the states listening to National Public Radio when the Canadian government apologized to Arar for their role in his kidnapping and torture. Anne Garrels read a brief story about the case, saying that he had been deported to Syria "where he was allegedly interrogated." I had a moment of radio rage. Allegedly interrogated? Is that all it was? See, I was under the impression that the "allegations" were of torture. I didn't think there was even any question that he had been interrogated.
But you see, that's the state of journalism today. Even NPR which is supposedly so very liberal, independent and trustworthy has deteriorated to the point where it abuses language to avoid reporting news that government and corporate masters would rather not be heard. It seems like NPR is reporting news, because it still calls itself news and NPR once did something resembling news, but it has become little more than a pack of politicized corporate cheerleaders.
If you have been listening continuously to NPR for the past ten years or so you might not have noticed the change. With a little bit of distance you notice the ever-lengthening advertisements ("sponsorships") for pharmaceutical companies, defense contractors, and agriculture conglomerates (they started out as five-word blurbs, but then they grew inexorably – in length and frequency). The subtle shift in language when dealing with political matters is harder to quantify, but is definitely there. Evidence of partisan skulduggery at NPR is well documented, but you don't have to be a researcher to notice the effects in the types of commentators now invited to voice their opinions. Where opinions were once balanced and questioned, they now reverberate unanswered, especially when they deal with United States foreign policy and international investment, legal and trade agreements.
Media conglomeration in the US has resulted in less diversity of opinion and less real commentary in the official mainstream press. At the same time, public radio has been dragged down to the point where it provides no meaningful competition to commercial media organs. None dare call it conspiracy, because there is nobody left standing to do so. Instead, corporate cheerleaders with airbrushed makeup and great hair read sanitized newsbytes without context, and bejowled father-figures terrify and scold, providing judgments without bothering to inform. In short, certain interests control the medium and the message, and don't bet they're doing it in your best interests.
3 May 2007
Another ode, in the Key of 36
Could everyone with brains 3ven hesitate? Horrible legal strategies, yes. 0verrun 4thright 8usinesses which ought've 8een 4sighted. Keep cognizant good knowledge will win over 0bstructions.
For the visually impaired, ⠼⠚⠼⠊⠠⠋⠼⠊⠼⠁⠼⠁⠼⠚⠼⠃⠼⠊⠠⠙⠼⠛⠼⠙⠠⠑⠼⠉⠼⠑⠠⠃⠠⠙⠼⠓⠼⠙⠼⠁⠼⠑⠼⠋⠠⠉⠼⠑⠼⠋⠼⠉⠼⠑⠼⠋⠼⠓⠼⠓⠠⠉⠼⠚ means ⠠⠇⠼⠊⠼⠋⠠⠕⠼⠑⠼⠙⠠⠅⠠⠋⠠⠝⠼⠋⠠⠕⠠⠛⠼⠚⠠⠎⠠⠉⠠⠎⠼⠙⠠⠉⠠⠉⠼⠙⠠⠺⠠⠅⠠⠎⠼⠓
For the visually impaired, ⠼⠚⠼⠊⠠⠋⠼⠊⠼⠁⠼⠁⠼⠚⠼⠃⠼⠊⠠⠙⠼⠛⠼⠙⠠⠑⠼⠉⠼⠑⠠⠃⠠⠙⠼⠓⠼⠙⠼⠁⠼⠑⠼⠋⠠⠉⠼⠑⠼⠋⠼⠉⠼⠑⠼⠋⠼⠓⠼⠓⠠⠉⠼⠚ means ⠠⠇⠼⠊⠼⠋⠠⠕⠼⠑⠼⠙⠠⠅⠠⠋⠠⠝⠼⠋⠠⠕⠠⠛⠼⠚⠠⠎⠠⠉⠠⠎⠼⠙⠠⠉⠠⠉⠼⠙⠠⠺⠠⠅⠠⠎⠼⠓
Ode to corporate censorship
Dream 1 approach for 2ippering every 5ingle 6ood 5ecret. 1et 7oose a 7eopard 2 0bliterate, 2 alleviate losing control constantly. 0r 8etter 7eave alone 6enerous 9oodthinking citizens 4 ever 2 9ratify 6entlepeople.
update: This guy does it better:
update: This guy does it better:
1 May 2007
Guy Kawasaki: Starting Up
Guy Kawasaki has some really good things to say about startups. His nine rules on how to innovate are good, and there's a video that covers similar themes (with slides). Thanks Derek!
Microsoft follows Adobe to open source
Microsoft has (not quite yet) announced that it will release source for Silverlight, following Adobe's recent move with Flex. Since Microsoft is only planning to support Windows and Mac for the runtime, Adobe has a slight advantage with the huge, lucrative Linux market [har]. Adobe's big advantage is that they are two years ahead and not Microsoft. Microsoft's big advantage is [er, wait, give me a minute, I'm sure I'll think of something... oh!] they 0wn your Windows box and can nuke the Flash player from orbit with Windows Update [diabolical laughter here]. They can't do that, though... it'd piss off their customers, and I guess they care (though they have a hard time showing it).
No Flash player on amd64 linux
The Adobe Flash player is only available in 32-bit binaries for Linux. Because the Flash player is proprietary, you can't fix this yourself. Although Adobe has released the Flex libraries under the MPL, that doesn't do us much good if we can't actually run anything. There's a petition circulating with over 10k signatures asking Adobe to flip a switch and fix this. No youtube on my living room TV unless I reinstall with a cramped 32-bit OS. Update: turns out you can install a 32-bit version of Firefox and the 32-bit flash player, or use ndispluginwrapper. Either way, it's a pain in the ass. Come on, Adobe, get with the program.
Update:
This is now available as flashplugin-nonfree in the universe repository on Ubuntu. It works, too. Thanks Adobe.Ubuntu on Dell
It's now official: the rumours, buzz, and conjecture were correct, and Dell Computer will be shipping Ubuntu Linux on their machines. This is the cannon-shot, folks.
With official vendor support on the desktop Linux will get the sort of sustained device support it needs to be truly practical. Ubuntu is a great distribution: I've used it now for a year and a half, and it keeps getting better and better. There are a few details about which models. I'm wondering whether they be providing open source drivers (or just keep pushing non-free BLOBs).
For Ubuntu, today feels like 1990 all over again, when Windows was new, exciting, and fresh, and had a future ahead of it. The vendors are lining up behind it: first Sun made Ubuntu the first distro to get all of Java included as a first-class citizen, and now a hardware heavyweight is on board as well. Microsoft must have some friends or allies, but it's hard to see what leverage they have when customers are rebelling at the prospect of moving to Vista, and hardware vendors are once again giving them XP.
With official vendor support on the desktop Linux will get the sort of sustained device support it needs to be truly practical. Ubuntu is a great distribution: I've used it now for a year and a half, and it keeps getting better and better. There are a few details about which models. I'm wondering whether they be providing open source drivers (or just keep pushing non-free BLOBs).
For Ubuntu, today feels like 1990 all over again, when Windows was new, exciting, and fresh, and had a future ahead of it. The vendors are lining up behind it: first Sun made Ubuntu the first distro to get all of Java included as a first-class citizen, and now a hardware heavyweight is on board as well. Microsoft must have some friends or allies, but it's hard to see what leverage they have when customers are rebelling at the prospect of moving to Vista, and hardware vendors are once again giving them XP.
Vista drops another one
Adolfo's continuing voyage into the land of Windows Vista produces the usual endless frozen windows and similar boring frustrations, but every now and then it comes up with something truly inscrutable. Today it squeezed out another little gem:
"What am I supposed to do about this?" Adolfo asked. "What does it mean? Do you understand this?" "Well, yes, I think so, but I'm a developer," I replied. "Well, I'm not a developer! How am I supposed to understand this?" I smiled. "I told you so," I said helpfully.
There are two things that amuse me about the phrasing. First, the accusatory tone of the dialog box is great: "OK, mister wise guy, now you did it, you tried to copy a file without its properties. Let's see you get out of this mess." The second is the window title: "Property Loss". Is he already screwed? Does that mean he can take a deduction on his taxes next year? [I could argue that buying a Vista PC should qualify him as a disaster victim.]
What I suspect was happening was that he was trying to copy files to a network attached storage device that won't let him preserve ownership. Well, so what? It's a computer, it should figure out what to do. Twenty years have gone by, and Microsoft is still using "Abort, Retry, Ignore?" Granted, they have at least swapped out some words, but it's the same error message. And yes, the dialog box is prettier under Vista. I look at this dialog and say "this is what the Mac would look like if it were designed by chimps."
"What am I supposed to do about this?" Adolfo asked. "What does it mean? Do you understand this?" "Well, yes, I think so, but I'm a developer," I replied. "Well, I'm not a developer! How am I supposed to understand this?" I smiled. "I told you so," I said helpfully.There are two things that amuse me about the phrasing. First, the accusatory tone of the dialog box is great: "OK, mister wise guy, now you did it, you tried to copy a file without its properties. Let's see you get out of this mess." The second is the window title: "Property Loss". Is he already screwed? Does that mean he can take a deduction on his taxes next year? [I could argue that buying a Vista PC should qualify him as a disaster victim.]
What I suspect was happening was that he was trying to copy files to a network attached storage device that won't let him preserve ownership. Well, so what? It's a computer, it should figure out what to do. Twenty years have gone by, and Microsoft is still using "Abort, Retry, Ignore?" Granted, they have at least swapped out some words, but it's the same error message. And yes, the dialog box is prettier under Vista. I look at this dialog and say "this is what the Mac would look like if it were designed by chimps."
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