What happens when a new flat panel arrives and a (not-so) old computer dies in the middle of a project.
Before this I had two computers on a KVM switch sharing a single monitor and keyboard, with all the wires tucked away, and (relatively) neatly routed. When the nice/new Dell 24″ flat panel arrived — my main Windows 2000 work box died. Not a big surprise, as the box has had occasional problems for months — so I knew this was coming. So the prior test/Linux box is – at least for the moment – a Windows 2003 Server box, and my old Windows box is about to become spare parts.
Guess this is my excuse for starting to replace existing computers with smaller/quieter models. Ordered a Shuttle XPC box and 3Ghz Sempron. Need to pick out another video card able to drive both 1920×1200 and 1600×1200 screens. The remaining bits can come from the old Windows box.
After all the boxes are setup again, can figure out how to get everything neatly routed — but at least for now, this is ordered chaos….
Niccolo Machiavelli, “The Prince”
The rulers of republics or kingdoms must therefore seek to preserve the principles of their religion. Having done this, they will find it an easy matter to keep the state devout, obedient, and united. They should seek to favor and strengthen every circumstance that tends to enhance religion, even if they themselves judge it to be false. The wiser they are about natural reality, the more they should do this.
A pretty remarkable statement from a guy living 500-odd years ago in Italy.
Bought some shirts off eBay in my brand and style (though unfortunately not my favorite color – red being a bit hard to come by). The prices on eBay are radically lower than prices from the store – even when on sale. This naturally leads to the question – are these the real thing or imitations?
Now, I am no expert on cloth or the manufacture of clothing, but it seems as though two of the four shirts “feel” different. The general cut and fit seems about the same, but the cloth feels somehow softer. Is this just normal variation in the manufacturers output, or is the different feel due to different manufacture? Do not know how I could distinguish, and on a practical level what I got is probably “good enough”.
Of course this leads into a related question. How much does clothing really cost? Surely not everyone can afford American prices ($60 list!) for a shirt. Are the prices offered elsewhere in the world lower? If so then either they must make a lesser product for other markets, or the cost of manufacture must be much lower for all markets. Surely twisted, woven, cut and sewn plant fiber can be produced inexpensively?
When is the last time you saw a really interesting new desktop application?
In the Windows application space, things have pretty much settled down to more of the same. Office applications – word processing and spreadsheets – have changed very little in the past decade. General use of email and web browsers were new for a while – rather a while ago. Even games have settled into genres with only incremental improvements in new releases.
Meanwhile Google and others are proving just how much you can do with a web application. The really interesting new applications seem to all be web applications.
The old “office” applications do not have any compelling web equivalents as yet, but on the other hand – why should they? Pretty much everyone already has a “Writer” and “Calc” program already. Why offer what folks already have (or can get free with OpenOffice)?
About the only thing that keeps my kids computers on Windows is games, and outside office applications, games are about the only area that have not seen a full-on web-based application.
The original version of “Doom” came out about twelve years ago, was pretty compelling, and pretty much defined the genre of the first-person shooter. (The original version of Doom was also distributed on floppy disk). With the general availability of high speed Internet connections, I wonder if we are rolling up on the time when full-on games are distributed without ever getting packaged on CD or DVD. Since Google has been rolling out so many interesting web applications – are we due for Google Doom? 
On somewhat the same note, while I know we are not there yet, for some reason this quote sounded a bit old-fashioned.
Experts: Linux desktop growth steady and unstoppable
I hope that some day we’ll make it so that you can just drop a Windows CD into a Linux system drive and expect it to just work, but Wine still has a ways to go before that’s going to be possible.
Are we rolling up on the time when you can drop a Windows CD into a Linux system – and not find anything you want to run?
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | GM plunges into $1bn quarterly loss
GM needed to “accelerate” efforts “on the challenging US healthcare situation”. The cost of health provision is rattling corporate America, particularly GM with its huge number of current and former employees.
Simple fact – the cost of healthcare in the US is increasing faster than the rate of inflation, and has for the last few decades (at least). This makes no sense. Improving technology should be reducing the cost of healthcare.
The problem is not in controlling existing costs. The problem is profit. The problem is not investing in better technology to reduce costs.
All that money buys a lot of political favors, so you can expect the dirty side of this equation to stall change as long as possible.
What does it take to raise awareness to the point of pushing for real change?
Was staying north of Detroit for a few days last week. The “free” Internet access in the hotel (Courtyard by Marriott: Auburn Hills) worked – sometimes, or just enough to drive me slightly nuts.
On the other hand, I can recommend the Big Buck brewery for decent food and beer (if you can get past the name and dead-animal-parts decor). An amusing side note – the receipt includes a phrase in German. Might have something to do with the nearby Daimler-Chrysler operation, and visiting German engineers?
Just to point out the obvious – despite the micro-storm – maybe the folks talking are the one’s with a point to prove.
Sun’s CDDL looks reasonable at the least for their purpose, and I have an appalling lack of interest in “discussing” the license.