QOTD

I have a fairly extensive list of quotes that I have collected over the years. I may try to setup a way to post them other than simply putting out another post, but till that time happens let me share one:

“…peace is the highest aspiration of the American People. We will negotiate for it, sacrifice for it, we will never surrender for it, now or ever.”
-Ronald Reagan

Hope you enjoy.

Bias & Double Standards

This article from the British Telegraph reports on a story of a British Oxford Professor who rejected an application for internship from a prospective student based on him being an Israeli.  This kind of story brings to light a problem that I saw existing in the higher education system of the U.S. also.  Namely that many professors who claim to have a monopoly on being “open minded” are often just as close minded as non-academics when opinions that are opposition to theirs are expressed.

The point of my statement is not to imply that all professors exercise such a double standards.  The point is that no one is capable of being totally unbiased.  We need to stop treating academics as if they have some super power (not available to us mere mortals) that somehow allow them to look at all situations with logic, clear thought, and consistency.  Doing so will help move society into a better position to evaluate itself with honesty and integrity.  Its not wrong to have bias (we all have biases in one way or another); the secret is to admit our bias and to  try and  keep it from being the  sole influence on our decision making process.

Homer and friends.

Things like this webpage are the reason the Internet was created.  Its a Homer Simpson Random Quote Generator.  In other weekend humor, anyone who has had to do more than two minutes of tech support will empathize with these stories.

The Joys of Google

For weekend fun try doing a Google (be sure to click the I’m Feeling Lucky button) search on “French military victories” (without the quotes.) This is the resulting page. Even the best search engine in the world cannot help you out THAT search.

What Desktop Linux REALLY needs

Not to give Lasse Christiansen a hard time (this article
is just the most recent in a barrage within the same genre) but her “I have a Linux dream” artile is really fusterating. I am starting to get pretty sick of this kind of Linux commentary.

The vast majority of the “The Problem with Linux” articles fall into the same group as Lasse Christiansen’s. Namely that Linux

needs to do xxx like XP

or

why doesn’t like have the OSX docbar

(and don’t even get me started on what a worthless piece of resource hungry crap the OSX bar is) type statements.

Ya, every so often a good point is made. Things like

why anyone can ship a browser without the relevant plug-ins

and

when it comes to video — Linux lags behind

have some relevance to a useful suggestion. But where do things like

Can someone explain to me why the loading of PCMCIA need to beep twice ….

have to do with Linux usability/functionality/simplicity… if Mr. Christiansen ever had to try and debug a pcmcia driver in Windows he would BEG for the “two beeps.”

The ultimate point of this admittedly bad rant is that Linux is not Windows. I didn’t switch to Linux because I was looking for a Windows replacement, or a free version of Windows. I switched to Linux because it is a superior computer platform with better all-around applications. Linux will not ever be windows (thank GOD!) or OSX (praise the LORD!) Improving Linux does not mean making it act more like some other OS. The day Linux get taken seriously as a desktop OS is the day that people want to use Linux for Linux sake… not, in spite of, some other os.

BSD License and VAULT changes

bsd hurts oss progress is a great article that I intend to write a summary of my opinions on later. There is gonna be a general change to how I use VAULT. I will be posting more links, random quotes, and short thoughts as I go through the day. I am guessing this will turn VAULT into more of a scrapbook than a weblog, but its really more useful to me this way soo…