Life is an interesting challenge. So much of what we honour and desire is for freedom. We want understanding, knowledge, improvement, and freedom. We want utopia, but how far are we really willing to go in order to get it? That is an important question. But that is what we, as a whole, really seem to want.
Individuals, on the other hand, are different. They want power, and money, and they want to be right. Of course, these goals in many ways oppose the goals described in the previous paragraph. Power and money for individuals, while not incompatible with understanding, knowledge, improvement, and freedom, does not work towards it above all else. People wanting to be right, on the other hand, tends to be directly in opposition to those ideals.
Power and money are the main results of patents, for example. In theory, patents were designed to protect innovators by giving them a chance to monetize their inventions before everyone started using the technique, but in the modern landscape, many claim that it actually prevents others from building on past success. In other words, it stifles improvement, and represses knowledge and understanding. I'm not going to argue either side of this today, although I will likely cover it in a future blog post.
Life should be based on principles of openness, however. There are benefits to closed systems, primarily economical, but as a whole, that isn't what we want. This is particularly so in the world of science. Research, comparison, learning, and so on is always going to be improved the most by co-operation. That is the key tenet of an open society. Co-operation. Working together so that we can build on our earlier mistakes, and our earlier successes.
That is a big problem with the world today. All scientific endeavours require co-operation, but there is no system in place to ensure co-operation happens, or even to make it possible. Instead, people want to use it as a means to make even more money, and so scientists are forced to work in their own little bubbles, slowed down in their effort to make our lives better. Life would be better in an Open society.
Wednesday 7 November 2012
Monday 5 November 2012
I use Linux
As the title says, I am a Linux user.
This is an interesting statement, because I use Windows a lot. I use Windows more than I use Linux. I have purchased several licences to install and use Windows over the years, and I have Linux and Windows installed in a dual-boot setup on my computer. I am very familiar with Windows, and I have been using Windows since Windows 3.1. I used MS-DOS before that. So I have been using Microsoft products for a long time. It is not out of a lack of familiarity. Nor is it that I don't have them available to me. It is not a matter of being too cheap for it.
I simply choose to use Linux. I have used Linux on and off since about 2004, and used it consistently since about 2009, usually side by side with Windows.
I will certainly admit that Windows has improved over the years. Windows ME was a disaster, and so was Vista. However, XP and Windows 7 each had significant strengths. However, Linux has greater strengths. There are those who would say that Windows is better, simply because it makes more money than Linux, and has more widespread support, but that is really a nonsense argument, and is more a result of monopolistic practices.
Linux is naturally a better product. This is because Linux developers are free to choose their own direction. They are not required to develop in a particular way. It can be designed however you want, giving to the rise of free choice, choice for both users and developers. Also, because the only requirement is functionality, there are no corporate policies delaying things. There is flexibility to move quickly, and implement the tools that users want.
That is why, for example, the KDE interface is superior in functionality to Aero, the Windows desktop environment of Windows 7. An example of this is Aero Snap versus KDE hotspots. Both are effectively the same concept, you move a window, it tiles in particular ways. With KDE, it's fully customizable, so you can turn on and off hotspots, whereas Aero is just the way Microsoft designed. Hotspots also give you an extra five hotspots, giving you five extra choices. By default, 7 of the 8 hotspots are enabled, giving you maximize, tile top left, left half of the screen, tile bottom left, tile bottom right, right half of the screen, or tile top right. Aero has 3 of these, either left half, right half, or maximized.
This is the functional difference. In Linux and the related environment, developers are free to follow functionality to its conclusion, while in Windows, the decisions are made at the top, with no alternative available. In Linux, whatever you want, it's probably available. So I use Linux.
This is an interesting statement, because I use Windows a lot. I use Windows more than I use Linux. I have purchased several licences to install and use Windows over the years, and I have Linux and Windows installed in a dual-boot setup on my computer. I am very familiar with Windows, and I have been using Windows since Windows 3.1. I used MS-DOS before that. So I have been using Microsoft products for a long time. It is not out of a lack of familiarity. Nor is it that I don't have them available to me. It is not a matter of being too cheap for it.
I simply choose to use Linux. I have used Linux on and off since about 2004, and used it consistently since about 2009, usually side by side with Windows.
I will certainly admit that Windows has improved over the years. Windows ME was a disaster, and so was Vista. However, XP and Windows 7 each had significant strengths. However, Linux has greater strengths. There are those who would say that Windows is better, simply because it makes more money than Linux, and has more widespread support, but that is really a nonsense argument, and is more a result of monopolistic practices.
Linux is naturally a better product. This is because Linux developers are free to choose their own direction. They are not required to develop in a particular way. It can be designed however you want, giving to the rise of free choice, choice for both users and developers. Also, because the only requirement is functionality, there are no corporate policies delaying things. There is flexibility to move quickly, and implement the tools that users want.
That is why, for example, the KDE interface is superior in functionality to Aero, the Windows desktop environment of Windows 7. An example of this is Aero Snap versus KDE hotspots. Both are effectively the same concept, you move a window, it tiles in particular ways. With KDE, it's fully customizable, so you can turn on and off hotspots, whereas Aero is just the way Microsoft designed. Hotspots also give you an extra five hotspots, giving you five extra choices. By default, 7 of the 8 hotspots are enabled, giving you maximize, tile top left, left half of the screen, tile bottom left, tile bottom right, right half of the screen, or tile top right. Aero has 3 of these, either left half, right half, or maximized.
This is the functional difference. In Linux and the related environment, developers are free to follow functionality to its conclusion, while in Windows, the decisions are made at the top, with no alternative available. In Linux, whatever you want, it's probably available. So I use Linux.
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