With Thanksgiving now past us, we find ourselves just days away from Advent, and already fully immersed into the Christmas season. Along with the tidings of “peace on earth” and “goodwill to men,” undoubtedly a number of familiar old arguments will also return; arguments over whether “Christmas is over-commercialized” and whether “our civic institutions are supporting state religion” are particularly cherished traditions of the season. It is the same old, same old, and lack of thinking on the subject will allow the debates to rage on despite that.
When I was younger, it was the Dungeons and Dragons crowd which ran some small risk of becoming entangled in the fantasy worlds they created, to the point they could lose their grip on reality. At the peak of its popularity, I was in the military in Europe. My wife was a serious hobby seamstress at the time, and a neighbor in the military housing area begged her to make him a complicated full wizard costume to add some reality to his gaming. She declined because he came across entirely too brain-fried. Testimony from others who knew this fellow indicated he had some difficulty keeping his obsession under control, to the point it affected the performance of his military duties. He was over 30, so it was no mere youthful diversion, and his wife complained often of his neglect of family, too.
With the launch of the PlayStation 3, the fate of one of the world’s best-known brands, Sony, hangs in the balance. Although the technology, and the price tag, of the new system will likely lead to it moving at least partially into the realm of home theater enthusiasts rather than just gaming enthusiasts wanting the latest game system, presently Sony is staking much of its future on that market. For true security, it needs a complete digital ecosystem, and for that, it needs to change its PC strategy.
Last Spring, those in my home state of Missouri were immersed in advertisements promoting the need for “choice” in premium television services. Those ads presented a bill for state-wide franchising of pay TV as just short of a logical continuation of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” – who isn’t for more choice? The push to overturn the local franchising system that has regulated cable for the last several decades has spread across the country, but contrary to what its proponents assert, the choice promoted introduces a skewed system that could actually reduce choice in time.
Is Novell's deal with Microsoft ultimately something that boils down to a corporate agreement to restrict the free flow of information and understanding about Linux? Or, perhaps, could it be that this agreement will actually serve the purpose of getting Linux out to more users? Those are the questions Josiah Ritchie seeks to consider and come up with answers to.
It was October 31, 1517. Despite popular characterizations, it was merely a standard procedure for the young monk to post his debate proposal on the church door. By no means did he intend to start wars and create a permanent rift in the Body of Christ. It was simply the matter he took seriously the words he was being taught in his seminary classes about what really mattered in this world. Business as usual grated on his conscience. Nor was he alone in his complaints, so he hardly expected to become the lightening rod for institutional efforts to crush every dissenting voice.
A few years ago, I took a biology course in college to fulfill a general requirement for a degree. I never expected that in just a few years I would see a key, seemingly clear, topic we studied in the middle of a major political debate that tried to misinform the public about science. If you think I am referring to the “intelligent design debate,” think again. I am referring to Missouri Amendment 2, the so-called “Life Saving Cures” amendment that focuses on protection of certain forms of embryonic stem cell research. It may be an election issue specific to Missouri, but its repercussions will likely play a role in future promotion of similar amendments elsewhere.
It's nothing personal, you see. Human Resource (HR) directors don't hire people; actually, they hire skill sets. Naturally, that skill set includes the ability to get along, a skill even the most evil sociopath can learn. It's not how good someone is, but whether they exhibit a certain ability to perform. It's strictly dollars for a product, even if that product is a complex of human interaction. If you could get a robot to do the job for less money, the robot would be used.
Those of us observing GNU/Linux over the past decade have spent so much time talking about how “next year is Linux’s year on the desktop” that it has become more of a humorous cliché than a useful statement. Nevertheless, while every year the Penguin has disappointed us in not quite readying itself to compete against Apple and Microsoft’s systems, at least in the small office and home office market, we can always cling to the eternal hope: next year. Or can we?
You've installed FreeBSD, and it works fine, of course. If you are as seriously committed to using it as your desktop as I am, you'll want to get the most out it. Let's go hardcore! The key with FreeBSD is optimization -- tweaking the compile process so the resulting binary code runs as efficiently as possible.