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Sunday, June 29, 2008

Windows is a legacy system

Source: NY Times

Digital Domain
Windows Could Use a Rush of Fresh Air
By RANDALL STROSS
Published: June 29, 2008
Microsoft’s flagship software, Windows, built upon the same core architecture as preceding versions, seems to move an inch when its competitors take a lap.


Here's a telling quote:

...Windows seems to move an inch for every time that Mac OS X or Linux laps it.

The best solution to the multiple woes of Windows is starting over. Completely. Now.


I don't think there is much reason to look for growth or innovation with Microsoft Windows. So I'm saying, what we have today is the best that there will be, as Windows is a legacy system with no further significant innovation to be had.

What frustrates me when I boot up my machines which both have Windows Vista is that even though they are booting up faster they are still too slow, even if from hibernation, when I realize that I'm waiting on things that I do not need.

One of the issues in the past with the idea of starting over is dying as the web takes over for everyday use, so the OS can become a black box and conceivably in the future most users will not even know what their operating system is.

That's the future, when the browser is boss and who cares what the OS is as long as you have full browser functionality, as cloud computing takes off, so then the OS is a commodity which I think Microsoft fears.

So did Microsoft sit on Internet Explorer for so many years, after crushing Netscape so that it could eke out a few more years of dominance? I'd say, no, as the evolving web simply wasn't ready to move things forward and as readiness enters the system, rapidly products are being developed so even if they did (wild speculation, not saying they did), it would have been a pointless exercise in futility, as they say.

The browser wars are really about the move of the underlying operating system from center stage to under the hood. As the hood closes on Microsoft Windows, other engines can drive the vehicle, and take all of us far faster and far further than we've ever gone before...

Monday, June 23, 2008

Glass studies

Source: MSNBC

Scientists reveal why glass is glass
Despite solid appearance, glass is actually in a "jammed" state of matter
By Robin Lloyd
updated 1:37 p.m. PT, Mon., June. 23, 2008

Scientists have made a breakthrough discovery in the bizarre properties of glass, which behaves at times like both a solid and a liquid.


Interesting article especially the part about metallic glass. Here's one more quote:

...An icosahedron is like a 3-D pentagon, and just as you cannot tile a floor with pentagons, you cannot fill 3-D space with icosahedrons, Royall explained. That is, you can't make a lattice out of pentagons.

When it comes to glass, Frank thought, there is a competition between crystal formation and pentagons that prevents the construction of a crystal. If you cool a liquid down and it makes a lot of pentagons and the pentagons survive, the crystal cannot form....


Explains a lot.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Web pushing honesty

Source: TechNewsWorld

INSIGHTS
Getting Found Out, Web 2.0 Style
By Sarah Lacy
Business Week Online
06/22/08 4:00 AM PT

Web 2.0 technologies and trends are threatening the tiny, white lies woven so tightly into our social fabric, writes Sarah Lacey. Want to call in sick to work after a night of partying? Better hope nobody posted a photo of that night on Facebook or Twittered about it.


A fun read that emphasizes to me that the Web is pushing honesty by making it easier to find out truth. But I think it goes beyond that as the Internet seems to be more interested in finding out lies than in pushing straightforward information.

It's almost like a real force within the network that craves contradictory information.

That force likes finding out dishonesty better than it likes finding consistency which probably means we're in for a completely different world than has ever been seen before with the most powerful force for ferreting out the truth ever known, fully unleashed.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Go Firefox, go!!! Firefox 3.0 unleashed

Of course I've joined the download flood. And I like Firefox 3.0 so far.

The browser is the killer app of the 21st century.

The BOS is the next quantum leap, as when the browser operating system turns OS into a black box the way it's supposed to be, then it's anybody's game....

Go, please download.

Sunday, June 08, 2008

Researcher who thinks fluids and gases

Source: NY Times

Slipstream
Nature Gave Him a Blueprint, but Not Overnight Success
By JOHN MARKOFF
Published: June 8, 2008
A scientist whose discoveries promised great increases in efficiency for a number of technologies found companies showed little interest in redesigning their products.

Sunday, June 01, 2008

Blocking the open source flow

Source: The Register

Google defends open source from 'poisonous people'
The Case of the Self-Centered Date Parser
By Cade Metz in San Francisco
Published Friday 30th May 2008 23:16 GMT

Google I/O Once upon a time, there was an open source project called Subversion, and it needed a new date parser....


Wow, good article and sobering for me as one thing I did want way back when I got approval for my project on SourceForge was to have other people working on it, but that hasn't happened as I've ended up writing every line of code, and a lot of the comments have my name on them, which is actually a habit I picked up at companies where I worked as that's how they did it.

Hmmm...might it help if I went back through and deleted all of the signature type comments out?

Well, I know I'm not going to do an update just to do that so it's a moot question.