My recent column on Apple’s declining software quality hit a nerve. So why do any of us put up with software that grows increasingly buggy? One word: hardware.
The Humane Pin has died and HP has killed it. The burial of last year’s tech darling, DOA as its concept was from the get-go, isn’t that important in itself, but continues the troubling trend of things we buy dying unnatural deaths.
Well, now I’ve done it. When a person mentions genealogy he becomes very popular all of a sudden, as if there’s some secret knowledge he possesses that if divulged will loose the keys to the kingdom. There really is no such knowledge, just a few tricks that anyone can employ. What prevents people who are interested from diving in may be the thought that it can’t be that easy.
In my elementary school, we weren’t given grades of A B C D F as was the standard before and since. Instead, New Haven R-II school employed a different set of letters that meant the same thing. They were E S M I F. I have no idea how this came to pass, but I hope it was because some person seeking a doctorate in education realized that his dissertation was due tomorrow and he had nothing. Frankly, I could get behind that kind of education theory. Beats modern pedagogy, anyway.
It’s important, I think, to begin by saying that I’m writing this on my television, as I sit on the couch 10 feet away and use a wireless keyboard.
Yes, it is a stunt, but one in service of point. In that respect, it’s a little bit like the old television ads that began, “We’ve replaced the coffee in this fine restaurant with Folger’s Crystals to prove a point.” In this case, though, the point is not that even if you have enough money to dine above your station, your tastes are still probably those of a field hand.
The internet and phone went out Halloween night. There was a light rain, and with Frontier Communications that’s all it takes. The rain doesn’t need to be local. As long as it is raining, or someone sneezes, anywhere in the world, Frontier Communications internet and phone service is likely to fail.
So it’s been, what, six months since I concocted my homemade television sets. Since then I’ve missed nothing that I would have liked to watch, and have watched much that was not available via the usual, um, channels. And I have maintained my privacy.
Sometimes I just need to actually accomplish something. Even if that something is esoteric and not particularly necessary. That is how I spent the last few weeks contemplating computer file systems.
Every muscle was tight and trembling, like a thoroughbred in the starting gate, steaming and snorting and eager to unleash its immense pent-up power.
A few weeks ago I mentioned my intention to switch from the now-sketchy Ubuntu distribution of Linux, which I’ve used for 20 years, to the uber-reliable Debian. This was in lieu of buying a new machine. Well, actually, the parts to build a new machine; the last time I ran a store-bought computer was in the previous millennium.