Anna and the Bunches

I once had a blog on livejournal, titled slashsplat. This blog didn’t see very many posts, because I had to log out of my personal journal to log in to it. So I decided that a blog hosted somewhere other than livejournal would be a good idea.That’s the purpose of this site. It will be somewhat more general; the goal of this blog is to discuss geek culture and everything that may mean to me: programming, technology, gaming (video and table-top), and whatever else springs to mind.

When I purchase a piece of hardware, it is mine to do with as I wish. This is a long-held understanding. If I buy a piece of clothing, I can have it altered. If I buy a car, I can change the tires. If I buy a television, I can kill myself trying to screw with its insides.It might void the warranty, it might put my life at risk or potentially damage the thing I’ve purchased, but it is my right as a consumer.

Lately, I’ve read a number of “Windows user tried Linux for a week and hated it, and this is why” articles. Then, while holding back the urge to scream during a Windows XP install, it hit me: we’re holding a double standard, here.In the last year, whenever someone talks about “whether Linux is ready for the desktop”, the complaints that always crop up revolve around the fact that a user can’t throw in a Linux install CD, click next a few times, and have a fully functional desktop environment in half an hour.

Microsoft threatens to sue the entire FOSS communityWhere have I seen this kind of threat before? Hmm… SCO, anyone? Is MS really desperate enough for that? SCO only sued IBM because they were losing money in copious amounts, flirting with bankruptcy. Vista seems to be the straw that’s breaking Microsoft’s back.

09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0That is all.

So, I’ve been thinking about Second Life, and it occured to me that it’s being done entirely the wrong way. Don’t get me wrong; I enjoy SL, and have no qualms with the experience itself. It’s the underlying scheme it’s built on that bothers me: one company controlling all the servers, one company responsible for keeping everything running smoothly. It seems to me that all technologies built on that model eventually fail on the Internet, while distributed technologies (Web, email, usenet) thrive.

I have recently realized why there are so many computer illiterate people running around. It’s not that people are simply stupid - that’s a grossly judgemental answer that many of my fellow geeks unfortunately arrive at. That’s not it at all, because computer illiteracy reaches into technical fields. I know several computer science professors that simply can’t use technology newer than 5 years old.So, what causes this, if not simply “they’re dumb”?

One of my biggest problems with the IT community, both in amateur programmers and prospective employers, is the following question: “So, what programming languages do you know?” This implies that learning a language is an extremely difficult task, and collecting languages like trophies is somehow a worthy pursuit.A programming language is a tool. A skilled craftsman isn’t good at her trade because she knows how to use a given set of tools; anyone can learn that.