King Richard on Babies

Someone asked King Richard why he doesn't have kids:

I heard you speak of the consumption pattern in the US and you mentioned about how you developed inexpensive habits. That included children. Why?

Which does more good: spreading freedom for millions of computer users, or raising a few extra children in a world that is already suffering from an excess of them? The question answers itself. Why in the world would I do the latter, when I have the chance to do the former?

Do you believe this is the real reason?

Eee!

The great computer company Asus got a brilliant idea when some of its employees were having lunch with their freetard friends. The freetards had this problem that nobody wanted to use their operating system (Linux) on the desktop, and Asus had the problem that nobody was all that interested in their computers anymore. So, they came up with something revolutionary. They thought, if we make our crappy computers and your crappy operating system really tiny, maybe the crappiness will also decrease! "Let's use left-over technology from the previous century and build something everybody will want!"



The Asus EEE! It's a great laptop with 256MB or more memory and a disk drive of 2 up to 8 GB, just like in the '90s! It has a whopping 900Mhz processor and a great 800x480 7" display. A great moment to pull out the magnifying glass again!

This thing has been out for only a little while and people are already fed up with the freetard OS that it's running, trying to install proprietary operating systems like Mac OS X. A version with Windows XP is coming.

Ah, the sanity.

The Linux Attitude

I've been talking to some Linux users (sometimes you cannot avoid to). I am really trying to understand what is going on in their mind -- what their attitude towards computers is. After observing the way they work with computers for a while I concluded that whereas I hate it when software does not work that I install, a Linux user gets excited. He (yes, let's be honest, it's going to be a he) gets excited and feels challenged to get the software to work anyway. "And you can," he will say, "because the source code is available!" I'm psyched.



In my experience this is the attitude a Linux user needs, because, contrary to operating systems like Windows or Mac OS X, not working seems to be the default behavior in Linux. Segmentation faults, permission problems, kernel panics, you name it.

So Linux users are excited most of the time.

Wired Joins the Freetards

Wired has a first look at the "iPhone Killer" OpenMoko:

The Neo1973 is the first physical manifestation of a grand idea -- a new breed of wireless handheld built for the open-source age.

Grand idea? Are you kidding? What's grand about this?

It is the first release from the OpenMoko project, a group working to create a fully open source software platform for smartphones, a community-driven alternative to, say, the iPhone. Using Linux as a starting point, the OpenMoko developers have built a system which, although not everyday-usable yet, can be successfully installed and run on a variety of ordinary smartphone hardware: Treos, Motorolas, JasJars and so forth.

What the heck is a JasJar? A product with a name like that should run equally crappy software.

There's no charger. It charges via a USB connection to my computer -- good enough. I powered on the phone and marveled at the scrolling screens of Linux bootup jargon, which terminated after a few seconds with the line, "Kernel panic."

'nuff said.

Meebo "IM Platform"

Great uncov post:

When asked about the coming platform war on the web, Google VP of Engineering Jeff Huber said, "A lot that you have heard here is about platforms and who is going to win. That is Paleolithic thinking. The Web has already won. The web is the Platform." And now, instead of learning from the vicious reality of the free market when it comes to ubiquitous platforms, Meebo has gone ahead and launched the Meebo Application Platform.