Eventually, prices will converge somewhere around zero not because academic work is worthless but because people’s goal is to share and disseminate their ideas, not to serve someone else’s paywall. The real worth of research is derived from its reach, not its scarcity.

There is no correlation between level of openness and user experience. It is a myth.

The type of FUD mentioned above is just one among many. FUD changes perception. it scares people. Here is a message sent to me by a friend (Harvey) about the fear of leaving Microsoft Windows.

Have you ever written an article about the fear of change?

I think people like myself who have finally become adept at using the Microsoft OS, hesitate to switch. It’s analogous to birthing your second baby, especially if delivering the first was a painful experience.

Apprehension and fear are normal mind blockers. However, I would guess that the younger generation with years of computer expertise is more daring, and therefore more willing to experiment and acquiring something new and better than what they now use. That’s probably why I-pods, Blackberries, games and other devices are still selling like hot cakes.

You might want to expand, correct and add to this gibberish, and to make an article out of it.

Well, many articles have been written about the barriers to GNU/Linux adoption on the desktop. They address the issue of fear as well. It is always important to ask oneself, “am I being told the truth, or is someone trying to manipulate me using scare tactics?” In many cases, it’s the latter. Vested interest is to blame.

uestion: You say that “you can bet your business on Free Software”; how do you back up that statement?

Answer: How can you bet your business on proprietary software? If a company is bought, goes bankrupt or merges or decides to delete a product line you have no choice but to go with whatever product or path they desire. How can you plan when the company keeps changing its licensing terms, and you have no real alternatives? What do you do when the company that makes your software puts its own profits and its values ahead of yours, the customer? When the software company holds back on releasing the latest bug fix so it fits its “release schedule?” When you can’t get that one little feature added that would allow you to streamline your business, save a lot of money and beat your competition to market?

What happens if that company (no matter where it is) is embargoed?

                       — Jon “Maddog” Hall

My desktop still serves me well

The shape of this agreement suggests that Microsoft and Novell have learned from the best, the corporate strategic masterminds at The SCO Group. The scheme there, which you may recall Microsoft championed early and loudly, was to declare that Linux incorporated source code protected by SCO Group copyrights. This declaration gave SCO the power to send out threatening letters to software vendors and customers. The letters said, in essence, that the lucky recipient could pay SCO a license fee now, or risk having its name added to the big list of defendants in its case and pay far more.

As mentioned previously, this type of comparison is intended to stir up strong feelings and reactions. This may be an overstatement that instills fear, if not a case of ‘trolling’ for traffic, so you are advised take it with a grain of salt.

That could be in the case. Especially since Novell, in its watershed deal with Microsoft, has taken great care to reiterate that it still believes that it has not infringed on any Microsoft patents. Why then would Novell pay such a huge sum of money (with a promise of longer-term royalities) if it really believed this? Answer? Microsoft may have presented Novell with compelling evidence that Linux (or something that Novell was distributing) infringes on its copyright. Or maybe a trademark (or a servicemark).

The following story has caught my eye.

“For reasons such as this, Maeda is now a “repentant” technowhiz and a leading apostle of simplicity. In 2004 he founded the MIT Simplicity Consortium at the Media Lab, which works with major corporations to design technologies for simplicity-driven products.”

What does a high Alexa rating mean to a web master? It shouldn’t mean that much as it’s not accurate. Alexa is a website that tracks a website’s traffic history, and gives a ranking based upon the number of visitors. However the fact that it requires a tool bar to work flaws it in many ways.

[...]

Apparently the folks at Alexa have never heard of any other browser besides Internet Explorer and FireFox. This seems quite unprofessional coming from a company owned by Amazon.com.

My main site peaked at ~17,000^th for Alexa (with Netscraft rank currently at 18,608^th for schestowitz.com). In the latter case, however, the figures are grossly biased because I have the toolbar installed. Ranks very much depend on the audience the site attracts. System administrators , for example, fancy the Netscraft toolbar. Its primary service addresses a niche.

Alexa traffic ranks prove to be a real problem (as well as a perpetual pain) to Webmasters. This remains the only number which can conveniently be assigned to a Web site. It is a silly label that should be disregarded, but the average user does not know this. Luckily, not every average user will have such ranks displayed. Alexa as a comparator is a misleading assessor. Even top sites cannot be compared, unless one judges by orders of magnitude (and takes these with a grain of salt). In fact, PageRank and the likes of it weigh more factors other than traffic, so they ought to surpass Alexa in terms of validity.

As a timely rant, I was temporarily able to influence Alexa rank with a local installation of the A9 toolbar, but then Microsoft took over A9′s operations and forced them to shut down some competing services, the toolbar included. Yet another example of acquisitions or mergers that are practically death knells (and a penalty to Mac/Linux/BSD users in this case). That is just why I took it personally.

SearchStatus in action

Related item: Firefox Toolbars

IGG is changing. It potentially transforms itself for the better, but there are residual side effects. There will no longer be a tiered set of users. Top Diggers, including myself as a former active Digger, largely resent the new move.

To those unaware of these recent sizzling developments I’m referring to, Digg’s algorithm is being modified to be less (or more) democratic, essentially by weighting user’s votes as though they are not necessarily equal. It could bring about improvements, but it also raises many questions, affects morale, and lowers aspirations among new and senior contributers alike.

More latterly, several Digg contributers have been trying to assassin the character of Netscape, suggesting that the idea of removing avatars in protest came from Netscape or some shills it had recruited. It didn’t (see quotes below).

There are some Digg contributers who seek to blame Netscape for all the in-house trouble. But the removal of avatars, whose progress I followed from early stages, appears to have begun from the top and gone downwards with folks like DigitalGopher, P9, and George W. I didn’t realise what it was all about the first time I spotted the pattern. I thought top users were being banned or stripped of their identity. There are intersting discussion about the impact of the change.

Here’s another thought I had: if top diggers lose power and are then perceived as ordinary, that will a considerable turn-off, which is sure to stop them from participating much, let alone ‘game the system’, as Kevin Ross called it (impulsive accusation perhaps).

So what should we now expect from top contributers? Just a submission here and there to keep up appearance and be part of the scene (presence), not ‘becoming the next Albert Pacino (top all-time contributer)’, who long ago decided to hang up the towel.

Lastly, here is are some bits from an interview with the top Digger, who quit abruptly.

The other users did not remove their avatars in support of me. It was in protest of Kevin’s message as well as the verbal filth that many Digg users were spewing at Digg’s top submitters.

The #33 Digg user, Curtiss Thompson, had many of the same things to say, in an email to Wired’s Michael Calore:

The blog post by Kevin Rose in response to the Digg community’s outcry about top diggers gaming the system has caused many top diggers to be singled out from the community and buried not on the merit of their content, but on their unfounded accusations that the top Diggers were manipulating or “gaming” Digg’s democratic system. Not only was the blog post misrepresented, but it was misinterpreted, by the Internet community to support one Digg user’s claim that The Digg System Is Being Gamed By Top Users.

Side notes:

• A Digg friend was kind enough to have me mentioned and even credited. Thanks, buddy!
• I had an interview about my recent move to Netscape/AOL. I will post a pointer to the text (or a copy thereof) in my blog as soon as it goes live.

Update: some comprehensive, link-rich coverage has just been posted on the topic.

quite enjoy my life in an arena which involves research, publications, public appearances, sharing of code that I produce, and technical writings that I rapidly accumulate. All of that, in fact, is something that reaches culmination through the Internet and Web sites, which are — to me at least — a gateway to a wider world. For long I have pondered (and even lost sleep over) a scenario where I find myself in a cubicle, coding for somebody else day, by day, by day…

Dreadful forecasts aside, there are other ways to make a living. Fortunately, a happy life is one where making ends meet should suffice, vacations are unnecessary, and help for those that surround us gets elevated. I seem to be getting worried prematurely. Here is one such article that speaks of self-employment and affordable independence.

It’s funny that when people reach a certain age, such as after graduating college, they assume it’s time to go out and get a job. But like many things the masses do, just because everyone does it doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. In fact, if you’re reasonably intelligent, getting a job is one of the worst things you can do to support yourself. There are far better ways to make a living than selling yourself into indentured servitude.

This reminded me of an older blog item (a speech actually) which I once read and boomarked. It moved me enormously.

I was a diligent Oriental in high school and college. I took college-level classes and earned college-level credits. I rushed through college in 3 1/2 years. I never traveled or took time off because I thought it wouldn’t prepare me for work and it would delay my graduation.

Frankly, I blew it.

You are going to work the rest of your lives, so don’t be in a rush to start. Stretch out your college education. Now is the time to suck life into your lungs-before you have a mortgage, kids, and car payments.

Another nice item from the first author (one which I commented on before) speaks of 10 ways to relaxify your workspace. Recommended reading!