• In the context of software, cost and quality need not be related at all. Free is sometimes better than pricey. If it helps, think of Linux as a robust and personalised UNIX. Its value to industry is high. It’s invaluable. And yet, its seller went mad and decided to stock it in infinite amounts and give it for free. It is not different from the way Microsoft, being another seller, treats distribution in poor nations.
• A switch to Linux is an upgrade, but also liberation of the PC and its owner. Letting a computer control the user and programmers make all decisions is like a tail that is wagging the dog.
• There are far more than 350 Linux distributions. With many thousands of packages and tools like rPath’s builder it all becomes a matter of combinatorics.
• Microsoft is forever scheming to kill Linux in a subtle and secretive fashion. Linux advocates then need to ‘backward-engineer’ the plan. Awareness is key here. One needs to watch a predatory rival (with history and ‘certificates’) like a hawk. Microsoft pulls the strings of the Novell Marionette at the moment. Novell miSuSUed its position in the Linux market.
• Microsoft attempts to corrupt (or at least ‘dilute’) the term ‘Open Source’ and confuse people in that market. Apple are not any better with their exploitation of BSD developers, a founder who turns a blind eye to eternal fraud, and very effective lockins. As for Google, I trust people like Chris DiBona, but not Eric Schmidt, who came from an arrogant company.
• Microsoft established a global monopoly through coordinated crime. History books and antitrust memos show this very clearly.
• The only think worst than litigation is fear. Fear drives people’s action.

At this point I’ll admit that I have begun concentrating on other blogs (you’ll find most of my new posts here). For those who still follow mine (RSS subscribers), here’s a nice video of a PSP project.

Knowledge is power.

Over a year ago I expressed my concerns about newspapers that wish to know too much about us. I mentioned the New York Times, in particular for its required registration process. These concerns now seem justified.

Barely a year after their reporters won a Pulitzer prize for exposing data mining of ordinary citizens by a government spy agency, New York Times officials had some exciting news for stockholders last week: The Times company plans to do its own data mining of ordinary citizens, in the name of online profits…

Here is some crazy little scientific development.

Scientists have found a way to turn on deep sleep using a machine that magnetically stimulates the brain.

Such a device worn on the head could in future squeeze the benefit of eight hours’ sleep into just two or three hours.

Some months ago I read about medication that has the same effect, but anyone brave enough to consider this probably just plays a role in some big experiment. With Second Life gaining traction and now this, the future could soon become bizarre. The press is getting filled with the negative effects of cutting-edge science such this on people’s lives.

Gloomy outlook (click to enlarge)

ORE scary stuff from the ‘climate department’: on the face of it, throughout my lifetime, I shall see the Arctic sea ice thawing entirely, raising the global water levels in the process. The solution is not a simple one. Technology needs to be found which addresses the issue.

Space-earth elevators and pumping of water out of earth is of course a laughable idea. All we can do, other than control the temperatures somehow, is move soil from one place to another (e.g. higher mountains grafted) or simply accept the fact that our landscape gradually shrinks, leaving many cultures under water for good. This type of problem may become more serious than any political issue that we can think of, nuclear weapons aside. It doesn’t appear as though colonies on other planets are a possibility, not any time soon. Human civilisation could become the victim of its own selfish expansion.