Geez... not this crap again...

Hello all. Just saw an article over at the NYT which discussed how chic it is to be "geek". While I'm glad that the computer pastime is no longer something in and of itself to laugh at, I'm really not sure what to think about the social consequences of "the age of the geek". I would honestly be happier if geeks were just a accepted part of society and not placed in the arena of dictating fashion, trends and pop-culture. To be honest, there are FAR too many wanna-be geeks.

Many of you don't know that I have a theory about the dot com bubble that burst some years ago. The theory is called "bubba got a book". And it, in my opinion, is EXACTLY why the IT industry has most of the problems it has today. The theory, in a nutshell, is that towards the close of the 20th century, more and more businesses were finding a need to have computer and network support. Everyone had an office network, EVERYONE was on the internet, and there was alot of opportunity for "geeks" to find work doing what they liked. Only, regular lay people started hearing about the "technology boom" and how much money that good computing professionals can make. Unfortunately, these people did not REALLY understand anything about computers and the internet, (of course most of them thought they were computer experts because they knew where the "Start" button was) and most of them had not even used a computer until well into their adult life. Well, the industry saw this coming and in its infinite wisdom, decided that they should make classes and tests about each company's technology. These were called "certifications". But what they really were giving was a glorified how-to manual and multiple choice test, charging a metric ass-load of money, and giving certs.

Of course the problem is that most of these "paper MCSE's or paper SCNE's" started getting job based on their certifications, but most of them had never acuallty done any IT work, Half of the Cisco certified people had never touched a router. And the industry got screwed a few times. They learned quickly and now if you don't have 10 years experience already doing an IT job you apply for, they won't even look at you. 'Course, you still had all these paper MCSE's running around thinking they are computer gods. And many of them had experience -- it was just BAD experience before they got fired.

I'm thinking that these "geek life" throwbacks are a symptom of this problem. Many of these paper cert people figure, "hey I am not a geek but if I act like a geek and talk like a geek"...
I just can't figure out why I'm a geek, I always was a geek, and I'm STILL a pariah. Damnit. That just pisses me off.

The Obsession with the "Desktop"

I saw an interesting article over at Linux.com that talks about Linux being ready for the desktop. According to the author, he thinks that the phrase "ready for the desktop" should be retired as it is overused and no longer relevant to modern Linux. While I agree that this phrase is far overused, the author comes to the conclusion that the reason it is no longer relevant is because it is subjective; because different people use computers for different things, there is no "One-size-fits-all" easy OS.

This is where the author and I disagree. The subjectivity of the desktop is a valid point. Of course, that does not excuse Linux from having serious desktop-related problems. First, The availability of any kind of entertainment software including games on the Linux platform quite frankly, blows. In addition, sometimes changes do require use of the command line, and I think it is pretty clear that average users are daunted by these tasks. I mean, that is what the GUI was invented for. For Linux to have problems like these and try to market itself to the average user is inexcusable. Not for Linux itself, mind you, but for the people who are convinced that Linux should be on everyone's desktop by any means necessary. Gee, ravenously wanting to take over the desktop of every user's computer in the world... where have I heard this before... Oh yeah from MICROSOFT. Only they DID have gaming and entertainment as parts of their products for a very long time. Say what you will about Microsoft but they make one HELL of a user interface.

I'm not saying that this is impossible to accomplish with Linux. Far from it. But one thing I often see is people's faces when I show them the video of LinuxMCE in action. Now THAT is a user interface. And it has lots of extras, but lets be honest. The core is not exactly the easiest thing in the world to get going properly, but once you do and put terminals next to every tv in the house, you will wonder how you ever got along without it. But users don't equate the UI for LinuxMCE with a regular desktop computer. After all, its on your TV, there is no keyboard and they navigate with their remote control. But there is the rub. There are PLENTY of other ways for people to use Linux, far more than can be used with Windows.

Windows is, in my opinion, a one trick pony. But give them credit, its a pretty damn good trick. Windows dominates "the desktop." I understand why corperations use Windows servers, but I really think that the stability of *nix on servers, and the multitude of configuration options and support for scripting and its better use of system resources sells Linux for servers every time. But lay people know Microsoft products. They know Windows. And I don't care what any IT staff tells you, the fact that more people ar familliar with the OS is a LARGE consideration for customers to choose Windows servers over Linux servers.

Now far be it from me to suggest closing X.org and shutting down Gnome and KDE. Those projects have been around for decades and they are not going anywhere any time soon. But its time for Linux desktop evangelists to give up. The reality of the matter is most of the users that are going to use the Linux desktop as a desktop already do. Grandmothers who can bearly run windows are not going to want to learn Gnome. PC gamers are not going away either, and like it or not, they drive a LARGE part of the industry. You didn't REALLY think that people actually buy SLI 8800GTX's for spreadsheets do you?

But Linux has MANY strengths, far more than any of Microsoft's products. The failure of the Linux evangelists is that they don't play to the OS's strengths. Forget the desktop. Thats right forget it. There are many more options that are evolving that are going to change people's idea of a "desktop" anyway. There are more devices with their own ui that are going to become more of people's computing devices (iphone). And there will be less of a need for desktop applications when everything is going to be web applications soon. So forget the desktop. It is the greatest server OS there is (with the exception of FreeBSD of course.) It's capabilites as an embeded OS are miles greater than anything Microsoft has. In my opinion, the server market is more lucrative anyway. Lets get Windows off of servers. Let them keep the desktop until it turns into a dumb terminal that runs all of its apps of some Linux server through a browser.

If Linux dominates in the server market (where I know it can), and the embedded market, I will guarentee that those of us who do profit by having Linux widely distributed will be rolling in the hay. There are companies that run evrything on Solaris Servers. But you don't hear Sun complaining that Solaris "isn't ready for the destop" do you? (Granted Sun is not really happy that Linux is getting more shares of the server market, but that isn't really the point is it?) So everyone out there who wants Linux to succeed, look for different places for it to do so. The desktop battle was won long ago. Cry about it, or move on to something else.

Full porn downloads anywhere in the US?

Hey just read this article and I wanted to pop my $0.02 in on it. Its at the NYT and its called Technology Group Plans Wireless Network. Its about the consortum who are getting together to build a wide broadband wireless network. Now I don't know about you, but unless you live under a rock, you hadto be expecting this ( oh I know with my previous article I said that nobody can predict tech trends but this one is a real no-brainer.) With the penetration of wireless devices like cell phones and PDA's this was inevitable. However, it claims that they are trying to match speeds of current broadband providers. Which I suppose is a good thing, and by the time they actually do implement this broadband wirless network, the wired infrastructure in the country will be mostly fiber (hopefully).

However i'm wondering what exactly the effect this will have on the structure of the current internet. I mean, I have a mobile blog . But trust me, posting via mobile is a whole lot different than READING blogs mobile. Sure instead of actually hitting the blogger page, you can hit my feedburner feed, and it looks ok on a mobile, but REALLY, if mobile is going to be king, it needs to have alot of changes. There are no ifs, ands, or buts. From the article though it kind of sounds like they are actually hoping to replace all internet connections with this wide broadband network ( on the consumer level at least ). I'm not sure this is going to work. I mean I have wi-fi on my laptop and I love it, but if there is a wired connection, its much faster and far more stable. I mean there is nothing wrong with my Wi-Fi access point, but wired still delivers data beter than any wireless. I know that the spectrum is different but wireless is wireless. FM radio's are wireless and they still don't get pure connections on the fringe ranges. It will turn into "who is lucky enough to live under a wireless tower?" versus "the only internet I can get is wireless broadband, but out in the styx it maybe works every other day."

I suppose my question is: are people ready for a change like this? Maybe they are maybe they are not. I for one will still be holding on to my wired service provider (hopefully fiber by then). I may consider this as a secondary option for my mobile stuff, but I'm not sure I would be comfortable paying what I pay now for service that gets disrupted during sunspots.

And here's Carnac the Magnificent !

I was reading Slashdot this morning and saw a link to a Geek.com story entitled The x86 evolution will lead the revolution. Now I'm not exactly sure what "revolution" this is talking about. There are so many these days. But one thing that I have learned in all my time in the industry is that technology ALWAYS changes, and trends can NEVER be predicted with 100% accuracy. How many of you bought a PhysX by ageia? How many of you would have 5 years ago predicted that AMD would get consistently spanked in performance by Intel's LOWER end processors? For many years in this industry people try to make predictions that they are SURE are going to come true. I can't tell you how many predicted that ATI would dominate the graphics card market. But they ended up in trouble and got bought by AMD. Now neither AMD or ATI has a leading product in their market (and it is not for lack of trying).

Or 3dfx? They REALLY dominated the graphics market in the late 90's. EVERYONE said that the 3dfx cards were far better than that Riva or Rage products (by Nvidia and ATI respectively). After the company released its Voodoo 3 card it seemed to disappear into a puff of smoke. Nobody predicted that with 100% accuracy. This industry is one of the most dynamic industries I have ever observed. Even in the retail support market, which I heavily work in, technology turns around at the drop of a hat. First its capacitive touchscreen technology. Then it is resitive. Then, infrared touch rings around the screen. Then back to resistive. And every time the new tech is touted as the answer for all of the design problems in the units. And it will be something else next month. I can't tell you how many times the IT and computer industry has flip/flopped. Its the nature of high tech.

Now don't get me wrong. It is a fantastic feat of the x86 architecture to have survived as an industry standard for so long. Heck, I remember when "x86" architecture was known as "IBM compatible". And even that nomenclature lasted for a long time. So lets give the platform its due. The above article cites the use of increasingly smaller nm production processes, thinner substrates and better power efficiency like in Intel's new mobile chip the Atom. He mentions the 64-bit x86 technology extensions. However, he uses that for evidence of the platform's dominance. Personally, though 64-bit capable chips are well dispersed through the market, MOST of them are not taking advantage of the 64-bit extensions i.e. running a 64-bit OS. I'm sure they will, when they discover that they can't see all 4GB of their system memory in 32-bit mode, but that has yet to happen.

From a distance, one could see how the author made the assumption that x86 will continue to dominate. It has a track record of success, and it was even recently adopted by Apple for its Macs, abandoning the PowerPC market. (Who could have predicted THAT 5 years ago?) But believe me folks, it can all turn around in an instant. Let me lay out this scenario. What if I bring to the market a new, RISC based processor? It doesn't run any native x86 apps. It DOES, however, have a complete Virtual Machine. Virtualization is new and hot, and especially in server environments, it is the answer to alot of issues. Many people are using it. It runs virtual machines far better and more efficient than an x86 based machine. It would be very easy for a product like this to dominate the server market, especially if that customer is using virtual machines as an exclusive infrastructure. They could care less what kind of instruction set the physical cpu has, just so long as their virtual machines are solid. Virtualization may make all hardware platforms as we know them totally interchangeable. You could then run the VM on any hardware you chose. The second you make something faster and cheaper then -- Boom. Server x86 use goes out the window. Now this hasn't happened but it EASILY could.

Also, the author states that x86 will dominate in the mobile and embedded market. Again I have to say this is MASSIVE speculation by the author, almost to the point of being laughable. The future does look bright for embedded x86. But it is difficult at best to hold on to that market. Just ask Motorola. Or Transmeta. Or Palm for God's sake! Or any of the people who were going to change mobile computing for years to come. Perhaps x86 will evolve into a standard instruction set for all VM's in the future, leaving its legacy not in silicon chips, but in an idea, a multi-platform programming standard. That does not invalidate the author's point, but it isn't anywhere near the hardware dominance that he predicts.

The moral of this story is that its ok to speculate, but don't be surprised if those far touted theories crumble. Other than the history lesson, which I might add is very good work by this author, this article is more speculative than the psychic hotline. I encourage people to think about the future, but the main thing about it is that no person on this planet knows for certain what the future holds. Especially in the computer industry.

Who own software? Why does it matter?

I just saw an article over at Slashdot. In the article apparently Blizzard is suing MDY industries over the creation of the World of Warcraft (WOW) glider program. Check it out here.

Now, I understand Blizzard's point of view. I have written several bits of software here and there. Something great, especially something that has had a lot of time and effort put into it, means something special to the creator. Its almost like a child to them. It must be difficult to see people doing things with your creation that you did not intend for them to do. I imagine that Edison and Tesla had similar reactions when the heard of the invention of the electric chair. A rather grim image, but I imagine that these electrical pioneers did not have death by electrocution in mind when they created their inventions. OK, its a more brutal implication than the unauthorized use of software, but I think it drives the point across. Another good analogy is Oppenheimer's reaction to the atom bomb.

I in no way wish to trivialize the emotions felt by Blizzard when they learned the discovery of the Glider program. However, there is one thing that the creators of the above technologies learned, that clearly Blizzard has yet to learn, is that when you give something to the world, it cannot be taken back. People still get the electric chair, and there are MANY nuclear weapons, much to Oppenheimer's chagrin.

Once Pandora's box has been opened it cannot be closed again; Prometheus cannot return the fire he stole. Blizzard, you created a large and prosperous virtual community, you need to know that there will always be people that are successful in subverting the rules in any society. And sometimes there is nothing you can do to stop them. I will say one thing to Blizzard. Don't take a note from the RIAA, keep this out of the courts. Ban the offenders, kill accounts, patch the software, but mark my words, legal action will not stop people from abusing your software.

In my opinion, ownership is not the question. It does not matter to me who owns the software, Blizzard would not like it even if the abusers DID own the software. And it isn't up to the government to enforce rules in YOUR virtual world. That is your job Blizzard, not the United States government's. Not to point fingers, but clearly the folks at Blizzard have the liberal, half-baked idea that the government should be used as the answer to EVERYTHING. Frankly, and I'm sorry if I'm alone on this but Blizzard needs to man up a little. Sometimes its better to beat the crap out of a bully than run and tattle to Uncle Sam. You should have learned that around age ten. This lawsuit is a waste of my tax dollars. Enforce this from the inside Blizzard. Don't make it a legal issue.

Keeping with the child analogy, eventually, you have to come to terms with the fact that the world is a very dangerous place and there is nothing that you can do but eventually let them go. You should have known that this was an acceptable risk the minute you decided to put WOW on the shelves.

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The Geek Budget

I've been having some money problems lately. I'm sure that this is a pretty common problem these days. My wife doesn't work. She is trying to get a job, but I don't need to tell you that the job market is less-than-stellar lately.

Sure, there is the fear of losing our house, our cars breaking down, not having enough money to pay bills. That stuff I try to take in stride. We can handle it. Being a geek however, might have resulted in a unique problem. No friends, I am not worried about the things that I should be worried about.

I have an AMD Athlon 64 Fx 51 as my main machine at the house. It has served me well, but it is getting a little long in the tooth. First, it uses REGISTERED MEMORY. So adding more than the current 1GB of ram is very cost-prohibitive. It has an Nvidia 7600 gs, which is ok, but the motherboard only has an AGP slot. So that's pretty much the end of the line as far as that goes. The socket is 940, so a CPU upgrade is pretty much out of the question.

My home server, which I have bragged about on this very blog, is a 1Ghz celeron with 384M of ram. It has a bunch of smallish IDE drives. It runs ok for a headless box, but it doesn't quite do everything I want.

I don't even have any dedicated *nix boxes anymore. They have either been sold or broken or just plain too old to use.

So what does this have to do with my money situation? Well I have plenty of financial issues hounding me, but I have no money to upgrade equipment. And its killing me. I mean, it really makes me depressed. Its kind of sad and sick in a way, that I am more worried about buying new hardware than losing my house. I wonder if any other geeks have had similar experiences. It is well documented that geeks often develop addictions; just look at the WOW zombies, the porn junkies, the guys that would rather code than have sex with their girlfriends (or FIND girlfriends for that matter).

Is it possible to be addicted to computer hardware? Have any other geeks craved upgrading their old stuff so badly that they cannot get it out of their heads? I constantly think about the cheapest ways to build a new box, but I just can't seem to find the money.

Do non geeks do this too? Do normal people have similar desires? How do they deal with it? I tell myself that I won't be broke forever, but I just keep getting more and more broke. Even my wing phone and my psp were given to me by my parents and my sisters. You know what I gave them? Framed pictures of my little boy. We just couldn't afford anything else.

How does one shake the nagging feeling of failure; of longing every time I stare at my old dusty hardware? How exactly does one be a broke geek? Does anyone have any advice?

If you are feeling generous, you can hit the donate button on this page. It doesn't have to be a lot, a buck will help and clicking some of the sponsors would be appreciated as well. Thanks for listening to this rant.

PV

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Testing moBlog

Hey Everyone! I know, I know I have been very bad lately. You haven't heard from me since before Christmas.

However, I have a new lease on things and am going to be trying to turn over a different leaf.

This post is intended to re-announce this site. So consider this a re-grand opening of Panvamp's Digital Palace. This post is being made from my T-mobile wing phone. I always have it with me and I hope it will help me post more often.

I also have in the works a plan to post a new blog about my new found tech love-gadget, Sony's INCREDIBLE PSP. I will be sure to link back here so you know just where to find it. I have videos planned and tutorials. I even have one or two of my own little programs to post.

I am planning to have a fully MMS capable mobile blog as well, so those who care can catch little snippets of my life from time to time.

And if I can possibly produce those projects, I have in mind another special blog that probably has been tried before, but I am sure I can do it better. But that is in the future and will remain a surprise until then.

So Happy new year, April Fools, or anything else I missed.

Panvamp is back.


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