Erehwon Notebook
The Occasional Notebooks of Doug Miller
Saturday, April 8, 2000
10:16:11 PM Freshmeat has an excellent article on the i-opener and open source. Some good in-depth information here on how the entire thing developed, Netappliances business model, and how the entire situation is evolving, particularly in regards to Open Source.
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8:02:18 PM Not much posting this week, unfortunately. Between starting my new job, getting my wife's new car, and an on-going head cold (which I appear to have picked up courtesy of my flight to Oakland), I haven't had the energy to do much.
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Tuesday, April 4, 2000
10:58:45 PM They claim he's dead now, but I'm pretty sure that Mike The Headless Chicken was an executive at the last place I worked.
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10:22:35 PM On reading about the reactions to the Microsoft verdict, I can't shake the feeling that this entire process is focused on the lesser of two evils. While I can't disagree with the ruling, and I personally started moving away from MS software quite some time ago due to my dissatisfaction with it, I can't share the glee of many of my colleagues over this. At the end of the day, folks, we're talking about software.
Granted, software is important stuff, engine of the New Economy and all that, but we need to remember that the point of all this is about sharing information and knowledge, not about the technology itself. I don't think it'd be too pretentious to say that I believe we're in the midst of a second Renaissance, for many of the same reasons that created the first one. Unfortunately, there's a real danger of this one being hijacked. The new megacorps are fast becoming the entertainment and content companies, particularly those hybrid monsters that have figured out a means to combine the new technology with the old media, most notably AOL-Time Warner.
Frankly, these guys scare the hell out of me in ways that Microsoft never, ever could. Gates is one tough bastard, for sure, and arrogant to an obvious fault. Steve Case, though...this man is evil. Really look into AOL's history, and how it has treated it's customers, and most particularly their private information. Case has no scruples at all about treating you and everything that belongs to you, including your most private information, as a commodity if it'll make him a buck. Gates has lied, and "spun;" Case revises history. When you combine all this with the fact that these guys are media companies, and therefore enjoy all the protections and special goverment relationships the media has always had with the American government, well, it about makes me wet my pants. I hope to hell someone is watching them.
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9:34:27 PM I'm not sure if I should love or hate the NEO Internet appliance. At $99, and basically as easy to use as a DVD player, devices like this may speed the day when 'net access is ubiquitous. However, devices like this don't provide the publishing and authoring capabilities of a PC, and are in fact best designed for delivering the pre-packaged pablum of the entertainment megacorps. We can create a world where nearly everyone has access to the 'net, but what sort of 'net will it be once we do?
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Monday, April 3, 2000
11:05:10 PM PDAs then and now presents an interesting retrospective on where PDA's have come from. This was a fun trip down memory lane for me. I owned almost all the devices the author mentions at one time or another, and some he doesn't.
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10:41:04 PM One really great thing about my new job is that I get to run Linux there, too.
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10:39:34 PM userlocal.com is a new site for Linux newbies. Looks like some good basic stuff for the new Linux user.
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7:40:00 PM The news about Microsoft is all over the place today, and there are more than enough pundits offering their opinion about what it all means. In light of all that, the only comment that I'll make is that this thing is still far from over, but even without a final penalty ruling against MS, the stage has been set for the technology marketplace to change dramatically. Redundant, I know, but I couldn't imagine not having a post about this to look back on in the future...
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Sunday, April 2, 2000
6:53:49 PM Microsoft flip-flop. Pretty amusing to compare and contrast Microsoft's statements about Linux in the DOJ trial with the information on their "Linux Myths" pages. You can't really expect them to do anything other than this in their position, but it is kind of funny to see them talking out of both sides of their mouth.
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