fractalnavel

something over at craig's blog:

... So one of the benefactors (we are entirely driven by charitable donations) is giving us $45 million to continue to expand this project and suck in all of the whistles and bells. But there is one caveat to the whole deal. Isn't there always when that kind of money is being spent? All the coding must be done using open source languages as in follow the LAMP model. ...

this is a far worse problem than he supposes.  speaking of soulless !  "i see your success.  let me buy it away from you.  how about a little money ?  isn't that much better than reality ?  i mean, it's for a good illusion *cough* cause !"

(i have to comment here, craig doesn't have commenting turned on for his blog.)

and that's not a "people skills" issue, either.  the reason these things happen is because of "people skills".  otherwise, people would just say "you're fucking crazy" when shit like this comes up.  there's a time to tell people to take their money and shove it, and this is one of them.  he's out to destroy the project. or whoever it/they are.

yep, as craig says, the academic world is horribly biased about software and systems. i hate to see that, when the scientific types are supposed to be so objective.  that was one of the discoveries that turned me off about grad school.  and it wasn't even so much the biases themselves, but that these people are so trained to expect objectivity out of themselves, they cannot bear to recognize it when they fall short of that ideal.  maybe humans only have a finite capacity for objectivity, and while they are fine in their own fields, it gets made up for by terrible glaucoma in others.  (kind of reminds me of kelly bundy's brain...)

time to speak up, people. 

not to mention, "open source" is an illusion anyway, and even what limited existence it has is not intrinsically better than proprietary; it's mostly the opposite case. 

why no open source ? well, where do you draw the line ?  is it the specific application code itself ?  the whole stack of tools ?  the operating system ?  how about the hardware ?  as usual, the hypocrites reign.  the (adjective omitted) academic folk who are so wedded to their goddess apple seem to forget that that was one of the most proprietary systems to ever exist - yeah, runner-up to sun !  microsoft and all the ibm shit has been far more open in an absolute sense all along.  hell, that's how microsoft got started.

as for the superior relative value of proprietary software and how that comes about, i'll leave to to another time not so late in the day.

bottom line: that's a criteria that should not even be considered. far more important: what is proven to work.

* * * * * * *

side note: oh, and hey, craig ?  don't be such a weather wimp ;-)

... with another root canal, and crown-to-come.  friggin' temproary filling came out almost immediately, not worth replacing, i go in next week for the initial crown work.  just meant i had sucky medicine taste / breath all afternoon.

got two scrips, for antibiotic and vicodin, both apparently optional.  i don't understand the vicodin, the pain killer wore off, and - nothing.  huh.  i can live with that.  as for the antibiotic, i was going to skp that too (i got nothing at all the last time - maybe it was an oversight?), but with just a hole there, maybe it's best i have something in my system to fight it.  i kinda hate putting things in me if i don't need them.

well, except for the obvious exception, that is.

hey hey ! a new cheap camera !  like my new avatar ?  this one was only $10. the camera, not the avatar.  smartass.  the last one i got (i'd have to search this blog for that entry - nah, you do it ;-) (ok, i did it)) was about $25. 

i guess you get what you pay for ;-)

it's not really that bad, only close.  but it's about a third the size, takes only one aaa, has about the same capacity - and has a key-chain clip !  wow.

well, ok, some of that is not completely sartcastic.  i was kinda regretting not having anyway to capture the ice last week. now at least i'll have something, however inadequate to the task (btw, that's the same approach i took to dating ;-)).

that other camera did do a better job; it's top resolution was about twice this one (4x memory).  i'll see how this goes.  so far this sucks in the webcam department.  maybe it's just the low light in here.  you can see that effect above, combined with the image compression effect, which is an option.  the old camera handled low-light better, without going to b&w, but y'know, this has its charms too.

the other annoying part is that it has a usb cable, and i'm running mouse / kbd on usb already - and i only have two ports.  no, forget the hub.  maybe it's just time to bring this laptop back to proper life.  or give it a decent burial.  whatever.  or i could give it a spectacular but ignoble death by attempting to upgrade to vista.