30 May 2003 C.E.
The truth about Geeks and Linux
Entered 11:31:16 PM Terra, Sol-III Mutter's Spiral
I saw this on Slashdot and was struck by the sheer truth of it: "I've often wondered how many Linuxen really want *nixes on the desktop for everyone, just due to the fact that it kinda destroys "street cred" in the same way that the cult following of bands suddenly dry up when the band hit the radio and everyone else seems to like them. I surely know mac users who would find something else to use if everyone used mac's... There's street cred (or geek cred) in spending the hours going through documentation to get your *nix to install on your box- to get the newest drivers hacked on and working while the luddite IT intern is trying so hard to get their display driver to go higher than 8-bit. There just ain't street cred when a 5 year old is able to start up a web server... mysql is already almost at the point and click stage to instal on OSX, what if Apple ships mysql with the system (or postgresql as mysql seems to get bashed for the oddest things now that it's very popular) and includes some sort of easy to write to API for developers and a filemaker-like interface upon it for everyone else? Should they be using it then...? What happens if in 12 years Linux is really viable on the desktop, perhaps even becoming easier to install and use than Windows? Where what will the geek cred concious user use? Everything is just getting too damn easy. People should have to work to use the computer- it's a sign of respect, right? --drunkenbatman"
Well said, Drunkenbatman....
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"The matter of why Doctor Xadium's Time Capsule is fixed in the curious shape of a 'beverage vending machine' from late 20th-century Earth [Humanian Era 607934] is a subject never broached in polite conversation. Ever. Whilst some have scurrilously posited that Xadium cannot properly effect the repair of a simple Type 60 Chamelionic circuit, it is generally accepted that these disgraceful innuendo are slanderous and utterly unfounded." - Lord Sendrilmetavanskastaron, "The Gallifreyan Renegades", thirty-eleventh ed. D O C T O R 
"Doctor Xadium was an errant Time Lord whose overactive sense of humour at High Council meetings earned him a more or less permanent holiday from Gallifrey. Stuck on Earth trying to cobble together a new TARDIS-- but equipped with nothing more than the technological equivalent of bear-skins and stone knives (as well as some metal tape)-- he decided to use his time to follow the myriad trends in Terran society, studying their crude, primitive laws and laughable attempts to improve themselves scientifically. Aproximately 26 Earth-years into his exile, in order to offset his growing frustration with the 'self-involved, short-sighted, bombastic ape-monkeys with delusions of grandeur"', he took to irregularly recording his more sardonic-- or dare we say even cynical-- views on the ever-progressing devolution of 21st century human civilization (not to mention his own petty irritations) in his 900-year diary, excerpts of which we have extracted from the data core of his notoriously insecure Terran 'computing device' (which in terms of function is slightly less advanced then a Gallifreyan child's first number line). It is almost refreshing to note the ceaseless amazement he displays at the Terran propensity to supress any information, be it political, archaeological or scientific, that gets in the way of their pedestrian, self-absorbed world-view. It is for this reason that historians have labeled Doctor Xadium 'The Discoverer of Obvious Truth' - Lord Sendrilmetavanskastaron, "The Gallifreyan Renegades", thirty-eleventh ed., WHO IS GOING TO GET SUED ONCE I GET BACK TO GALLIFREY BECAUSE HE DOESN'T REALIZE MY SUB-ETHER NET CONNECTION STILL WORKS AND I CAN SEE THE ABSOLUTE RUBBISH HE'S SPEWING FORTH OVER THERE AT THE OPPOSITE END OF THE GALAXY T H E |