brainstorms

Saturday June 04, 2005

notes from the week...

path of least resistance: ulrich drepper's slashblotted entry about dictatorship of minorities should come as a jolt to some of the more reflective parts of the open source community. there are a few meek rebuttals here and there, but i think this article requires more consideration. this is not because ulrich has good arguments [he does not, and abnoxiousness does not help] but in between the lines, he is really writing about favored, recalcitrant modes and branches of development that disadvantages other architectures, less common platforms, thus increasing the cost of accommodation. [linus's law reconsidered: given enough myopic eyeballs, all our favorite bugs are shallow.]

ipod: i wonder if there will be additional cases in other countries against apple to seek relief from battery-challenged ipods. unfortunately i ended up with a third-gen. also re-ripping over a thousand CDs [more on this later] in mp3. aac is going nowhere, and i do not like being locked into non-standards.

freakanomics: [from a recent review] people don't really like contrarian thinking. it is too much work. yet, contrarian thinking can be a useful survival tool. [i will have a more to say about this book in some future entry; it is very entertaining; drop anomics from the title and you get the description of the general reaction this book has created in some circles, especially those who detest contrarian thinking. i would love to see more a through research into the connection between abortion and crime statistics.]

clever design touch: [apple] if the earphone plug is disconnected, ipod shuffle automatically pauses. [i am now making a list of clever design touches for a future blog entry]

david pogue on spotlight: Of course, the truth is that Windows Indexing Service is to Spotlight as Thomas the Tank Engine is to a bullet train. [i laughed. i should remember to photograph our thomas collection before giving it away to some other family]