Cheerful Curmudgeon

Is Linux ready to replace Microsoft Windows? You have almost certainly heard the question and you have probably wondered about it. You might even have tried Linux yourself and given some serious thought to switching.

Most people avoid switching, though, not because they particularly care about the operating system but because switching would force them to abandon familiar programs and change comfortable workflows. And face it, changing operating systems is high risk and a lot of work.

There is a whole class of users for whom Linux is a natural choice, however. People who are not yet Windows or Mac users, people who are choosing their “first” computer, can as easily select Linux as any other operating system.

My step-mother wanted a computer for four tasks:

1. Email.
2. Writing letters. (For those of you too young to know what this is, a “letter” is kind of like an email printed on a piece of paper.)
3. Looking at some web sites.
4. Solitaire.

Sound familiar? Except for the order of the tasks, Lorraine’s needs are pretty typical. Broken town into technical requirements, we have:

1. Web browser
2. Word processor
3. Printer
4. Solitaire

Sounds even more familiar, doesn’t it? These requirements lists give absolutely no reason to prefer one operating system over another.

One more step. As a real world consumer, Lorraine has two more requirements, in no particular order:

• Price
• Reliability

These last two finally provide some guidance toward choosing between Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Of the three, Windows is clearly the least reliable; only an idiot would run Windows without good virus scanning software installed and regularly updated. OS X is better than Windows but not perfect. At the recent CanSecWest security conference, Ubuntu Linux proved to be unhackable while both Vista and OS X laptops were successfully hacked. When it comes to price, both Windows and OS X are more expensive than Linux, which is free.

Linux comes out the winner, given these requirements. It does what she wants. The price is right. And it is at least as reliable, probably more so, than the other two operating systems. The only question remaining is: Can Lorraine use it easily and effectively?

I chose an Asus Eee PC 2G Surf for her. Out of the box, the computer includes the software she needs (Firefox web browser, OpenOffice.org word processor, and a solitaire game). I turned it on, entered her name and the city she lives near (so it would “know” which timezone she lives in), entered the password for her Wi-Fi wireless network, and Lorraine was up and running. Total set-up time was well under five minutes.

I chose an inexpensive HP DeskJet printer for her because HP does a great job with Linux compatibility and the printer was on sale at the local office supply store. I plugged it into her computer, clicked the “Add printer” button, and in less than a minute, Lorraine was printing her first letter.

Lorraine has been using her new computer for a week and I think that I can pronounce the experiment an unequivocal success. Her computer does exactly what she needs with no fuss and no bother.

Her only complaints have been related to the small screen and keyboard on the Eee PC and her unfamiliarity with using a touch pad instead of a mouse; the Eee PC may not have been the best form factor for her but the small size fits her lifestyle so the jury is still out. She has had some questions about her software such as how to add a new email address to her address book and how to turn off auto-completion within OpenOffice.org. Other than those issues, and learning how to use a modern computer (her last real computer was ten years ago and since then she has only used a WebTV), the new machine “just works.”

None of these issues have anything to do with Linux nor would they have failed to come up had we chosen a different operating system. As an aside, my cousin Sam picked up the computer and without a single question or comment quickly checked his stock transactions. Though I did not confirm with him, it was not obvious that he even realized he was using Linux.

Lorraine’s openness to trying something new certainly contributed greatly to her success with Linux. She came to the table with no preconceived notions of what any particular dialog box “should” look like or what specific buttons she “should” push to make something italic in the word processor. These comfort factors can be significant barriers to people with extensive history with one set of software. On the other hand, those willing to experiment a bit may find that a Linux computer offers cost savings and improved security vs. Windows and Mac OS X computers. How much cost savings? As an example, here is the total for everything we purchased for her computer:

Asus Eee PC mini-laptop computer: $299
OpenOffice.org word processor: $0
Virus scanner: $0
All other software: $0

TOTAL: $299

The question of if Linux is ready for prime time is moot. The question now is only whether Linux is right for you.

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Three years ago today, I posted my first entry on this blog. Join me in celebrating by splurging on a piece of birthday cake.

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I just read a letter to the editor in my local newspaper. It begins,

Are you kidding me? Jefferson Middle School says that no kids can bring peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch because there are kids with peanut allergies?

Peanut butter is dangerous to the 1.3% of Americans who have peanut allergies. We should certainly protect the kids from dangerous stuff, especially since about 125 Americans die every year from allergic reactions to peanuts.

While we are at it, let’s protect our little darlings from a few other things which are also likely to kill them:

• School buses - Though not as dangerous as peanuts, we still might seriously consider keeping kids away from machines which kill an average of 20 of them every year.
• Water kills 8x as many children per year as peanuts - About 1,000 kids die every year by drowning in residential swimming pools. Better outlaw them.
• Schools - Of the 22,000,000 children injured in the United States each year, about 10% to 25%, or 2,200,000 to 5,500,000 children, are injured at or near school! Clearly, peanuts are an insignificant risk compared to the school itself.

Perhaps a little more analysis of the scale of the risk is in order before banning something. Peanut butter certainly comes to mind, as do other things like:

• Parents watching middle school children until they board the school bus.
• Playgrounds without swings or teeter-totters.
• GPS tracking of children’s cell phones.
• Helicopter parenting, in general.

Remember, just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.

Remember, too, that just because something is dangerous, does not mean that you necessarily need to do anything more than educate your children.

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We all know that distractions make driving significantly more difficult and dangerous. Cell phones top the list, at least from lawmakers’ perspectives, and we now have laws in several states which limit cell phone use while driving. Sadly, lawmakers have not found a way to make children stop bugging their parents during car trips. “She’s breathing my air!” and “He’s looking out my window!” make every parent cringe and enhance family outings in immeasurable ways.

Science News, in Shifting Priorities at the Wheel, reports on a new study which demonstrates that simply listening to conversation severely reduces a driver’s ability to safely maneuver a car.

Even a simple form of multitasking — driving while listening to someone else talk — disrupts the ability to navigate a car safely, a new study finds.

An intriguing neural response underlies vehicular mishaps associated with such distractions, say neuroscientist Marcel Just of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and his colleagues. Attending to what someone says galvanizes language-related brain areas while simultaneously reducing activity in spatial regions that coordinate driving behavior.

This finding suggests that people who combine relatively automatic tasks, such as speech comprehension and car driving, exceed a biological limit on the amount of systematic brain activity they can accommodate at one time, the researchers propose. As a result, the less-ingrained skill — in this case, driving, which is learned long after a person grasps a native language — takes a neural hit.

Pilots know how distracting simple chit-chat can be. When I am taking off and landing my plane, I ask everybody else on board to stop talking, even to each other; I need to concentrate. If I am flying with several children and they won’t keep quiet, I use the “isolate” switch on my audio panel so that I don’t have to listen to them.

This is a significant enough issue that the FAA formalized it into the Sterile Cockpit Rule in 1981. Wikipedia summarizes it nicely,

The Sterile Cockpit Rule is an FAA regulation requiring pilots to refrain from non-essential activities during critical phases of flight, normally below 10,000 feet. The FAA imposed the rule in 1981 after reviewing a series of accidents that were caused by flight crews who were distracted from their flying duties by engaging in non-essential conversations and activities during critical parts of the flight. One such notable accident was Eastern Air Lines Flight 212, which crashed just short of the runway at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport in 1974 while conducting an instrument approach in dense fog. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) concluded that one probable cause of the accident was distraction due to idle chatter among the flight crew during the approach phase of the flight.

It is worth being aware of the biological limits to what our brains can do. When hurtling down the road in a two ton missile, with innocent bystanders on foot nearby, and women and children blithely motoring along in their own cars next to yours, pay attention to the most important task at hand: arriving alive.

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Now I’ll readily admit that I’m no expert in windsocks. I’ve seen my share but never paid ‘em much mind. I’ve certainly never delved into the technology which makes ‘em work. Obviously, I have ignored somethin’ which ought not be ignored.

I just read this NOTAM:

Trenton NJ (Trenton Mercer) [TTN]: May NOTAM #5
Aerodrome 16/34 WINDSOCK out of service between taxiway A, H

Obviously, a WINDSOCK ain’t just a sock, whippin’ about in the wind. Obviously, a WINDSOCK’s got some high fallutin’ technology which can either work or be “out of service.”

Well now. I guess I done learned somethin’ tonight.

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Thanks to Jeremy Zawodny for drawing my attention to Clay Shirky’s talk on the cognitive surplus. Shirky makes some excellent points. Give it 17 minutes of your time and watch. My comments follow.

I agree with Shirky, we like to do more than we like to watch. That’s why it was so funny when Peter Sellers, as Chance in Being There, said, “I like to watch TV.” Have you ever watched a child show his newest toy to his friend? The friend can only respond in one way: Let me see it! And we all know what that means. The friend does not want to look at it; he wants to touch it, play with it, fully experience it by interacting with it.

Like Shirky, I too grew up watching TV. There were not many choices in how to spend my time. I could watch TV, I could read a book, I could play with my toys, I could go outside, I could do homework. I had a creative bent as a child, too. Most of us do. I took a lot of pictures, entered photo contests, showed them to my family and friends. But there were no web sites on which I could publish them. I decided to write a book on drawing. I only got as far as the chapter on “How to draw an airplane” before quitting. Why? In large part, because I realized that I would never get it published. Without blogs, there was no way for amateur artist Art to share his new-found wisdom.

The world has changed since the dark ages of home entertainment. Now, in addition to watching TV, reading a book, playing with my toys, going outside, and doing homework; we can use our brains, create something, and show it off. What could possibly be better than improving the world a little bit? What could possibly be better than being admired? The internet and the computer have given all of us the capability to take our ideas out of our heads and manifest them in the real world. We can have real impact on other people’s lives. How can passively watching television possibly compete with that?

Is TV doomed? I don’t know the answer to that big question but I can tell you that, in my house, we don’t have a television receiver or a satellite receiver or a cable TV box. There are so many more compelling ways to spend our time that the cost of a satellite subscription far outweighed the value of the few shows that we took the time to watch.

This is a Good Thing. Thinking and doing is much better than simply watching.

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Here is a little bit of just “plane” fun to brighten your Monday. Watch Boeing build a new 777 in just four minutes.

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It’s Earth Day so celebrate.

Go and get yourself a glass of clear, cool, refreshing water.

Sip and savor the cool wetness as it trickles back along your tongue.

Do your teeth feel cold, too?

Take a deep gulp.

Ahhhhh. That satisfies, doesn’t it?

Now celebrate again because you didn’t pay $0.79 for that privilege; it was free.

Now celebrate again because you didn’t toss a plastic bottle into the trash.

Now celebrate again because the glass of water you drank did not require three more glasses of water to produce and bottle.

Now celebrate again because the glass of water came to you without the use of diesel fuel to drive a truck.

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Sometimes you just gotta do it. You’ve got this thing going on and life is good and the moment comes and you make a commitment. That’s what I did; I made a commitment. I said it out loud, in front of witnesses, to my wife.

Six of us were celebrating Cindy’s birthday. Even Cindy acknowledged that this was a Very Special Birthday: “It’s my birthday!” So, with that in our collective conscious, we were destined for a very special night. I began with a very special beer, Trailhead’s Missouri Brown, which always preps the body for good things. A quarter of the way through the first glass, Becky and Derek showed up, bringing cheer and amusement with them. By the time my glass was half full, or perhaps half empty, I can never be quite sure, Cindy and Geoff arrived. Conversation, appetizers, more conversation, gifts, and laughter ensued followed by…

ribs

bbq baby back ribs

half a rack of them

hot, greasy, slightly spicy, and finger lickin’ good

You, being the gourmand that you are, realize that there are few things in this world that are finer than a nice beer and a good rib on the plate in front of you. I savored rib number one and rib number two. The sides (baked beans and coleslaw, both a bit sweet) filled in around the edges. Rib number three dropped into place and largely filled my stomach leaving me with a dilemma: There were still three ribs left on my plate and beer still in my glass. As The Dude had proclaimed so echoed the voice in my own head: This will not stand!

I ate the rib number four.

Rib numbers five and six taunted me. Man though I am, I realized that I needed help. (Hey, I learned something by being a Nineties Man for a decade and graduating into a New Millennium Man with the turn of the century. Never mind that it happens to all of us guys, except the few who truly live in the past.) I needed help and Derek, bless his brave heart, rescued me. I swapped rib number five for his

pickle

dill pickle

cool, crispy, tartly green, dill pickle spear

You, being the gourmand that you are, know deep in your core essence the magical qualities of pickles. You know how just one good pickle can sooth the overburdened belly and ease the way for another tasty morsel or three.

It was enough. Pickle in hand, then in mouth, and then in gut, I was ready. I lifted rib number six with renewed relish and ate it. The last of the beer followed, completing dinner and cementing my masterful dominance of the kitchen’s best.

But back up one rib.

Candy had been bemused by the bartered transaction: a rib for a pickle. I don’t know why. Maybe my reason for existence is to amuse her. Maybe the best I can aspire to is bemusement and I can only hope for amusement in the next cycle. Whatever the case may be, my male ego rose to the challenge and defended the nobility of the trade.

“This is serious,” I heard myself say. “You’ll see. I’ll blog about it.”

And so I have.

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For several years, my son planned to join the Army. As a father, I had mixed emotions: pride that he wanted to volunteer for a very tough job and fear that he would be killed… or worse. He and I had several discussions about the dangers; largely fruitless because teenagers believe they are immortal and invulnerable.

The Rand Corp. has just published a large study of emotional trauma to Iraq War veterans. The AP article, About 1 in 5 U.S. troops suffers mental fallout, study finds, includes:

Roughly one in every five U.S. troops who have survived the bombs and other dangers of Iraq and Afghanistan now suffers from major depression or post-traumatic stress, an independent study said Thursday. It estimated the toll at 300,000 or more….

Only about half of those with mental health problems have sought treatment. Even fewer of those with head injuries have seen doctors.

Army Surgeon General Eric Schoomaker said the report, from the Rand Corp., was welcome….

“There is a major health crisis facing those men and women who have served our nation in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Terri Tanielian, the project’s co-leader and a researcher at Rand. “Unless they receive appropriate and effective care for these mental health conditions, there will be long-term consequences for them and for the nation.”

The casualties of war include many more people than the few who actually die on the battlefield, the few who are officially counted by the US government. We do a disservice to the injured, to their families, and to ourselves by ignoring the problem.

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