Operating systems / Best in "isolation"

From: Tarsi <tarsi_at_binhost.com>
Date: Fri Oct 20 09:47:02 2000

At 08:59 AM 10/20/00 -0500, you wrote:
>I don't know how to state this, so I will blunder in --
>
>I have been trying to follow this wide-ranging discussions
>about the woes of Microsoft products, of Linux, and so on.
>
>This may sound anti-Internet, but I see two themes in the
>back of these discussions --
>
>1. The need to be isolated
>
>2. consumerism (or vender vs. user choice)
>
>For the first, with computers so widespread and the ease
>to communicate between users so prevalent these days, maybe
>we need the exact opposite -- for each of us to be isolated
>from one another and not see the other's toys. As I think
>Ernest recently said, he was happy with his first Commodore 64
>until someone told him otherwise. If we would instead just
>cherish what we have, and <grin> otherwise sit in Dilbert-like
>mini-cubicles without the ability to see your neighbor,
>then we wouldn't know what we are missing...
>
>(For you software developers and hardware techs of yore --
>did you complain about the software and hardware 20 years
>ago in the same fashion as I hear complaining today? I suspect
>so, it is just that we didn't hear it so often as we were
>isolated. But then again I can dream that it was better then...)
>
>For the second, I would like to think that our need to upgrade
>should be driven by *our* needs to fix something. I dislike it
>when the direction comes from the other end -- that is from the
>vender or developer telling me I must upgrade and/or replace something.
>When the needs are not truly user driven, then we are in a
>marketing situation only, and you know the group of people
>that is intended to benefit from that...it doesn't include me.
>
>I am not exactly thrilled with Microsoft products, and would
>rather not buy them. But then again BSD won't serve my family's
>needs. Just what is available as a viable alternative for the
>"average Joe"? Not much from what I can see. So maybe we shouldn't
>be using computers -- they aren't essential, after all <grin> --
>societies flourished for many centuries before the present (and
>there is no promise that this society won't "die" just like others
>in the past have).
>
>Just pondering on a Friday -- Luddism and communism in the
>morning. Grins..
>Have a good weekend everyone and simmer down.
>
>Cheers/TTFN,
>Kevin Anderson, Bismarck, North Dakota (where I can see the frontier,
>and there are unfortunately no PDP 8s or 11s in sight....)
>home: K9IUA_at_juno.com
>alt: kla_at_helios.augustana.edu
Received on Fri Oct 20 2000 - 09:47:02 BST