Letters to the Editor
rgsharpe
Published Letters: 4
-
HuckaBe
[Read the article: Huckabee, Obama, Kerry, Dean: Are they Macs or PCs?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If anything, Huckabee reminds me of BeOS. It was flashier than Windows, but lacked the modern stylishness of a Mac. It was more advanced technically than it appeared -- running some cross-platform programs easily -- but now looks a little bit dated. It was a perennial also-ran and always struggled to gain market share from the 800 lb gorillas in its market. One of its early, obvious allies was poached by the front-runner. And it still has a rabidly loyal fanbase, though some of its underpinnings have changed since its initial debut in the early '90s.
Of course, if you work hard enough you can justify describing any candidate as any piece of software, so you could probably apply the above to Clinton, Romney, and Gravel if you wanted.
-
Sloppy software design?
[Read the article: Let's fight: Popular Mechanics says Macs beat PCs in style and speed]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Ten years ago, I had a 200 MHz Pentium machine that booted Windows 98 in about a minute. Though processors, memory, data buses, and every other hardware component in a computer have undergone numerous generations of exponential growth in capability since then, it stands to reason that software has kept pace. If my computer is operation for operation 50 times as quick as that Pentium 200 but still boots Windows in that same minute, Windows must have become 50 times as complex (or is 1/50th as efficient at hardware utilization).
Granted, we see a lot of this complexity in more advanced methods that let us play with larger chunks of data and niftier user features, but at some point, the software industry seems to have taken it for granted that faster PCs have taken from them the necessity of writing efficient code. Add in Microsoft's compulsive need to include the kitchen sink in its OSes (compared to Apple's careful engineering or Linux's ability to remove unnecessary features), and poor design becomes even more apparent.
If you need further argument, I'd point to a Google data center -- the acme of commodity hardware with impeccably efficient software.
-
Humor on the Hill
[Read the article: Big government just got a whole lot bigger]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Politics aside, I'm surprised nobody's yet made the connection between the bill's acronym and the Greek goddess of hearth and home known for her vengeful streak.
-
Civilian Commander-in-Chief
[Read the article: Poor John McCain: Forced against his honor to run an ugly campaign]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If I could be granted one small wish about our political discourse, it would be that reporters and pundits would accept -- as disappointing and unglorious as it is -- that, under our Constitution and basic government design, people who aren't in the military don't have a "Commander-in-Chief." The President isn't your "commander," and the "Commander-in-Chief" power, now synonymous in our political culture with "President," is actually extremely limited (Art. II, Sec. 2: "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States").
Fucking thank you. This is not often enough said, and my voice is going hoarse repeating it to the unaware.