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{ "url": "https://mailman.amsat.org/hyperkitty/api/list/[email protected]/email/CEZ5YLXM6HKWVAVADMD4SNWYXFQ7TUDB/", "mailinglist": "https://mailman.amsat.org/hyperkitty/api/list/[email protected]/", "message_id": "[email protected]", "message_id_hash": "CEZ5YLXM6HKWVAVADMD4SNWYXFQ7TUDB", "thread": "https://mailman.amsat.org/hyperkitty/api/list/[email protected]/thread/7NKLNMTTMFKYR5M4OLXVLZU3EHXNV3ZJ/", "sender": { "address": "nate (a) natetech.com", "mailman_id": null, "emails": null }, "sender_name": "Nate Duehr", "subject": "[amsat-bb] Re: gpredict", "date": "2008-01-29T10:08:24Z", "parent": "https://mailman.amsat.org/hyperkitty/api/list/[email protected]/email/AWAA7M2SSHG7CSV7JQMBEB642AQWZYCA/", "children": [ "https://mailman.amsat.org/hyperkitty/api/list/[email protected]/email/6ZJXIHXUQAADG5SAMOYMB2BV7UYH4VCR/" ], "votes": { "likes": 0, "dislikes": 0, "status": "neutral" }, "content": "\nOn Jan 28, 2008, at 11:32 PM, don wrote:\n\n> The PDP series ran unix, and I still have the original Bell System\n> Journals here at home describing the philosophy and design behind the\n> unix system. I tried over the last few days of re reading these \n> journals\n> to find any reference to the denigrating of any other systems or their\n> users... Are linux users and prophets now straying far from the \n> original\n> tracks for unix?\n\nNo, not really... but times change, and continue to do so. I think \nyou're mistaking his \"ho-hum\" response to your problems with learning \nthe command line on what he perceives as mediocre operating system, to \nzealotry. The honest truth is, only a few Linux users and enthusiasts \nare zealots, the rest are often misunderstood, because they're \noffering you an M1 Tank, gassed up and ready to go, and you're \nwondering where the service station and the usual gas pedal and \nautomatic transmission are.\n\n(This analogy is stolen from the essay described below. I can't take \ncredit for it. Read on.)\n\nIf you've been around computers since the PDP, and haven't had an \nopportunity to do so, DEFINITELY read Neal Stephenson's \"In the \nBeginning was the Command Line\", an essay he penned in 1999 regarding \noperating systems that has a style and flair similar to \"Zen and the \nArt of Motorcycle Maintenance\". On it's own, it's a GREAT read.\n\n(Warning: It's long, but entertaining enough that if you're a \nreader... you'll sit and enjoy. Grab your favorite beverage and a \ncomfy chair. It's that good.)\n\nI recently discovered through the Wikipedia entry for \"In the \nBeginning...\" that while I knew the original essay was falling a bit \nbehind the times, and that the fun commentary and metaphors were still \nvery relevant, factual things were getting pretty dated in it.\n\nAnother writer, Garrett Birkel has written an annotated/updated \nversion of \"In the Beginning...\" that he sought permission from Neal \nto do. It keeps the original up-to-date, but just by notating it... \nnot be rewriting it.\n\nhttp://garote.bdmonkeys.net/commandline/index.html\n\nReading it, anyone can gain huge insights into the \"OS Business\" as \nwell as some very personal insights about why people like/dislike, or \nuse particular OS's -- and perhaps even how silly that all is, when \nit's all said and done.\n\nCheck it out. I don't think any thinking person will be disappointed \nin it. It's \"good stuff\" and it won't rot your brain quite as much as \nthe \"8 hour Law and Order Marathon on Bravo\" or something equally \nuseless on TV. Stephenson even talks quite a bit about why we \nAmericans like watching that versus reading essays like this one, \nactually... it's pretty insightful.\n\nIf you don't have a laptop, buy a ream of paper so you can take it to \nthe easy chair, or buy the book version -- it's been published and \nAmazon and others carry it.\n\nI got about 1/3 of the way in re-reading it and realized he also made \n(completely by accident, or maybe better described as \"by thinking\") \nsome really eerie predictions back before some world events happened \nthat are surprising and amazing. (The essay was written in 1999, two \nyears before 9/11/2001 or more, and he predicts what the Muslim world \nwas already freaking out about against American culture, way back \nthen...)\n\nIt also laid out some very obvious reasons that Apple was dying back \nthen (this came out when Mac OS 9 was still the OS on that hardware \nplatform, and the first colored iMac were just released)... and why in \nretrospect, Apple had to change course in a big hurry... (In fact, \nthey already were changing course internally around the time Neal \npenned this essay, but it wouldn't show externally for a little while \nyet.)\n\nIt's a great story about culture, technology, and people... and even \nif you don't agree with ALL of it, there are some observations in it \nthat are just true about how and why OS's came to be the way they were \nin 1999, and today.\n\nThe stories about the giant drill and its use as a metaphor for \npowerful computing tools, are quite entertaining... the automotive \nanalogies are old and well-worn by other authors, but Stephenson is a \nprofessional writer and does them justice, making them more \nentertaining than usual.\n\nAnyone who claims to be an up-to-date computer whiz who hasn't read \nthis one, probably isn't... they're not keeping up with the big \npicture or the cultures that created the current (and ultimately the \nfuture) software products. You can even see today where both Apple \nand Microsoft have changed their tunes and neither is completely an \nOS, or hardware, or application company. Some of his predictions of \nthe Microsoft Research department didn't completely pan out... there \nhave been good and bad things from there since 1999, but there was \nalso massive economic upheaval right after he wrote this (remember he \nwrote it during the \"Dot Com\" boom, and funding for a lot of frivolous \nstuff and good stuff alike disappered virtually overnight about two \nyears later, and in some cases, never to see the lights in the labs on \never again... a lot of damage there on the timeline of computing \ntechnology research...)\n\nVery entertaining stuff... I'll stop describing it and just say, go \nread it! You can probably also find some reasons in here why the \n\"true hackers\" of things like many of our beloved AMSAT engineers and \ndesigners don't really give a rat's... about what OS they use. \nThey're building things a completely different way from a completely \ndifferent level of competence, and it comes out as, \"Who needs an \nOS?\", which floors a lot of people.\n\nWindows, Linux, MacOSX: They're all just tools... you can know 'em \nall and have a big toolbox, or beat on things with a pipe wrench \n(Windows), a nice pretty claw hammer with a nice stainless steel sheen \n(OSX), or just drive a tank over them (Linux). That one's MY \nanalogy... you'll get it if you read the essay!\n\n--\nNate Duehr, WY0X\[email protected]\n", "attachments": [] }