May 21, 2025
Keeping tech free
Browsers, Business, Copyright, Operating Systems and Politics
Folks who follow news about FOSS, OSS and Linux who also watch the “talking heads” shows the TV networks serve up on Sunday mornings might be excused for not noting that David Boies, the lawyer speaking for Sony on this week’s “Meet the Press,” has on several occasions been involved in news stories affecting Linux. Over the years, he’s played the role of both friend and foe, but it’s been a while since his and the FOSS world’s paths have crossed.
Photograph by Doc Searls
And the hits just keep on coming…
Today’s float on the parade of the PC-is-dead prognostications comes from The Register, which says, “At the very moment that Linux desktops seem to be reaching new levels of sophistication, polish and ‘just works’ ease-of-use, the entire future of the desktop computer (by which I also mean laptop) feels in doubt.”
The only thing that’s in doubt is whether that sentence is anywhere near remotely accurate. But let’s put that aside for a moment and assume we can see the future of how we deal with our digital lives.
Sure, you can see a Post-PC future from here all right. Of course, you’re going to need the Hubble to do so.
Naturally, there are things that you can do with your Post-PC apparatus, like surf the web, watch videos and all those important digital activities. But bear in mind that you’re not going to be using Blender on your smartphone.
I like living here. “Here” is a low-cost, no maintenance condo-type neighborhood for us folks who are 55 or older or have a disability. A good friend of mine, a bit older than me, told me that since I live here now, I need to start acting my age.
Well pass the Ensure and bingo cards Gladys …I’ll get right on that.
The same good friend also described me once as the oldest juvenile delinquent he has ever met.
But there’s really no getting away from the fact that I’ve reached the stage of life when grandchildren are finally accepted and I no longer wince when one of my grand babies address me as “grandpa.” Yeah, it took me almost a decade to be comfortable with the fact that I am indeed a grandpa.
A medley of aches, pains and cramps often remind me that I can’t do stuff as fast and for as long as I used to. These days, my life consists of blazing my way through my work day then hobbling to my comfy sofa, moaning my regret for all that day’s blazing.
This is a nice place to which to come home. One of the great things about living here is how close the residents are…and not in just proximity. We lived in a fairly nice home prior to moving here and in the three years we stayed there I couldn’t tell you the last names of the people living next door or across the street from us. In less than a week here, almost every neighbor had stopped by to say “hi” or to bring various house warming baked goods.
This past Thanksgiving, Diane and I went to the pot luck community gathering at the community center. To be honest, I really didn’t want to go. On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving I had promised a computer to the kids of a single mom, but while installing it, gremlins found their way into the machine. The computer that worked perfectly on the workbench suddenly decided that a kernel panic was in order. I needed Thanksgiving evening to myself so I could get another system ready, but a long, chilly look from Diane was enough to forestall that mission…for a couple of hours anyway.
Hacking, hacking, everywhere hacking. And not the good kind either. We’re talking cracking hacking.
Take the Sony hack for instance. Bunches of movies set for Christmas release are now available online for free, for those willing to break the law and invoke the displeasure of the MPAA while firing up the ol’ BitTorrent. Worse than that: even more bunches of Sony employees have had their financial lives turned upside down, with all of their personal information leaked. Not so bad, however, is the news that “The Interview” won’t be making an appearance on a screen near you anytime soon.
Oddly, it’s that last tidbit that’s been getting the most press. That, and the ongoing argument on who’s to blame for the Sony crack hack.
At first, U.S. authorities said that the North Koreans didn’t do it. Then they said they did. The North Koreans countered with a “no-way-Jose” and offered to help in the hunt to find the real culprit, which elicited an adamant “no-way-back-atcha” from the U.S.
You can tell it’s the holiday season — a lot of people are focusing more on the guy with the red suit who looks quite a bit like Jon ‘maddog’ Hall than they are on digital matters. This also is the time of year, naturally, where pundits make their predictions for the following year.
However, I should admit something here. Truth in advertising: I don’t have a good record in predicting the future. I have a hard enough time predicting what to wear the following day — oh, right: clothes. But Linux and FOSS being, well, Linux and FOSS, these projections are as good as any prediction now being foisted on the FOSS public by the army of digital pundits out there.
So what’s going to happen in 2015?
A lot. Like…
In “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” Winston Smith’s job was to rewrite the past for the Inner Party. Mainly, he made people vanish from the pages of history. Anyone who came under the party’s bad graces suddenly disappeared from all media; from all newspaper articles, books, television archives and any other mentions. In Orwell’s world, anyone declared a nonperson was completely erased. S/he never existed.
According to memos leaked from the recent hack on Sony, the big studios would like to employ a Winston Smith to remove domain name listings from ISPs DNS directories, effectively removing entire websites from the Internet for most users, as if they never existed.
Ken Starks — I love him like a brother, but I hate following him every Wednesday here at FOSS Force after his Tuesday column runs, because every time — week in and week out — his column is always a good one.
He knows what I’m talking about, too, because he got to experience the same kind of thing at Ohio Linux Fest when his keynote came after Jon ‘maddog’ Hall. While I wouldn’t characterize Ken’s situation there the same way he did in his keynote — like Tiny Tim following Aerosmith — I certainly can relate. If you haven’t given his latest post a read, go ahead, I’ll wait.
Be that as it may, it’s time to vote. Every year around this time, LinuxQuestions.org trots out its annual LinuxQuestions.org Members Choice Awards. The 2014 version, which ends in February, certainly does not disappoint.
One great thing about this poll — probably the best thing about this poll — is that each of the categories has an extremely wide range of candidates, and there are programs in many of the categories that I’ve never heard of. Hearing about them for the first time, I get to try them out. So not only is it fun — yeah, I think voting is fun (so shoot me) — it’s also educational.
Here’s how we’ll do this: I’m not going to post every category, but I’ll post some of them and tell you my choice — vote with me or not, it’s entirely up to you — and then I’ll mention some of the programs new to me that I plan to try out. Conversely, you can post your own choices in the comments below.
I want to talk in response to things that have been discussed about our non profit, Reglue. Many have asked about how the organization will…
If all goes according to plan, in June of 2015 HP plans to release a new operating system they’re calling Linux++. Before we start jumping up and down and putting on our party hats, we should know that this is not a new Linux distro being designed by HP to be featured on a new line of laptops. Although based on Linux and Android, this won’t even be an operating system at all in the sense that mortals such as I generally use the term. Most of us won’t be downloading and installing it. If we do, we won’t be using it as a drop-in replacement for Mint, Fedora or any of our other favorite desktop distros.
So what is The Machine? Julie Bort with Business Insider on Thursday called it “a computer so radical and so powerful that it will reduce today’s data center down to the size of a refrigerator.” If it lives up to its hype, it promises to turn today’s computers into horse and buggies by comparison.
Iowa has come up with a plan which I’m adding to my “bad idea” list — driver’s license by phone app.
It seems that beginning next year, which is now less than three weeks away, the good and cold state will be experimenting with issuing driver’s licenses as mobile apps rather than the old fashioned plastic kind that are best kept in a wallet. According to CNN, the app will be legal identification and will be secured by use of a PIN number. The app can also be secured using fingerprint or facial recognition technology said Andrea Henry with the Iowa Department of Transportation.
iowa Dept of Transportation
“Really, it’s about giving customers a choice,” says Henry. “We’re in an increasingly mobile world, and there are so many things that are connected to your mobile phone.”
WHO TV in Des Moines reported that one security feature of the app license is that the driver’s face will be constantly in motion, rotating from side to side.
“It shows you it is real,” explained Iowa Department of Transportation’s Director, Paul Trombino. “It gives you a real perspective. There’s a lot of ways for us to offer security features which I’m not going to prescribe today so that, we know it’s the person.”
Although this may sound way cool to the folks who see being tethered to expensive data plans as a privilege to be savored, to me it smacks of Big Brother and 1984.
