Religion in computing

Ok, so just because we computer geeks/techie people claim to be intelligent and thoughtful humans, does not mean that we are actually intelligent or thoughtful people. Case in point is the Linux and Windows debates that seem to cause a near religious fervor from the geek/techies that use these platforms.

When you get a Linux enthusiast and a Window enthusiast in the same room, the bad blood in the air is so strong, that you could cut it with an acetylene torch or maybe even a bromine laser. When will these two factions get a grip and get over their own self importance and get along? Granted both sides have ideological differences, open source versus mainstream closed systems. But when I think of Windows, I don't really think about the OS, rather I think about the applications that run on them and REALLY, isn't that what's important? Both sides talk about security, but any systems can be secure as long as it is administered properly and both platforms are just as vulnerable when left in the wrong hands i.e. a retatd that won't take the time to understand their computer.

The REAL issue is the people who use these systems. It's the people that use these systems that are the security risk. It's also the people that develop these application on these platforms. When we look at the nuts and bolts of these two platforms, they pretty much do the same thing, they allow people to use productivity apps so that they can get work done. Hell, you can even get a UNIX environment on a Windows box if that's your kick using free software such as *****.

What is to be learned from this issue is that people with educations can still lose site of what's really important rather than ideology, we must focus on credibility and functionality. If you decide to use a Linux flavored OS, great, free shit is cool and the community is friendly and helpful. If you decide to use a Windows OS, wonderful, there are tons of install and the user community is a lot bigger than Linux and the support out there from Microsoft is pretty damn good, even the Linux folks have to admit this. Microsoft has spent a lot of time creating a wonderful knowledge base to allow an end user to support their computing needs.

So where does this leave us? It leave us with a group of educated people that fight over an ideology of open source versus closed source also known as the evil empire. Just because a company is successful and takes over a market, doesn't mean they are evil. I would agree that many of the Microsoft strategies are meant to drive any competition out of the market place, but if you have a strong product, even the Microsoft machine can't stop you case in point is Firefox. This is the darling of the open source committee, but even this product has to grow up past its open source grass roots to survive past its hype. Many web applications to not functional well with this product and they must address this. People aren't going to redevelop an app to work on a different browser, cost and time are against Firefox right now, but I for one hope they are able to leap these hurdles since it REALLY is a great app and the functionality is a helluva lot better that IE.

So geeks/techies, get over the fact that one person may be on a MS or Linux camp and remember that it's the apps that are important and not the OS.

Some thoughts...

Ok, so I was sitting here in BS this morning trying to figure what I should blog. Then it dawned on me that I needed to write something about balance. I was sitting around the other night talking about how balance can affect events around the globe in almost a chaos theory event method. When one balance is thrown off, the pendulum that maintains the balance is thrown off. When this occurs, odd things happen, presidents appoint radical judges to circuit court positions, and countries invade sovereign nations for unknown reasons or reason based on lies. People forget that our leaders lie, it's almost as if our country's regime has figured out how the Jedi mind trick works. But what is really concerning, is that a radical leadership in our country can overturn our civil liberties that men and women fought so hard to earn over the past 50 years.

Go back to the invasion of Iraq, we went in to rid the region of the weapons of mass destruction and insure that we rid terrorist from that country. Well, instead of weapons of mass destruction, we found nothing to support that theory, yet we are still there. When we got there, there was little or no terrorist activity and now Iraq is a hot bed of terrorist activity. Our military leaders tell us that we have the insurgents under control, yet the American causality rate continues to grow and the Iraqi causality rate has sky rocketed.

Our leaders do not apologize for these lies, instead, they retread their stories and say that we invaded Iraq to free that nation from Sadam, we were liberators and the people of Iraq welcome us with open arms and lay flowers at our occupying soldier’s feet. Well, that's not quite true either. The people of Iraq despise our presence there. The only reason we will remain there with the blessing of the Iraqi's is because if we leave they know that the country will fall into civil war between the Kurds, Shiite's and the Sunni's. The men in power, the Shiite men, know that if they bide their time, they will have a trained force and the ability to control the people in Iraq themselves. Once this happens, we will get the boot and an unceremonious boot at that. And when our soldiers come home, we will love them, as we should for they are not the people that decided to invade a country and remain there for years as an occupying force. Maybe if we actually listened to the soldiers, maybe our leaders would understand why we don't belong there and how important it is for us to return home.

Now we look at the judges that have been appointed to the circuit courts. This president has appointed over 200 judges since he has been in power, more than any other president in the past 20 years. Yet the republican leadership cries foul when the democrats block radical judges, 14 to be exact. 14 out of 200 isn't a big number compared to the 35 that were blocked in Clinton's time. Lott, Ashcroft and the other republicans that were involved in blocking those judges on Clinton's watch are the same men that are complaining that the democrats are blocking these right wing radical judges and telling us that we are facing a constitutional crisis with the filibustering that the democrats are doing. I'm sorry, but your lies and insinuations are insulting to the thinking American's, republican and democrat and especially independent. Just because you have to repay your dues to the Christian conservatives that helped you get elected doesn't mean that you have cry wolf and say that we are having a constitutional crisis. These men must remember that old proverb, be careful for what you wish for, you might just get it. And when they do, it might just wake the people of this once great country and remind them of what we once had has now been taken away from them by radical right wing judges, politicians and radical Christian clerics. And if they do awaken, the wrath may be greater than the leadership of the right wing will watch their power slip away, hence the pendulum swing.

It was once very important for our leaders to be in the middle, but since this pendulum of momentum has swung so far to the right, when it swings back, it just might tear this country apart...