<< July 18, 2007 >>
i think there is something dead in my kitchen

it was unmistakable when i got home today. something is dead in my kitchen.

but i can't find it.

it is most pronounced near the sink, mostly underneath. there is a little gap between the cabinet and the wall, and i thought perhaps there might be something in there. but my flashlight had no batteries, and it was raining, so i tried to rig some sort of reflection thing with one of my floor lamps and a mirror from the bathroom.

after i returned from the store with batteries, i discovered that there was in fact nothing in that crevice. in the cabinet under the sink is of course the garbage disposal. not having one growing up, perhaps i haven't been maintaining it properly? maybe it needed cleaning? internet says that baking soda and also lemons work well.

my garbage disposal smells pretty good now. but my kitchen is still rated don't buy. there are some holes in the cabinet for hoses and drains and stuff, so maybe something crawled back there; this seems like a big pain and since the rest of my apartment is in shambles, i'll deal with calling the landlord about that tomorrow.

i'm not exactly sure what they'll find, but after reading the internet today, it's beginning to look like it might just be gnome that's back there (wasn't this all worth it?).

i may be a grumpy old man, but that doesn't make the online desktop a good idea. its argument is basically that of java from twelve years ago, only with flawed reasoning:

As people and organizations realize they aren't really using Windows anymore, except to launch their web browser - open source will be there with a free-of-cost, super-simple alternative.

i will first off start with the simple fact that there are tons of softwares that are not web apps. i can understand how they're overlooked, because they, well, kind of don't really exist in the gnome world. an easy example are resource-intensive content creation apps: movie editors, music software, and other stuff like (certain kinds of) games.

then, it seems to ignore the fact that windows is (in most cases) the actual free-of-cost case. it costs me $0 to not do anything to my computer and continue to run windows. when i buy a computer, windows isn't like rust protection or a quadrophonic 8-track system on a car: it's already built into the price, and for the most part is the same on any computer i'm looking at.

This is not a web-based desktop or "webtop"; we are trying to create the ideal experience outside your browser. The fact is, you need hardware drivers, and the browser itself can't be web-based.

and awesome hardware integration is the first thing that pops into mind when thinking about linux:

These are the things that turn people off to using this OS - I have spent most of the morning trying to get a freakin~ external monitor to display correctly. How do I do that~ by editing freakin~ /etc/X11/xorg.conf - what complete bullshit. I feel like its 1996 all over again - especially since it still doesn~t work.

-- dave mason, basically channeling zab

This means there are now no Linux machines in my house*, and even at work, I no longer have any Linux machines that have video cards in them**, which is as it should be.

-- jwz giving up the linux ghost as i apparently did some time some time after this happened

this can be summed up in two words amongst many of my friends: "sound works."

and one final snide retort to a quote from o-d.o before i go to bed:

Closed source doesn't have an agenda like this; our online desktop will be integrated with anything and everything users want to use.

oh, you mean like bluetooth? and firewire? and wireless cards? and suspending?

it's just that... having a PC (which is what gnome runs on) that can just run web apps... it just doesn't justify the effort of moving to it from whatever i can already run my web apps on already.

in fact, it seems similar to the tesla sales problem:

A traditional dealer would spend his time apologizing for the car's shortcomings rather than talking up the benefits.

so, while this looks like it undermines my point, it actually leads me to want to drop the desktop part of online-desktop and think about it more like an online device, where you can drop some of the general computing baggage (and maybe even some of the beefy hardware requirements). not unlike iphone (the desire has almost completely subsided), foleo, the n800, or an audrey.

pyro, on the other hand, looks pretty fun. but just about anything done in JS is.