Re: Linux is great, but is it cool?

[The Ghost In The Machine]

Newgroups line corrected to remove extraneous space.

In comp.os.linux.advocacy, plenty900@yahoo.com
<plenty900@yahoo.com>
 wrote
on Tue, 15 Jan 2008 09:15:41 -0800 (PST)
<b744e5a7-3ad8-4b5b-811f-98aaa40712c1@i72g2000hsd.googlegroups.com>:
>
> One thing that drew me to computers from the start
> was going to computer clubs and seeing the cool hacks
> that people had managed to get working using their
> computers. For instance, I once saw a VIC-20 with
> a "real" 80x25 video card, for instance, and a guy
> who created his own OS.

One of my contributions to coolness -- if one can call it that
-- is a modification to an 1861 (1802-based video chip;
good luck finding it using Google nowadays!) that allowed
for a 512 x 192 monochrome pixel display.  That might
have been cool back in the mid-80's (if then); of course
nowadays it verges on the ridiculously anachronistic,
as I'm working on a laptop with 1024x768x16M colors (plus
alpha) which is itself not all that cool since it's several
years old.

In short, it's the timing.

[snip]

> I am not convinced that truly cool things
> are happening any longer, because I am not
> seeing barriers being broken through at least
> in the area of software. Indeed, nor in hardware.
> Everyone involved in Linux seems to be using
> a hot-rod system that offers no barriers.
> Where is the cool?
>

Microsoft will do their damndest to make Silverlight
cool, I suspect.  Personally, I'm not sure Silverlight is
all that cool (although .NET -- the freeware/Mono part,
anyway -- has some interesting features, which make it
a little cooler than, but a lot more problematic as well
than, Java).

If one wants really cool, perhaps, one can look into
things such as highly efficient "Linux sticks".  Of
course "cool" might be taken a wee bit too literally
in that case; "green" is arguably the new fad -- though
one hopes it becomes a lasting one.

-- 
#191, ewill3@earthlink.net
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