If wishes were horses.
It's shoot for the moon daze, people! Following up on Al Gore's challenge to convert all electricity production to wind, solar and recumbent bike power in the next 10 years, two other probably even less likely to be accomplished challenges were raised.
First, TechCrunch wants users to build them a dead-simple web tablet for $200. There's that can-get-other-people-to-do-it spirit that made this country great! Make sure you get a tetanus shot before taking those test models for a spin! Some of those edges might be sharp.
Now one of the founders of Ubuntu maker Canonical, Mark Shuttleworth, says he wants the operating system that's fun to say to "blow right past Apple" in terms of an artful desktop experience. Right. Look, the Macalope has some really nice things to say about Linux and Tux himself, who he frequently plays against in the Mythical Creatures Intramural Softball League. But artful experiences are rarely, if ever, created by committee. Also, it's not just the presentation layer that separates Ubuntu from OS X. It's also this. It's not enough to look good, it has to just work, too.
Well, you know, MobileMe notwithstanding.
Cough.
Mythical beast and rumormonger extraordinaire, the Macalope writes about all things Apple for the CNET Blog Network. Read more at The Macalope: An Apple blog. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
And while the Al Gore idea is probably not feasible, trying to do it is still important and a good idea.
Techcrunch is certifiably insane, though.
They're stuck using X11, and almost all the software people want to run in X either has inherently horrible UI or will require a different widget and library set than that the user wants as their "primary" one. (KDE or Gnome? Neither, please?
That's the big reason I still only use linux as a server platform.)
Apple's giant advantage is the Apple Human Interface Team and the HI Guidelines (even if Apple doesn't obey them absolutely consistently).
(I also disagree that spending a huge amount of money trying to do something not feasible is important or good. Even if one buys Gore's warmenation alarmism, there are far better ways to spend the money and effort to alleviate its effects on humanity.
When Gore backs nuclear power he'll be serious rather than a posing incompetent.)
- by L_K_M July 26, 2008 8:06 AM PDT
- @Sigivald: The issue with Linux UI inconsistencies have nothing to do with X11. The problem is that there is no UI tsar; no UI equivalent of what Linus does for the Kernel. Instead, thousands of people are going in tens of thousands of different directions. That is not to say that it isn't possible for OS projects to have good UIs (see Firefox). However, it has become somewhat obvious that the normal way of doing open source software does not result in good user interfaces, and distros have so far not invested in UI teams the way Firefox has. If (or perhaps when) they do, however, Linux could gain tremendously cool, fresh user interfaces in ways that Windows and Mac OS can't. Shuttleworth is in an unique situation to do something like this.
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(3 Comments)As for Gore, there are always better ways to spend money, no matter what you do. If that argument was a valid way of refuting something, everything could easily be refuted. Your ad hominems against Gore do little to refute the point that going in the right direction is better than standing still waiting for a magic solution, even if the eventual goal is unattainable in the given time frame.
Whether Gore backs nuclear power or not seems utterly inconsequential when looking at the plan he proposes. There's no logical connection between the two things; his backing of nuclear power would not magically make his plans better or worse. The fact that you bring this up implies that your issues with Gore are not logical or based on this plans, but rather of partisan nature, as is so often the case with American politics.