Ken Fallon posted a request on the Hacker Public Radio mailing list for shows about 3-D printers, and I innocently replied that I couldn’t help since I gave mine away. This of course led to Ken saying he would love to have a show about why a hacker-type person would give away a perfectly good …
Category: Editorial
Dec 13
Statistics and Polling
This is a bit of a change of pace, but I got some inquiries about this and thought I would offer my own two cents on something that often confuses people. My qualifications for this are two-fold: In my past life I was a professor who taught classes in Statistics; I have worked for a …
Mar 24
What’s Wrong With Free, Anyway?
So I am at my LUG meeting the other night listening to a spirited discussion, which is pretty normal for us. We have a lot of very opinionated people there, and there is never a lack of discussion. The trick is getting a word in edgewise, and normally three people are all talking at once …
Jan 31
Tablet share numbers prove I was right
In November 2011 I made the claim here, and on my blog, that by the end of 2012 Apple and Android would have essentially equal market shares. And the 4th Q 2012 numbers show that I was correct. I doubt there are any wonderful prizes for this, but there it is. My prediction was based …
Oct 12
Data-Driven Objectivity
I recently had an exchange online with someone I tend to like, and it was about self-driving cars. My correspondent said that he would never, under any circumstances, get into a self-driven car. In fact, he seemed to think that self-driven cars would lead to carnage on the roads. My own opinion is that human …
May 12
Stop Buying from Dell Computer
At a recent company meeting in Denmark, something very disturbing happened. An “entertainer” was brought on stage right after Michael Dell and proceeded to complement the crowd on not having many women. He then said IT should remain a bastion of male privilege, and the the way to address women as “Shut up, bitches.” You …
May 11
Freedom and Licensing – Some Thoughts
A few weeks back there was a small tempest-in-a-teacup when Linux Action Show invited Richard Stallman (RMS) on to their show, and were astonished that he refused to compromise his views. This led Bryan Lunduke to accuse Stallman of wanting to starve the Lunduke family since he would not give his imprimatur to Mr. Lunduke …
Mar 04
Supporting Free Software – Getting Involved
I started this particular series of posts on January 5th, and now I am going to finish it on March 4th, so it has been just 2 months. In that time we have explored some of the ways everyone can support Free Software, such a by filing bugs, writing documentation, and by providing financial support. …
Mar 03
Why I Am An Optimist
This is going to be a little bit different from what I usually post here, but it’s my blog. If you don’t like it, just click away. It is easy to list many things going wrong these days, and I think most of us tend to look at the negative side. Regardless of political or …
Feb 03
Supporting Free Software – The “M” Word
And by that I mean Money. As I mentioned previously, when we talk about Free Software, the emphasis ought to be on freedom, not on price. The fact that so much Free Software is also free of purchase is great. It offers people who cannot afford expensive proprietary software a chance to use comparable software …