I have watched the birth of the PC, the Macintosh. I have used both 5 1/4 and then "upgraded" to 3 1/2 inch floppies - I remember once paying thousands of dollars for a hard drive that today, would be useless as a paper weight. I remember usenet and ftp and the bitnet. My first "email" account was on a computer science department server that I maintained for a long time - before moving to one in the college of engineering. Communicating by email was terrific (still is ...) - but often it could not do what a simple walk across the campus or a lunch can do. My network expanded - I was wonderstruck at how easy it was to have multiple authors work together on a document. I am part of a software project that has participants in Pittsburgh (CMU), Australia (Sydney), Connecticut, China - and we "talk" to each other through a "wiki" and a "subversion repository" and ofcourse email. Today we have facebook, twitter, blogs (like this one) and myspace and ... it is impossible to be everywhere and yet be productive - Websites, yes I understand - need to maintain them, visit them (I create/edit web pages for my classes all the time). Have we improved as a society by all these new tools? Well, yes - in a sense. Distance is no longer a problem - we can still communicate using the electronic media. But is that the same as say a phone - or actually visiting someone and talking about things? Not in many cases. We need to know when to use what and how. I have seen people in adjacent offices email each other multiple times instead of walking a few feet and hashing it out. Oh well ... stuff happens I suppose.
In many ways, I am a neanderthal when it comes to computers and software. I hate using Microsoft Windows - use Linux (Ubuntu) mostly - hate Microsoft Word - use Tex/LaTeX instead, gnuplot for plotting, sage/python for calculations, maple (if I have to) and so on ... I love the command line instead of GUI's ... like pine for email instead of using GUI's ... use wget/lynx and commands that most would not even recognize ... but I am able to do what i need to for my students and myself - and for the most part use freely available software instead of sending my money to some company that writes poor software ...
Sunday, September 27, 2009
A transformational Time
Since Obama took office, I have seen nothing but fawning and ogling by much of the media - including the NYTimes and Washington Post. The TV networks are useless in that they seem uninterested in reporting anything that is not flattering to Obama - and when they do, they make excuses that it's all a result of some right wing conspiracy.
Last time I checked, looked into a mirror, I was reminded that there is no way in Hell a Nazi party will admit me as a member - but I am one of those that are dismayed and terrified at what Obama wants to do. So, why would Nancy Pelosi label those that oppose Obama as racists or some such? It is Pelosi who is out of order and seems to want to see chaos so she can assist Obama take over the healthcare system.
Obama is uninterested in anything that would impact our economy positively - but continues to do whatever he can to destroy it. Oh yes, I believe that. it is all about philosophy - what he has believed in, what he has written about, what he has said since he became president. Obama is driven by a sick ideology that considers the US of A evil and so must be controlled and people punished. We have the best health care system in the world - What we do makes it possible for others to practice their policies - If we, the last bastion of free enterprise, a country that allows for anyone to be successful, were to turn to policies like much of the world, the world will be doomed. Who will innovate, create the new technologies, new drugs to solve future problems?
Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged was written 50+ years so. She was prescient indeed. What we are witnessing is nothing less than the dismantling of everything productive in the name of the people by those that have no idea what it takes to create and sustain an economy. Obama is worse than a parasite, he is the Anti Life - unable to bear to see a fully functional economy that has been the world's engine for such a long time. Oh yes, we are still a functional economy and while we are struggling, we will come out of it - Unless Obama kills whatever is left of us - as he seems determined to. I did not decide to adopt this country as mine only to see some pathological individual like Obama determined to destroy it. I hope the country wakes up to realize who Obama is and starts the process of unravelling this monstrosity in 2010. The process can start earlier by this Congress, a few of them anyway, raising principled stance to his dangerous policies and legislation even if they fail at it.
Last time I checked, looked into a mirror, I was reminded that there is no way in Hell a Nazi party will admit me as a member - but I am one of those that are dismayed and terrified at what Obama wants to do. So, why would Nancy Pelosi label those that oppose Obama as racists or some such? It is Pelosi who is out of order and seems to want to see chaos so she can assist Obama take over the healthcare system.
Obama is uninterested in anything that would impact our economy positively - but continues to do whatever he can to destroy it. Oh yes, I believe that. it is all about philosophy - what he has believed in, what he has written about, what he has said since he became president. Obama is driven by a sick ideology that considers the US of A evil and so must be controlled and people punished. We have the best health care system in the world - What we do makes it possible for others to practice their policies - If we, the last bastion of free enterprise, a country that allows for anyone to be successful, were to turn to policies like much of the world, the world will be doomed. Who will innovate, create the new technologies, new drugs to solve future problems?
Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged was written 50+ years so. She was prescient indeed. What we are witnessing is nothing less than the dismantling of everything productive in the name of the people by those that have no idea what it takes to create and sustain an economy. Obama is worse than a parasite, he is the Anti Life - unable to bear to see a fully functional economy that has been the world's engine for such a long time. Oh yes, we are still a functional economy and while we are struggling, we will come out of it - Unless Obama kills whatever is left of us - as he seems determined to. I did not decide to adopt this country as mine only to see some pathological individual like Obama determined to destroy it. I hope the country wakes up to realize who Obama is and starts the process of unravelling this monstrosity in 2010. The process can start earlier by this Congress, a few of them anyway, raising principled stance to his dangerous policies and legislation even if they fail at it.
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