A couple of different podcast episodes have brought together some thoughts on Linux usability and adoption. One is a discussion last year on the benefits of BSD (despite Linux’s popularity). Another is a recent discussion of Gnome 3, still a controversial desktop environment. A third was a mention of Linux by someone outside the Linux […]
Category: Technology
Apparently there’s a worrying trend in computer science academia. It could be another one of those “generational things”, but I wonder whether it’s actually a real problem. File Not Found is an article by Monica Chin on The Verge, and it summarises the trend for ‘Gen Z-ers’ to find difficulty in using files and folders […]
Image: “Blue Robot” by peyri. Creative Commons license CC BY-ND This article was inspired by a Kevin Kelly article in Wired magazine: Better Than Human: Why Robots Will — And Must — Take Our Jobs. It’s a little old now (2012), and seems unable to escape the idea of having jobs in the first place, […]
I got my first PC in 1995. It was a stunning machine with the following mind-blowing specs: Processor: 50MHz 486 SX2 RAM: 4MB Hard drive: 405MB Optical drive: Double speed CD-ROM Graphics card: Cirrus Logic something or other… Floppy drive Operating system: MS-DOS 6.22, Windows 3.11 (for Workgroups) Shell: Packard Bell Navigator Printer: Canon BubbleJet […]
I was interested to see the reaction to the young feller who came second in the recent Fortnite World Cup. The BBC interviewer told him: “You’ve taken a while to convince your mum this is real job.” Jaden agrees, but to be honest, it’s taking me a while to be convinced too. Can it count […]
Developing software was once a dark Wild West, where anything went. Before Agile Development and Scrum Masters, before even COBOL or assembly language, before there were even computers, it was a tough time for programmers. Men forced to play catch-up Indeed the very first computer programmer, Ada Lovelace, had to wait for a man, Charles […]
Hi. My name’s Martin, and I procrastinate. [Muted applause] Look, I’m even doing it now, while trying to communicate with you about a technique I’ve employed to try to curb my procrastination! [Uncertain, slow clapping] But to jump in to the meat of the topic, I’m finding that procrastination is not the same problem it […]
It’s time to ditch the idea that, when not paying for a service, we’re the product. Tim Cook (billionaire chief of Apple) brought it up again in September, and recently Mark Zuckerberg (billionaire chief of Facebook) got a little angry with the accusation.
Funnily enough, I finally get around to reading Gabriella Coleman’s Coding Freedom, and she pops up on the next episode of the Guardian Tech Weekly Podcast! I do love a good coincidence, especially when it tells me there’s a new book out: Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous.
The temptation to name each New Year the ‘Year of the Linux Desktop’ became so regular in the mid 2000s that it evolved into a metajoke. If magazines and websites still do it, it’s with tongue firmly in cheek. Every now and again a Raspberry Pi comes along and a few eyebrows guiltily rise, questioning, […]