(formerly)tangentmind.org

So, I suddenly felt the urge to rant about computer stuff going on. Large companies doing naughty things. Before that, though, I would like to complain.

I got new lenses for my glasses today and I can't really focus on anything. My heard hurts and I have vertigo and stuff. My eyes are all bloodshot. It's possible that my eyes are just adjusting. One of them specifically seems to be having problems and I can see a very noticable ring of glare around the edges. I have a very expensive non-glare, non-scratch coating so I would expect not to have the deal with that.

Also, today was incredibly hot and my air conditioner is hardly working at all. It just dies every few minutes, and starts pumping out stinky, warm, and probably humid air.

Not only that, I got a chair from my brother yesterday, which is a nice chair but it has wheels. This wouldn't be a problem but apparently most of my floor slants toward the North wall at a relatively steep angle for a floor so I'm constantly having to try to keep the chair from rolling away. This isn't exactly comfortable and I think it's giving me even more pains than sitting in the folding chair I used to sit in. This also reminds me of the fact the entire floor of my room is sinking to one side and no one is doing anything about it. There is a speaker near the end of my computer desk and it is sitting at about a 20 degree angle and its' flat on the floor. I can now see that my entire computer desk slants to one side also...as well as my entire freaking room. I mean, it feels like Alice in Wonderland. I really really need to move out, which just reminds me that I'm completely jobless and my funds for school are running out. The stress this causes is more than one person should have to cope with when they haven't done anything to deserve it. I'm probably slowly rolling across my floor toward a complete mental breakdown and countless fits of hysteria.

I'm done complaing now. I'll try not to do it again. Sorry.

I think I mentioned that Apple is going Intel. I would check to see if I have, but that's too much trouble. Anyway, my take on it is thus: They are probably doing it because they desperately needed better performance on Laptops, which are selling more and more all the time. While this could eventually bring great things about in terms of computer useability, and top notch software and hardware(in other words, GAMES) on the Macintosh, it could also be devastating. First and foremost it kind of totally screws over all of Apple's previous PC consumers, because they are suddenly left with inferior products which they will be forced into an expensive upgrade if they won't to continue to be able to run Mac software. They could possibly be able to run some new Intel software on their PPC if they either have hybrid binaries that run on both, or there is some sort of adequate emulation(but emulation will always be relatively slow). Also a windows compatibility layer like wine or dual booting windows could destroy the apple third party application market. I mean, it seems kind of uncool and I'm glad as hell that I didn't buy a Macintosh. If I ever do buy one, it will be no less than 2 years from now, and I can see how the Intel Macs pan out.

However, I saw an article by Robert Cringely about the possibility that Intel bought Apple and is going to use Apple to destroy Microsoft because Microsoft has been pissing off Intel, and Apple always hated Microsoft. It also mentions Apple's anger at IBM for being too busy with the next generation of gaming consoles to deal with their Processor needs. If any of that stuff is true then the tech world should be very interesting in the next few years. I'm nto quite sure how I would feel about Apple being the top OS or computer distributor. I think, if I could build my own machine out of parts of a shelf and then run Mac OS on it I would be very happy. Anything less and I'm sure I would find some problem with it.

Secondly, Microsoft has this nasty nasty Xp Starter Edition thing going on. To quote Larry Ketler from the "Linspire Letter": "Before installing, I had to identify specific hardware that the Starter Edition would run on - difficult for a home user or builder. Next came the English-only installation process, which may not be the best for the emerging markets Microsoft is targeting with this product. Unbelievably, this product restricts you to running only three software applications at the same time, locks you out of creating multiple user accounts, doesn't allow basic networking, and does not include anti-virus, backup, fax or remote assistance software. Even more surprising was that they limited the amount of RAM a machine can have to 256MB and capped the hard disk space at 40GB." I mean, if I lived in a developing country spent a months worth of wages on a computer I'd be pissed as hell if it had that crap on it. I would probably switch to Linux and never look back. Linspire is pretty cool, btw, and I would probably suggest it to everyone if I didn't absolutely hate monthly fees. There's always Ubuntu.