Under a Gibbous Moon

I have used Linux, in various distributions (Mandrake, Lindos, Red Hat, DSL, SuSe, Ubuntu), over the years and one thing has remained the same. Windows might have DLL hell but Linux has dependency hell.

Dependency hell? This occurs when you need to make sure that you have all the possible libraries needed to run (or just compile) a particular program. Of course, those dependencies require their own dependencies which in turn have their own dependencies until it spirals completely out of control and you end up with something that looks like the organizational chart for a multinational conglomerate. Continue reading “And no, Linux is still not ready for prime time” »

The first hard drive that I ever had was 500 MB. Yes, it was smaller than the storage capacity of a CD-ROM, but that’s OK because they didn’t have those then either.

As the years went by, whenever I went looking for a new hard drive, it was always to get the biggest that I could afford. The size was needed to put all those shiny new games, MP3s, and digital videos that kept getting larger as their quality increased.

Recently and after a protracted illness, my hard drive passed away. After a brief mourning period I found myself tasked with replacing it. I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on a new one as my laptop is already over three years old. Instead, I found myself looking for the highest quality hard drive that I could find at the best price.

I found this interesting because storage is no longer a major issue. All of the hard drives I looked at were over 200 GB in size. Digital storage has no become so cheap that, unless you have specialized needs (i.e. video editing), it is impossible to pull a hard drive off of the shelf and it not be at least adequate. Suddenly it’s not all about storage size but the extra features (like shock protection for when I drop my laptop) and the specs of the discs (cache, RPMs).

From my earliest experiences with computing, storage space was always at a premium and now it has become essentially free.

For all of you out there who are fond of zombie movies, today is the 70th birthday of the man who started it all, George A. Romero. I recommend spending it watching your favorite zombie flicks, whatever they may be.

If for some reason you do not have any, I recommend starting with Night of the Living Dead which has fallen into the public domain and can be watched for free on many different web sites.

So happy birthday, George, keep them coming.