Open Source, Schmopen Schmource

Open source doesn’t make software great.
   Great code makes software great.
   Great engineering,
     and great design,
       make software great.

Weapons are evil.
                    open source
              used as a weapon
      is evil.

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Saving lives through better terminology

I've been thinking about the power of terminology, and how it can save lives.

Using the right term is so important. For instance, "sweetbreads" taste and sell a lot better than "pancreas & thymus" or "brains" or "offal".

In a debate, the side that controls the terminology has a huge advantage. For instance, when Bush's team was fighting the "estate tax" they weren't making much progress. But by redefining it as "death tax" they were able to make sweeping changes.

Terminology is something Tiger Woods has failed to understand. By allowing his actions to be labeled "cheating" he has already lost. Nobody likes a cheater. But had he framed the issue as one "love" he could have retained the moral high ground. How can anyone be against "love"? It's what the world needs now. Love is all we need. This is the speech Tiger should have given to retain his lucrative endorsement contracts: "Hello, I'm Tiger Woods, and if I'm guilty of anything it's that I love… too… much!"

In the abortion debate, the "pro-life" side has a semantic advantage over "pro-choice". They're both positive terms, but "pro-choice" has a touch of selfishness about it. "Planned Parenthood" is onto the right idea. The pro-choicers should instead use a term that takes the high ground: e.g., "pro-family".

"Drug war" is a good turn of a phrase. If "prohibition" ever replaces "drug war" then the war will be as good as over.

Bono was onto something this weekend when he almost used the term "file-swiping" instead of "file-sharing". As long as "file-sharing" is the debated term, artists' rights are lost. "Sharing" is such a nice, friendly term. It's hard to feel negative about "sharing". "Swiping" isn't as nice, but I don't think it goes far enough in conjuring negative images. Bono should instead replace "file-sharing" with a term like "artist-raping" because it better describes what's happening: forcibly taking pleasure from the artist without their consent, but without actually "taking" anything because the orifices are still there for the next artist-raper to do the deed. I can guarantee you that if "artist-raping" were to replace "file-sharing" the practice would end.

With a term like "global warming" the environmentalists have already lost: it's a warm term; it's fuzzy. "Climate change" would scare people into action if they knew what "climate" meant, but most people think it means "weather", and the weather changes daily anyway, so why worry?

"Universal Health Care"? That phrase is a disaster. Joe Schmoe doesn't care about health care for everybody else, he only cares about health care for himself. I don't know a better term. Anybody?

But enough trivialities. It's time to take what we've learned about words and save some lives. How many people die because "killing spree" is such a fun, fun term. Suppose your friend calls and says "hey, wanna go on a killing spree this weekend?" for at least a split second you're going to think "yeah, that sounds like fun." Let's do away with "killing spree" and replace it with something that sounds less oogly-boogly joyful, such as "murderous rampage". I don't know about you, but if my friend asked me to spend my weekend on a "murderous rampage" I'd say "no, how about if we just watch the game" with no hesitation at all.

Can we all agree? No more "killing sprees"?

Why Apple laptops cost more: The power connector.

We went to Fry's Electronics today to look for a new laptop or netbook, as we do every couple of years. I was astonished (as I am every couple of years) at how cheap these things are.

Except for the Apple laptops. Apple laptops cost about $450 more than comparable Windows machines.

I examined every single laptop on display, about 50 of them, to determine what would make an Appple computer worth $450 more than a Windows system. It's not the software (I use both, and other than a pretty spinning ball Apple's got nothing on Windows). It's not the lack of a right mouse button (or even a left mouse button), I'd be willing to pay Apple a little extra to put a right mouse button in.

It's the power connector. Apple can charge an extra $450 because they're the only computer brand that makes a decent power connector. It doesn't flop around. It doesn't break. It's got no moving parts.

Every goddam Windows machine I examined had nearly the same flimsy power connector, one you can feel wiggling around inside, and you just know that after connecting and disconnecting 5 times a day (the national average I just made up) it's mean time to failure is going to be 174 days (a figure I just made up based on experience: on both of our last two Windows laptops, that power connector was the first thing to fail).

Apple can charge an extra $450 because of its power connector.

So here's a billion dollar idea for the some bright Windows brand: make a better power connector, spend an extra 50 cents on it if you have to, then charge a $450 premium. The first manufacturer to do this will bring in an extra $1 billion dollars of pure profit in the first year (plus or minus twenty bucks, if the sales, stocking, manufacturing, legal, and shipping numbers I just made up in my head are correct).

You're welcome.

In praise of Douglas Crockford, genius

We don't spend enough time praising the genius inventors who make our lives so much better, especially while they're still alive. How I regret not sending praise to Norton Buffalo, inventor of the Buffalo Wing, before his recent passing.

So today I praise Douglas Crockford, who gave us JSON(.org) as a way to share data between computer systems.

Back in the day, there used to be a lot of pressure to use a complex XML format any time you wanted to send data between one computer and another. More time was spent writing and debugging XML parsers than really getting work done, and when person A's program didn't work with person B, more hours would be wasted arguing over who got the XML wrong.

Meanwhile, anytime a real programmer would informally talk to another, they'd scratch out on a whiteboard some pseudo-code that looked like simple programming notation. If there were no suits around they might even program their systems to work directly with the pseudo-cody-looking text (bypassing XML altogether because no authority figure was watching).

But whenever a manager or committee got involved they would insist that XML be used because it was "the standard" and how professionals did it. You could argue until you were IBM-Blue in the face about the easier approach, but you'd know that the argument would get nowhere, and you'd just cave in and do the XML.

Until one day Douglas Crockford had his stroke of genius. He created the name JSON for this sourcy-looking data notation, and, most importantly, he created the website JSON.ORG.

From that point on, when someone would insist that you work in XML, you could say "I prefer JSON, it's an accepted standard" and you could point them to the JSON.ORG website saying "See, it's got a .org website and everything."

End of problem.

And that's what a genius does: Ends problems. Thanks DC.

P.S. I don't really know if any of the above is true, and don't feel like taking the time to do any fact-checking, but it's one of my favorite stories so I'm sticking to it.

Don't believe everything you read on Wikipedia

We found a spell on Wikipedia for undoing the hex that turned our doggy into a pumpkin. It didn't work as advertised. Now poor Tzunami is a cake. She looks delicious. We better find a way to undo all this black Halloween magic soon, or she's in danger of being eaten.



Got milk?

Pumpkin Dog

Some kind of Halloween magic turned our doggy, Tzunami, into a pumpkin. Very sad, scary, and man-bear-piglike all at the same time.