OS DNA

The coming introduction of Vista is why I fled from Microsoft and bought an Apple iMac.

As much as 90% of human DNA is thought to be redundant or obsolete junk having no apparent function, yet the total system works marvelously well. Windows code is obviously a pile of spaghetti and bracketing, but it works less well with every new edition. Why can't Microsoft do like Mother Nature?

For one thing, if Microsoft had nature's time scale it could patch its code until it works marvelously well, too. But time scales in the computer industry are a bit shorter than that! Time pressure forces half-baked product onto the market, creating Service Pack Hell.

Longer term, the larger problem is that Microsoft does not have Mother Nature's lack of competition. There is only one DNA system, and every organism on the planet shares it, from the lowliest microbe on up. There is no opportunity for a rival system to develop, because those large molecules would be quickly eaten by DNA creatures already existing. Microsoft's environment is different, because there is the constant possibility of rival code systems, like Linux and the Mac OS. So far, Microsoft dominates its environment enough to keep competitors at bay, but that domination might erode, might be eroding already.

Byron

"Irritating Contradiction"

To those eagerly anticipating an American defeat, progress under the Surge is just so damned irritating, as the article linked below from Der Spiegel points out. It's especially irritating after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, with troops in the field no less, stood up and loudly declared the war to be lost. That was a truly amazing performance. Perhaps he had reason to suspect that the Surge might succeed, and therefore needed to be truncated by a Congressionally mandated defeat before that could happen. But that's just a guess because, really, who can tell for sure what goes on in a mind so microscopic?

In any case, Harry's heroic declaration made him a stand-up guy in the fever swamps of the anti-Bushwar Left, including a large chunk of the media, and the whole pack instantly became quite giddy. But hopes were dashed when it came to nothing, except for the dive in Congress's approval rating to around 12%. The problem was that Reid had, as is his wont, not thought it through. Or maybe he did think it through as far as he was able, and that turned out to be no great distance. To those on the other side, his daring probe of new heights of irresponsibility led to claims that there exists no lower form of life than Harry Reid.

I myself take what I think is a suitably moderate position. Reid clearly is not the lowest form of life, and it's plainly unjust to claim that he is. In his defense, I would say rather that he's only the lowest form to be found among phyla more advanced than the mollusks, or possibly the segmented worms.

Byron


http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,499154,00.html

Ramadi is an irritating contradiction of almost everything the world thinks it knows about Iraq -- it is proof that the US military is more successful than the world wants to believe. Ramadi demonstrates that large parts of Iraq -- not just Anbar Province, but also many other rural areas along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers -- are essentially pacified today. This is news the world doesn't hear: Ramadi, long a hotbed of unrest, a city that once formed the southwestern tip of the notorious "Sunni Triangle," is now telling a different story, a story of Americans who came here as liberators, became hated occupiers and are now the protectors of Iraqi reconstruction.