I applied to get a CR-48 from Google the other day and I really hope I get one.
Besides the obvious benefits of a free computers (especially when the one you own is 10 years old and so slow on the internet it can't run Firefox or Chrome browsers - it does well off line, but for any online work, I have to use a school computer) I really like the idea of having a computer that is at once unbranded and also named after a chemical element.
There's still a little Chem-Geek in me yet.
I've been using Linux for a little while, partially because it is the only operating system in the world which can still run on my little box. It can't handle Gnome, really, I am running LXDE on the thing (which wont mean anything to most people - suffice: it is a really thin operating system so that I can still run AbiWord, OpenOffice is even too big for my computer to handle comfortably!)
I also look forward to comparing Chromeos (I like the name without the space - it makes it seem more like a name; and one for a Greek God of some sort to boot. Using OS as a name is the most disappointing thing about this OS (and the iPhone OS. I would have called it "Crabapple" he he) It also distances it just enough from the name of the browser for me) to Linux, Mac X (another OS name...) and Windows XP, Vista, and 7.
I like comparing.
My initial hypothesis is that it will be at least as good as Gnome (which also has some tentacles into Cloud Computing) and will act as a better desk-top operating system than anything Microsoft has ever done with its life even though it doesn't have a desk top.
The question to me will be its comparison to Mac.
I have often said that I don't like Mac. Very much. It's just about 152156535x better than Windows. But it's also a little ahead of Linux for me. Out of the box, Mac usually works. It is clean and even fun to use sometimes. They don't stop working, they rarely get in your way, it's pretty nice really. The problem with Mac is that there is a little more in your way to learning the ins and outs of the computer. This is where Linux shines. If you like pulling apart your computer and changing how it works, customizing the look in every way and even the way it functions, Linux is for you. If you like a computer that simply works, use Mac. If you like crying and cutting yourself, by all means, get a Microsoft operated machine.
I may be a masochist, but I am not a cutter. I like Mac because it works, I like Linux because I can change it every day (which can get distracting from doing any actual work) and I expect to like Chromeos because it'll be new and I already like the idea of cloud computing.
I had thought of it a few years ago and was telling people, "if I were a millionaire computer genius, I would make a computer was almost all sending and receiving signals. What you see on your screen is just a picture sent back from a super computer which is where all the actual processing is going on. Your computer would just send and receive. You could still have desktops and whatnot if you wanted, programs installed; hell, you could probably have every operating system and chose from them, all the computing is elsewhere on super-computers or networks of computers. It would be cheaper for you and probably more environmental because it would be more energy efficient."
Then someone told me, "They are already doing that. It's called Cloud Computing."
"Oh, ...Well, alright then. That's cool. It's a good idea, I think."
And now its really close. I've already been on the web for a while; used to use Buzzword as my word-processor (it's still better than Word, though it has been in decline recently) because I haven't had a computer of my own. And because my external storage devices keep kickin' the bucket. I am lookin' forward to Cloud Computing.
Tangent: I've been taking a class about Systems Thinking and we have gone over Biomimicry, which is the idea of copying ideas nature has been using for a billion years. One common thing this leads people to do is to work with a hive of things at once rather than centralize control. For example, hair is a very poor insulator until you combine that one strand with a few hundred thousand, then you've got one of the best insulators imaginable. Instead of building solar and wind farms, I think we should integrate them into the existing cities: even climate change isn't a good enough reason for me to rake up more habitat, especially when it wouldn't be that hard to put the power-plant on top of the existing city. Centralizing our computing is going the opposite way that Biomimicry would advise.
Is it justified in this case? To centralize our computing would reduce the manufacture of computer components which are atrocious to the environment. Battery use on a million spinning disk hard drives may be more than centralizing the storage on super-computers far away. But also a main pull of environmental movements is to become more locally supported.
This is not local for anyone. If Google's computer gets hit, what happens then?
But, in the short run, I am much more likely to break my computer than Google is. I will have to deliberate this further, but for now, I am still enthralled with Cloud Computing; it has been working better for me these last 3 years.
Anyone else have some thoughts?
Besides the obvious benefits of a free computers (especially when the one you own is 10 years old and so slow on the internet it can't run Firefox or Chrome browsers - it does well off line, but for any online work, I have to use a school computer) I really like the idea of having a computer that is at once unbranded and also named after a chemical element.
There's still a little Chem-Geek in me yet.
I've been using Linux for a little while, partially because it is the only operating system in the world which can still run on my little box. It can't handle Gnome, really, I am running LXDE on the thing (which wont mean anything to most people - suffice: it is a really thin operating system so that I can still run AbiWord, OpenOffice is even too big for my computer to handle comfortably!)
I also look forward to comparing Chromeos (I like the name without the space - it makes it seem more like a name; and one for a Greek God of some sort to boot. Using OS as a name is the most disappointing thing about this OS (and the iPhone OS. I would have called it "Crabapple" he he) It also distances it just enough from the name of the browser for me) to Linux, Mac X (another OS name...) and Windows XP, Vista, and 7.
I like comparing.
My initial hypothesis is that it will be at least as good as Gnome (which also has some tentacles into Cloud Computing) and will act as a better desk-top operating system than anything Microsoft has ever done with its life even though it doesn't have a desk top.
The question to me will be its comparison to Mac.
I have often said that I don't like Mac. Very much. It's just about 152156535x better than Windows. But it's also a little ahead of Linux for me. Out of the box, Mac usually works. It is clean and even fun to use sometimes. They don't stop working, they rarely get in your way, it's pretty nice really. The problem with Mac is that there is a little more in your way to learning the ins and outs of the computer. This is where Linux shines. If you like pulling apart your computer and changing how it works, customizing the look in every way and even the way it functions, Linux is for you. If you like a computer that simply works, use Mac. If you like crying and cutting yourself, by all means, get a Microsoft operated machine.
I may be a masochist, but I am not a cutter. I like Mac because it works, I like Linux because I can change it every day (which can get distracting from doing any actual work) and I expect to like Chromeos because it'll be new and I already like the idea of cloud computing.
I had thought of it a few years ago and was telling people, "if I were a millionaire computer genius, I would make a computer was almost all sending and receiving signals. What you see on your screen is just a picture sent back from a super computer which is where all the actual processing is going on. Your computer would just send and receive. You could still have desktops and whatnot if you wanted, programs installed; hell, you could probably have every operating system and chose from them, all the computing is elsewhere on super-computers or networks of computers. It would be cheaper for you and probably more environmental because it would be more energy efficient."
Then someone told me, "They are already doing that. It's called Cloud Computing."
"Oh, ...Well, alright then. That's cool. It's a good idea, I think."
And now its really close. I've already been on the web for a while; used to use Buzzword as my word-processor (it's still better than Word, though it has been in decline recently) because I haven't had a computer of my own. And because my external storage devices keep kickin' the bucket. I am lookin' forward to Cloud Computing.
Tangent: I've been taking a class about Systems Thinking and we have gone over Biomimicry, which is the idea of copying ideas nature has been using for a billion years. One common thing this leads people to do is to work with a hive of things at once rather than centralize control. For example, hair is a very poor insulator until you combine that one strand with a few hundred thousand, then you've got one of the best insulators imaginable. Instead of building solar and wind farms, I think we should integrate them into the existing cities: even climate change isn't a good enough reason for me to rake up more habitat, especially when it wouldn't be that hard to put the power-plant on top of the existing city. Centralizing our computing is going the opposite way that Biomimicry would advise.
Is it justified in this case? To centralize our computing would reduce the manufacture of computer components which are atrocious to the environment. Battery use on a million spinning disk hard drives may be more than centralizing the storage on super-computers far away. But also a main pull of environmental movements is to become more locally supported.
This is not local for anyone. If Google's computer gets hit, what happens then?
But, in the short run, I am much more likely to break my computer than Google is. I will have to deliberate this further, but for now, I am still enthralled with Cloud Computing; it has been working better for me these last 3 years.
Anyone else have some thoughts?
Wow. Another long rambling post.
ReplyDeleteAnyone want that gift ticket for March? Post a comment on that article and you win It's the most fair system I could think of.
I'm also disappointed that they are networking with Verizon, which is a distinctly unethical company (Google's supposedly has good ethics) instead of people like Credo. Credo is awesome.
ReplyDelete