Month: January 2007

Terrible Open Source

It’s not lack of awareness that’s blocking OpenOffice.org (do they really have to call the product “OpenOffice.org”? What’s wrong with just “Open Office”?) and The Gimp (do they really have to call it “The Gimp”? I can’t think of a more un-appealing and self-denigrating name for a piece of software.) What’s blocking these 2 apps is that they are simply not better than the commercial alternatives.

Richard A. Clarke, Transhumanist

Since he retired in 2003, Clarke has been writing books. After he wrote Against All Enemies, his memoirs, he went into writing futurist thrillers, such as The Scorpion’s Gate (2005) and Breakpoint (2007). In a recent interview on the Diane Rehm Show, Clarke spills the beans, talking about how he thinks humanity will take control over its own evolution, the transhumanist movement, and his fiction. As a security specialist, Clarke is also concerned about large-scale threats to the security of the US, such as cyberattacks.

i wonder when we will see the first policy impact.

London Transit

Oyster is startlingly de-humanising for the people who work inside the systems. Bus drivers in particular are now hidden behind plastic screens. Instead of looking at the passengers, they are looking at the internal CCTV to make sure no-one is getting in the back door. I can’t remember the last time a bus driver met my eyes. There’s no more conversation to have – ‘top me up’ doesn’t lead anywhere, in the way a destination does.

jo on public transport in london