More clear

Been on edge today, really touchy and quick to anger, not sure why. Still coughing.

The bike frame had some more coats of clear, looks good.

Apparently iOS 5 can function without the use of a Mac or a PC out of the box. Well, that's nice. It just means then that everything on an iOS device used this way MUST come from Apple, no more ripped CDs or DVDs, and obviously the apps already have to. Total control. The new version of OS X has an iOS style interface option, and full-screen applications. Full-screen applications? What the fuck? The last time I used a full-screen application on a full-sized computer was when I was using DOS! Nice to see that iOS 5 rips off the notification area from Android too.

A while back I was quite evangelical about the Mac and to a degree, Linux, as alternatives to Windows. But back in those days, Apple was different. It was downtrodden, a humble company which made genuinely better machines that had only a small group of followers. Looking back though, it was a bit cult-like, looking down on others and feeling superior to them and I wonder why it was so important to me...

Now though, I don't recognise that company any more. I dislike the iOS platform intensely due to the total control Apple has over it. They want it so they control absolutely everything on the device, and iOS 5 and iCloud is a step towards that. I don't think the Mac has long left, it'll just become a glorified iOS device with perhaps the Mac Pro remaining for people to develop apps on. It's not a coincidence that Apple killed the old MacBook and made the cheapest Mac laptop the £850 MacBook Air. They want people to buy iPads instead.

The thing that is so bloody frustrating is that what Apple does, everyone else copies. So if the idea of totally locked down computing is made acceptable by Apple because their stuff is so pwetty, then it will become the norm. I'm still highly dubious that business and enterprise computing will be affected much, but at home, very possibly.

I can see the point that the devices will probably be reliable, less prone to malware and won't be so easy to destroy by people clicking on the wrong thing or going to the wrong sites, etc. But there's no choice, if iOS had a basic and advanced mode, then I wouldn't mind so much. And don't mention jailbreaking.

It seems that before too long, you'll have the Eloi with their iPads, playing their touchy feely games and watching cats falling into bathtubs, not giving a thought to the Morlocks slaving away in the vast datacentres, keeping the back-end servers and network infrastructure running.

I think this is what it feels like to become old. I've been interested in computers for so long that I might have lost my ability to keep up with the changes that are coming and I'm adopting the 'Get off my lawn you kids!' mentality. But since my main computers are 'immature' and 'childish' Alienwares, perhaps not. Hah.

Oh, and Linux? After years of experimentation with it, I've come to the reluctant conclusion that I don't think it'll ever make it to the desktop. It absolutely rocks on servers, and as the basis of Android, but on a regular PC? No. Too many distributions that aren't compatible with each other, with different interfaces and too many hardware niggles. Ubuntu nearly got it right, until they fucked it up with the Unity interface. Unless they put Android on PCs and do it right...

Developed a bit of a taste for Nachtmahr, not sure why.