AVOID AVOID AVOID !!!

http://boycottnovell.com

Why we should and must avoid MS Office 2007 and other MS lock ins.

They are like drugs, once you get hooked - you got to pay !!

I agree that MS Office 2007 is better, but it does not grant users freedom - so its pretty much a worthless asset. Only goal of MS Office is to lockin users.

I’ve wanted to clarify something about this piece for a while, because I’m sure it reads a little strangely. Like… why all the references to Stephen Jay Gould?

Well, aside from the fact that he’s one of our best science writers, Gould was the topic of an assignment I had for a class some months ago. We were supposed to analyze what Gould considered good science writing, then find an example from a magazine or a newspaper and compare that article to Gould’s standards. Lucky me, I stumbled across “Dying for some peace and quiet.”

So that explains the Gould references, and also why the style is a little more overworked than I might usually use for my commercial writing. It’s not really tailor-made for public consumption… but after I finished writing the essay, I had read and re-read Andy Coghlan’s article so many times and had become so annoyed by it that I felt I should post the essay here and let the feathers fly.

I don’t know for certain whether anyone from New Scientist has read it, but I hope they do. You never know. I get a decent number of hits from Google searches, and believe it or not, every month a few of them reference the title of Coghlan’s article. So at the very least, he hasn’t entirely gotten away with such shoddy faux-journalism.

Best regards and my condolences on your loss.

I have only just seen this post (even though I pop in here more often than never) and wish not only that I had seen it before today but also that I had written it myself. “Dying For Some Peace and Quiet” is a disgusting, inflammatory, irresponsible article…even worse as its sensational lede is (emphatically) untrue.

Frank Parduski was my grandfather, and he was most certainly not a victim of noise pollution. He lived across the street from a park with playgrounds and ballfields. A life-long lover of baseball as well a father and a grandfather and a great-grandfather, he was concerned when speeding motorcyclists overtook the mild stretch of road that bordered his lawn and turned it into a raceway - picturing a child running into the street after an errant ball, picturing the ensuing tragedy. He did not step into the road that day because he had tender ears; he stepped into the road to tell a 19-year-old to slow down.

I (am no longer but) was a frequent reader of New Scientist, and wrote a rebuttal to Mr. Coghlan’s article shortly after it posted; unfortunately, this was so soon after the death of my grandfather that I couldn’t find the proper words (as you did so very well) and the letter remains in draft form. His death broke the hearts (and temporarily the voices) of all who knew him.

I cannot begin to describe to you what it was like to read Mr. Coghlan’s bodice-ripping, pulpish article. Not only did he succumb to the fantastical side of pseudo-science that is obscuring proper research and scientific method, he used my grandfather to do it. It was unbelievable to see. It is immoral even now.

Should you be interested, this is all I could muster at the time (see August 30th): http://www.gtsav.gatech.edu/students/studentcenter/archive/bbarchive/august07.html

Again, thank you for saying what I wish I could, what I wish I had. Especially in the name of science.

Sincerely,
Jillison Parks

I saw a translated version of your biggest blunders article. I’ve tried the Infoworld link a couple of times - but can’t seem to get it. Could you provide me with a version please.

Also I would like to maybe work with you on differnet things - our speciality is IT-security - but not the “defending the castle” way - we have another approach.

I could use someone to look at what we do and give it a few comments. If you want leave me your contact details and we can have a chat via the phone or viatual meeting.

My contacts are:

Niels E. Anqvist, CEO & President
UCY2 ApS (Denmark), UCY2 Inc. (New York)
mobile +45 23 262 131
e-mail nea [Email address: nea at the domain ucy2.com ]

Kind regards,

It’s important (even in the subtext messages we send when we talk about it) to make distinctions between what Open Source should be and do, and what it shouldn’t.