Chris Blanc: Play and Projects: Blog

Alas, the world of high tech isn’t immune to some of humankind’s baser impulses. For example, consider Apple’s elitist marketing. A PC is a tool, not a lifestyle, but Apple embraces the dark side and tries to sell its PCs by appealing to vanity and narcissism, implying that owning an Apple makes you smarter, cooler, and just plain better than those sorry-assed PC people.

Yes, it’s a small thing, but the world has enough divisive issues in it without Apple marketers trying to invent silly new ones. It’s just a computer, Apple! How about thinking really “different” and coming up with ads that don’t promote snobbery and elitism? ^{^}

To go even further: your computers aren’t magic. They’re pretty. Your company is flaky. You don’t offer upgrades. Your store helpers are useless. You base all of your marketing upon negativity and hatred and pomposity. FreeBSD on a quality Intel box runs better than anything you’ve ever produced, and Windows is often a much faster method to get things done. Your main user base are people who want to buy Macs and think themselves arty. Get over yourselves.

What makes the open source model unique isn’t who (if anyone) signs the contributors’ paychecks. Rather, what matters is the way open source projects are organized internally. In a traditional software project, there’s a project manager who decides what features the product will have and allocates employees to work on various features. In contrast, there’s nobody directing the overall development of the Linux kernel.

Yes, Linus Torvalds and his lieutenants decide which patches will ultimately make it into the kernel, but the Red Hat, IBM, and Novell employees who work on the Linux kernel don’t take their orders from them. They work on whatever they (and their respective clients) think is most important, and Torvalds’s only authority is deciding whether the patches they submit are good enough to make it into the kernel.

Carr suggests that the non-volunteer status of Linux contributors proves that the Internet “doesn’t necessarily weaken the hand of central management,” but that’s precisely what the open source development model has done. There is no “central management” for the Linux kernel, and it would probably be a less successful project if there were. ^{^}

The worst mistake management can make is to assume that every single thing must flow through a central command. The leader needs to pick direction, not micromanage. The downside of open source is this anarchy, as the recent Pidgin dramaversy illustrated, which leads to every person doing what they think is right and as a result making a giant mess. Most open source software is still not ready for prime time, but we can learn from its successes, starting with Linux: one man created the proof of concept and others added to it, with some “editing” by that one man.

The problem is much wider than the blogosphere. My wife, who works as a project manager for a large pharmaceutical company, is also under constant pressure. My dad, who at 60 had to switch jobs and became a mechanical engineer for a small company in Pennsylvania is always stressed too. The problem is not with blogging, the problem is with the real-time, as-fast-as-possible approach to things. In this post, we will explore the nature of real-time and argue that for better or worse, it here to stay.

^{^}

How about the radical step of doing less, but being more selective about what we do? Most blogs are mostly fluff. And you stress yourselves for that? Maybe it’s natural selection.

Liars might think they are good at covering up their deceit but a new Canadian study shows there’s one thing they can’t control that will give them away — flashes of emotion in their faces. ^{^}

So we’re hard-wired to be nice. That’s kind of sweet. I wonder if this lying emotion shows up when we tell little polite lies, like “No that shirt doesn’t make you look fat.” My guess: no.