Apples to Oranges?

Just call me 'Eve.'

Why? Because I've taken a bite of the apple and found the truth fascinating!

Now, I remember when Mac OS X came out, and being a bit of a Linux geek, I remember being pretty excited that OS X was based on Unix. And being maybe more than a bit of a Linux geek, I endorse any alternative operating system. You know, free code, free speech, and free beer to foment the seeds of dissent, to push us out of comfortable confines, to keep the technology and creativity moving, and growing.

My Uncle uses Mac -- this is really just a natural part of the order of things, since he's a sound engineer. He falls in that sorta-artsy-fartsy realm of computer geekitude, a small subset of the population that has long been served by the superior artistic tools that Mac provides. "I'm running Mac OS X now." he tells me. So one night, while over at his house and needing to get online, I pop onto his computer. I'd only really worked with Windows and *nix, but lo and behold, there was that shell access! From there, I managed to do what I needed to do, and just how cool was that?

But back in my world of PHP Dev, *nix and Windows sysadmin, and user support, news of Mac came through as that other OS, info bytes wafting in through the filters like news of a different country, interesting and someplace I might like to visit someday but off the immediate radar.

Then I start learning about Ruby on Rails. RoR is really just another programming language and development framework, the next generation or iteration of making and using tools that lift and set us on the shoulders of those who came before, that have incorporated the knowledge gained and best practices learned in the years before. I go to the local RoR user group, and what's this? I'm seeing apples glowing with that backlit life that sends a subtle hello world to folks sitting across the table. And what's this? The presenter is using Mac, and he's got multiple desktops, whiz-bang server platform tools that let him move easily from one web test server to another sitting in his box. And look at that! There's TextMate, a text editor/programming environment built specifically for RoR development, that not only completes the line your writing, but also completes the lines in the function below that undoes what it is you're doing now so you can revert to a previous rollout if need be.

And you can't get that on Windows, or Linux.

So I'm sitting there, interested in the underlying technology of course, but also a little flash-dazed by this idea that Mac, which once sat in my mind as an artist's platform, is also being used as a development platform. And thus began my state of Mac Envy. Yes, I've taken a bite, and found myself naked before the eyes of technology.

Anybody got a spare fig leaf?

Corporatizing Mediocrity

My recent exit from my full-time job has gotten me thinking about the way corporations seem to be handling their bottom lines. I left the company because after a year of promises of pay raises never realized, always footnoted with 'after the new management takes hold, after we reach the numbers, after the start of the fiscal year', yadda yadda yadda, I lost my patience and my ability to suspend my corporate disbelief in the constanly moving focus of the company ideals. So while it was a good job for what it was, it was time to leave.

I have a friend who works as an editor of a newspaper. She too is fighting the stress of the big squeeze from new owners, new management that only wants more from the existing employee base, unwilling to pay higher for higher quality, unwilling to pay to keep those more experienced employees in their jobs, and in the end winding up with an employee base that consists of only the inexperienced, and the burnt-out.

She too is looking for new work.

Another friend was shopping for a pastry cutter from the local Target. For those of you unfamilar with what a pastry cutter is, it's a tined device that lets you cut butter or shortening into flour much more efficiently than the two-knives-together method my grandmother taught me. Now, I know that not too many people make their own pastries anymore, but really, should it be so difficult to find this 5 dollar device? When she asked the store help if they had it, she was told no, that college students don't make pies.

So what I'm getting to is this: how long will we settle for average? How long do we dumb down to the lowest common denominator so that the big-business corporations can shave millions of partial pennies into their big profit bank accounts?

Sometimes I make myself just a little bit sick when I realize i'm settling for less than what I like, either by watching a tv program i don't really care for that much, but don't have the energy to turn off, or listening to that commercial i can't stand but am managing to tune out of my active conciousness, or order that food that doesn't really speak to what I'm hungry for, but is there, and is cheap. Life has a way of keeping us busy and distracted from the hidden paths, the circuitous routes that so often take us to places that offer so much more return on our energy investment. Getting older has a way of wearing down, wearing smooth the passions that lit our activity when we were coming out of high school and thought that going vegetarian, or boycotting particular companies, would really make a difference. I think I gave up my "Fur is dead" t-shirt for a little extra closet space. Maybe that makes me cynical, maybe it makes me a hypocrite. But today, I can start paying a little more attention to what I buy, and buy a little less crap. Because, after all, we only have today.