The Google Chrome OS

As the point of this blog is allegedly tech, maybe I should talk about tech once in a while...

There's an article on Slate discussing why the new Google Chrome OS is doomed before it ever gets out of the gate. I'm not sure I'd write it off just yet, and some of Farhad Manjoo's reasoning is just silly, but all in all it does look as if the odds are against it. Dealing with the 5 reasons why it's a bad idea, in order:

Linux is hard to love. This part of Manjoo's argument is the weakest, because he's cherry-picking his facts. Yes, we know, MS Office (Word, Excel, etc) won't run on Linux. Has he heard of Open Office? Of the GIMP for image editing? Apparently not. Are there features of the MS products that the Linux counterparts don't support? Not that he mentions... Apparently if it doesn't have the MS stamp on it, it doesn't exist.

Likewise, his argument about hardware installation is weaker than it first appears, mostly because he's apparently unaware of the progress that's been made in making Linux more user-friendly. The vast majority of hardware issues can be resolved much more easily than his example.

But. There's that last 5% of hardware issues that are tricky, or that involve multiple steps. There's less hand-holding in the Linux world, and a general assumption that you're willing to learn a little something about the computer you're using. Those who want to pay a couple of thousand dollars for a computer and then specifically avoid learning anything about it are advised to give their money to Steve Jobs, buy an Apple, and pat themselves on the back for being precious unique snowflakes. [set snark=OFF]

There's also the issue of the entire ecosystem. I still use Windows. I could make the jump to Linux for 95% of what I do. I'm not worried about the oh-so-terrifying setup process (my last Linux install went smoother than any Windows installation has ever gone for me) or that I might have to configure something myself. But it's the last 5% of apps, the occasional game, the tool that I need to use because my workplace has standardized on it and while there are plenty of Linux tools that do the same thing, they're not file-system-level compatible... and it doesn't make sense to have a second computer just for those few things. I suspect I'm not the only one. And this is the biggest hurdle Linux (or Chrome) is going to have. I can use Open Office for writing and spreadsheets, GIMP for image editing, GnuCash instead of Quicken for managing my finances.... but if that last 5% of software is my favorite game, or a business-critical application, then I'm locked in to Windows no matter how much I loathe parts of it.

We aren't ready to run everything on the web. Again, an argument that gets weaker by the day as Web options develop. But this section contains what is actually Manjoo's strongest argument--that once everything moves to the web, it doesn't matter what OS the user is running anyway. That's the entire point of moving to the web, to do everything through that interface so it works the same way in any standards-compliant browser. (Which rules out Microsoft, but they're making progress... oh darn, there goes that snark again.) So if you're using Windows, or a Mac, or Fred's Kustom Home-Made Hand-Carved All-Natural OS, and are satisfied with it...why switch to Chrome?

Microsoft is a formidable opponent. Yes, indeed. As Tolkien put it, "It does not do to leave a dragon out of your plans, if he lives nearby." MS isn't a particularly innovative company and hasn't been for years. They wait until someone else demonstrates that a product can make it, and what features are necessary to gain popularity--then either buy it up or brew their own. And they have lots of smart people working for them, and the deep pockets to keep working on it until they get it right, generally around version 3 or 4. At that point, the second-to-none MS marketing team goes to work, and the competition gets ulcers.

Google Fails Often. I'm not sure what to make of this argument, which seems to boil down to "Google tries lots of things and not all of them work." Well, yes. The same could be said of a certain company in Redmond. And the small market share for the Chrome browser isn't necessarily an indicator that it's a failure, given its short time on the market and out of beta. Firefox demonstrated that if you do something better than MS, you can take share away from them. And that giving Microsoft some competition spurs it on to more innovation itself. (Development on Internet Explorer had essentially stopped until Firefox started taking market share away and goading MS into doing something about it. Monopolies lead to higher prices, slower innovation, and poorer quality. That iron law of economics has not been repealed for the benefit of the Redmond Behemoth.) Most companies fail often. Few have deep enough pockets to survive more than 2 or 3 such failures. Google can, so it can seem like a long record of failure. In fact, it's very difficult to predict what's going to take off, what's going to be popular, etc. So they throw everything at the wall & see what sticks. Failure is part of the process. Thomas Edison said some very similar things; most of what he did failed. The few successes made up for it.

Chrome makes no business sense. Again, he raises a point that I wonder if Google had considered. What's the business case? Attracting people to Google so they'll use Google's tools? They could do that in Windows. Push costs down to help grow the netbook market? Microsoft has shown it's willing to cut incredible deals & take a loss to keep its hegemony. It's hard to see how this leads to increased share of an existing market or substantial growth in an emerging market that Google wants to be a part of.

So, bottom line. Doomed? Not necessarily. Manjood overstates his case a bit. But the odds are against it. Given some time and some luck, it may become a niche player. Of course, at one time, that's what Microsoft was, too....

Another possibility...

Ross Douthat has an article in today's NY Times that sets up a fairly bogus dichotomy, then plays with it to try to demonstrate that Sarah Palin's problems are ultimately just class envy. Or something.

Palin’s popularity has as much to do with class as it does with ideology. In this sense, she really is the perfect foil for Barack Obama. Our president represents the meritocratic ideal — that anyone, from any background, can grow up to attend Columbia and Harvard Law School and become a great American success story. But Sarah Palin represents the democratic ideal — that anyone can grow up to be a great success story without graduating from Columbia and Harvard.

Well.... not quite. The whole "anyone can become president" idea is, yes, about the idea that in theory at least, your chances of becoming president shouldn't depend on whether your name is Clinton or Kennedy, Bush or McCain. Or whether you went to an Ivy League school.

Sarah Palin is beloved by millions because her rise suggested, however temporarily, that the old American aphorism about how anyone can grow up to be president might actually be true.

But her unhappy sojourn on the national stage has had a different moral: Don’t even think about it.

No. Sarah Palin's problems aren't that she didn't go to an Ivy League school. They're related to the fact that she was nominated for VP, much farther than many already go...and demonstrated repeatedly that she wasn't up to the job. She claimed to read "all" the newspapers but couldn't name a single one. She claimed that being able to see Russia from parts of Alaska constituted foreign-policy credentials. She claimed her life was an open book and her administration set a model for transparency, but refused to release any of her medical records and used private email accounts to conduct state business to avoid open-records laws. She claimed to support the Bush Doctrine, but couldn't say what it was. She compared herself to a pit bull but complained when she was called an attack dog. There are many, many graduates of many fine state universities who show more of a grasp of national issues.

Sarah Palin was put into the rigors of a campaign, was weighed, measured, and found wanting. There's no shame in not being up to the job of President; most of us aren't. I doubt Mr Douthat is; I'm certainly not. And given a few years to prepare, it's not inconceivable that she can make herself ready by 2012, or 2016, or 2020. But in 2008, she was not ready.

The "democratic ideal" is not and never has been that J. Random Citizen can ascend to the White House in the absence of any other qualification. It's that with ambition and talent, one can prove him- or herself fit to serve, even if there's no Harvard or Princeton or Yale time in the biography. Sarah Palin's loss says nothing about that.

Despite what Mr Douthat says, the message isn't "forget it." The message is "a diploma, or lack of one, will only take you so far."

Were some of the attacks on Palin unfair? Yes. Were they any worse than the unfair attacks Obama was dealing with, including Palin's "palling around with terrorists" line? I don't think so. Certainly no other VP candidate has gone so far to question the basic loyalty of the other party's nominee. Has there been any candidate for President or VP in the last 40 years who hasn't faced unfair attacks in the rigors of the campaign? Has there been any candidate who's refused to give interviews or hold a press conference, and not been criticized for it?

There's a not-so-subtle conflation going on here. Mr Douthat starts by presenting the democratic ideal as "that anyone can grow up to be a great success story without graduating from Columbia and Harvard." Well, she won a statewide beauty contest (something many others have tried and failed to do), rose through politics to become Governor of her state (again, something many others spend their careers trying and failing to do) and became the VP nominee of a major party. There are talented, ambitious people (many with Ivy League degrees) who spend their lives preparing and striving for that goal, and who never make it.

True, she lost the election. In any election, there can be only one winner. But does the fact that she has already risen higher than 99+% of the professional political class, is nationally known with a strong base, with at least 20 years of her career still ahead of her, not indicate that she can, already has, become a success story?

Of course, success at that level brings life in the fishbowl, unfair attacks, media attention, and all the rest. If she's as smart as her supporters claim, then she should have known that going in to it. The experience of the campaign should have convinced her.

And Mr Douthat should know better than to blame her problems on social class, as if the election was hers to lose until that gosh-darn elitist liberal media started ganging up on her.

I'm not dead yet

I haven't posted much the last few days, in spite of some remarkable news events abroad and truly snark-worthy happenings in the media, because I'm continuing my education as a new homeowner.

Though I must commend the staff at both Lowe's and Home Depot for putting up with some ill-informed questions and a couple episodes of walking me through some options until we worked out what it was I needed.

As the new-homeowner expenses are settling down a little, my car has been acting funny the last couple of days... so it's off to deal with that this afternoon. I can't help thinking of John Lennon's definition of Life: "What happens when you've made other plans."

Dear Michelle Bachmann...

You claim that when you speak out against White House policy, you're targeted by the media.

Actually, it's not that.

It's that when you spout half-informed moonbat conspiracy theories, people laugh at you. You're being "targeted" only because you're good for ratings, and not in a way you'd like.

There's a difference.

This just in

People in Iran have really long names.

Where would we be without Faux Noise, er, um, Fox News, to tell us these things?

I've spent much of the last several days glued to my monitor watching the extraordinary events in Iran unfold. I don't have any information or much insight to add to what's already being said, and Andrew Sullivan is doing extraordinary work on this.

The only thing that's striking about this is how it seems to have caught everyone in the West so thoroughly by surprise. Like the 1979 Islamic Revolution, this appears to Western eyes to have come out of nowhere, though in retrospect we'll tell ourselves there were signs there to be seen. And there probably were...but we weren't paying attention. We didn't notice them. We didn't take them seriously.

Of course, it would have been hard to predict that the election would be rigged that clumsily. A rigged election was more or less expected, but one that "no one in their right mind can believe" wasn't, and has proven to be the proverbial straw.

And so far, Obama has done exactly the right thing, by staying out of it, so neither side can accuse the other of being pawns or dupes of the Great Satan. This isn't about us; it's about them.

Really not sure what to think about this...

On the one hand, several of George Will's points are well-taken. Trying to prop up failing carmakers may well just be prolonging the pain. (Mr Will seems more concerned with the harmful effects of propping up companies that provide working class jobs than the evils of propping up investment banks, but oh well....)

I'm just not sure how seriously I can take an argument that relies on Calvin Coolidge as its model of prudent leadership.

And off we go again...

Summer classes started last night. I've got 24 students, which is big for a summer class. So far, so good, though I've got plenty of assignments to finish up. Which is part of why I haven't gone looking for time-wasters...I don't have a spare weekend just yet. But it's on the list, really. Just as soon as I finish up prepping for the summer class already in progress, finish up the revisions for the engineering programming course that's getting a long-overdue overhaul, follow up on a long-ago pledge to the department chair to get some training in the accreditation process to step up my committee responsibilities....

Yeah, right. I might have a free weekend someday.

Elevating the Debate

Wonkette sums up my feelings about Chuck Grassley's indignant twitters to/about Obama, which have the depth & tone you'd expect from a teenager:

We are all stupider for having read this.

Seriously, go read the twits in question. They read like something an overprivileged teenager would write. This clown is a U.S. Senator? Yes, the 140-character limit of Twitter doesn't lend itself to pensive asides or elaborately-built-up arguments, but this is absurd.

Proof once more of the dictum from the founding fathers (I don't remember if it was Jefferson or Madison, and could be wrong about both of them). Democracy doesn't ensure the people get the leadership they want, but it does ensure they get the leadership they deserve.

[h/t: Andrew Sullivan]