Nomadicoder

I received the following unsolicited email:

Hi Steven,

I landed on your site and noticed you have a number of useful resources relating to digital rights management listed here – http://nomadicoder.com/2005/07/05/the-trouble-with-drm/. I hope you don’t mind me sending you a short email to tell you about our beginner’s guide to DRM.

Here’s the link – [URL Elided].

It provides an introduction to the topic and a good overview that I’d hope many of your visitors would find useful.

Perhaps you could update your page to include a link to us?

Please let me know your thoughts.

Thanks,
Anthony

Really?!? First the posting was from 2005. Second, Obviously “Anthony” didn’t read the post to conclude my position on DRM. Third, My 12 year old post was obviously harvested for keywords. Anthony: I tag your email as SPAM with impunity.

Years ago, when I worked in a PC only shop, people asked me what computer I used at home. I replied that I use a Mac. They were incredulous. When they asked why, I replied that when I go home, I didn't want to have to work. Based on this Quora reply, I'm not alone.

Answer by Ansel Halliburton:

I have built PCs and Linux boxes from parts. I built and ran a distributed Linux cluster. I had a few flavors of Linux on a laptop at a time when it was non-trivial to do that. I can handle running Linux just fine.

But now I choose not to. I have a Mac.

Why? I just don't have time for that stuff anymore. I am at a place in my life where I will gladly pay more money for a product of higher quality that saves me time because I am (1) really freaking busy and (2) not broke anymore. I need a low maintenance, high performance computing tool. Mac OS X and most of its major applications are well integrated, very high quality tools. Macs are also beautiful and shiny, and I like that as much as the next person, but it's secondary.

As for the question's premise that you can get as good a UI in Linux as you can on a Mac, that is just not true. Yes, there are some very shiny Linux distros and window managers out now. But the quality of third-party Linux applications' UIs is, generally, still poor—certainly not on par with the average UI quality of Mac applications. You have to look at that when considering an OS because without third-party applications, the OS isn't going to get you very far.

Why do some people prefer Macs over PCs running Linux?

While it's difficult to use, I think Donald Knuth's TeX is probably the best written piece of software created.

Answer by Victor Eijkhout:

Around 1978, Donald Knuth was getting dissatisfied with the quality of computer typesetting. He thought he could solve the problem on his sabbatical. Ok, it took him 8 years, but solve it he did. The typesetting system TeX produces beautiful output for ordinary text, and is unsurpassed when it comes to mathematics.

As a result, it is used by 99 percent of mathematicians, at least half of all computer scientists and physicists. It is even used by people with strange alphabets (apparently there is an Old-Icelandic dictionary done in it) or strange design demands (religious texts with commentary and commentary on the commentary).

Since TeX was written back when computers were smaller and slower, the code is actually pretty tricky to be as efficient as possible. And yet it is basically bug-free. Knuth writes you a cheque if you can find a bug in the code, which happens almost never.

What is the most complex/significant program created by a single programmer?

If I read a paper book, they say, “So wonderful he is reading and making good use of his time.” If I read the same book on my iPhone, they say, “Such a shame he wastes his time with his electronic device!”

Kirby Ferguson talks about patent law and remix. “Remix may sound like common sense until you’re the one being remixed.”