Operating Systems

I am an OS enthusiast.  That means while I might be partial to one or two operating systems over others, I see the beauty and elegance in every operating system and enjoy them all.

At home we own all Apple products and Mac OS X is the primary operating system.  At work I use Windows XP and RedHat for development.  In the past I have used OS/2 as well.  My FAVORITE operating systems are VAX/VMS (OpenVMS these days) and BeOS. 

VMS is a mainframe operating system, really, but the DEC Vice President of VMS many years ago is the same person who founded the "Windows NT" operating system group at Microsoft.  While NT/XP/Vista is its own OS, you can understand that it shares some features with my old favorite VMS.  Windows NT is, in effect, VMS for the personal computer.

BeOS was an OS written from scratch by Be, inc. initially to show off their hardware.  The Operating System itself became more popular than the hardware but due to competition with Microsoft and bad executive decisions, Be, inc. went away and the BeOS has languished for years.  There IS a project called Haiku that seeks to faithfully reproduce the BeOS as open source software.  It is in an Alpha state and every BeOS user in the world is on the edge of their seat in the hopes that THIS year a Beta version will be released.  If that comes to pass, Mac OS X will no longer be my primary operating system.

The forums and web logs out in cyberspace are chock full of articles denouncing various operating systems for various reasons.  The biggest target over the past year has been Windows Vista.  I recently found this article on OSNews.com (a site I frequent).  It is an excellent article and I recommend that anyone who has fallen into the trap of repeating the same, tired Vista complaints read it.

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Politics and Artwork

A fellow dA-er recently created several posters for a college class (in Greece) depicting how many foreign people/nations view the USA. Apparently she caught some flack for it and posted a note explaining the project and assuaging people by noting that it is our government and not the people that the posters depict, etc.

She received strong support on the other spectrum as well because freedom of expression, freedom of speech, free exchange of ideas, etc. are all very important and should always be upheld and encouraged. These are the engines of (hopefully positive) social change.

It is always interesting to see the reaction people have when political or religious statements are made through the wonderfully communicative method of visual art.

Tattoos and Tarantulas

Finally got my tattoo!

My tattoo is of a Mexican Red Knee Tarantula and it is positioned on my right shoulder.  The artist did a fantastic job with the detail, color and shading.  It is, however, still in the painful healing process.

I have added 4 new Tarantulas and a Scorpion to my collection of beasties.  I had to beg my wife to let me keep the scorpion (she really does not like them).  I won a Salmon Pink Birdeater sling in a raffle.  Real cute one with attitude.  I purchased an Ornamental Indian Tarantula (a pokie), a Trinidad Chevron Tarantula, a Curly Hair Tarantula and an OBT (Orange Baboon Tarantula, or Orange Bitey Thing).

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