>Ravi wrote:
>
>i'll come clean on another front: my fondness for freebsd/linux/mozilla
>is more because of what [i believe] they embody than because of
>usability and functionality (there is another reason: my own background
>leads me to choose unix-like OSs for technical reasons). i think open
>source, *even* if it lacks the features of proprietary stuff, is
>valuable for more important reasons (collective effort, etc). i am a
>part (or at least can be) of the making of the things i use. this sort
>of sentimental primitivism is terribly unfashionable, i am afraid, on
>this list.
><...>
Dwayne wrote:
>And yes, you're right about the testiness that bubbles to the surface
>like, er, bubbles on the methane seas of Titan when, as you phrase it,
>"sentimental primitivism" is unmasked.
>
>I remember, as if were months and months ago ('cause it was), when I
>mentioned how cool I thought the Mars rovers were -- a good dollop of hard
>science and real-life space adventure. Gods oh ye gods it wasn't 15
>minutes before I was hit with headlines like 'Starving Kids' and 'Waste of
>Resources' and 'Childish Space Scientists Easily Impressed By Rocks' and
>'Male Inadequacy On Display...Again' and so on and so on and so on till I
>needed an Advil.
What do you guys means by primitivism? How is getting into the guts of your operating system or contributing to its development primitivism? And how is getting off on space exploration primitivism? ??
Kelley