Laptops, the next generation

We've heard that tablet computers may overtake laptops in sales by 2015, plus or minus a year. I mentioned this in a conversation the other evening. Everyone over the age of 15 said that they'd have a difficult time working without a regular keyboard.

Fortunately, this be the era of technological bedazzlement, there is no need for which a silly product cannot be invented.

Therefore,  we have jeans with a keyboard woven in the fabric and a USB wireless connection. (Tablet users may need a special adapter. At this point, however, an extra dongle should be the least of your concerns.)

The designers have yet to make manufacturing deals that would allow for mass production.
Let the "mouse in your pocket" jokes begin.

Did Linux miss its moment again?

This morning's news includes a note that preorders are available for Spark, the open KDE tablet. To which the tech press, behaving like political reporters responding to the next not-Mitt,  proclaims that ebruary seems to be shaping up to be the month of Linux tablets.

Um, no.

Unless you think that two Linux tablet announcement is a big deal.

Linux users have been saying for years that this is the year that companies and civilians will adopt Linux for desktop systems.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="Google Trends for Linux desktop"][/caption]

Even with new, slick renditions of Linux from Ubuntu, Mint, and others, it just never got the respect or traction that Linux advocates sought. It's too bad. Linux is a very good, solid, secure desktop operating system. It runs well on older, less powerful systems. It just never made it to your aunt's computer.

And, then came the iPad. The tablet runs a deeply proprietary operating system from Apple. It owns the mind share, even if its market share is slipping. Some forecasts suggest that tablet sales will pass desktop/laptop sales within three or so years.

Android, Google's tablet and phone operating system, is Linux-based and open source, but the interface is defined by Google and the hardware manufacturers. There are options to load various custom ROMs on tablets, of course. All the same, it's all still the province of hackers and hobbyists.

Linux still owns the server environment, including pretty much everything that makes the web the web. The story remains, however, is that not only did Linux miss the chance to claim the desktop, the desktop computer itself may be moving to the back of the pack.

Miss a minute, miss a lot.

More on law schools and job prospects

The latest in the War on Law Schools comes in the form of a Tennessee student who said that her law school was negligent because they admitted her to the school. Because she hadn't completed her undergraduate work, she won't be eligible to take the bar exam, get a job as a lawyer, and eventually shed nearly $80K in student loans.

A few thoughts on this:

• Law students have been suing their schools for misrepresenting career prospects. Simply put, there are too many law school graduates chasing too few jobs.


• As we see in ‘Students Employed As Strippers’ Should Be Part Of A Law School’s Ranking, jobs for law school students aren't always what you'd expect.


• Many of jobs available for lawyers (URL may be NSFW)  not only won't pay for a three-piece suit; you might not even be able to pay for a three-piece KFC dinner.

Further, claiming that you aren't qualified and that it's your school's fault may not be a great career-building strategy. 

I wonder why Huck didn't have one of these

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="640" caption="Car Stove, via bookofjoe"][/caption]

Happy Birthday, Michael

[caption id="attachment_3226" align="aligncenter" width="590" caption="Mike, Lindsey, and The Count"][/caption]

One of Mike's favorite Sesame Street characters was The Count. We'd had this jack-in-the-box Count for a long time and gave it to him for this birthday. Within a few minutes, the littler kids in the party had grabbed the toy and were using it to scare young Billy (age 18 months).

About the political friends of Tim Murray and Deval Patrick

It's pretty rare for the Globe editorial team to deliver such a devastating takedown of a Democrat. In Lt. Gov. Tim Murray’s patronage politics show deeper problem in Mass., the Globe not only slams Murray, but also reminds us that Gov. Deval Patrick's continued support of Murray is bad for government in general.

Tim Murray earned this long before his early morning car crash. His aspirations to make it outside of Worcester brought him to people who, legally or ethically, should never be near a political campaign.

The Globe editorial concludes:

Tim Murray has shown, through his relationship with McLaughlin, that he lacks the judgment and character to make these decisions. And Patrick, who controls all the levers of the executive branch, still sees fit to keep Murray as his personal liaison to municipal government.

Long-time students of Massachusetts politics and government shouldn't be surprised by any of this. All the same, we had hoped that we were better than this.