Here are the links to the comments I've posted thus far this week:
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Week 3 Reading Notes
Linux
My brother is a techie. Maybe even a computer nerd, but I use that term in the most endearing way possible. Whenever I have problems with my Mac, I call him, and invariably he’ll start talking about Linux. Until now, that’s meant very little to me—he talks so quickly that it’s hard to keep up.
I guess I’ve always been somewhat aware of the idea that different operating systems are best suited to different kinds of users. Despite that passive awareness, I was fascinated to read of the sheer computing power of Linux, the industrial uses of it, as well as the ‘open’ origins of it.
After reading about it, I’m a little bit ashamed that I’ve just stuck to Macs for the past several years. They’re great for the audio applications I use, but there’s not a lot of room to get to know how they work. Using a Mac kind of seems like someone buying a really expensive, racing-oriented automobile, but buying it with an automatic transmission because they can’t drive manual— that is, they’ve got this great machine, but they rely on it to do even the simplest of the mechanical tasks it was built to do.
Given that I’m in an LIS program, I feel a little sad that I’ve missed the boat (up to this point) and failed to familiarize myself with such a customizable and democratic operating system.
Mac OS X
As I said, I use Macs all the time, but I didn’t switch to Macs for the OS. In fact, before I read this article (admittedly a couple times before anything sank in) I hadn’t given much thought to the ‘flash and bang’ of OS X, or even to the underlying functionality of it. These articles were a fine overview (though Singh’s article required a great deal of rereading for me, a person with no computer science background, to comprehend) of the history of Mac OS X. I do, however, wish there was some kind of middle ground between the simplicity of the Wikipedia article and the detail of Singh’s article. In any case, while I still don’t get everything (particularly re: Singh’s article), I think I’m better off than I was before I read them… I think.
Windows
Maybe it’s just me, but I kept picturing a guy in pink Brooks Brothers shorts typing seaside at a resort when I read this article— it came across as little more than a sales pitch. In their own way, each article we read lacked a certain impartiality, but this was over the top. Personally, I found the Wikipedia article on windows to be much more helpful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows
Monday, September 13, 2010
Week 2 Muddiest Point
What is the digitization process for audio artifacts? How do we get from, say, the master tapes of a Rudy Van Gelder recording of Lee Morgan from the 1950s to a digitally remastered .mp3 version of the same session? What is the conversion process from analog tape to digital file?
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