In the Beginning was the Command Line

Neal Stephenson's article on Apple and Microsoft is a good read. I initially thought he was biased against MS, but later it seemed that it's not the case. One of the most interesting parts is how he points out the similarity of the situation of pre-revolution era:

"Hostility towards Microsoft is not difficult to find on the Net, and it blends two strains: resentful people who feel Microsoft is too powerful, and disdainful people who think it's tacky. This is all strongly reminiscent of the heyday of Communism and Socialism, when the bourgeoisie were hated from both ends: by the proles, because they had all the money, and by the intelligentsia, because of their tendency to spend it on lawn ornaments. Microsoft is the very embodiment of modern high-tech prosperity--it is, in a word, bourgeois--and so it attracts all of the same gripes."

Yeah. MS fans resemble bourgeoisie in more than one ways - and all the Free Software and OSS guys sometimes seem to me as a trendy sort of street fighters - who play the game in style. I can't say I'm a serious MS hater, but I happen to understand day by day that MS's business is moving farther from how I'd like it to be. Actually there's no need for hating MS alone: It's people against corporations now, thanks to US patent office.

Installed Mozilla Thunderbird yesterday, after getting pissed off many a time with bloated MS Outlook^TM. Problem with Outlook is that it's TOO good to use. Still I'm on the honeymoon with Thunderbird: looks cool, sleek and really fast so far. Got a problem trying to install an extention that looked like a blogging tool, and realized I dont really need it. Uninstallation gave a little trouble, but -- unlike Outlook -- the system is transparent and simple enough: guess what the config file is - open it in my great text editor - delete a line here, a line there - restart - whooosh! there goes the extension :)