24 March 2003
Windows XP and the Wisdom of War as a Spectator Sport
Tonight I am multitasking.
In one window I am running WordPerfect 8, in which I am working on several projects at once. I have open this document, the next Chapter of Centurion Enterprises, and the short story Moonshadow.
In another window I have FrontPage 2000 running. This is the program I use for managing The Keep. It has some rather nice conveniences in it which make my job that much easier.
In the third window I have Internet Explorer displaying the CNN News Service. The reason for this is simple: War Coverage. More on that in a moment.
Windows XP
I like Windows XP. I really do. It's a lot closer to what Windows should have been in the first place: easy to use and stable.
Until I started to use XP my Operating System of Choice was Windows 2000. The reasoning for this is simple. Windows 2000 is based almost entirely on the Windows NT operating system, will work with just about every software application out there, and doesn't crash. At least not in my experience.
The problem with Windows 2000 is that if it does crash there aren't a lot of tools built into the Operating System to help you deal with and correct the situation. It's rather like Windows 98 that way. Troubleshooting and repairing a Windows 2000 system can be a royal pain in the backside, depending on how bad the problem is.
Windows XP has a lot of the stability, a lot of the compatibility, and is a lot easier to fix.
But every now and again strange things happen. I'll start a program and it will freeze, for no reason. Windows will still be active, but this non responsive task will be sitting in memory taking up resources. So I'll end the task and try again. Same thing.
All right, I know how to deal with this. I'll restart the computer.
So far this has worked every time. Now I have no problem with performing the occasional restart, but what I do have a problem with is the fact that the program that stops responding is a different program every time. Makes troubleshooting and fixing kind of difficult sometimes.
Ah, well. Maybe MicroSquish will get it right next time.
War As A Spectator Sport
That's what it's become, really. There isn't any way around it. I wish that there was, but there isn't.
You can't escape it. When you turn on your television the War Coverage is on every channel. When you turn on the radio the music is interrupted every time a new news story comes in. And every single newspaper has pictures of the war littering every single front page.
On the one hand it's a good thing. Information is power, and the more people see just how frightening, how unnecessary the whole thing really is.
On the other hand I have to wonder about the wisdom of it all.
Let's face facts, Laddies and Lassies, we're living in the Jerry Springer generation, where gratuitous television violence is a way of life. It's regarded as perfectly normal to kick the hell out of someone if they've done something to honk you off.
Just look at the television footage of some of the protest movements you're seeing lately. If ever there was an example of this principle, it's there. I sit here and watch it all happening and can't help but feel more than a little disturbed.
Do I have a better idea? No, but I wish I did.
All I know is that it's only going to get worse.
Welcome to the 21st century, Ladies and Gentlemen.