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Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 32, No. 231.
Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London
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Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
[1] From: lachance@chass.utoronto.ca
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 32.230: limitations of devices (28)
[2] From: Jonathan Reeve
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 32.230: limitations of devices (108)
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2018-11-27 18:10:18+00:00
From: lachance@chass.utoronto.ca
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 32.230: limitations of devices
Willard
You raise an ethical question in the context of individual acquisition of
a machine (or the parts to build one):
> And how could any computer be morally unstained? We ourselves can't. Is
> there a doctor (of ethics) in the house?
If one enlarges the scope to consider the making of machines, the
distribution of machines, their disposal, then one can contemplate
system-wide interventions i.e. the redistribution of wealth, the creation
of meaningful employment, ecological preservation.
These considerations may seem far from the daily concerns of humanities
computing. However consider how the institutional and individual are
imbricated in the global.
A computer could be untainted in a world that bridges its digital divides.
Imagine...
--
Francois Lachance
Scholar-at-large
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~lachance
https://berneval.blogspot.com
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2018-11-27 22:24:11+00:00
From: Jonathan Reeve
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 32.230: limitations of devices
Hi Willard,
I agree very much with your two points here, concerning operating
systems, and I find it interesting that those are two of my
reasons for choosing Linux over a proprietary OS like Windows or
MacOS.
Regarding design and aesthetics, I think you're right that a lot
of this is subjective, but I wonder how many of our emotional
experiences of design are conditioned by advertising. Windows and
MacOS, with millions of dollars of ad funds at their disposal, can
manufacture familiarity, without necessarily earning it. In
contrast, Linux OSes, as the product of volunteers rather than a
company, has virtually no advertising money, and might initially
strike some users as unfamiliar. But I'd argue that not only are
the design principles of Linux-based OSes at least equally
pleasing as those of its competitors, but that most of what we
find pleasing about Windows and MacOS began in Linux, anyway.
New design features in MacOS are, for example, are likely inspired
by Linux features that the Apple developers had been using on
their personal Linux-based laptops for years. One case-in-point is
the "dark mode" [https://www.apple.com/macos] that Apple has been
touting so loudly lately, which has long been in use on Linux
OSs (see [https://github.com/DH-Box/dh-usb] the screenshots of my
own Linux OS for the Digital Humanities, DH-USB). Other examples
include Windows 10's new split-screen mode (tiling window managers
in Linux have had this since the 90s), uniformly-colored square
icons, multiple desktops or workspaces, full-screen apps as
workspaces, and more -- they have long been Linux features.
Regarding one's operating system's time demands, I hear you -- I use
Linux precisely because I don't have the time or energy for MacOS
or Windows. That labor is usually invisible to us, since we're so
habituated to it, but consider the typical process for installing
a program in those systems. First, you search around on the
Internet for programs that will do what you want. Find one, then
click around on the developer's website until you find a download
page. Download the program's archive. Open your Downloads
directory. Unzip the archive. Click on the installer. Tell your
operating system that you assume the risk of a program downloaded
from the Internet. Click "next" a bunch on the installer. Sign
whatever seventeen-page agreement they make you sign. Choose where
to install it. Then clean up all the installers and archives from
your Downloads directory. You're lucky if you don't have to face
malware, popups asking you to register your new software, or
requests for you to pay for a license for the program. In Linux,
(in DH-USB, for example) just open the program called "software"
and click on the "install" button next to the one you want. No
licenses to agree to, no malware risks, no installer programs, and
no money exchanged. It "just works," as they say. This model is so
powerful that both Microsoft and Apple have released their own
similar app stores, although they don't yet have wide adoption
outside of mobile platforms.
Many other computing tasks take about half the time on Linux as
they do on other systems. I created DH-USB, and my colleagues
created the cloud-based Linux server DH-BOX, in part to solve the
nightmarish difficulties of installing software stacks in Windows
and MacOS. Most of us that have taught a Python-based Digital
Humanities course are all too familiar with these difficulties.
Perhaps more importantly, since almost all Linux software is free
("free" as in "free speech" and in "free beer," as they say), I
can make and distribute an entire text analysis platform -- operating
system, drivers, programming languages, software, language models,
test corpora, and a polished user interface -- without breaking any
copyright laws. This is crucial for the reproducibility of text
analysis experiments. If you want a copy of my entire digital
humanities laboratory, you can download it right now from GitHub.
You just can't do that with Windows.
While there are certainly many Linux users who, like your son, are
operating systems experts or hobbyists -- I certainly have been
guilty of tweaking my system too much, on occasion -- I'd like to
dispel the notion that one /need/ be a hacker in order to use
Linux, or to install it. I've installed single programs on MacOS
that were harder to install than entire Linux operating systems.
One need only watch one of the Linux installation videos on
YouTube, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jmELj9MvVc[ like this
one, to appreciate how little effort it takes. Once installed,
the simplicity of the system is remarkable, which is why
developers often install it on their grandparents' machines --
it's so much more intuitive.
"If Linux is so great," one might wonder, "why isn't everybody
using it right now?" Technically speaking, it's actually the most
common operating system in the world: used on most of the world's
servers, most of the world's mobile devices (Android is
Linux-based), and virtually all supercomputers. But as for
desktop/laptop adoption, this brings me back to my first point
about advertising. There are so many options for computer software
these days, that we have grown to trust only those with which we
are familiar. That's to be expected. But for those brave souls
that want to try something else, or who value freedom, and have an
hour or two for learning something new, that hour is repaid a
hundredfold in the workflow efficiencies it provides. Sure, we can
answer an hour's more emails if we don't do that, but the
long-term gains far outweigh this short-term setback.
But maybe I really shouldn't be talking about efficiency, since
I've been writing this message for the past half hour, instead of
writing my dissertation. So back to the drawing board for me!
Best,
Jonathan
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