Ironic - the fate of computer teachers in the era of Software

It is ironic to read 20 computer teachers injured in police action. Using private companies to teach school children IT skills started as a quick solution to fulfill  an urgent need. However, it probably became a permanent feature as a way of keeping costs of the education departments low. I am sure(or hope) such considerations are not involved!

An excellent example of the effectiveness of private sector in a public role is the experience of the US Prisons as wonderfully explained by John Oliver!

Trying to save money by offloading public services and infrastructure to private sector is probably a pretty bad idea.

Value for Society versus Economic Value

As I read about the smallest banking trojan in circulation, I was pleased that I will soon be converting one of our neighbours to Linux. I managed to fix her Windows problem. I also installed the open source Clam anti-virus after removing a commercial product which kept scaring and nagging her to pay for renewal.

However, she said that she wanted me to install Linux on her free partition as I had mentioned that I have never needed to use an anti-virus software!

The entire anti-virus industry would not have appeared had it not been for Windows. Obviously a loss to the economy, but would it have been a loss to the society?

Since I do not have to make effort to make money, I can spend my time learning. Thanks to open source, I can, without having to spend anything over and above my internet connection, learn OpenStack, Hadoop, Zotonic(an Erlang based Web framework), and whatever my mind decides is exciting or useful to know this week or month! My experimentation does not add any value to the economy. I like to think that the open source universe does add value to the society as it makes it possible for anyone to learn.

There is little doubt that windows has created a lot of economic wealth. I am not so sure it would be even a fraction of the social wealth created by Linux and open source software. That is, if we could find a way to measure social wealth! E.g. see or read "The Clothesline Paradox" though I would like to think that we can find a way to measure wealth without resorting to money.

Using IT for Real Estate Registration and making the use of Black money risky

The following comment in an Indian Express column by Pratik Kanjilal reminded me of my own feelings that we talk of money in Swiss banks and ignore the elephant in the room which affects almost anyone needing to buy or sell property:

But gentle reader, do put yourself in the shoes of the black money-wallah, who has allegedly salted away $1.5 trillion. Would you stash it in a European bank where a return of 3 per cent looks fantastic, or in an Indian real estate project where 25 per cent is boring? When shall we see a programme on black money which asks why it must be recovered dramatically from foreign shores, when most of it is obviously here in India?

And I wonder what if the property registration process was modified as follows:

1. Register a sale on a web site.
2. An auction is initiated for, say, 10 days.
3. Anyone can bid over the registration price.
4. At the end of the auction, if a successful bid is present:
1. The seller received the extra amount
2. The buyer is refunded his purchase price
3. The government gets extra stamp/registration duty.
5. Property is registered in the name of the buyer of the successful bidder as the case may be.

 Wouldn't everyone benefit :)

Robots are coming. Are we safe?

Computers and robots are taking over many of the jobs. This is very nicely and positively presented by Andrew McAfee: Are droids taking our jobs?

I was reminded today of IBM's Watson becoming a chef.

In the 60's, the Avengers had a lovely episode in which the computer churns out romance novels with just a few parameters. It wouldn't be a surprise today if it is revealed that the computer software is already assisting a prolific author.

While digital version of Audrey Hepburn may not match the original, I may prefer the digital Audrey to many real life alternates :)

But one thing is still assured. Most organizations want us and not robots to consume their content. Watson may create the recipe but we will need to eat the outcome. Computer programs may create books or videos but we will be needed to read and view them.

We seem to be safe. Robots and computer software will need us to give relevance and meaning to their creations.

Wealth and Open Source

Two people go to a tech show. One gets the door prize - a copy of MS Office Pro. The other gets a consolation prize of LibreOffice.

Is the first person richer and better off? I suppose as per our current measurements the answer would be that he is richer. But what if we take the taxes into account, is he better off?

•  Oprah car winners hit with hefty tax 

Perhaps, we need to measure wealth differently when it comes to open source :) 

Why Linux - Microsoft Marketing

The first reasonable computer I bought was with Windows 95. I had insisted on buying Microsoft Works. The dealer had no idea about it. He was obviously ready to install MS Office but it was far too expensive for me.

I got Works and it was a shock! The damn thing couldn't do the only thing I needed - read MS Office documents! I did not care about it being authentic layout. I just wanted to read the stuff sent by others on floppies and couldn't.

That was a product I paid for and never used! I still feel cheated.

I could do my own work with nroff and me macros. There was little point in anything fancier with a dot matrix printer.

By the time, I was ready to use a word processor and had an inkjet printer, a usable version of Abiword or StarOffice was available.

I am sure the decision to have different formats must have been courtesy marketing because I can't imagine technical staff capable of such devious thoughts or incompetence. I must concede that there is a possibility that there may have been two teams which did not talk to each other.

Anyway, as a consequence, using Abiword, StarOffice, OpenOffice and, now, LibreOffice were never a issue. Thanks Microsoft.