Microsoft's position on file systems: be evil (business as usual)

Okay, all you non-geeks out there can skip this post.

What's with file systems, eh? If you're running a newer flavor of Windows, you're probably using NTFS as your file system. As far as I'm concerned, it's a great file system. If you're running Linux, on the other hand, you're probably using ext3 as your file system. It is also a great system. The problems arise when you are trying to run both operating systems on the same computer and want to transfer data between OSes. The problem is that NTFS is a proprietary file system, so you can't use it in Linux without proprietary (i.e. costing money) drivers (well okay, you can read, but you can't write, and that's pretty important). On the other hand, ext3 is open source, so there's no good reason why it isn't supported by Windows--except that the people at Microsoft are assholes. Now, you can get software for Windows that reads ext3 drives, but there again, you can read but you can't write. The only other alternative is to use FAT32, which is a really crappy file system; my main gripe with it is the 4 GB filesize limit, but it has its other problems too.

Yes, for those astute readers, I do realize that as long as in both OSes I can read from both file systems and write to one, I should be good. But that's a really ugly solution. I like to be organized; I like to have all my MP3s in the same directory, or at least on the same drive for God's sake! So what's a geek to do? Hate Microsoft, that's what.

It annoys me so much that Windows is in many ways so crappy, but still the best thing most of the time. I'd love to be able to use OSX. But the problem with OSX is that it only runs on proprietary (and way too expensive) hardware, which seriously blows. Of course, if Apple ever opened up OSX to standard hardware, I think we'd pretty quickly realize that the people at Microsoft aren't as dumb as we think, and that producing an OS that is stable on a virtually infinite number of hardware configurations is no easy task. Crap. I guess I'm stuck like this for a while. But Microsoft could at least make things so much better just by embracing open standards for things and not being evil.

Music: Gorillaz - Demon Days

Smarties

As I sit here eating a small bag of M&M's that I paid $1.25 for, I ponder how crappy McGill's food service is. But more importantly, I ponder how amazing Smarties are compared to M&M's. Here are a few reasons:

• Smarties taste better in my opinion.
• Smarties don't have a rapper named after them, although it's probably only a matter of time before we see an Emcee Smartee hit the Billboard charts.
• Smarties hate America. Why else would they not be sold there?
  
• Smarties had blue first. 'Nuff said.
• In England, orange Smarties taste like orange. M&M's all taste the same, everywhere.
• Smarties come in boxes or tubes, not in bags. I guess this one isn't great for the environment, but as far as coolness it wins hands down.
• Eating the red Smarties last brings good luck. I know this because one time I didn't eat the red ones last and had a crappy day. Can M&M's make such a scientifically validated claim?

Oh, and one little administrative comment: any day now, Queen's is apparently going to revoke my old account, and unfortunately that's where I've been hosting my images. As a result, all posts on this site with images on them will cease to work properly. And no, I don't care enough to fix it. Enjoy great posts like this one now, while you still have time!