Tuesday, May 12, 2009

user mind and cpu's

I hate to bust your bubble, but no one really multi-tasks, really. Some have the ability to swiftly shift attention while managing several trains of thought, I guess you could say this is multi-tasking. But I guarantee that because focus is required to deal with each thought train to avoid confusion, no one truly multi-tasks.

In the secret life of computers we see they handle one data stream at a time, though computers now do it so rapidly, it would seem to do multiple things at once. And some computer circuits can sort of do preemptive data processing to speed things up. OK, you got 4 cores and can process 4 streams at once, in theory. Does your software written for single core computers really divvy up the workload and share it, or use cores as needed? It is hard to escape how we think, sense, reason, even putting this in circuits to aid us, because the logic is our logic. If we could capture a UFO with a live alien and interrogate them to discover their alien logic, perhaps a different kind of circuit could compute differently. Vote for your favorite alien mentality, Vulcan, Klingon, Borg........hey we invented those guys. Microsoft, Linux, Mac..... we invented those guys too.

So, in this light, what kind of user are you? The desktop GUI's of today allow you to open many tasks at the same time. Widgets, gadgets and multiple windows and workspaces all so that you can have instant access to the things and data you use. While MS Windows is the one workspace wonder, Linux has always had multiple windows and multiple workspaces and multiple desktops. But even if you can have all programs running at once, you can only give attention to one thing at a time. This is the focus that gets things done.

As much as I like XFCE as my desktop of choice, it doesn't allow me to dress up each workspace differently. Gnome has this ability with the right application. You can assign a different wallpaper to each workspace so that you know it's a different space. I think you can also assign applications to open in an assigned workspace, I'll have to check this out to be sure. So, the idea is that when you boot-up, your work enviorment is ready for use. I have to admit, I am a one program at a time person, open it, use it, then close it, but I don't have to be. You have to remember that all these open applications are using resources, though minimally until you focus on that workspace and window. If you want all this functionality you will need system RAM, else it could be slow.

This is all reflextive of the saying we use about 10% of our brains. I have to ask, is this the awareness precentage? Lots of brain activity happens without our awareness, like organ function and other body functions and regulation. You can't use your entire brain for awareness and reason thinking, your focus would kill you if it could override your automatic body functions. Besides the brain has sections to do different tasks. We could say hard wired. And where is your personality stored, anyway?

I think it is time to come down from Mt. Guru in the center of Linuxville. Maybe play a game or two or do some art dabbling. Think I getting a head code. 6 years in Linuxville, I've never had a virus. Must be alergies, have to go out to fix an MS PC.

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