September, 2012: On considering switching to OS X…

As this is a bit of a controversial topic, let me first note that all operating systems (including OS X) suck. The how and the why can be debated elsewhere, but in conclusion it’s a matter of finding one who’s bits that suck don’t annoy you too much such that you can gain the benefits of the bits that don’t.

Right now, I’m a big Debian fan. It rocks. I’ve been using it for over a decade on desktops, servers, laptops and every other bit of not-locked-down hardware I use for any serious period of time. I contribute bug reports and patches back to the project; I’ve sold t-shirts for them at FOSDEM; and I’ve seriously considered going through the complex process that is becoming one of the formal Debian Developers. Before that I’ve used Red Hat, Slackware, SuSE, and had a shot at installing Gentoo. I’ve spent a fair amount of time in Windows as well, but purely in “paid project” situations during recent years, and I’ve also previously used OS X before (on a Mac Mini as a fixed-purpose system), but not seriously for about 7-8 years.

However, I’m starting to get annoyed about one aspect of Debian, and that’s resulting in my revisiting my using it as a desktop OS, and as a result I’ve spotted a few other things I’d like to get fixed along the way. (more…)

September, 2012: Decomposing the Ulam spiral

The Ulam spiral is a well-known mystery to mathematicians: draw a 1 in a grid, 2 in the cell to the right, 3 above the 2, and so on in a spiral:

Colour the primes:

For reasons unknown, long diagonal chains of primes appear. In this very small Ulam spiral, we don’t really see them (19, 7, 23), but we will.

(more…)