90 lines
4.4 KiB
TeX
Executable File
90 lines
4.4 KiB
TeX
Executable File
\documentclass[11pt]{article}
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\title{Why I Stopped Using Microsoft Windows}
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\author{Aidan Sharpe}
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\usepackage{marginnote}
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\reversemarginpar
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\begin{document}
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\maketitle
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This is a personal story: a story of corruption, surveillance, deception, and greed. This is
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how one man monopolized operating systems.
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\\
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\\
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The word computer used to describe an occupation. People, often women, were tasked with
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crunching numbers by hand. It was a slow and tedious job, but a very important one. Yet,
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computing goes back much further than this.
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\\
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\\
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Our tale begins in ancient Babylon. Put yourself in the shoes of a grain merchant.
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The year is 1700 BC, and you are busy keeping track of trades and calculating how much
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customers owe. It is a challenging task at first look, but you have an abacus. Simply by
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sliding beads, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division can be done with relative
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ease.
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\\
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\\
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For hundreds of years, this was the extent of personal computing -- nothing but sliding beads.
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Progress was slow. The first analog computers were used for tracking astronomical events
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like predicting eclipses, and navigation by stars. The first general purpose computer was
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invented by Charles Babbage in 1833. It was the first device that resembled modern processors
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in function, and over the coming century, the computing industry would explode in complexity.
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\\
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\\
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\marginnote{Pause for intensity.} Bill Gates was born on October 28th, 1955. His childhood was
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filled with success (\textit{pause}) and computers. In 1973, Gates attended Harvard, but his
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passion for writing computer software took over his life. He dropped out after two years to
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move to Albuquerque, New Mexico at a company called MITS -- the company behind the first ever
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personal computer. He was inspired by MITS to make his own company. Short for microcomputer
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software, he called it Micro-Soft. Yes, it was originally hyphenated.
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\\
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\\
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Micro-Soft was an instant success. Their first product, a form of the once popular programming
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language, BASIC, was a huge hit for hobbyists around the country. In 1981, Microsoft released
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MS-DOS. A primitive operating system that functioned similarly to the command prompt found
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in modern Windows. The first version of Windows hit the shelves in 1985 and functioned as a
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graphical overlay for the strictly text-based DOS platform.
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At this point in time, Windows was fairly bare bones. It had a file explorer, a notepad, a
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calculator, and a clock. The mid 1990s saw the first wave of internet popularity,
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and early web browsers like Netscape Navigator and Opera saw much success during this period.
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\\
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Things started to change when the now defunct Internet Explorer was included as a default
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application. Since software had to be purchased at brick-and-mortar retail stores and installed on
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three-and-a-half inch floppy diskettes, default apps were given a major advantage. This
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change caught the attention of antitrust lawyers.
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\\
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\\
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\marginnote{Very noticeable pause} Recall the first thing I said, "This is a \textit{personal} speech."
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So far, this has been nothing but other peoples' stories. So, where do \textit{I} come into this?
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Well, (\textit{pause}) it is a little more than just me. Here is where \textit{we} come into it.
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I am willing to bet that at least 90\% of you are running Microsoft Windows. For those who are,
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the next minute or so is dedicated to \textit{aaaaall} you. While I'm talking I'd like all of
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the Windows users to, and please try to do it \textit{silently}, boot up you laptop.
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\\
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While logging in, some of you, and everyone using Windows 11, will be logging into a Microsoft
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account. In newer versions of Windows, the Microsoft account has nearly replaced the local
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user.
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\\
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Back to the antitrust suits. What the heck were they about? Well, and I'm going to spoil it,
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Microsoft won. They got away with being able to bundle software into their operating system.
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Now that all of you are logged into Windows, take a look at the \textit{Start} menu. Look at
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all of those programs that you didn't install. Candy Crush? Bubble Witch? TikTok?
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\marginnote{Sound absurdly confused} What are those \textit{do-ing} there???
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Bloat! Bloat, bloat, bloat. It's all bloat, folks. And it's \textit{NOT} at all necessary.
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Now, some of these programs are useful. Some. Some of them take up space. And some of them,
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usually the more well-hidden ones, are actually \textit{harmful}.
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This was a problem almost 30 years ago, and it's still a problem today.
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\end{document} |