The Innovators' Ball

Babylon Rocker writes "Latest Cringely: The Innovators' Ball: Why Business Isn't as Fun as it Used to be. 'Sharp business is cheating and not getting caught.'"

Comments

Re:What?

[Usquebaugh]

RTFA, invent != innovate

Re:What?

[adrianbaugh]

I think you and Cringeley are making the same point. M$ has just repackaged and changed these ideas in a way they can profit from but which doesn't necessarily add much value. Cringeley is suggesting that had they created the first operating system it would have been an "invention", rather than an "innovation", which he regards as smaller and generally less worthwhile/reputable. Semantics, I know, but I think the two of you are coming from the same place on this one.

Re:Innovation vs. Invention

[aacool]

My mistake - in a rush, the microwaves fried my brain:)

Here's a good history of microwave ovens

Here's another article with info abt the electromagnetic spectrum

Fundamental flaw in collective decision making

[mc6809e]

I maybe stretching things, but I think part of the problem is with collective decision making itself. We tend to think that if everything is done democratically, we'll get the best results. So when a company is divided up amoung shareholders, as long as they get to vote, or have representatives to vote for them, we expect things to work out fine.

Unfortunately, it's been proven, under a few resonable assumptions, that there exists no fair voting system. This was proven by the economist Kenneth Arrow who won the Nobel prize for his work. A short discussion is here.

So what ever system of democratic decision-making you might create, it has fundamental weaknesses that are exploitable by the unscrupulous.

The only way to stay out of trouble is to find other ways of raising capital.

Re:What?

[qmrq]

Also not true, the Apple Lisa was the first true GUI.

The first GUI was developed in 1979 at Xerox's Palo Alto lab, unless I'm mistaken.

Steve Jobs traded something like one million US$ for a tour of the labs where he first encountered the "Alto", a prototype machine with a graphical interface. This is what led to the Apple Lisa, which was released in 1983 or 1984, if memory serves.

Re:What?

[IM6100]

Fair enough, the later redhats have good PnP, but earlier versions were a nightmare.

The first version of Linux I ever ran, and actually the first version of Linux released commercially on CD-ROM was Yggdrasil, which billed itself as 'Plug and Play Linux.'

I booted it up in late 1993 on my 486 computer, which had a Sound Blaster Pro sound card and a 1x CD-ROM drive that plugged into the Sound Blaster pro card.

It played a complex melody (an .au file) at the login prompt, when you booted it to the CD-ROM based system image.

That was plug and play. As 'plug and play' as anything from Microsoft at the time.

Re:What?

[Derling Whirvish]

Did you know Clippy has a voice? Do you think it is a pleasant voice or an annoying stupid celebraty grate-in-the ears voice?

Go here to find out.

Really, did you think it would be anybody else?

FYI Cringely

[ralphh]

Cringely had his name taken (legally) by Infoworld. Their "Robert X. Cringely (R) Infoworld" column is a mark of shame on their publications. I refuse to subscribe, visit their website or link their articles.

If I were Cringely, I'd be pretty pissed at the world too.

Re:Oh, for the love of...

[linzeal]

Oh please, the ghost in the machine argument is fucking ridiculous in this day and age. Human nature changes albeit slowly, but metaphysical justifications have no claim of exclusivity to explain moral behavior toward others if they can be used to explain anything! At least by studying cognitive psychology, and other observable human social dynamics in context of their evolutionary (selected-for) origins we can come to conclusions that are not equal to finding faith in the plentitude of ignorance beyond what science can know.

Watch this lecture by Steven Pinker on Human Nature (vs): The blank slate, noble savage and the ghost in the machine. It is like 1 and a half hours and is hosted by MIT.