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Meshing Developmental Evolution and Technology
Jerry23 writes "IT Conversations has free audio of a very provocative talk by futurist and developmental systems theorist, John Smart. He weaves a big-picture narrative featuring developmental evolution, technological acceleration, computational autonomy, the emergence and behavior of human social systems, why prediction has such a poor history, the unique growth properties of Information and Communication Technology and the limitations of biotech, finally culminating in his case for the inevitability of digital personality capture and a ubiquitous Linguistic User Interface. Among many other things, he asks 'What will Windows (and the Google Browser) of 2015 look like?'"
What will Windows of 2015 look like?'
If history is any indication, it'll be a poorly implemented version of something mac users have been using since 2012. (I kid...only a little).
One massive virus, named meteor, will drive the dinosaur that is Microsoft Windows to extinction. It will seemlessly replace Windows XP with a copy of one of the many mature Linux distributions targeted at the desktop (Ubuntu, Fedora, etc.). Microsoft's share of the desktop market will plummet to .2% in a matter of hours. Once the replacement is complete a message will be displayed to the user indicating that their PC has been liberated, and they will be informed of the Linux distribution and the desktop environment they are now using (Unbuntu Linux w/ Gnome for example). After 20 seconds they will be redirected to /. where they will immediately be subjected to someone posting a comment about how Gentoo is better than Ubuntu, or vice versa, and KDE is hands down better than Gnome. Enraged by the insult they will flame back calling the original poster and ass hat imbicile and although they have no idea what KDE is or how it compares with Gnome they're certain it sucks and if they ever do use it will only learn that they're original belief was true. And thus begins the successful entrenchment of Linux on the desktop. Only through the purity of a flamewar will the desktop be purged. 2007 cannot come soon enough. So sayeth the prophecies.