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The Tech Industry Is Getting Ridiculous

An anonymous reader writes "Columnist Jon Evans points out that the tech industry has been slowly getting stranger over the past several years. When you look at the headlines individually, they all seem to make sense, but putting them together and trying to imagine them popping up a decade ago really illustrates how odd it has become. Quoting: 'In Japan, some half-billion dollars' worth of cryptocurrency vanished from a site founded to trade Magic: The Gathering cards. In New Zealand, the world's greatest Call of Duty player has launched a political party to revenge himself on those who had him arrested and seized his sports cars. In Britain, the secret service is busy collecting and watching homegrown porn. Here in Silicon Valley, mighty Apple just revealed that a flagrant, basic programming error gutted the security of all its devices for years. Google, "more wood behind fewer arrows" Google, now has its own navy, to go with its air force and robot army.'"

11 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Getting? by houstonbofh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It has been ridiculous for a long time. It is just now that more people are noticing that it is getting embarrassing... :)

  2. reads like clickbait to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    generalization based upon outliers

  3. This is new, how? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Places that handle large amounts of money get taken by thieves and embezzlers, people of all stripes go into politics because they're vengeful, overgrown security services monitor lots of petty and unimportant things, minor errors get overlooked for years on end, and massively wealthy people maintain semi-militarized forces.

    Congratulations, you've just described literally any point of time in human history.

  4. Oracle has it's own navy and air force too... by jd2112 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Google, now has its own navy, to go with its air force and robot army.'"

    How else do you expect them to defend themselves from Oracle?

    --
    Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
  5. more awareness not more ridiculousness by globaljustin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    TFA's premise is off...the whole 20th Century was a giant clusterfuck of human rights & technology.

    "getting" ridiculous...that notion itself is ridiculous

    Here's what I find really ridiculous...this happened in 1968 & basically all computing now is just an upscale version of that tech...faster, more colors, bigger...

    The only difference is that so many people have been screwed over by so many different expressions of our modern greed that **they can't hide anymore**

    --
    Thank you Dave Raggett
  6. Context is odd that way. by RyanFenton · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Boy, when you remove context from misleading headline excerpts, things sure do get wacky!

    You know those jokes that sometimes aren't funny from old movies, that your relatives laugh real hard about? A large number of those came from the same logic - taking a topical story, removing the context, and applying hyperbole to the idea. They know the idea is misleading, and are 'in' on a joke that they just can't explain to you and still be funny.

    Just bundling some of those together with a 'technology' theme isn't making a point - its bungling a joke. Not as bad as that whole 'beta' attempt, but still, a bad attempt at a joke.

    Ryan Fenton

  7. Sensationalist claptrap by swillden · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Any significant industry is going to be ridiculous if you first cherry-pick your examples, selecting for lunacy/idiocy, and then state them in the most exaggerated, sensationalist way you can think of.

    --
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  8. When I was young by kruach+aum · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I wanted to live in the future, the future I read about, the future I saw on tv, in movies. Now that that future is here, I find myself increasingly wanting to go back to a past that's no longer there, scheduling 'no internet' days and turning off my cell phone so that I can go back to a more peaceful time, a more thoughtful time, a time with more focus, if only for a few hours.

  9. Re:You have to admit by davester666 · · Score: 4, Informative

    "mighty Apple just revealed that a flagrant, basic programming error gutted the security of all its devices for years"

    I believe this is actually "for months", as that specific bug [the gotofail bug] only applies to Mavericks [10.9.x], which was released in October 2013, and iOS shares this code with MacOSX, so it wouldn't have had the bug for much longer [likely introduced with iOS 6.1.5/Nov 2013 and some version of iOS 7 [Sept 2013].

    --
    Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
  10. Re:Literacy by gmhowell · · Score: 4, Insightful

    While that's a nice ideal, you are speaking of a group of people who lose their minds over trivial shit like what brand of phone someone bought. Or that someone else may find a tablet useful/desirable. These are not people with the slightest bit of social grace.

    --
    Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
  11. The perfect internet story happened last month by edremy · · Score: 5, Funny
    Online donations of a 2-month-old cryptocurrency named for an internet meme featuring a dog that talks in broken English raised $30,000 to send the Jamaican bobsled team to the Olympics.

    Seriously, I'm not sure it gets any weirder than that.

    --
    "Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"