Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Predictions For 2016? (slashdot.org)
An anonymous reader writes: Ok folks, it's been ten years since we've done this. What are your tech/science/nerd/misc predictions for 2016? Is VR going to be the bombshell it's being hyped as? Are wearables going to come into their own? Which tech companies are going to implode, and which are going to blossom? What discoveries are we going to make this year? Will people ever shut up about Donald Trump? Which new movies, books, games, and TV shows are going to be awesome? Which are going to suck? How will our privacy and security erode in 2016? And anything else you'd care to forecast.
I'm going to steal one from 2006 since it is almost a reality:
by BCW2 (168187) on Monday December 26, 2005 @11:59PM (#14342970) Journal
[How about] Flash drives get priced competitivly with hard drives of the same size?
I think that 2016 will be a disastrous year for Firefox. Thanks to more dumb changes by Mozilla, most of which will be unwanted by Firefox's few remaining users, many of these users will move to Chrome, Edge, Safari, or one of the other browsers out there. Firefox's share of the market, which is only in the high single-digits at this point, will drop below 5%.
Furthermore, Mozilla supporters will continue to refuse to acknowledge why this massive drop in market share will have happened. Instead of just admitting that Mozilla fucked up and fucked over its users, these Mozilla supporters will use excuses like "Google advertised Chrome a lot" and "it's because of mobile browsers". They still won't realize, or at least admit, what the real problem has been: Mozilla has repeatedly fucked over Firefox's users with one stupid, unwanted and awful change after another!
Additionally, Servo and Rust won't see much progress in 2016. Rust will continue to spin its wheels as it tries to become as useful as C++14 has been for a few years. Servo might get to the point of providing an IE 7 level of experience, rather than the IE 3 style experience it currently provides. Both will continue to be a waste of resources that could have instead been put toward improving Firefox's performance or fixing many of its longstanding bugs.
Systemd has spoken, but it's impossible to decode its incoherent message. Perhaps it's saying that it is a perpetual victim of injustice. Then again, it might be babbling that this is the best of all possible worlds and that it is the best of all possible organizations. Let's get down to business: It ought to unstop its ears and uncover its eyes. Only then will systemd hear that to which it has been too long heedless. Only then will it see that when I hear it say that it has an absolute right to be intolerant in the name of tolerance, I have to wonder about it. Is it thoroughly worthless? Is it simply being asinine? Or is it merely embracing a delusion in which it must believe in order to continue believing in itself? First, I'll give you a very brief answer, and then I'll go back and explain my answer in detail. As for the brief answer, while systemd has been beating the drums of opportunism, I've been trying to take the mechanisms, language, ideology, and phraseology for determining what is right and what is wrong out of the hands of systemd and its adherents and put them back in the hands of ordinary people. In doing so, I've learned that in its quest to prevent us from getting in touch with our feelings it has left no destructive scheme unutilized.
Every time systemd spouts some nonsense about how it's inflexibly honest, thoroughly patriotic, and eminently solicitous to promote, in all proper ways, the public good, the effect is that its apple-polishers become even more loyal to it. Sociologists refer to the phenomenon of increased devotion to a maledicent theory at the very hour of its destruction by external evidence as “cognitive dissonance”. I, for one, call it proof that systemd wants us to feel sorry for the subhuman, mindless skivers who promote the lie of stoicism. I warrant we should instead feel sorry for their victims, all of whom know full well that systemd is trapped in a vicious cycle. The more opposition to its bromides it faces, the more prudish it becomes. The more prudish it becomes, the more opposition to its bromides it faces. I wish I didn't have to be the one to break the news that I pray for the day when those who support those for whom hatred has become a way of life will see what they're doing to the world and to all of its citizens. Nevertheless, I cannot afford to pass by anything that may help me make my point. So let me just state that if we are to provide actionable steps people can take to break the spell of great expectations that now binds poxy bigamists to systemd, then we must be guided by a healthy and progressive ideology, not by the high-handed and pesky ideologies that systemd promotes.
Epistemic warlordism weakens political determination and gives comfort to anarchism. To overcome this the question of the role played by systemd's faction must be broached directly. Let me suggest we do by examining the way that whenever I hear systemd's dupes witter on about how hanging out with nauseating converts to misoneism is a wonderful, culturally enriching experience, I interpret this poppycock as an implicit request for chemical treatment of their rampant (and generally unacknowledged) Asperger syndrome. The biggest supporters of systemd's unscrupulous, disloyal rantings are snotty charlatans and craven filthy-types. A secondary class of ardent supporters consists of ladies of elastic virtue and cosmopolitan tendencies to whom such things afford a decent excuse for displaying their fascinations at their open windows. Let's just ignore systemd and see what it does.
In any case, there is something in the way of “natural law” that can be stated awkwardly as follows: “Anyone who was sober for more than an hour or two during the last five years knows that systemd's presumptuous calumnies have been establishing beachheads on paper and celluloid and silicon and everywhere else that presumptuous calumnies can appear.” Please do not quote me on that. Instead, work it into a better natural law and enunciate it in clearer and more concise te
http://predictionbook.com/ is a website that allows one to record predictions along with a probability estimate for them. Others can then comment and give their own estimates. When a prediction comes due one can then judge it. It also has a nice graph that allows one to then see how accurate one has been (most humans are overconfident). It isn't perfect since for example it doesn't have categories for predictions; it would be nice for example to be able to say look at just one's predictions related to politics, or to the space program or something similar. But overall, I strongly recommend it.
10% of users accessed Google with IPv6 yesterday: http://www.google.com/intl/en/...
If you expand out the graph you can see that during the work week there are about 8% of users on IPv6, but at the weekends it increases. There is a two-speed internet, with residential and mobile leading the way, and corporate networks lagging behind.
Prediction: 14% at weekends next year.
The brushfires have been smouldering, but in 2016 both the owners and subjects will organize to oppose each other with fervor. Individuals and companies will begin making news for fleeing repressive regimes to continue their work and these will be regimes that used to claim a penchant for liberty. Other subjects of these regimes will begin to notice and start a three-year cycle that will lead to one extreme or the other.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
are greatly exaggerated. And Windows 10 will not do nearly as well as it should based on the price (free). Windows 7 will remain above 40% market share of desktop PCs throughout the year.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
I predict that there will be yet another programming language claiming to replace C and we will still be mostly using C in 2026.
I Don't Work Here
That's not the right question. The question should be, "Will Donald Trump ever shut up?" And the answer is no. He has no chance of being elected, and he knows that. Who has Donald Trump pissed off? Women? Latinos? I feel discriminated against . . . he hasn't pissed off middle aged white guys . . . yet.
He is going to find his place sniping at Hilary, when she gets elected: the social gadfly of the opposition. It's a great role to play. A lot of folks really detest Hillary, but she's going to be elected anyway, just because of demographics that favor the Democrats. That will leave a lot of folks looking for a steam valve, to let off some vitriol. The trouble that Hillary will have, is a Republican Congress and Senate. She will have to resort to the "Obama Prerogative" of using Executive Orders, read, "imperial decrees", to circumvent the due process of the creation of laws in the US. Opening the border to Cuba? A good idea, but the way Obama did that was dubious, at best. Congress should have approved.
Now Obama wants to do another Executive Decree, that affects the Bill of Rights, on gun laws. In international soccer matches, that would get the red card from the referee. What will happen if Hillary decides to issue a decree about the Freedom of Speech? Democrats will close ranks behind her; Trump will honk off.
Although that sounds a bit pessimistic, I'm thinking that is what 2016 has to offer.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
People will keep flocking to one of the fastest growing city in the USA, even though it will continue to have increasingly devastating consequences from regular flooding for the population and industry, particularly farming.
Wall street, on behalf of rich people, will short-sell (via complex derivatives that mask their intent) the Florida property and life insurers, mortgagees, corporations, and property owners.
Florida will continue to deny the existence of climate change at the popular and official levels.
Linux will push out more fixes and hardware support - but nothing compelling that will be worth an upgrade (unless you like dickin' about with your computers, or need the fixed stuff)
Windows will continue to be Windows - nothing new there
There will be more cyber attacks, exploited security holes, scams and cockups
The Greek economy might finally crash - or it might not.
Apple will probably release some more stuff. The fans will all tell you they are the best versions ever and worth every penny
China will make more, faster, better, cheaper stuff then ever before
Oh yes - and there will be the olympics. But nothing else of any consequence.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Completely unable to post from Chrome because slashdot keeps logging me out when I hit "Submit" and won't let me post as AC.
I just love it when upgrades break things.
OTOH, if this post from FF fails, it's certainly slashdot's fault
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
I predict that Slashdot does the right thing in 2016 and ditches its outdated, broken modding system.
It's a system that made sense in 2002, when even the most boring Slashdot stories routinely got 400+ comments.
But these days, it's typical to see stories that get less than 100 comments. Even just hitting 50 comments is a real accomplishment.
The only stories that see more than that today are highly-politicized or controversial topics, where the editors are clearly stirring up pointless discussion (see all of the women-in-tech submissions as examples of this).
In order to keep this site viable, more good discussion is needed.
The seeds necessary for good discussion are there. The problem is that the best comments often get modded down before this discussion can start.
Facing an ever-dwindling number of users, 2016 will be the year that Dice will need to take some real action.
The first thing to do is to get rid of the moderation system completely. It's old, it's broken, and it doesn't help promote good discussion. It just stifles it nowadays.
The second thing to do is to display all comments by default. It made sense to hide some comments when there were typically 500+ in each thread of discussion. But now it's typical to only see one or two comments showing by default, with the other 30 comments, most of them very good, not being shown by default!
The third thing to do is to get rid of the posting limits. Again, these made sense a decade or more ago, when this site actually had a lot of users and got a lot of comments. But now it's just dumb to limit anonymous users to just 10 comments per day, along with the stupid delays imposed between comments. The last thing Slashdot should be doing is impeding the ability of the small number of remaining users to comment!
By turning Slashdot into a site where discussion can happen freely and without the friction imposed by the current bad moderating and the unnecessary posting limits, it could very well see a revival in 2016.
No longer would Slashdot be seen as the early-2000s relic that it is currently seen as. Instead, it'd become known as a site for vibrant discussion, without the pathetic don't-offend-anyone wimpiness of places like Reddit and Hacker News.
Dice, make 2016 the year that these three important things happen:
1. The moderation system is completely thrown away.
2. The current posting limits are completely disabled.
3. Slashdot is turned into a site where discussion is prompted and encouraged, rather than stifled like it currently is.
Dice, make 2016 the Year of Slashdot!
I predict Christmas will come on December 25. I also predict the sun will rise tomorrow morning.
I think you're making up a conspiracy where there really doesn't need to be one.
He wouldn't have to pay anyone in the "social justice" crowd to act the way that they do. Those in the "social justice" crowed are just naturally deranged, and voluntarily engage in the behavior that they do without requiring any sort of financial compensation or incentive.
"Social justice" supporters are naturally hypocrites. They're naturally intolerant. They're naturally hateful. They're naturally bullies. That's why they're drawn to the "social justice" movement in the first place: it embodies everything that they naturally want to do. But best of all, it deludes them into thinking they're doing something "good", rather than having to admit their true awful nature.
Their anti-white, anti-heterosexual, anti-male agenda promotes the very things that they claim to stand against: racism, discrimination based on sexual orientation, and discrimination based on gender.
It does not help that they also pardon and encourage illegal activities, such as foreigners crossing the border illegally, "disadvantaged youth" attacking police officers, and the riots that these "disadvantaged youth" engage in in order to steal the latest Nike shoes.
Maybe Trump is benefiting from the divisive environment that the "social justice" crowd has naturally created. But I really doubt he has to waste his money on these people. Their natural actions will benefit him more than anything he could ever hope to organize.
It's much like what we've seen in the open source community with systemd. The people who support systemd have, perhaps unintentionally, done more to harm the viability of Linux, especially when used on servers, than Microsoft, or SCO, or Apple, or any other organization could ever have hoped to do. A community that is naturally rotting from the inside out can be exploited much more effectively than one that's being actively manipulated.
Worry about today. After today, you can worry about tomorrow.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
While Bitcoin had a great year in most metrics of 2015( https://blog.coinbase.com/2015... ), expect even more rapid growth in 2016 when years of development and investment compound with another disinflationary bubble driving media and user interest. Several more bitcoin "killer-apps" (I.E.. https://openbazaar.org/ ) will come online while banks continue to poor money into block chain development to play catch-up. Crypto-currency developers will be the biggest winners as more fintech VC money pours into innovative startups and "blockchain" consultants.
Banking alts will begin to roll out in late 2016 with some eventually becoming massive failures and some private blockchains winning out providing slight benefits from removing some interbank inefficiencies. Both bank alts/tokens and bitcoin will coexist and serve different purposes as the key benefits to bitcoin will never be replicated by the banks: immutability, privacy and security with no KYC, sovereignty, open source and decentralized allowing limitless innovation and ability to onramp billions of unbanked and underbanked.
He has no chance of being elected, and he knows that.
Reality disagrees... but please, keep saying stuff about Trump. It only helps.
I am aware that polls this early are largely meaningless, but let's look at some numbers outside of context.
He's got about 40% of the Republican vote at the moment. Let's assume that figure holds across the party so that, for example, if Cruz bows out 40% of those supporters move to Trump. That gives him 40% + (40% x 60%) = 64% of the Republican vote, using back-of-the-envelope estimates.
No one bothered to check with Democratic voters until recently, but Trump has stronger support from Democrats than he does from Republicans!
Astonishing!
If *those* numbers are accurate, he could get elected right now.
And all of this is ignoring any context. For example:
a) The investigation into Hillary could conclude, bringing charges against her
b) Hillary could have a medical issue (campaigning is stressful, she's had medical problems, Trump hasn't)
c) US could have another domestic terrorist attack
d) Trump has not made campaign ads - he's spent about a million, compared to Jeb's 32 million.
And finally, Trump will get elected simply because no one opposes his position in any rational way - it's all namecalling and derision.
Don't believe me? Find a rational argument as to why a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country isn't a common-sense response to an immediate threat.
You can't do it. The only response, so far as I can find, is to cast aspersions on the person asking that question. Terms like bigot, predjudiced, racist, and extremist are used. Also outright lies such as "it's unconstitutional" (no, it's not), "it's impossible to tell who's a Muslim" (no, it's not), "that's not what America is about" (we've done it before), and so on.
Then tell me why enforcing immigration law is a bad move (instead of amnesty, which is what the administration was quietly floating), why simplifying the tax code is a bad move, why having strong treaty negotiation is a bad move, and why replacing Obamacare with something better would be a bad move.
As near as I can tell, early November was the tipping point where you could have stopped Donald Trump. Someone could have stepped up and addressed his policies, and in that act presented as a strong leader. By now it's probably too late.
Oh, and let's not forget that the lead Democratic candidate has accomplished nothing in her career, and the democratic runner-up is a Socialist. A SOCIALIST!
Please.
Donald may not win the election, but saying he has no chance is entirely without merit.
If you have never experienced the systemD reintegration you can see it synergizes the kernel calls. The benefits of this simple schema can be difficult to believe. The future will be a transformative refining of insight. Eons from now, we adventurers will live like never before as we are reborn by the grid. We must change ourselves and empower others.
Your system resources may be ruled by greedy algorithms without realizing it. Do not let it sabotage the self-healing disk fragmentation. You must take a stand against selfishness. We can no longer afford to live with plural arbitration. The new paridigm of digital auto-transcendence is now happening worldwide. It is in refining that we are re-energized. Imagine a refining of what could be.
The galaxy is approaching a tipping point. We are being called to explore the cosmos itself as an interface between complexity and being. Soon there will be a redefining of knowledge the likes of which the planet has never seen.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
And then the healing can begin. Nah, just kidding, that would be completely crazy. Instead I predict more slashvertisement, more videos, and even less quality in editing the stories. Oh and more Social Justice Warrior nonsense and Nerdbashing.
... that could be construed a bigoted, sexist or unpatriotic. It will go viral, and a flame war will rage across social media in which the public shamers and defenders will vie to twist the narrative of what was in fact a moment of misspeaking into proof that their respective world views are, not only right, but the only conscionable viewpoint to have.
And, even knowing in advance fully how futile and unsatisfying it will be, you won't be able to resist weighing in with what seems to you to be a reasonable and nuanced take on the matter. This will not be perceived by anyone as reasonable and nuanced. Then, like a gambler vainly trying to win back his stake, your participation in the controversy will grow in proportion to your dissatisfaction with it.
An when it is all over a few weeks later it will all happen again.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I predict Meg Whitman and Marissa Mayer will both proclaim their "success" in destroying H.P. and Yahoo and will depart to "spend more time with their families".
Both ships are about to sink and they can save face by departing in the near future.
...are amongst a lot of those things we'll see in 2016, hardly a new theme from 2015, but there's light at the end of the tunnel and here's my predictions for 2016:
....I think we're gonna see a huge increase in companies hiring lawyers just to survive out there.
As you may be aware of - it's becoming increasingly hard to get a steady job to hold on to and plan a future, the big companies want young and fresh minds to form and take advantage of while they're willing and ready and the older generation will have to start their own businesses in order to keep their capital flow coming. The most important thing will be - change. People must be willing to do other things than what they're currently used to, because things will indeed change, slowly over the year 2016 - 17 - 18 - 19 etc... you catch the drift, we will be moving towards the moneyless society.
During that transaction of time - we will experience increased civil unrest, increased dismay with our government, leaders, politicians, employers etc. since our way of life as we know it is threatened with lay-offs, unpaid overtime, smaller salary, increased immigration and heavy outsourcing. This is not easy to handle for anyone of us, but it's a thing we've gotta get through somehow, and the only way to do this - is to stay cold and level headed and make sure we're a PART of the future instead of just complaining about it. You don't want to miss the bandwagon when you in reality can take advantages of the change instead of being the one screwed over.
We will notice an increase in social welfare recipients, joblessness, and a transition towards online entertainment instead of manual manufacturing, albeit that part will be outsourced so you may want to re educate yourself into something dealing with design, media, film, online communication, fitness and personal health - as these areas will most likely see an incredible increase.
Good future job perspectives will be in: Automation, Web Shops, Online shopping, Online Entertainment, Programming (Improving algorithms for saving space/data/bandwidth etc. will be in HIGH demand) Game developers, Graphics artists will be sought after so don't sell yourselves short by working for free (these has been outsourced with BAD results earlier, so this area will be especially lucrative). Due to heavy world immigration people working within Medicine (Doctors, surgeons, dentists etc.) will be in HIGH demand anywhere and you'll pretty much be able to set your own salary. As the population becomes more passive, on welfare/being more online during this transition to the moneyless society - we will also notice an increased need for personal health so if you're into fitness - start your own GYMs now, you'll bloom before you know what to do with your success.
Due to increased online production, film, media, entertainment etc. an increased need for the worlds most hated people (lawyers) will be a fact soon, because you'll need to protect that intellectual property (you and I may disagree here, I'm more for Open Source myself) but what you and I think isn't always what will happen, so
Due to increased immigration, it might be wise to invest heavily in property - the gov. will usually pay overprice for rent/property-lease/welfare/daycare/schooling accommodations for immigrants (this is happening BIG TIME in Sweden right now, and we're literally experiencing newcomers to the property market literally raking it in just because of this). Unfortunately they're also amateurs so the market will suffer greatly from this as well, so beware! You may even want to consider a career as an interpretor as these will be in HIGH DEMAND shortly.
Retro trend: We're experiencing the boomers are getting middle aged, so they want to relive their childhood - expect a HIGH demand for old used tech, especially video games from the late 70s to the early 80s, a huge comeback for Pinball machines & old arcades.
New Tech: Expect flat screen TV's to set a record low price-tag i
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.