Slashdot Mirror
People Often Deride Game Changing Technology as 'a Toy' (medium.com)
Steven Sinofsky, former President of the Windows Division at Microsoft, has cataloged how often game-changing technologies have been derided as toys. Some of the things he has included in the list include a PC, C programming, PC networking, GUI, color screen, AI, and internet video. He writes: As many have recognized, when inventions and innovations first appear they are often (always) labeled as "toys" or "incapable" of doing "real work" or providing "real entertainment." Of course, many new inventions don't work out the way inventors had hoped, though quite frequently it is just a matter of timing and the coming together of a variety of circumstances. It can be said that being labeled a toy is necessary, but not sufficient, to become the next big thing. This got me thinking about all the conferences, trip reports, and new products I have looked at over many years. Sure turns out that a huge number of things in my own career were labeled as toys -- not just by me, but by an industry at large. Check out the list on Medium.
And that's why most games are released on Windows!
They laughed at Columbus - but they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
"People Often Deride Game Changing Technology as 'a Toy'"
That is ridiculous. Things that change games are properly classified as "sports equipment".
This article is just a list of game-changing technologies coupled to unsourced assertions that these were derided as toys when they were first introduced.
I don't recall a widespread opinion that color monitors, sound cards, digital cameras, wireless networking or AI were "toys" when first introduced. If anything, I recall and endless stream of over-hyped articles about how they heralded the second coming of Christ.
foo mane padme hum
Some things which have been game changers have been dismissed as toys. Just because your shit was dismissed as being a toy doesn't make it a game changer either.
All that shit Microsoft said was a game changer but nobody gave a damn about? Not game changers.
The only thing which differentiates the two is reality of what has actually happened. But the history of people saying "this will revolutionize the world", or "in 5 years we'll all be doing X" -- well, the pundits seem to have a far worse track record of telling us what will happen than what won't.
How many of us have spent decades seeing the stuff the pundits and futurists said would change our lives, only to have them fizzle out into nothing?
If we stamped 100% of all ideas as "toy" or "garbage", I bet we'd be right 80% of the time. People suck at predicting the future.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Well, that's not really true. There are already industrial 3D printing machines.
Now as for "tabletop" 3D printing? It is a toy at the moment, but it wouldn't be hard to see how the idea could become something very important under the right circumstances.
When I first started programming, I dreamed of owning a Mac.
I couldn't afford one, so I got a PC and learned about programming DOS.
When Windows came around, I bristled when people would tell me "It's just a fad, a toy"
When first being exposed to linux, I told others "It's just a toy" and laughed that it had so much ground to make up to be anything like Windows.
When I switched to linux, I realized that it was Windows and the pre-OSX Mac that were toys.
I suppose I'll be saying the same thing again some day...
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
If something is not fun to use, then it isn't a toy.
If something isn't fun to use, then it is likely to never go anywhere, no matter how much people think it is important to their personal product/use.
But merely being fun does not mean it is also useful.
To be a game changer, it must be useful, and also fun. Then people will use it. If it isn't fun, someone will find a better way.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Which is very often the problem when people make these claims about being The Next Big Thing.
Often the technology IS just a toy, and is a proof of concept of something which might be useful in a bunch of years.
So, yeah, you have a seed of a kernel of a nugget of an idea which points to some Really Cool Things down the road. But your cobbled together demo which doesn't, at present, actually DO anything is a long way from changing the world, and you'll excuse us if we roll our eyes and think that you're getting a little ahead of yourself.
I mean, the flying car has been coming Real Soon Now since, what, the mid 60s? Nuclear fusion as cheap energy? Routine trips to space for all of us?
He, we want the cool new future. We're just seldom convinced when the guy in marketing tells us that he has it; because we pretty much know he's full of shit, and he will claim to have The Next Big Thing pretty much for everything he ever tries to tell us about.
By about the 10th time, you stop listening.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
New technology usually are toys. They are immature and not road-tested. Hobbyists fortunately don't mind taking the proverbial arrows in the back to find the kinks and build/find uses for them.
The first photographs required sitting perfectly still for 5 minutes; the first phonographs had the quality of rusted tin cans with a nose plug; the first cars broke down often and required lots of fiddling to keep going, their starter mechanisms often braking arms; the first electronic computers took more time replacing vacuum tubes than computing; the first satellites kept blowing up on the launch pad; the first PC's had crappy software, unreliable storage, and crashed often for no reason; the Newton was bulky and slow; the Lisa & Mac were too expensive for most home/biz users and lacked useful software until desktop publishing matured years after release; the first online services made molasses look fast; both Java and JavaScript were buggy and inconsistent upon release; and HTML 5 is still buggy and inconsistent. And node.JS? I still don't know what the fock that's all about, I hope to finally "get it" before I die, or maybe dying is preferable?
Table-ized A.I.
Really? Who's definition is that? Does your hammer become a toy if you repair something in your house with it? You should look up the definition for the word "toy". A hobby is not "playing" with something.
It's a Stratasys uPrint Plus. In the specifications page, it says "Layer thickness: .254 mm (.010 in.) or .330 mm (.013 in.)"
It depends. If it takes hours of setup every time you print one item, it's just an unreliable tool, but still not a toy. If it takes hours of setup to properly calibrate once in a while, it's just normal wear and tear. We're talking about fractions of millimetres here.
Of course the quality from higher-end 3D printers will be much better, but so will the cost. If we're talking precision alone, an FDM from Stratasys won't stand a chance against a Polyjet from the same company.
But comparing the output quality of a Stratasys FDM vs a well-calibrated RepRap? You'd be surprised which one you'd pick and the price difference between the two.
The geek has had about twenty years now to topple Windows as a desktop OS --- with damn little to show for it.
Thats because toppling windows cant be done with a technical solution. Doing so requires a sales and marketing solution, which requires things that computer geeks are not good at, nor desire to be good at.
Microsoft got windows where it is by being good at the business side of selling software. It had little to do with the quality of their product, and much to do with their ability to create vendor lock in, and then de facto standards. Remember: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted