The article was about text messaging while driving a car, as opposed to just calling the person. I'm glad you agree that texting is a no-brainer:-)
As for the distraction of talking on the phone, most people can't even drive properly when they have NO "distractions."
For them, a cellphone, or anything else, is going to diminish their already-lousy driving.
How about a ban on cell-phone use for anyone who has less than, say, 5 years driving experience, *any* demerit points, or was responsible for accident within the last decade? That would snare most of the less competent, less experienced, and more "accident-prone."
I read the article afterwords; it doesn't change anything wrt the stupidity involved. She admits not only to nearly causing accidents, but the picture clearly shows that she's not looking at the road.
This study doesn't bring anything new to the table - we've known for a LOOOONG time that what we perceive as "consciousness" is really more akin to a "ghost in the machine."
What is important, however, is that, despite all this, we can actually, with enough thought, make decisions based on logic, as opposed to "feelings" or "what we think is reasonable."
Most of what we do, we do on "autopilot", and our consciousness re-orders the stream of events so that we believe we "decided" to do what we did. Classic example - think of any time when you jammed on the brakes because of someone who rushed in front of the car... and think back, and you'll realize that you already had braked before you even were aware of the person, because even the half-second lag between perception and stepping on the brake pedal would have been too long.
And, as scientists have repeatedly told us, this is no better than talking on your phone with no headset.
... are you really going to claim that texting no more dangerous than talking on the phone?
Also, with the right earpiece, you no longer have to use the phone to dial, to answer, or to hang up. You no longer have to hold or even look at the phone at any point, so you can keep your hands on the wheel, and your eyes on the road.
Why not simply have a law where you must drive with "due care and attention".
Too vague... one person's "due care and attention" is anothers recklessness.
Besides, banning texting for the driver while on a highway is a no-brainer... because obviously people with no brains think they can do it "despite a few near-accidents."
I finally bought a bluetooth earpiece when the laws changed, even though my cell already has speaker-phone capability, so it already was "hands-free"; after a couple of weeks, I now wish I had bought it sooner. (Hint - buy a good-quality one with noise and echo cancellation - you don't want to sound like you're talking in a garbage can).
exting away while driving despite some near-accidents. 'Sometimes it just seems easier to text 'Be there in 5' instead of calling,' explains Taylor
With a bluetooth headset, I say the person's name, my cellphone dials the number, I say what I have to say, and never have to fumble around with the phone.
Any bets on how long before this guy gets his darwin?
most everything about me - my relationship status, my mood, my hobbies - I gain value by giving this information freely.
And given enough info, our information mining overlords will be able to predict what passwords you use, what sort of "private" proclivities you indulge in, etc. Then your Big Brother issues a subpoena for that shit, and you're f$cked.
The whole point of Christianity is eliminating sinfulness, not encouraging it.
It's failed totally. Just two of the reasons why are obvious:
A definition of "sin" that includes much normal human behaviour, such as having a few drinks, questioning of authority, masturbation, same-sex sexual activity, indulging in curiosity;
The brainwashing of adherents so that anything opposed to their view is demonized ("even the devil quotes scripture", etc);
There are more, but this will do for a start.
When you force people into unnatural "black and white" behaviours and attitudes, and a "we are special because god chose us" mentality, you're going to have a LOT of fucked-up behaviour. It's only natural.
Look at how many "christians" get bent over George Carlin's 7 words - while failing to notice that PISS is in the bible (and they've never read "song of solomon", which contains depictions of sex, including oral sex).
What a relief that you're here to tell us all that most apparently rational philosophers and writers or average people who claim to have based their opinions on some form of evidence are liars.
Another lie. Show us ONE piece of evidence, one irrefutable, testable fact. There are none. These "philosophers" were, as you put it, "apparently" rational - without evidence, it's just wishful thinking and superstition.
There's more proof that I am god than that any other god exists. At least, my existence is provable. Show ANY proof that your god, or the god of all these others, exists.
Or why not collect the $1 million for proving that Jesus wasn't the son of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?
Of course, people who believe in god have a huge psychological investment in denying that their beliefs are only that, and not based on reality - to do otherwise would mean admitting to not only doubt, but that there IS no rational basis for believing in ANY god.
The existing infrastructure just cannot handle millions of people charging up their cars daily, even if they only do it on off-peak times, especially since there are days when there are NO off-peak times, like during heat waves, or cold snaps.
A Prius at 46 MPG uses about 800 watt-hours per mile
So, a commute of 30 miles each way is going to use 800 watt-hours * 60, or 48 kw. Charging that up between midnight and 6 am means a continuous draw, assuming ZERO loss in the charging circuit, of 8kw - 37 amps at 220 volts. You're not going to get the equivalent of 46mpg in snow, carrying a load, using the heater or ac, etc., and you're going to have charging inefficiencies, so 50 amps, or 11 kw/hr for 6 hours, or 66 kw-hrs per charge is a more reasonable load.
he average American household consumes 11,040 kWh in an entire year
So, you want to add 66 kw/hrs * 360, or 23,760 kw to the current demand of each customer. NO utility can handle a trippling of demand. Even taking the most optimistic usage (prius, no losses, no snow, no heat, no ac), you'd still more than double demand. Can't be done without rebuilding the whole distribution grid, right down to the transformers on each street.
Earn, say, $5000 per Month working on something for two months.
Pay, say, $3000 for that project to be done in India or wherever.
Make $7k (per concurrent employment) while at the same time programming whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it. Sure sounds like a ton of fun.
You forgot the time and expense of properly doing the initial spec so that someone in India actually can attempt to code it, and the rewrite because what you got back wasn't what you asked for, and the biggie: what are you going to do when they resell what they wrote for you to others for half-price as a "proven, packaged solution".
Also, you'll need to give them your clients' test data... somehow I think that sending that off to a place that you don't have legal leverage via the local courts is a deal-breaker.
I once contracted to do a complete rewrite from scratch of an employee database for one of the countries' country's largest transporters, including 30,000 drivers' abstracts (including such delicate info as arrest records). There is no way that anyone but an idiot would send that out of the host country. Heck, I even gave the source code to the company rather than keep it myself, just to be safe.
Some things just cannot ever be outsourced to other countries.
I agree, however, my Ph. D. adviser once offered to write my dissertation for $3,000, which at the time (being a poor student), was a ridiculous amount of money (and immoral to boot).
In retrospect, I should've taken a loan and paid him to do it, it would've been easier and far more ethical than actually writing it myself.
If you think that's ethical, you deserve whatever shit life hands you.
What you should have done was gotten the offer on tape, and reported him/her. This would have served the purpose of leveling the playing field, so that those who are ethically corrupt and financially flush (funny how the two seem to go hand-in-hand a lot of times) don't have an unfair advantage.
You have to maintain a LOT more electrical lines to supply millions of cars with recharging (and you can bet the local utilities will bitch about their voltage drops, peak drain, etc) than it is to maintain lines along a rail right-of-way, especially since that right-of-way usually doesn't have trees falling on lines due to storms, or outages caused by drunk drivers hitting utility poles.
Also, railroads DO use electric where it's available, because it IS cheaper. We'll be re-introducing electric trams over the next decade, again because it's cheaper - even cheaper than running diesel buses over the long term.
Funny, but they manage to ship plenty of high-value stuff by boat, like cars. Also, the safety stats only make airplanes less deadly on a per-passenger-mile, not per-passenger-hour, basis. If people had to take airplanes to go to their neighbour 10 blocks away, and pilot them themselves, the aviation stats would be horrendous. Gonna use a helicopter? So much for fuel efficiency. There are many jobs airplanes just can't do, never mind do efficiently.
We need a buildout of land transit. Airplanes (and the repeatedly-bankrupt airlines that operate them) won't make sense for most land travel for much longer.
To take the train implies the existence of a train. Amtrak offers a pitifuly meaningless "service" in the US (well, outside of the northeast). For people to start to take the train, there would have to be trains to begin with...
Sounds like an infrastructure program to rival the interstate buildout of the 1950's.
Especially since it's simpler to electrify a rail line (been done) than it is to electrify and set up the infrastructure for tens of millions of cars (never been done).
The problem is that not ALL the damage can be undone in a week, or even a generation. For example, this summer, they're predicting that the ice cap on the north pole will melt. The feedback mechanism means that, once that happens, its much more likely to accelerate.
An hour of air travel (actual flight time) equals a day of travel by other means.
That is SO bullshit. If you're travelling less than 4 hours by air, you're quicker to take a train in any place that has a modern transit system (like europe), because of the hassles at the terminals, etc.
Also, note that air travel fuel efficiency is about 50-100 mpg per passenger.
... and I beat that when I carry 3 passengers in my car. Big fucking deal. Rail is still more energy-efficient at moving people, and it's a lot easier to switch rail to green power (electric from hydro dams, for example), than it is to switch millions of cars.
Current high-speed trains can do over 300km/hr. That should be able to take you anywhere in continental North America in less than a day. The problem is, there is no will to buck the vested interests (air and auto) to make it happen.
Between many (most?) cities in the continental US, there are no passenger trains or boats. Try again.
And whose fault is that? Sounds like there's a need to develop a more efficient transportation infrastructure. If the asians and europeans can do it, why can't the US?
Re:Back in the day...
on
Terminal Chaos
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· Score: 1, Interesting
If planes were to be severely curtailed, there'd be a LOT more impetus for high-speed rail, which is also a lot more energy-efficient. The distance is 8,016 km. At 320 km./hr., you're looking at 25 hours. Already, there are plans for California to build a 320km/hr rail system...
Re:Back in the day...
on
Terminal Chaos
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Airline passengers were the very wealthy elites, now they're not.
High fuel prices will keep the riff-raff out.
Seriously, the week after the grounding of all flights, the air was clearer than it has been in decades. We really have to cut back on useless air travel - it's a "luxury" our children will be paying for, and cursing us for. Take a train, take a boat, take some TIME and enjoy it - getting there is supposed to be half the fun.
CS Lewis did the same thing so many hypocritical christians do - they say "well, that was BEFORE I became a christian." So much for the ideals of accepting responsibility for one's actions. Being "born again" or "retreaded" or whatever, does NOT give one license towards one's fellow beings, ever.
As for references, the first 2 hits for CS Lewis gay bring up some interesting reads.
He did not understand or approve of homosexuals, but his oldest and most cherished friend from childhood was gay. He despised uneducated females, yet he was also uncomfortable with many of the educated women he met.
He was a devout and well-known Christian, yet he had been living in semi-secrecy with a married woman since he was 19. He had been coaxed back to religion by his university friend JRR Tolkien, a Roman Catholic; yet he had put on the trappings of a Protestant bigot, dismissing Catholics as bog-trotters.
A hypocrite through and through... trying to deny his bi/homosexuality even from himself (and let me make clear here that there's absolutely nothing wrong with being gay - its normal for humans, just like many other mammals - what's wrong is being a hypocrite and throwing rocks at others as a way to hide your own proclivities). Read on about the scam involved with his "living with a woman"...
As we know from the play and movie, Shadowlands, C.S. Lewis was a "bachelor," living with his alcoholic brother most of his life, living as a sort of celibate cleric of academe. He certainly wasn't a modern gay man, but he was one of us, I think.
A deeply religious man in later life, he interpreted the Christianity of the Great Britain of the mid-20th century in which he lived into what he thought would be a living religion.
He had some dismissive things to say about homosexual bonding in his book THE FOUR LOVES:
"... all those hairy old toughs of centurions in Tacitus, clinging to one another and begging for last kisses when the legion was broken up...all pansies? If you can believe it you can believe anything.
That's hardly a valid argument against homosexual activity in the ancient world. Indeed, those comments only go to show how stereotyped was Lewis's understanding of homosexuality throughout history and, even more importantly, how closeted--perhaps even from himself--he really was. At any rate, he lived long before gay liberation and before homosexuality was understood in a modern, enlightened psychological context.
His marriage to Joy Davidman Gresham was mostly a scam of the British immigration system and then later of that nation's socialized medicine. After World War I, he'd come home at age 18 and moved the 45 year-old Mrs. Maureen Moore and her 11 year-old daughter into his home, having made a pact with his army buddy Paddy Moore that he'd care for his friend's family in case Paddy died. Biographers assuming his heterosexuality hypothesize he was in love with Mrs. Moore the 30 years they lived together. The presumption of a repressed homosexuality might better explain that he was bound to the Moore family by his intense--and certainly never to be reciprocated--affection for his friend Paddy. Who knows? Until the current transformation of understanding about homosexuality, such details were routinely concealed and misrepresented.
Your examples of "people of science" who are theists, as justification is an "argument from authority", and fails Sagan's bullshit meter, or more politely, "Baloney Meter"
Arguments from authority carry little weight (in science there are no "authorities").
People believe because they choose to believe. There is no hard evidence to back up their beliefs. Just opinion, formed by cultural and social forces.
Of course they stopped with the IE team. That has absolutely nothing to do with.NET and rather to do with a lack of competition in the market at the time; Microsoft was stupid and rested on their laurels. But seeing as how a good half of.NET is geared towards web services and web applications (ASP.NET), that makes your assertion rather suspect at best.
Not true - they fact was that they were eager to get people off of browsers as a deployment platform because developers were no longer locked in to MS, and alternate browsers (read STANDARDS_COMPATIBLE) were already taking away market share. They saw the future - where people no longer needed windows for browsing the net or email; and no longer needed msoffice, and it scared them shitless.
Now we're at that "future" - where the #1 selling machines over $1k are Apples, the bottom-feeders are selling pcs with linux, and where a retail copy of the os costs more than a basic box. Not a good place to be in, and every lock-in attempt so far has failed..NET, C#, MSOOXML.
Look at the internet -
php, which is about as ugly a language as you can get, but it's the #1 web scripting language;
javascript is the #1 browser scripting language;
c/c++ is still the #1 compiled language;
java and perl rule the byte-code roost;
openoffice is taking away market share;
companies are buying opensource database companies (oracle bought sleepycat (berkleydb), innobase; sun bought mysql)
"once you go mac, you never go back" is true for more and more people
lots of people "upgrading" from vista to xp;
linux and osx are increasing in visibility and useability
... and microsoft is... boring. Half a decade of labour, and instead of new vistas, it's more of the same, but slower. Their biggest competitor is their older software.
The only reason I stayed on Microsoft products foras long as I did was because of Borland. When they started tanking, I started looking to other platforms... it wasn't like there was anything in Microsofts' stable of products that inspired me at the time. Their c++ compiler was notorious for being way behind the standards, as well as having poor performance.
They wanted to lock in "net services", "soa", etc. - they were predicting that ALL browsers would be obsolete within 5 years, and they actually got some traction at the time (*grumble* in-house apps for financial institutions *grumble*), but in the end they failed to kill off the browser as a delivery platform.
As for "binary compatibility" - what are you going to do in 5 years, when the "patent pledges" terminate? You'll have investged all that time in code that you can't leverage...
I'm betting by then we'll see some new developments - not just cross-compilers, but full-fledged cross-language compilers. For example, the ability to take java code, translate it into c/c++, and have it run natively. There were already "application binary compilers" years ago that could take a binary program, run it, dynamically translate all the calls from all the execution paths into source code, optimize it, then compile it. Pity nobody's done anything about it in a couple of decades because of copyright/disassembly issues - we could have all these apps written in whatever language you wanted, then have native code versions for the platform of your choice.
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The article was about text messaging while driving a car, as opposed to just calling the person. I'm glad you agree that texting is a no-brainer :-)
As for the distraction of talking on the phone, most people can't even drive properly when they have NO "distractions."
For them, a cellphone, or anything else, is going to diminish their already-lousy driving.
How about a ban on cell-phone use for anyone who has less than, say, 5 years driving experience, *any* demerit points, or was responsible for accident within the last decade? That would snare most of the less competent, less experienced, and more "accident-prone."
I read the article afterwords; it doesn't change anything wrt the stupidity involved. She admits not only to nearly causing accidents, but the picture clearly shows that she's not looking at the road.
I used to do the same thing.
This study doesn't bring anything new to the table - we've known for a LOOOONG time that what we perceive as "consciousness" is really more akin to a "ghost in the machine."
What is important, however, is that, despite all this, we can actually, with enough thought, make decisions based on logic, as opposed to "feelings" or "what we think is reasonable."
Most of what we do, we do on "autopilot", and our consciousness re-orders the stream of events so that we believe we "decided" to do what we did. Classic example - think of any time when you jammed on the brakes because of someone who rushed in front of the car ... and think back, and you'll realize that you already had braked before you even were aware of the person, because even the half-second lag between perception and stepping on the brake pedal would have been too long.
Also, with the right earpiece, you no longer have to use the phone to dial, to answer, or to hang up. You no longer have to hold or even look at the phone at any point, so you can keep your hands on the wheel, and your eyes on the road.
Compare that to texting ...
Too vague ... one person's "due care and attention" is anothers recklessness.
Besides, banning texting for the driver while on a highway is a no-brainer ... because obviously people with no brains think they can do it "despite a few near-accidents."
I finally bought a bluetooth earpiece when the laws changed, even though my cell already has speaker-phone capability, so it already was "hands-free"; after a couple of weeks, I now wish I had bought it sooner. (Hint - buy a good-quality one with noise and echo cancellation - you don't want to sound like you're talking in a garbage can).
What a moron!
With a bluetooth headset, I say the person's name, my cellphone dials the number, I say what I have to say, and never have to fumble around with the phone.
Any bets on how long before this guy gets his darwin?
DON'T give it to politicians - imagine how much more effectivly they'll be able to lie, cheat and steal if they smarten up!!!!
And stop feeding it to the frigging mice - do you really want mice that are smart enough to avoid mouse traps?
Hopefully some asshat (Monsanto!!!) won't patent it!
And given enough info, our information mining overlords will be able to predict what passwords you use, what sort of "private" proclivities you indulge in, etc. Then your Big Brother issues a subpoena for that shit, and you're f$cked.
It's failed totally. Just two of the reasons why are obvious:
There are more, but this will do for a start.
When you force people into unnatural "black and white" behaviours and attitudes, and a "we are special because god chose us" mentality, you're going to have a LOT of fucked-up behaviour. It's only natural.
Look at how many "christians" get bent over George Carlin's 7 words - while failing to notice that PISS is in the bible (and they've never read "song of solomon", which contains depictions of sex, including oral sex).
Another lie. Show us ONE piece of evidence, one irrefutable, testable fact. There are none. These "philosophers" were, as you put it, "apparently" rational - without evidence, it's just wishful thinking and superstition.
There's more proof that I am god than that any other god exists. At least, my existence is provable. Show ANY proof that your god, or the god of all these others, exists.
Or why not collect the $1 million for proving that Jesus wasn't the son of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?
Of course, people who believe in god have a huge psychological investment in denying that their beliefs are only that, and not based on reality - to do otherwise would mean admitting to not only doubt, but that there IS no rational basis for believing in ANY god.
http://www.hypercars.com/main.html
So, a commute of 30 miles each way is going to use 800 watt-hours * 60, or 48 kw. Charging that up between midnight and 6 am means a continuous draw, assuming ZERO loss in the charging circuit, of 8kw - 37 amps at 220 volts. You're not going to get the equivalent of 46mpg in snow, carrying a load, using the heater or ac, etc., and you're going to have charging inefficiencies, so 50 amps, or 11 kw/hr for 6 hours, or 66 kw-hrs per charge is a more reasonable load.
http://www.tennesseepolicy.org/main/article.php?article_id=764
So, you want to add 66 kw/hrs * 360, or 23,760 kw to the current demand of each customer. NO utility can handle a trippling of demand. Even taking the most optimistic usage (prius, no losses, no snow, no heat, no ac), you'd still more than double demand. Can't be done without rebuilding the whole distribution grid, right down to the transformers on each street.
If he's registering dot.sucks, I want dot.cum, dot.guv, dot.orgy, dot.not, dot.ed, and dot.milf.
You forgot the time and expense of properly doing the initial spec so that someone in India actually can attempt to code it, and the rewrite because what you got back wasn't what you asked for, and the biggie: what are you going to do when they resell what they wrote for you to others for half-price as a "proven, packaged solution".
Also, you'll need to give them your clients' test data ... somehow I think that sending that off to a place that you don't have legal leverage via the local courts is a deal-breaker.
I once contracted to do a complete rewrite from scratch of an employee database for one of the countries' country's largest transporters, including 30,000 drivers' abstracts (including such delicate info as arrest records). There is no way that anyone but an idiot would send that out of the host country. Heck, I even gave the source code to the company rather than keep it myself, just to be safe.
Some things just cannot ever be outsourced to other countries.
I agree, however, my Ph. D. adviser once offered to write my dissertation for $3,000, which at the time (being a poor student), was a ridiculous amount of money (and immoral to boot).
In retrospect, I should've taken a loan and paid him to do it, it would've been easier and far more ethical than actually writing it myself.
If you think that's ethical, you deserve whatever shit life hands you.
What you should have done was gotten the offer on tape, and reported him/her. This would have served the purpose of leveling the playing field, so that those who are ethically corrupt and financially flush (funny how the two seem to go hand-in-hand a lot of times) don't have an unfair advantage.
You have to maintain a LOT more electrical lines to supply millions of cars with recharging (and you can bet the local utilities will bitch about their voltage drops, peak drain, etc) than it is to maintain lines along a rail right-of-way, especially since that right-of-way usually doesn't have trees falling on lines due to storms, or outages caused by drunk drivers hitting utility poles.
Also, railroads DO use electric where it's available, because it IS cheaper. We'll be re-introducing electric trams over the next decade, again because it's cheaper - even cheaper than running diesel buses over the long term.
Funny, but they manage to ship plenty of high-value stuff by boat, like cars. Also, the safety stats only make airplanes less deadly on a per-passenger-mile, not per-passenger-hour, basis. If people had to take airplanes to go to their neighbour 10 blocks away, and pilot them themselves, the aviation stats would be horrendous. Gonna use a helicopter? So much for fuel efficiency. There are many jobs airplanes just can't do, never mind do efficiently.
We need a buildout of land transit. Airplanes (and the repeatedly-bankrupt airlines that operate them) won't make sense for most land travel for much longer.
Sounds like an infrastructure program to rival the interstate buildout of the 1950's.
Especially since it's simpler to electrify a rail line (been done) than it is to electrify and set up the infrastructure for tens of millions of cars (never been done).
The problem is that not ALL the damage can be undone in a week, or even a generation. For example, this summer, they're predicting that the ice cap on the north pole will melt. The feedback mechanism means that, once that happens, its much more likely to accelerate.
Ditto resource depletion.
Ditto pollutants in the food chain.
Maybe its time to analyse WHY you have to go to 3 different places for meetings, when teleconferencing is so much easier, cheaper, etc.
That is SO bullshit. If you're travelling less than 4 hours by air, you're quicker to take a train in any place that has a modern transit system (like europe), because of the hassles at the terminals, etc.
Current high-speed trains can do over 300km/hr. That should be able to take you anywhere in continental North America in less than a day. The problem is, there is no will to buck the vested interests (air and auto) to make it happen.
And whose fault is that? Sounds like there's a need to develop a more efficient transportation infrastructure. If the asians and europeans can do it, why can't the US?
If planes were to be severely curtailed, there'd be a LOT more impetus for high-speed rail, which is also a lot more energy-efficient. The distance is 8,016 km. At 320 km./hr., you're looking at 25 hours. Already, there are plans for California to build a 320km/hr rail system ...
High fuel prices will keep the riff-raff out.
Seriously, the week after the grounding of all flights, the air was clearer than it has been in decades. We really have to cut back on useless air travel - it's a "luxury" our children will be paying for, and cursing us for. Take a train, take a boat, take some TIME and enjoy it - getting there is supposed to be half the fun.
CS Lewis did the same thing so many hypocritical christians do - they say "well, that was BEFORE I became a christian." So much for the ideals of accepting responsibility for one's actions. Being "born again" or "retreaded" or whatever, does NOT give one license towards one's fellow beings, ever.
As for references, the first 2 hits for CS Lewis gay bring up some interesting reads.
http://www.thestonetable.com/articles/247,1.html
A hypocrite through and through ... trying to deny his bi/homosexuality even from himself (and let me make clear here that there's absolutely nothing wrong with being gay - its normal for humans, just like many other mammals - what's wrong is being a hypocrite and throwing rocks at others as a way to hide your own proclivities). Read on about the scam involved with his "living with a woman" ...
http://www.tobyjohnson.com/perelandra.html
Your examples of "people of science" who are theists, as justification is an "argument from authority", and fails Sagan's bullshit meter, or more politely, "Baloney Meter"
People believe because they choose to believe. There is no hard evidence to back up their beliefs. Just opinion, formed by cultural and social forces.
Not true - they fact was that they were eager to get people off of browsers as a deployment platform because developers were no longer locked in to MS, and alternate browsers (read STANDARDS_COMPATIBLE) were already taking away market share. They saw the future - where people no longer needed windows for browsing the net or email; and no longer needed msoffice, and it scared them shitless.
Now we're at that "future" - where the #1 selling machines over $1k are Apples, the bottom-feeders are selling pcs with linux, and where a retail copy of the os costs more than a basic box. Not a good place to be in, and every lock-in attempt so far has failed. .NET, C#, MSOOXML.
Look at the internet -
The only reason I stayed on Microsoft products foras long as I did was because of Borland. When they started tanking, I started looking to other platforms ... it wasn't like there was anything in Microsofts' stable of products that inspired me at the time. Their c++ compiler was notorious for being way behind the standards, as well as having poor performance.
They wanted to lock in "net services", "soa", etc. - they were predicting that ALL browsers would be obsolete within 5 years, and they actually got some traction at the time (*grumble* in-house apps for financial institutions *grumble*), but in the end they failed to kill off the browser as a delivery platform.
As for "binary compatibility" - what are you going to do in 5 years, when the "patent pledges" terminate? You'll have investged all that time in code that you can't leverage ...
I'm betting by then we'll see some new developments - not just cross-compilers, but full-fledged cross-language compilers. For example, the ability to take java code, translate it into c/c++, and have it run natively. There were already "application binary compilers" years ago that could take a binary program, run it, dynamically translate all the calls from all the execution paths into source code, optimize it, then compile it. Pity nobody's done anything about it in a couple of decades because of copyright/disassembly issues - we could have all these apps written in whatever language you wanted, then have native code versions for the platform of your choice.
Not *that* would be exciting!