Of course Alan did great things like Smalltalk, bitmapped graphics, and original laptop. But these were in the 1970s. His impact since then has been minimal. Most of the computer science luminaries flare with a couple of great inventions, then fade out. People like Steve Jobs with four or five hits (and many failures) over multiple decades are the exception. (Apple II, Mac, personal LaserPrinting, Pixar, iMac, iPod, iTunes) [ Apple III, Mac II, NeXT hardware, Newton }
Time and time again the Morse code people send messges faster than those using cell messaging or Blackberries. Sometimes desktop touch-typing can be faster.
What about people posting crudy pictures of themselves and asking millions of strangers to rate them solely on their looks?
This was even turned into a TV reality show so bad that it was canceled after a couple episodes.
There was recently a NIMH report of mental illness in US stating up to a quarter of the population becomes clinically depressed sometime during their lifetime (old age and teens particularly vulnerable). This number sounded high to me, but I dont have a way of verifying it. I sometimes wonder if there is a "lobby" of psychotherapist and drug companies that "enhances" these numbers. Even googling for a URL to this study return a barrage of side-bar ads for therapists and drugs.
Competative athletes and the military will try new drugs, bioelectronics, therapies etc. that will give them an edge. Cost and side-effects are minor concerns.
I've spent a fortune repairing the refigerant
style air conditioners over the years, a necessity
living in the South. Theys have lots of mechanical
parts and special fluids which are prone to failure.
Once automobiles figured out good user interfaces like starters, steering wheels, gas pedals and speedometers, they changed little in 75 years.
Though the ICE may be replaced by fuel cells in a decade or two, much of the older user interface will be recycled. And it will cost a good fraction of tera-buck to put in the distribution and manufacturing infrastructure.
First NeXT is not dead. It morged with the MacOS when Apple acquired NeXt (or the other way around).
NeXT orignated from a fourth strand of UNIX (not ATT, not BSD, not Linux). Carnegie Mellon wrote a highly layered version of UNIX called the Mach microkernel. Conventional UNIX was sinking under weight of trying to do to much in the kernel.
The MIT web-consortium has been working on exactly this problem with their proposal called the Semantic Net. Unfortunately, for the masses the world wide was commercially co-opted before Tim had implemented all of his ideas. Now its playing catch-up.
TEd Nelson's Xanadu Hypertext also addressed these issues. Because he didnt supply opne-source frereware like Tim did, it never caught on.
Information hypochrondia is commonly reported in med school too. The students are learning about new diseases, then start imaging they might getting these symptoms.
I was under the impression that Compaq wanted to emulate IBM in provide a full business solution including services. Rather than grow their own, they acquired DEC which had been make good inroads in that direction. The dot.com boom which favored younger companies over older ones created the "currency" for these upside-down type mergers.
DECs respected hardware division which created the PDP, VAX and Alpha didnt really mesh with Compaq's or HP's hardware directions, so were allowed to languish. For some time the Alpha was considered the best CPU chip in the business, far more interesting than anything out of Intel.
Brazil went whole-hog promoting ethonal and finds the latest oil price shock not impacting its economy that much. 25% mixture is regulated, though its about 40% in practice. Brazil has huge agricultural resources suitable for producing large amounts of ethonal.
So even if its takes a fair amount of energy overhead to produce ethonal, they are doing it with aboundant, cheap ethonal energy.
If you say make a factual observation that disagrees with the preconcieved notions of some Slashdotters, then you get modded down. Too bad some people are so closed-minded.
I get 36 MPG in the summer and 32 MPG in the winter months when 15% ethonal is mandated in my state. That is almost entirely accounted for by energy density calculations. Maybe winter driving or engine tuning accounts for a small amount of it.
Ethonal only has the 60% of the energy by volume as does gasoline. I definately notice the lower mileage in winter - about 10% on a 15% mix.
And I still have to pay full price for this inferior product.
HP bought both Compaq who had bought DEC.
I am under theimpression the Compaq piece is the most underperforming due to the relentless efficiencies of DELL
There some
concern fancy big TVs will exacerbate the energy crisis. TVs are on there way to being the biggest energy hogs in the house. Computers almost fit this category, but they had to become green to become portable.
I tried to calculate the equivalent "movie blockbuster" for the opening weeking of Half Prince sales. It is expected to open at eight million sales. I multiply this by $8- half way between children and adult price movie tickets- to predict the equivalent movie revenue. This gives me $64 million dollars, or a pretty good movie. Its all the more impressive because I suspect a lot fewer people desire to read a 700 age book than see a theatre movie.
I thought it was interesting to observe that Amazon sold one million of the eight million new Potter books expected to be sold this weekend. This gives some insight into Amazon's overall market penetration.
Amazon is selling and shipping at a big discount. Most other booksellers and department stores like Walmart are doing likewise as a loss leader. So we cant say Amazon's campaign is out of the ordinary.
I recall the time Intel tried to introduce a non-X86 compatible CPU in the 1980s, it flopped because it didnt have good compilers and applications. It was called the i986(?). I recall it had special CISC intrustion to optimize object-oriented computing. I cant find it on Google, probably because this was pre-web and people dont write much about failures.
It took MicroSoft nine years to ship (1993) a usable clone of Mac windows software (1984). Looks like they'll get the iMac clone software just six years later. Thats progress!
Every two years Mars is in the right position
for a launch window of three weeks.
That happens to August for a new imaging orbiter.
There is one week per month suitable for the space station, and these two collide in August.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course Alan did great things like Smalltalk, bitmapped graphics, and original laptop. But these were in the 1970s. His impact since then has been minimal. Most of the computer science luminaries flare with a couple of great inventions, then fade out. People like Steve Jobs with four or five hits (and many failures) over multiple decades are the exception. (Apple II, Mac, personal LaserPrinting, Pixar, iMac, iPod, iTunes) [ Apple III, Mac II, NeXT hardware, Newton }
Time and time again the Morse code people send messges faster than those using cell messaging or Blackberries. Sometimes desktop touch-typing can be faster.
What about people posting crudy pictures of themselves and asking millions of strangers to rate them solely on their looks?
This was even turned into a TV reality show so bad that it was canceled after a couple episodes.
There was recently a NIMH report of mental illness in US stating up to a quarter of the population becomes clinically depressed sometime during their lifetime (old age and teens particularly vulnerable). This number sounded high to me, but I dont have a way of verifying it. I sometimes wonder if there is a "lobby" of psychotherapist and drug companies that "enhances" these numbers. Even googling for a URL to this study return a barrage of side-bar ads for therapists and drugs.
Competative athletes and the military will try new drugs, bioelectronics, therapies etc. that will give them an edge. Cost and side-effects are minor concerns.
I've spent a fortune repairing the refigerant style air conditioners over the years, a necessity living in the South. Theys have lots of mechanical parts and special fluids which are prone to failure.
Once automobiles figured out good user interfaces like starters, steering wheels, gas pedals and speedometers, they changed little in 75 years. Though the ICE may be replaced by fuel cells in a decade or two, much of the older user interface will be recycled. And it will cost a good fraction of tera-buck to put in the distribution and manufacturing infrastructure.
First NeXT is not dead. It morged with the MacOS when Apple acquired NeXt (or the other way around).
NeXT orignated from a fourth strand of UNIX (not ATT, not BSD, not Linux). Carnegie Mellon wrote a highly layered version of UNIX called the Mach microkernel. Conventional UNIX was sinking under weight of trying to do to much in the kernel.
The MIT web-consortium has been working on exactly this problem with their proposal called the Semantic Net. Unfortunately, for the masses the world wide was commercially co-opted before Tim had implemented all of his ideas. Now its playing catch-up.
TEd Nelson's Xanadu Hypertext also addressed these issues. Because he didnt supply opne-source frereware like Tim did, it never caught on.
Information hypochrondia is commonly reported in med school too. The students are learning about new diseases, then start imaging they might getting these symptoms.
I was under the impression that Compaq wanted to emulate IBM in provide a full business solution including services. Rather than grow their own, they acquired DEC which had been make good inroads in that direction. The dot.com boom which favored younger companies over older ones created the "currency" for these upside-down type mergers.
DECs respected hardware division which created the PDP, VAX and Alpha didnt really mesh with Compaq's or HP's hardware directions, so were allowed to languish. For some time the Alpha was considered the best CPU chip in the business, far more interesting than anything out of Intel.
Brazil went whole-hog promoting ethonal and finds the latest oil price shock not impacting its economy that much. 25% mixture is regulated, though its about 40% in practice. Brazil has huge agricultural resources suitable for producing large amounts of ethonal. So even if its takes a fair amount of energy overhead to produce ethonal, they are doing it with aboundant, cheap ethonal energy.
If you say make a factual observation that disagrees with the preconcieved notions of some Slashdotters, then you get modded down. Too bad some people are so closed-minded.
I get 36 MPG in the summer and 32 MPG in the winter months when 15% ethonal is mandated in my state. That is almost entirely accounted for by energy density calculations. Maybe winter driving or engine tuning accounts for a small amount of it.
Bill can spin all the fantasies he wants. However MSFT stock has declined so far this decade, while AAPL has increased 350%.
Ethonal only has the 60% of the energy by volume as does gasoline. I definately notice the lower mileage in winter - about 10% on a 15% mix. And I still have to pay full price for this inferior product.
HP bought both Compaq who had bought DEC. I am under theimpression the Compaq piece is the most underperforming due to the relentless efficiencies of DELL
Linux- the system of discerning adults.
There used to be a whole cable TV channel devoted to nerds called Tech TV. (The name, but not the shows or people was sold in 2004.)
You are not going to pry that TV from my cold, dead hands (to paraphrase a line from former NRA boss Charlton Heston).
There some concern fancy big TVs will exacerbate the energy crisis. TVs are on there way to being the biggest energy hogs in the house. Computers almost fit this category, but they had to become green to become portable.
I tried to calculate the equivalent "movie blockbuster" for the opening weeking of Half Prince sales. It is expected to open at eight million sales. I multiply this by $8- half way between children and adult price movie tickets- to predict the equivalent movie revenue. This gives me $64 million dollars, or a pretty good movie. Its all the more impressive because I suspect a lot fewer people desire to read a 700 age book than see a theatre movie.
I thought it was interesting to observe that Amazon sold one million of the eight million new Potter books expected to be sold this weekend. This gives some insight into Amazon's overall market penetration.
Amazon is selling and shipping at a big discount. Most other booksellers and department stores like Walmart are doing likewise as a loss leader. So we cant say Amazon's campaign is out of the ordinary.
I recall the time Intel tried to introduce a non-X86 compatible CPU in the 1980s, it flopped because it didnt have good compilers and applications. It was called the i986(?). I recall it had special CISC intrustion to optimize object-oriented computing. I cant find it on Google, probably because this was pre-web and people dont write much about failures.
It took MicroSoft nine years to ship (1993) a usable clone of Mac windows software (1984). Looks like they'll get the iMac clone software just six years later. Thats progress!
Every two years Mars is in the right position for a launch window of three weeks. That happens to August for a new imaging orbiter. There is one week per month suitable for the space station, and these two collide in August.