We should cancel NASA and divvy up their budget as prizes for groups that accomplish specific goals (like building an L2 station, landing on Mars, etc.). It's a time tested model and the X PRIZE folks have shown it still works.
Okay so I'm being a little dramatic here--NASA does useful things. But certainly there's no reason they should be the sole funding mechanism for space exploration. The current approach is downright Soviet era.
The author seems to assert that a fantasy completed Copland and OpenStep would be of equal value. But imagine if Apple had actually shipped Copland. What would Apple have had? It might not have crashed as much, but it would have been just as obscure.
NeXT brought Apple Unix roots. This has completely changed the market perception of Apple. Folks and companies who never would have considered Apple are now testing the waters.
It may have come about because of confused decision making, but thank goodness it came about.
We should cancel NASA and divvy up their budget as prizes for groups that accomplish specific goals (like building an L2 station, landing on Mars, etc.). It's a time tested model and the X PRIZE folks have shown it still works.
Okay so I'm being a little dramatic here--NASA does useful things. But certainly there's no reason they should be the sole funding mechanism for space exploration. The current approach is downright Soviet era.
The author seems to assert that a fantasy completed Copland and OpenStep would be of equal value. But imagine if Apple had actually shipped Copland. What would Apple have had? It might not have crashed as much, but it would have been just as obscure.
NeXT brought Apple Unix roots. This has completely changed the market perception of Apple. Folks and companies who never would have considered Apple are now testing the waters.
It may have come about because of confused decision making, but thank goodness it came about.