Speaking of the Simpsons, this reminded me of one of my favorite moments from the show.
TV anchorman announces that the station will go off the air and says not to panic, but warns, "Do not attempt sexual relations, as years of TV radiation has left your genitals withered and useless." Chief wiggum looks at himself under the covers and bemusedly says "Well, I'll be damned."
Always liked that one.
What kind of new industries will be created to replace them? What 'new' industry will provide jobs for the millions of workers that work in fast food? Delivery services? What kind of industry will create jobs that require those skill levels but be unperformable to semi-autonomous machines?
If machines like those are developed, corporations will use them. Simple economics will force them to. If they can perform any of those menial labor jobs he mentioned, they'll fill any other menial labor jobs that are produced by your industry dynamics.
Most of those workers will migrate to unemployment. Or do you think that 80% of the population will have a phd in 2050? And if so, what happens when machines are available with phd equivalent capabilities cost $1500?
The author should have linked to one of the several hundred other "Free Software is doomed unless it follows my 427-step personal wishlist!!!" articles.
Instead of starting his own YAWS (Yet Another Whining Session), he should have helped one of the previous authors' to improve their complaining and finger-pointing. Really, does he think his method of finger-pointing is more noteworthy than any of theirs? Are his complaints any louder (They sure don't seem any more sound).
But he just spewed out another article to show up on the news sites to get his 15 minutes of fame. So we poor readers end up with ANOTHER article that's 90% functionally identical to all those others. And still there's no perfect free software tantrum article. Such a duplication of efforts. He should devote his time to something that's more worthwhile to us and our agenda (with our agenda being defined by me of course).
I really hope people see the sarcasm here...
Waitaminute. Why give trolltech flack? Because some company that owns (a pretty small percent of) their stock is pushing some other company (who they own a lot more stock of) into filing a stupid lawsuit? Companies don't 'pressure' their investors. That's just not how it works. Not even microsoft would try to pressure one of their stockholders about how that investor deals with another business. Owning stock doesn't make you beholden to the company.
Not that _friendly_ feedback isn't a good idea. But the TT guys have dealt with enough 'flack' over the years. Let's not blast them for something they have no control over. Trolltech's a part of the community, and until they act otherwise (like SCO is), they're all good by me. The other Canopy companies should probably be treated the same. Let's not forget who the enemies are and create any more without reason.
I'd consider adding a spreadsheet program to the list of accessible software. I honestly can't imagine not having a spreadsheet to put ideas where I can look at them (monotonous calculations magically solved on the fly).
Old hardware rules out OpenOffice, but maybe something a little slimmer. Anybody know of a good "lightweight" spreadsheet? I guess it depends on what "old hardware" means too. PII's are probably "old" to some companies, and gnumeric or kspread would work fine.
Many linux users would refuse to use AOL. But an AOL user WOULDN'T refuse to use linux(if correctly packaged). Why? Because a typical AOL user doesn't want to know what OS they're using. They want to check their mail, look at web pages and maybe use a word processor. Any OS that can allow them to do those things easily will satisfy them. So if Lindows makes it easy to setup and get online, and easy to start the aol interface the users already know and (somehow manage to) love, and easy to do simple word processing, and significantly cheaper than a windows pc, maybe it'll take off.
So I say more power to them. If 10% of aol users (that's 3.5 million people by the article's numbers) got set up with one of these, it would be a very good thing for the internet and standards. It will make that much more disincentive for sites and services to go microsoft only. Rip on AOL all you like, but they've got enough users to make some noise. What business wants to alienate that many people? I'd like to see a few million additional linux users, especially from a hard-to-reach demographic like that.
It's hard to convince non-technical people to do the right thing on technical issues. This way they'll be doing the right thing without really knowing it.
I just wish aol would give the pc away with the service, for maybe $10 per month more for 20 months or something.
CEO, SHCMEE-E-O. Ballmer's just a powerless decoy to draw fire away from Gates.
Just look at the picture at the top of the article page. He looks more like he should be bouncing around the thunderdome with a midget strapped to his back than calling the shots for a software company.
Slashdot Mirror
Speaking of the Simpsons, this reminded me of one of my favorite moments from the show.
TV anchorman announces that the station will go off the air and says not to panic, but warns, "Do not attempt sexual relations, as years of TV radiation has left your genitals withered and useless." Chief wiggum looks at himself under the covers and bemusedly says "Well, I'll be damned."
Always liked that one.
What kind of new industries will be created to replace them? What 'new' industry will provide jobs for the millions of workers that work in fast food? Delivery services? What kind of industry will create jobs that require those skill levels but be unperformable to semi-autonomous machines?
If machines like those are developed, corporations will use them. Simple economics will force them to. If they can perform any of those menial labor jobs he mentioned, they'll fill any other menial labor jobs that are produced by your industry dynamics.
Most of those workers will migrate to unemployment. Or do you think that 80% of the population will have a phd in 2050? And if so, what happens when machines are available with phd equivalent capabilities cost $1500?
The author should have linked to one of the several hundred other "Free Software is doomed unless it follows my 427-step personal wishlist!!!" articles.
Instead of starting his own YAWS (Yet Another Whining Session), he should have helped one of the previous authors' to improve their complaining and finger-pointing. Really, does he think his method of finger-pointing is more noteworthy than any of theirs? Are his complaints any louder (They sure don't seem any more sound).
But he just spewed out another article to show up on the news sites to get his 15 minutes of fame. So we poor readers end up with ANOTHER article that's 90% functionally identical to all those others. And still there's no perfect free software tantrum article. Such a duplication of efforts. He should devote his time to something that's more worthwhile to us and our agenda (with our agenda being defined by me of course).
I really hope people see the sarcasm here...
Waitaminute. Why give trolltech flack? Because some company that owns (a pretty small percent of) their stock is pushing some other company (who they own a lot more stock of) into filing a stupid lawsuit? Companies don't 'pressure' their investors. That's just not how it works. Not even microsoft would try to pressure one of their stockholders about how that investor deals with another business. Owning stock doesn't make you beholden to the company.
Not that _friendly_ feedback isn't a good idea. But the TT guys have dealt with enough 'flack' over the years. Let's not blast them for something they have no control over. Trolltech's a part of the community, and until they act otherwise (like SCO is), they're all good by me. The other Canopy companies should probably be treated the same. Let's not forget who the enemies are and create any more without reason.
Please god let that be a troll.
I'd consider adding a spreadsheet program to the list of accessible software. I honestly can't imagine not having a spreadsheet to put ideas where I can look at them (monotonous calculations magically solved on the fly).
Old hardware rules out OpenOffice, but maybe something a little slimmer. Anybody know of a good "lightweight" spreadsheet? I guess it depends on what "old hardware" means too. PII's are probably "old" to some companies, and gnumeric or kspread would work fine.
Many linux users would refuse to use AOL. But an AOL user WOULDN'T refuse to use linux(if correctly packaged). Why? Because a typical AOL user doesn't want to know what OS they're using. They want to check their mail, look at web pages and maybe use a word processor. Any OS that can allow them to do those things easily will satisfy them. So if Lindows makes it easy to setup and get online, and easy to start the aol interface the users already know and (somehow manage to) love, and easy to do simple word processing, and significantly cheaper than a windows pc, maybe it'll take off.
So I say more power to them. If 10% of aol users (that's 3.5 million people by the article's numbers) got set up with one of these, it would be a very good thing for the internet and standards. It will make that much more disincentive for sites and services to go microsoft only. Rip on AOL all you like, but they've got enough users to make some noise. What business wants to alienate that many people? I'd like to see a few million additional linux users, especially from a hard-to-reach demographic like that.
It's hard to convince non-technical people to do the right thing on technical issues. This way they'll be doing the right thing without really knowing it.
I just wish aol would give the pc away with the service, for maybe $10 per month more for 20 months or something.
CEO, SHCMEE-E-O. Ballmer's just a powerless decoy to draw fire away from Gates.
Just look at the picture at the top of the article page. He looks more like he should be bouncing around the thunderdome with a midget strapped to his back than calling the shots for a software company.