Bumble bees disappearing is alarming, and it could have a number of causes but no one is quite yet sure exactly what is the main cause or if several causes are combining (likely). I've been to several research presentations lately from scientists researching bee health and bee loss. They know that neonics kill bees (they kill lots of insects). But the thing you have to realize is that very few farmers apply neonics as a spray where it kills indiscriminately. Almost all neonic use is in seed treatments that go underground and make the plants toxic to insects that would eat them. Also, bees (but not bumblebees) are doing quite well in areas that have high use of neonic seed treatments, like Alberta.
In other areas the situation is not nearly as good for many bee species. And neonics are suspected to play a role, though neonics are usually not sprayed. What it could be is vacuum planters planting corn and beans are blowing neonic-laced dust into the air which is causing the damage. In Alberta, planting is largely done with air seeders which blow dust into the soil, not the air, where bees are not exposed nearly as much to it.
So things aren't as simple as the comments so far want to make it. Banning of neonic spray does make some sense. But if they were banned outright, to save the food crops farmers will have to spray more insecticides on the plants during the early growth stages, which is ultimately more harmful to everyone. Not only does that kill problem insects, it kills bumble bees and beneficials indiscriminately.
One final comment on habitat loss. This indeed could be contributing. As far as farmland goes, though, very little land is being converted from wild to farming in North America these days. Nearly all habitat loss comes from urban development. So don't go blaming farmers for habitat loss in that regard. As well, the US and Canada has quite large wilderness areas that have never been touched by agriculture, and bumble bees seem to be in decline everywhere. And it could be that climate change is playing as big a role as neonics ever did in this decline.
It's a complicated story. Likely humans play a major role, but how to fix this no on really knows.
Seriously, though, car windscreens are highly regulated in the US for safety reasons. Nearly all alternatives to the present windscreen glasses are banned in the US from what I understand (they certainly ban polycarbonate). Maybe Dow-Corning can get them to change this a bit to allow testing of some good alternatives.
This is a good start as finding a stable way to store the carbon is always helpful. But we can't use this baking soda for cooking as that would release much/all of this carefully-stored carbon.
But it's good to have a process that can turn CO2 into something useful. Now if we could just make a closed- carbon loop for energy production we'd be golden. CO2 + renewable energy -> fuel -> work -> CO2. Nothing wrong with burning carbon if it's carbon that was already in the atmosphere (ignoring NOx and particulates).
Except that you in fact can do what you say, with a Vive. I can assure you it's quite amazing. The technology is still crude (resolution is quite low), but I assure you, things do pop into near-enough to 3d that it doesn't matter. Vive's experience is particularly immersive as you define a "play area" to move around in. Having head tracking that is quite low latency makes all the difference int he world. I'm not a gamer but I've already spent a lot of time viewing sketchup models with my vive. The model appears on a table in front of you and you can look at it any way you want. Then you can place yourself into the model in real scale. Suddenly there's my remodeled kitchen in front of me and I can move around it, look under things look over things, look ins Looking straight ahead with it is best, but ide things. It's really quite something. Head tracking makes it all work.
Another example is the Apollo 11 moon landing documentary on Steam VR. You ride along in the capsule with the astronauts. I can look around the cockpit, look behind and under my seat, even stand up and walk outside the capsule and see the earth and parts of the exterior of the spacecraft.
It truly is full 3d 360 video. If you know someone with a vive, have them show you The Lab, or Google Earth to get you started. It's really quite something.
So the bank's systems didn't store transaction times in UTC or some other timezone-neutral format? How did they deal with transactions originating from other time zones?
I have my doubts. Like I've said before, I have a drawer full of various ARM devices that all turned out to be less useful in real life than they looked on paper. The main problem is that there is just no standard for ARM socs. Each one requires a custom kernel and distribution. They don't have common hardware trees, and most importantly they lack a common, open boot loader. So you're always fighting with some custom uBoot. Would far rather have a normal EFI bios in there and have the ability to boot off of common devices like usb sticks, optical drives, hard drives, etc.
I was trying to have an ARM board act as a router for me, but in the end I got a lot more utility out of a cheap tiny Intel machine for just 3 times the cost. I could use a standard, stock distro on it, and it had loads of RAM and lots of processing power. Way more utility for me.
That said I have a couple of cool ideas for a Raspbery Pi. But actually I think I'd prefer a tiny x86 board that had a lot of GPIO on it.
So no, I don't expect ARM to replace x86 on the desktop, or even the laptop, any time soon. In fact I just bought a fairly cheap x86 (Atom or something) Windows 10 tablet that is surprisingly useful, and can even run standard desktop x86 Windows apps if you really needed that.
Linux user here. I have Win10 installed on a tablet and also on a full-time, always-running virtual machine. Seems pretty stable and solid to me. I don't like how settings are dumbed down, and I'm not a fan of constant communication with MS (I have everything turned off that I can). Overall I am much more impressed with Windows 10 than I thought I would be. It's pretty solid, if ugly (hate the flat, white look).
No idea what you are talking about with having to use html formatting. CR twice to start a new paragraph works for me. No formatting here.
So what your point? The guy should have done what apparently you would have, and just walked away, leaving her to her fate? Seems to me you're assuming facts that aren't in evidence.
Furthermore, are you arguing that if an action could only have a short-term positive affect on a person then it's not worth doing? What a sad outlook on humanity.
Wow that's such bizarre logic. Of course it helped the girl! You know nothing about her situation other than that she was being exploited and had been reported missing by her family. I don't understand your fixation on what she may or may not have done to land herself in that situation. Regardless, it not only is a feel-good story, it also is a lesson to all of us to watch out for folks and do what we can to help them out of potentially harmful circumstances. If you agree with me there, then I don't understand why you posted what you posted in the first place.
I'm astounded that you'd blame the victim here ("turn around and do the same thing next week.") She was apparently a vulnerable person who was actively exploited by these two women. She had been reported missing by her family. Whether she ran away or was kidnapped doesn't really change the fact she was exploited, which is wrong and illegal.
Posting to facebook live astounds me, but come on, the guy did the right thing. Most people would just walk away. Kudos to him for acting, regardless of which taxi company he was working for. Sure if it wasn't uber or didn't involve facebook life, it wouldn't be on slashdot. I agree with you that this story doesn't really belong on Slashdot.
How do you figure? The strict limits are enforced on roads that are not highways. In other words, city streets, residential roads, and other non-highway situations. In those cases speed limits are already 25-35 mph in many cases, and 10 mph over is most likely a ticket-able offense and 5 mph over isn't likely to find it a hazard.
We need a -1, reading comprehension failure mod point. Did you even read what he said? He said not only have they removed many ports that people are actively using, of the 3 ports that are left, one of them must be used for charging. Leaving just 2, which means that not only do you need dongles for many things, but you also may need a hub just to connect things.
GoboLinux has been using symlinks to do this sort of things for years now. Don't think patents have any part of it. NextStep also used to do it.
I think the overlay file system idea is a very good one. It's a nice compromise between full containers and just wanting to run an app that has particular dependencies. Especially if you don't particularly want or need the kind of isolation docker has. Though perhaps isolation as a fundamental aspect of the OS security like QubesOS will become ubiquitous in an increasingly dangerous computer world.
I find it sufficiently interesting that I may download it and try it in a virtual machine.
The fed apparently think it really is fraud. Their indictment is apparently very thorough and comes at them from several angles. The popehat link referred to in previous comments is very insightful and gives a good overview of the indictment.
Those are things that are already regulated on a per-driver basis, irrespective of company they work for. None of that would change with Amazon helping drivers find loads. At any time a DOT agent can pull a truck over and inspect it, and examine the log book. This is something truck drivers already comply with. That won't change. I know lots of truck drivers who work for themselves. They already do these things. It's not at all like Uber's situation where private drivers who've never driven commercially are suddenly now driving taxis. Completely different scenario. Besides that, what Amazon might do is already being done by uShip.
This is a fantastic idea, and unlike the Uber thing, this doesn't involve running afoul of local regulations. In other words, professional truck drivers are, well, professional drivers who are already highly regulated and drive for a living anyway. Anyone can become a truck driver if they are willing to do what it takes to get their commercial license, and follow the existing regulations for drivers (log books, vehicle inspections every day, rest breaks, etc). It's not at all like Uber's attempt to be a taxi company without being a taxi company.
There are several different kinds of hauling and some are more competitive than others. Freight hauling companies are always looking for new drivers. Bulk carriers (belly-dump grain trailers) are a bit more competitive in my area.
In my area most truckers who haul bulk goods already own their own trucks and trailers. Many of them work for a trucking company because it's quite difficult to chase loads on their own. Having a company and dispatcher to arrange things makes it easier to arrange loads. It's hard to make a good living this way though. The trucking company charges flat per tonne rates to the customer, and then they pay the driver per km. If a driver has a bad day and is down quite a while, that's less money for him. This service from Amazon would put more dollars in the pockets of drivers while possibly driving down the cost/tonne for customers. I see it is a good thing.
Well tell the devs to ensure that anytime a web site initiates any kind of WebRTC traffic, the user is asked to okay this (with an option to remember). Make the message clear and easy to understand. Something like, "This web site is trying to initiate a internet telephone or internet video chat connection with another computer. Is this something you asked the web page to do?" Or how about letting the user opt into some kind of safe-webRTC list that tracks known "bad" webrtc connection attempts reported by users.
But maybe we should just stop trying to make a web browser do everything and be its own OS. If an app wants to embed a browser engine as it's primary UI and use WebRTC, that's fine, since we can sandbox it on a per-app basis.
Yup it's downvoted because it's off-topic. No one ever said anything about a Chromebook except him. We can only assume he's trolling. Looks like the moderation system is working as it should.
I had mod points and was going to mod him back up, but then I realized that he's not "right on." He got modded down because no one said anything about a Chromebook, and certainly no one ever said anything about a Chromebook replacing a MBP. So his post is irrelevant and off-topic.
I'm not right-wing at all, but I was wondering what all the hubbub was about here. As far as I know, Uber didn't even exist just a few years ago. Furthermore they billed themselves as a "ride-sharing" company, which to mean means you'd be a lunatic to quit your day job and drive for uber full time. Presumably those driving for uber did something else not so long ago for their primary income.
But if your sentiment is that Uber should be treated as any other taxi company, I agree with you there. And stories like this drive home the fact that Uber really is a taxi company but it wants to play by its own rules because Internet.
Maybe if Uber drivers knew about the taxi industry they'd be more realistic about their expectations. e I've talked to taxi drivers all over the world and the vast majority of them work many many hours each week, often 60-80 hours, to provide for their families. It's very hard work. And in several countries I've visited, taxis are owned, operated, and maintained by the driver but all fares go through the taxi company which takes its cut. In Israel, it's sometimes best to negotiate a fare when you get in the taxi, since if it goes on the meter, the driver doesn't get as much of the fare, and I'd rather he get a good fair share of it.
Yet somehow millions of people managed the risk of traveling without a cell phone, and did it their entire lives. Sometimes they weren't heard from for months at a time by friends and relatives. Life managed to continue.
I would say they lived to tell the tale, but pretty sure life had a 100% mortality rate back then. Good thing we live nowadays!
Just a thought, but do you suppose that these days with all of our cell phones and connected devices that we are much less inclined to look out for and help each other in daily life because we assume that everyone has a phone and someone they can call for help for things like a broken-down vehicle, a flat tire, or worse? Seems like we're more in bubbles than ever before.
Years ago my boss worked for a software company that sold layout and design software (desktop publishing essentially) to newspapers. They were quite successful and had a lot of clients across the world. They had a few ideas of some cool new features that they would like to build into their next release, and the boss thought it would be neat to demonstrate these future features at a major trade show, to get the clients excited. So they mocked up a convincing demo of how the product *would* work, complete with scripted mistakes (undo) and everything. They did this all live with a guy pretending to interact with the software. But it was all faked.
Well, they were right about the clients and potential clients. They were pretty excited. Very excited as a matter of fact. So excited that all of the companies that had signed on to buy their current version of the software immediately canceled their orders in anticipation of this new version. The problem was of course that it didn't exist and wouldn't for years if ever. Unfortunately that little demo completely killed the company. Their real product just couldn't compete with the hype of their imaginary product. Had they been honest about it up front, they would probably done fine and eventually implement many of those cool features.
So far in the micro server and embedded space, ARM has been particularly disappointing to me. I have a drawer full of ARM devices I've accumulated over the years. SheevaPlugs, GuruPlugs, RouterStation, etc. All are potentially useful devices, but ARM is hobbled by proprietary boot systems and differing device trees and proprietary supporting hardware. These devices rely on customized linux distributions, and they are often fairly hard to update to new kernels and new flash file systems. Some of these devices have good CPU performance specs, but in practice I've never had them outperform an intel-based server, even a small low-powered one like the atom.
And now in embedded space we have a plethora of Arm-based devices based on lots of different SoCs from companies all over the world. All with their own forks of Linux. We've got Raspbery Pis, Orange PIs, Pine64s, etc. All very interesting and probably useful. But a nightmare to do anything with in a sustainable way.
The Pi (and some of these devices) at least is easy to update since everything comes off of the sd card, with no kernel flashing required. And some of them like the Pi have a fair amount of hacker inertia behind them, so they are capable of doing cool things (maybe not as server replacements though).
With x86-based embedded systems and small servers, at least I can run more standard, off-the-shelf distros on them. I'd far rather deal with a conventional linux server than a sheevaplug, even if the sheevaplug is a nice tiny thing with lots of potential.
In fact my current home office router is a small, low-power Intel-based computer running bog standard, minimal install of CentOS 7. Wifi is hung off of that using a consumer-grade access point running in bridge mode.
If arm devices had a standard boot process like ufi or even the bios, and could boot off of a variety of devices in a standardized way, including ssds, hard drives, usb sticks, and internal flash storage, and could run stock distributions downloaded from distribution web sites, without custom kernels, then I'd say for sure x86's days are numbered. Arm is good at remaining fragmented though.
Slashdot Mirror
Bumble bees disappearing is alarming, and it could have a number of causes but no one is quite yet sure exactly what is the main cause or if several causes are combining (likely). I've been to several research presentations lately from scientists researching bee health and bee loss. They know that neonics kill bees (they kill lots of insects). But the thing you have to realize is that very few farmers apply neonics as a spray where it kills indiscriminately. Almost all neonic use is in seed treatments that go underground and make the plants toxic to insects that would eat them. Also, bees (but not bumblebees) are doing quite well in areas that have high use of neonic seed treatments, like Alberta.
In other areas the situation is not nearly as good for many bee species. And neonics are suspected to play a role, though neonics are usually not sprayed. What it could be is vacuum planters planting corn and beans are blowing neonic-laced dust into the air which is causing the damage. In Alberta, planting is largely done with air seeders which blow dust into the soil, not the air, where bees are not exposed nearly as much to it.
So things aren't as simple as the comments so far want to make it. Banning of neonic spray does make some sense. But if they were banned outright, to save the food crops farmers will have to spray more insecticides on the plants during the early growth stages, which is ultimately more harmful to everyone. Not only does that kill problem insects, it kills bumble bees and beneficials indiscriminately.
One final comment on habitat loss. This indeed could be contributing. As far as farmland goes, though, very little land is being converted from wild to farming in North America these days. Nearly all habitat loss comes from urban development. So don't go blaming farmers for habitat loss in that regard. As well, the US and Canada has quite large wilderness areas that have never been touched by agriculture, and bumble bees seem to be in decline everywhere. And it could be that climate change is playing as big a role as neonics ever did in this decline.
It's a complicated story. Likely humans play a major role, but how to fix this no on really knows.
Seriously, though, car windscreens are highly regulated in the US for safety reasons. Nearly all alternatives to the present windscreen glasses are banned in the US from what I understand (they certainly ban polycarbonate). Maybe Dow-Corning can get them to change this a bit to allow testing of some good alternatives.
Smell comes from particulates primarily, not NOx. Related but separate issues.
This is a good start as finding a stable way to store the carbon is always helpful. But we can't use this baking soda for cooking as that would release much/all of this carefully-stored carbon.
But it's good to have a process that can turn CO2 into something useful. Now if we could just make a closed- carbon loop for energy production we'd be golden. CO2 + renewable energy -> fuel -> work -> CO2. Nothing wrong with burning carbon if it's carbon that was already in the atmosphere (ignoring NOx and particulates).
Except that you in fact can do what you say, with a Vive. I can assure you it's quite amazing. The technology is still crude (resolution is quite low), but I assure you, things do pop into near-enough to 3d that it doesn't matter. Vive's experience is particularly immersive as you define a "play area" to move around in. Having head tracking that is quite low latency makes all the difference int he world. I'm not a gamer but I've already spent a lot of time viewing sketchup models with my vive. The model appears on a table in front of you and you can look at it any way you want. Then you can place yourself into the model in real scale. Suddenly there's my remodeled kitchen in front of me and I can move around it, look under things look over things, look ins Looking straight ahead with it is best, but ide things. It's really quite something. Head tracking makes it all work.
Another example is the Apollo 11 moon landing documentary on Steam VR. You ride along in the capsule with the astronauts. I can look around the cockpit, look behind and under my seat, even stand up and walk outside the capsule and see the earth and parts of the exterior of the spacecraft.
It truly is full 3d 360 video. If you know someone with a vive, have them show you The Lab, or Google Earth to get you started. It's really quite something.
So the bank's systems didn't store transaction times in UTC or some other timezone-neutral format? How did they deal with transactions originating from other time zones?
I have my doubts. Like I've said before, I have a drawer full of various ARM devices that all turned out to be less useful in real life than they looked on paper. The main problem is that there is just no standard for ARM socs. Each one requires a custom kernel and distribution. They don't have common hardware trees, and most importantly they lack a common, open boot loader. So you're always fighting with some custom uBoot. Would far rather have a normal EFI bios in there and have the ability to boot off of common devices like usb sticks, optical drives, hard drives, etc.
I was trying to have an ARM board act as a router for me, but in the end I got a lot more utility out of a cheap tiny Intel machine for just 3 times the cost. I could use a standard, stock distro on it, and it had loads of RAM and lots of processing power. Way more utility for me.
That said I have a couple of cool ideas for a Raspbery Pi. But actually I think I'd prefer a tiny x86 board that had a lot of GPIO on it.
So no, I don't expect ARM to replace x86 on the desktop, or even the laptop, any time soon. In fact I just bought a fairly cheap x86 (Atom or something) Windows 10 tablet that is surprisingly useful, and can even run standard desktop x86 Windows apps if you really needed that.
Linux user here. I have Win10 installed on a tablet and also on a full-time, always-running virtual machine. Seems pretty stable and solid to me. I don't like how settings are dumbed down, and I'm not a fan of constant communication with MS (I have everything turned off that I can). Overall I am much more impressed with Windows 10 than I thought I would be. It's pretty solid, if ugly (hate the flat, white look).
No idea what you are talking about with having to use html formatting. CR twice to start a new paragraph works for me. No formatting here.
So what your point? The guy should have done what apparently you would have, and just walked away, leaving her to her fate? Seems to me you're assuming facts that aren't in evidence.
Furthermore, are you arguing that if an action could only have a short-term positive affect on a person then it's not worth doing? What a sad outlook on humanity.
Wow that's such bizarre logic. Of course it helped the girl! You know nothing about her situation other than that she was being exploited and had been reported missing by her family. I don't understand your fixation on what she may or may not have done to land herself in that situation. Regardless, it not only is a feel-good story, it also is a lesson to all of us to watch out for folks and do what we can to help them out of potentially harmful circumstances. If you agree with me there, then I don't understand why you posted what you posted in the first place.
I'm astounded that you'd blame the victim here ("turn around and do the same thing next week.") She was apparently a vulnerable person who was actively exploited by these two women. She had been reported missing by her family. Whether she ran away or was kidnapped doesn't really change the fact she was exploited, which is wrong and illegal.
Posting to facebook live astounds me, but come on, the guy did the right thing. Most people would just walk away. Kudos to him for acting, regardless of which taxi company he was working for. Sure if it wasn't uber or didn't involve facebook life, it wouldn't be on slashdot. I agree with you that this story doesn't really belong on Slashdot.
How do you figure? The strict limits are enforced on roads that are not highways. In other words, city streets, residential roads, and other non-highway situations. In those cases speed limits are already 25-35 mph in many cases, and 10 mph over is most likely a ticket-able offense and 5 mph over isn't likely to find it a hazard.
We need a -1, reading comprehension failure mod point. Did you even read what he said? He said not only have they removed many ports that people are actively using, of the 3 ports that are left, one of them must be used for charging. Leaving just 2, which means that not only do you need dongles for many things, but you also may need a hub just to connect things.
GoboLinux has been using symlinks to do this sort of things for years now. Don't think patents have any part of it. NextStep also used to do it.
I think the overlay file system idea is a very good one. It's a nice compromise between full containers and just wanting to run an app that has particular dependencies. Especially if you don't particularly want or need the kind of isolation docker has. Though perhaps isolation as a fundamental aspect of the OS security like QubesOS will become ubiquitous in an increasingly dangerous computer world.
I find it sufficiently interesting that I may download it and try it in a virtual machine.
The fed apparently think it really is fraud. Their indictment is apparently very thorough and comes at them from several angles. The popehat link referred to in previous comments is very insightful and gives a good overview of the indictment.
Those are things that are already regulated on a per-driver basis, irrespective of company they work for. None of that would change with Amazon helping drivers find loads. At any time a DOT agent can pull a truck over and inspect it, and examine the log book. This is something truck drivers already comply with. That won't change. I know lots of truck drivers who work for themselves. They already do these things. It's not at all like Uber's situation where private drivers who've never driven commercially are suddenly now driving taxis. Completely different scenario. Besides that, what Amazon might do is already being done by uShip.
This is a fantastic idea, and unlike the Uber thing, this doesn't involve running afoul of local regulations. In other words, professional truck drivers are, well, professional drivers who are already highly regulated and drive for a living anyway. Anyone can become a truck driver if they are willing to do what it takes to get their commercial license, and follow the existing regulations for drivers (log books, vehicle inspections every day, rest breaks, etc). It's not at all like Uber's attempt to be a taxi company without being a taxi company.
There are several different kinds of hauling and some are more competitive than others. Freight hauling companies are always looking for new drivers. Bulk carriers (belly-dump grain trailers) are a bit more competitive in my area.
In my area most truckers who haul bulk goods already own their own trucks and trailers. Many of them work for a trucking company because it's quite difficult to chase loads on their own. Having a company and dispatcher to arrange things makes it easier to arrange loads. It's hard to make a good living this way though. The trucking company charges flat per tonne rates to the customer, and then they pay the driver per km. If a driver has a bad day and is down quite a while, that's less money for him. This service from Amazon would put more dollars in the pockets of drivers while possibly driving down the cost/tonne for customers. I see it is a good thing.
Well tell the devs to ensure that anytime a web site initiates any kind of WebRTC traffic, the user is asked to okay this (with an option to remember). Make the message clear and easy to understand. Something like, "This web site is trying to initiate a internet telephone or internet video chat connection with another computer. Is this something you asked the web page to do?" Or how about letting the user opt into some kind of safe-webRTC list that tracks known "bad" webrtc connection attempts reported by users.
But maybe we should just stop trying to make a web browser do everything and be its own OS. If an app wants to embed a browser engine as it's primary UI and use WebRTC, that's fine, since we can sandbox it on a per-app basis.
What Chromebook? No one said anything about a Chromebook except those who apparently misread the post.
Yup it's downvoted because it's off-topic. No one ever said anything about a Chromebook except him. We can only assume he's trolling. Looks like the moderation system is working as it should.
I had mod points and was going to mod him back up, but then I realized that he's not "right on." He got modded down because no one said anything about a Chromebook, and certainly no one ever said anything about a Chromebook replacing a MBP. So his post is irrelevant and off-topic.
I'm not right-wing at all, but I was wondering what all the hubbub was about here. As far as I know, Uber didn't even exist just a few years ago. Furthermore they billed themselves as a "ride-sharing" company, which to mean means you'd be a lunatic to quit your day job and drive for uber full time. Presumably those driving for uber did something else not so long ago for their primary income.
But if your sentiment is that Uber should be treated as any other taxi company, I agree with you there. And stories like this drive home the fact that Uber really is a taxi company but it wants to play by its own rules because Internet.
Maybe if Uber drivers knew about the taxi industry they'd be more realistic about their expectations.
e
I've talked to taxi drivers all over the world and the vast majority of them work many many hours each week, often 60-80 hours, to provide for their families. It's very hard work. And in several countries I've visited, taxis are owned, operated, and maintained by the driver but all fares go through the taxi company which takes its cut. In Israel, it's sometimes best to negotiate a fare when you get in the taxi, since if it goes on the meter, the driver doesn't get as much of the fare, and I'd rather he get a good fair share of it.
Yet somehow millions of people managed the risk of traveling without a cell phone, and did it their entire lives. Sometimes they weren't heard from for months at a time by friends and relatives. Life managed to continue.
I would say they lived to tell the tale, but pretty sure life had a 100% mortality rate back then. Good thing we live nowadays!
Just a thought, but do you suppose that these days with all of our cell phones and connected devices that we are much less inclined to look out for and help each other in daily life because we assume that everyone has a phone and someone they can call for help for things like a broken-down vehicle, a flat tire, or worse? Seems like we're more in bubbles than ever before.
Years ago my boss worked for a software company that sold layout and design software (desktop publishing essentially) to newspapers. They were quite successful and had a lot of clients across the world. They had a few ideas of some cool new features that they would like to build into their next release, and the boss thought it would be neat to demonstrate these future features at a major trade show, to get the clients excited. So they mocked up a convincing demo of how the product *would* work, complete with scripted mistakes (undo) and everything. They did this all live with a guy pretending to interact with the software. But it was all faked.
Well, they were right about the clients and potential clients. They were pretty excited. Very excited as a matter of fact. So excited that all of the companies that had signed on to buy their current version of the software immediately canceled their orders in anticipation of this new version. The problem was of course that it didn't exist and wouldn't for years if ever. Unfortunately that little demo completely killed the company. Their real product just couldn't compete with the hype of their imaginary product. Had they been honest about it up front, they would probably done fine and eventually implement many of those cool features.
So far in the micro server and embedded space, ARM has been particularly disappointing to me. I have a drawer full of ARM devices I've accumulated over the years. SheevaPlugs, GuruPlugs, RouterStation, etc. All are potentially useful devices, but ARM is hobbled by proprietary boot systems and differing device trees and proprietary supporting hardware. These devices rely on customized linux distributions, and they are often fairly hard to update to new kernels and new flash file systems. Some of these devices have good CPU performance specs, but in practice I've never had them outperform an intel-based server, even a small low-powered one like the atom.
And now in embedded space we have a plethora of Arm-based devices based on lots of different SoCs from companies all over the world. All with their own forks of Linux. We've got Raspbery Pis, Orange PIs, Pine64s, etc. All very interesting and probably useful. But a nightmare to do anything with in a sustainable way.
The Pi (and some of these devices) at least is easy to update since everything comes off of the sd card, with no kernel flashing required. And some of them like the Pi have a fair amount of hacker inertia behind them, so they are capable of doing cool things (maybe not as server replacements though).
With x86-based embedded systems and small servers, at least I can run more standard, off-the-shelf distros on them. I'd far rather deal with a conventional linux server than a sheevaplug, even if the sheevaplug is a nice tiny thing with lots of potential.
In fact my current home office router is a small, low-power Intel-based computer running bog standard, minimal install of CentOS 7. Wifi is hung off of that using a consumer-grade access point running in bridge mode.
If arm devices had a standard boot process like ufi or even the bios, and could boot off of a variety of devices in a standardized way, including ssds, hard drives, usb sticks, and internal flash storage, and could run stock distributions downloaded from distribution web sites, without custom kernels, then I'd say for sure x86's days are numbered. Arm is good at remaining fragmented though.