According to most tech companies lately a headphone jack apparently is obsolete
I don't think that Apple and Google count as "most tech companies".
And they're wrong, anyway. Something can't be obsolete until there is something else that replaces is and functions at least as well as the old thing. Right now, there isn't anything that does this with the headphone jack, so it's not obsolete.
What Google and Apple are doing is trying to kill it in the hopes that if there's no headphone jack, better tech will be invented that can replace it.
Until that happens, the headphone jack may no longer be supported -- but it's not obsolete.
Because of the inherent difficulties of determining the how many servers run what operating systems, I don't trust any single study and won't provide one. I encourage you to do what I did: hop onto Google, search for all the studies you can get your hands one (I found a dozen or so), and you'll get a reasonable idea of the outlines of this stuff.
Sure Linux is there in bigger companies to run things like maybe their website and a few customized apps.
Not in the server farms I've worked with. The heavy lifting was rarely done by Windows. It wasn't always done by Linux, either (Windows and Linux combined account for about 2/3 of the total server installs).
I never worked in server farms that included more than one or two web servers.
Maybe I am an outliner?
I suspect that you are. I know nothing about you, but I get the impression that your strength is Windows development, so it would make sense that you mostly work in places where Windows is predominant.
It really only had three problems that remained to be solved: it was too heavy, the battery life was too short, and although the speed had improved significantly, it was still too slow.
Do you agree that IBM, Nokia, and Apple changed their "trajectory" ?
No for IBM and Nokia, yes for Apple.
You also included the condition on size of the company in your prediction : "or any other company of its size".
Ah, I see. That comment was not part of my prediction. I was merely stating why I think it's rare for large entities to reinvent themselves. The larger the company, the more difficult pulling that off is.
I agree that "AI" as its currently being imagined is something that doesn't exist and isn't close to existing.
However, if you define "learn" as "adapting behavior according to past experience", then machines can certainly learn. They've been learning for a very long time. But learning does not require AI.
(i.e.: even more precise than what's available on commercial satnavs).
But not more precise than Google Maps, which does exactly this.
OSM doesn't go that precisely into details.
True. I wasn't saying OSM was good enough for this task -- I was saying that it's hard to think that a new crowdsourced service would do any better.
The truth is, even the gold standard for this sort of thing (Google Maps) doesn't have the amount of accuracy required. And can't. These things change too frequently to actually rely on them for that level of detail.
For that you need to crowdsource it from video feeds
That would be an improvement, certainly. It's still hard to see how it would be effective enough in practice as a crowdsourced venture. How are they going to convince enough people to outfit their cars with dash cams?
Maybe they have some secret strategy that will make this work. I just don't see what it is at the moment.
First, to hear the Justice department tell it, they must have been unable to solve crimes back before networks existed. Which is clearly BS.
Second, if their argument is to be taken seriously, then we also need to have laws preventing people from owning safes unless they give a copy of the key/combo to the government.
But even I can't justify calling it a viable desktop OS, and I say that as somebody who actively maintained a minor Linux distro for many years.
As someone who has been using solely Linux on all of my personal machines for over 10 years, I stand as evidence that it's entirely viable.
As a desktop OS, its differences are definitely not sufficient to make Linux a viable third OS
What a weird thing to say, since it's been a viable OS for many years. I wonder if we differ in the definition of "viable".
When I say "viable", I don't mean "it could become dominant". I mean that it can be used by real people doing real things, and attract a large enough user base for it to be sustained over time.
Linux is clearly viable on those points, and has been for a long, long time.
Linux is based on the notion of being able to recompile things when they break.
Incorrect.
Consumer OSes require binary compatibility, from device drivers all the way up to applications.
Which Linux distros have. Unless you're a developer or you're doing really specialized things, it hasn't been necessary to compile source yourself for years.
Your definition of a "robot" is anything with a feedback loop? That definition is far more broad that most people (even roboticists) are typically using.
IBM seems to have moved fine from counting employee hours, to mainframes, to consulting.
Yes, I never said or implied that IBM was struggling. My point is that IBM is no longer the dominant force in computing. That's where Microsoft is going.
When a prediction is not falsifiable, there is never a reason to modify the prediction. Give a number along with a date to avoid sounding like the consultant leeches.
Of course it's falsifiable. If Microsoft changes its trajectory (as it's trying to do), then my prediction was wrong.
What number? Date for what? What do you think I'm predicting?
I keep seeing this repeated here over and over like it's a fact?
Look up the studies yourself.
Yeah great you work in Silicon Valley
Wrong.
as a mobile programmer
Wrong
Meanwhile in the real worlkd 90% of every fortune 1000 company and 2 smaller businesses I worked with all use Windows on their servers.
Your personal experience is not representative of the entirety of server space. That's why you need to look at the surveys and studies.
I will note, however, that your experience and mine are very different. Right now, I'm working on two projects for Fortune 500 clients. Both of them are developing solutions that will run in their server farms, and both of those farms run primarily Linux. In my job prior to this at a Fortune 500 company, the heavy iron ran primarily Linux.
Windows has Exchange. Windows has SQL Server. Windows has Active Directory. Windows has the file shares.
Indeed -- and, to use my own meaningless personal experience: all three of the F500 companies I'm talking about also run Windows servers for just those things -- but those are a tiny fraction of the total servers they're running.
Windows is the default server OS for every company unless they can't find support for a product that only runs on Linux.
Yeah, I don't believe this is true when it comes to heavy iron. I do believe this is true for office machines and the servers intended for office use.
I generally preferred KDE3 too, but I don't recognize most of the deficiencies you're citing here. When Plasma was first introduced, it was a borderline unusable mess, but it looks to me like they've pretty much got that worked out (yes, there are still rough spots here and there, but that's true of literally every desktop interface on every OS I've ever used).
As to the desktop crashing when you turn off the monitor -- this is something I'd never heard of before, and certainly have never experienced. The only thing I found online about it was a ticket filed with CentOS (not KDE) back in 2014.
I'm guessing that it's either fixed or rare (and the workaround is easy enough that most people don't care anymore). Which might be why the CentOS bug filing has a severity of "minor".
And let's not forget that Microsoft has its own Store now. That could become an enormous revenue stream if they can convince developers to use it.
I don't really see that happening, for a whole bunch of reasons. But you are correct, if the Windows store ever becomes popular, then it would become profitable.
I think you may be underestimating the logistical difficulty of doing what you say in a company the size of Microsoft. There is a good chance that such a transition would kill the company, unless it was done slowly, over a period of many years.
IBM isn't old and decrepit. They have their niche and are doing very well in it.
But they're a long way from their heyday. Remember, they used to be the indisputable king of the computer industry, touching and largely dominating pretty much every aspect of it.
In comparison to that, they're a shadow of what they used to be. That is, in my opinion, a great thing. If IBM hadn't gotten out of the way, the computer industry would probably be ten years behind where it is now.
I've been doing some minor research on this. Not comprehensive, so I could be wrong here, but it looks to me like this is not a wrapper around ecryptfs, since they say you can run it on top of an encrypted filesystem.
if it still looks like a cashew on your desktop, you are using a old version
No, it doesn't look like a cashew. I just never stopped calling it that.
To get rid of it on the newer Plasma releases:
Thanks for this! I had no idea that they changed that. When people were complaining about it after it was introduced, they were so adamant that it was critical and will never be removed that I just resigned myself to its existence. Although I do something close to removing it -- I position it behind the taskbar so it's mostly out of the way.
Slashdot Mirror
Since Zuckerberg wants to be viewed as working for the betterment of mankind, how does this fit in:
"We want to get a billion people in virtual reality,"
I get that they'd want that in order to further their profits, but how would widespread adoption of OR make the world at large better?
According to most tech companies lately a headphone jack apparently is obsolete
I don't think that Apple and Google count as "most tech companies".
And they're wrong, anyway. Something can't be obsolete until there is something else that replaces is and functions at least as well as the old thing. Right now, there isn't anything that does this with the headphone jack, so it's not obsolete.
What Google and Apple are doing is trying to kill it in the hopes that if there's no headphone jack, better tech will be invented that can replace it.
Until that happens, the headphone jack may no longer be supported -- but it's not obsolete.
Since my prediction is specific and not changing, I suspect that I've failed to make myself clear. So, here goes another try:
In terms of its impact on and importance to the industry, Microsoft will continue to follow the same trajectory as IBM.
It's been true every step of the way so far, and I predict that it will continue to be true. That's the entire prediction.
Show me a counter study?
Because of the inherent difficulties of determining the how many servers run what operating systems, I don't trust any single study and won't provide one. I encourage you to do what I did: hop onto Google, search for all the studies you can get your hands one (I found a dozen or so), and you'll get a reasonable idea of the outlines of this stuff.
Sure Linux is there in bigger companies to run things like maybe their website and a few customized apps.
Not in the server farms I've worked with. The heavy lifting was rarely done by Windows. It wasn't always done by Linux, either (Windows and Linux combined account for about 2/3 of the total server installs).
I never worked in server farms that included more than one or two web servers.
Maybe I am an outliner?
I suspect that you are. I know nothing about you, but I get the impression that your strength is Windows development, so it would make sense that you mostly work in places where Windows is predominant.
The 2100 kicked all kinds of ass!
It really only had three problems that remained to be solved: it was too heavy, the battery life was too short, and although the speed had improved significantly, it was still too slow.
Do you agree that IBM, Nokia, and Apple changed their "trajectory" ?
No for IBM and Nokia, yes for Apple.
You also included the condition on size of the company in your prediction : "or any other company of its size".
Ah, I see. That comment was not part of my prediction. I was merely stating why I think it's rare for large entities to reinvent themselves. The larger the company, the more difficult pulling that off is.
I agree that "AI" as its currently being imagined is something that doesn't exist and isn't close to existing.
However, if you define "learn" as "adapting behavior according to past experience", then machines can certainly learn. They've been learning for a very long time. But learning does not require AI.
(i.e.: even more precise than what's available on commercial satnavs).
But not more precise than Google Maps, which does exactly this.
OSM doesn't go that precisely into details.
True. I wasn't saying OSM was good enough for this task -- I was saying that it's hard to think that a new crowdsourced service would do any better.
The truth is, even the gold standard for this sort of thing (Google Maps) doesn't have the amount of accuracy required. And can't. These things change too frequently to actually rely on them for that level of detail.
For that you need to crowdsource it from video feeds
That would be an improvement, certainly. It's still hard to see how it would be effective enough in practice as a crowdsourced venture. How are they going to convince enough people to outfit their cars with dash cams?
Maybe they have some secret strategy that will make this work. I just don't see what it is at the moment.
ROT26 is twice as good.
The DAG is not asking for a universal back door, he wants something more like key escrow.
Which is equally problematic.
Alternatively, they could have a separate "master key" for each device that unlocks the secure enclave and decrypts the phone.
Which is a backdoor.
Every two years you can completely replace the house of representatives.
I can? How come nobody told me I had that kind of power??
First, to hear the Justice department tell it, they must have been unable to solve crimes back before networks existed. Which is clearly BS.
Second, if their argument is to be taken seriously, then we also need to have laws preventing people from owning safes unless they give a copy of the key/combo to the government.
Sounds like something OpenStreetMap already does, though there are probably accuracy and liabilities limitations?
I came here to say this.
OSM maps are very good. I have a hard time believing that you could crowdsource maps that are better.
But even I can't justify calling it a viable desktop OS, and I say that as somebody who actively maintained a minor Linux distro for many years.
As someone who has been using solely Linux on all of my personal machines for over 10 years, I stand as evidence that it's entirely viable.
As a desktop OS, its differences are definitely not sufficient to make Linux a viable third OS
What a weird thing to say, since it's been a viable OS for many years. I wonder if we differ in the definition of "viable".
When I say "viable", I don't mean "it could become dominant". I mean that it can be used by real people doing real things, and attract a large enough user base for it to be sustained over time.
Linux is clearly viable on those points, and has been for a long, long time.
Linux is based on the notion of being able to recompile things when they break.
Incorrect.
Consumer OSes require binary compatibility, from device drivers all the way up to applications.
Which Linux distros have. Unless you're a developer or you're doing really specialized things, it hasn't been necessary to compile source yourself for years.
Your definition of a "robot" is anything with a feedback loop? That definition is far more broad that most people (even roboticists) are typically using.
IBM seems to have moved fine from counting employee hours, to mainframes, to consulting.
Yes, I never said or implied that IBM was struggling. My point is that IBM is no longer the dominant force in computing. That's where Microsoft is going.
When a prediction is not falsifiable, there is never a reason to modify the prediction. Give a number along with a date to avoid sounding like the consultant leeches.
Of course it's falsifiable. If Microsoft changes its trajectory (as it's trying to do), then my prediction was wrong.
What number? Date for what? What do you think I'm predicting?
The speed was a problem, yes, but I developing was a blast, and it was no more difficult to debug Newton programs than other platforms.
I keep seeing this repeated here over and over like it's a fact?
Look up the studies yourself.
Yeah great you work in Silicon Valley
Wrong.
as a mobile programmer
Wrong
Meanwhile in the real worlkd 90% of every fortune 1000 company and 2 smaller businesses I worked with all use Windows on their servers.
Your personal experience is not representative of the entirety of server space. That's why you need to look at the surveys and studies.
I will note, however, that your experience and mine are very different. Right now, I'm working on two projects for Fortune 500 clients. Both of them are developing solutions that will run in their server farms, and both of those farms run primarily Linux. In my job prior to this at a Fortune 500 company, the heavy iron ran primarily Linux.
Windows has Exchange. Windows has SQL Server. Windows has Active Directory. Windows has the file shares.
Indeed -- and, to use my own meaningless personal experience: all three of the F500 companies I'm talking about also run Windows servers for just those things -- but those are a tiny fraction of the total servers they're running.
Windows is the default server OS for every company unless they can't find support for a product that only runs on Linux.
Yeah, I don't believe this is true when it comes to heavy iron. I do believe this is true for office machines and the servers intended for office use.
I generally preferred KDE3 too, but I don't recognize most of the deficiencies you're citing here. When Plasma was first introduced, it was a borderline unusable mess, but it looks to me like they've pretty much got that worked out (yes, there are still rough spots here and there, but that's true of literally every desktop interface on every OS I've ever used).
As to the desktop crashing when you turn off the monitor -- this is something I'd never heard of before, and certainly have never experienced. The only thing I found online about it was a ticket filed with CentOS (not KDE) back in 2014.
I'm guessing that it's either fixed or rare (and the workaround is easy enough that most people don't care anymore). Which might be why the CentOS bug filing has a severity of "minor".
And let's not forget that Microsoft has its own Store now. That could become an enormous revenue stream if they can convince developers to use it.
I don't really see that happening, for a whole bunch of reasons. But you are correct, if the Windows store ever becomes popular, then it would become profitable.
I think you may be underestimating the logistical difficulty of doing what you say in a company the size of Microsoft. There is a good chance that such a transition would kill the company, unless it was done slowly, over a period of many years.
IBM isn't old and decrepit. They have their niche and are doing very well in it.
But they're a long way from their heyday. Remember, they used to be the indisputable king of the computer industry, touching and largely dominating pretty much every aspect of it.
In comparison to that, they're a shadow of what they used to be. That is, in my opinion, a great thing. If IBM hadn't gotten out of the way, the computer industry would probably be ten years behind where it is now.
became irrelevant by developing and promoting products that served their own interests, instead of customers
I'd put Google as heading into that same position as well.
Is vault a GUI around ecryptfs?
I've been doing some minor research on this. Not comprehensive, so I could be wrong here, but it looks to me like this is not a wrapper around ecryptfs, since they say you can run it on top of an encrypted filesystem.
if it still looks like a cashew on your desktop, you are using a old version
No, it doesn't look like a cashew. I just never stopped calling it that.
To get rid of it on the newer Plasma releases:
Thanks for this! I had no idea that they changed that. When people were complaining about it after it was introduced, they were so adamant that it was critical and will never be removed that I just resigned myself to its existence. Although I do something close to removing it -- I position it behind the taskbar so it's mostly out of the way.
Anyway, I withdraw my nitpick.