Apple is gonna dick people around with the Mac Pro just like they did with the Macbook Pro. They will take away ports and functionality and charge $4,000 dollars for it. I used to be an Apple fan but these last several years seems to show that Apple has given up on the desktop. I would rather they just sell licenses to OS X (or open source it)...their bread and butter are the iOS devices anyway.
are centralized above and beyond efficiency in production, despite the fact that knowledge workers can be sent work digitally and we have high quality teleconferencing if you really need "facetime" (Fuck you, Apple!), they still wake up, put on office clothes, and commute on average 45 minutes to their workplace to do a job that can be done from anyplace in the world. It's about disciplining and control of labor by the bosses. They can make you work at the pace they want you to, regulate your movements, and make you abide to any other policies that they see fit. Hell, if they let them have some autonomy by letting them work at home, they might get the crazy idea to work on their own projects and go independent, taking away profits from Father Corporation that they deserve. Y'know...actually innovate!!!
The reason why the US isnt't doing big science projects is because doesn't have the Soviet Union to play catchup with. The way they fund "innovation" is bass-ackward and will only do so if it is profitable and is "sure to work". As a result we get new electronic gizmos that is basically micronization of older tech and nothing fundamentally radical. David Graeber talks about this in some of his lectures regarding why we don't have robot factories and all the whiz bang tech we were expected to have by now. It's bureaucracy, hierarchy, and how we tend to fund things as a society.
At this time, China isn't really outcompeting the US on any technological strategic front, and the Europeans are more or less on the same squad as the US. If ever the case the Chinese decide to go to Mars, invented a teleporter, or presented a serious strategic threat to the US that may change, but by then it will be too late. I predict that the people to beat in this era will still be the Europeans even in this time of austerity.
If you want innovation, you give a group of smart people who work well together some resources and leave them alone to weave their tapestry of dreams, not regiment them to what bureaucrats think they should be working on or some idiotic timetable.
Like I said, they needed to upgrade a decade ago. Turn that old P3 into a linux server and buy a new machine FFS. Tax time is here, spend 300 bucks and get a better machine.
They shouldn't have fixed it. anyone using Windows XP should have upgraded years ago. Perhaps this would be encouragement to move to Windows 7....or Linux:D
that in American science education, you use SI units for everything. You might use American customary early in elementary but that is the end of it. Also you get a lot of beverages in liters (2 L soda, but only in the stores, also wine and spirits).
If America has any hope of staying on top of scientific innovation henceforth, it needs to learn how to deal with metric in everyday life, and not just in academic scenarios.
Marx talks how capital's need to grow lead to technological innovation to make production more efficient. This in principle could allow for people to work much less and still maintain very high standards of living. However, our production is oriented toward maximizing profits, not human needs, therefore we work longer hours in spite of the mechanization of most of production.
OTOH, the labor theory of value also shows that this mechanization also causes a decrease in the RATE of profit, which has lead to a decline of labor intensive industry in the US and a financialization of capital.
So yea, mechanization not only displaces jobs, but I contend that it is more relevant than outsourcing to the loss of American manufacturing and tech jobs. In fact, there was a Slashdot post not too long ago talking about how rising wages in Asia is causing manufacturing to move back to the US but in the form of robot factories, so the jobs still don't come back.
These effects don't make themselves readily apparent because capitalism shifting these problems in space and time so they show up as problems elsewhere in the economy. Markets also further obscure these problems as consumers arrive at the market place theoretically as "equals" making mutual exchanges while hiding inequalities in labor and production.
Something like FreedomBox running on hardware WE own, and the software tools that allow people to migrate their data trivially from the feudal lords and upload it onto their own devices to run their own clouds. While there is software that allow people to run such service and manage our own data, these tools tend to be harder to use than the solutions that Google or Apple may use in their services (there are exceptions). Furthermore, while the technically inclined among us may take the plunge and create our own Diaspora pods or what have you, we still have to get our friends to do the same! Since most of our friends are going to use Facebook or iCloud services for the reasons I outlined above, that almost compels us to do so as well, lest we be left out of the social scene altogether. At this point I think the way forward is to build those tools, make them compelling, and use them and find ways to integrate them into the corporate clouds, while at the same time advocating to those around us WHY they would want to use the more democratic solutions like Diaspora or StatusNet, then get them to be strong advocates for the same.
At least in liberal democracy, it seems as if democracy is reduced to picking from Corporate Candidate A and Corporate Candidate B. At most, people go out and raise money or campaign for either Corporate Candidate. Once the voting is done, that's the end of the masses' participation in the democratic process.
I see the problem is that we elect and pay people to attempt to do politics on our behalf. There is no participating, deliberation, debating, execution, etc of policy by the people. We are wholly at the whim of people who are bought off by folks who do not have our best interests in mind.
I also agree that the education esp here in America is abysmal. Not only are we not politically educated in the form of govt we have in the US, we are unaware of how any alternatives work. We also don't encourage the well rounded general education and critical thinking skills that would allow us to make at least properly informed decisions. This is further exacerbated by the 24/7 propaganda that comes over the TV by the establishment to get you to act against your own interests.
There are numerous other reasons why democracy is flounder, and they tend to be intimately related, such as the lack of time to do politics because of jobs, cynicism resulting from the obvious failure of our political apparatus to address the real needs of Americans and instead defends the bottom lines of corporations, etc. However until we can address the issue of education and the failures of token representative democracy we will continue to elect people and get results ranging from mediocre to the TEOTWAWKI:?
I have basically written off flying in the US anymore...I prefer taking the train or driving myself. AMTRAK may not be high speed but the experience is definitely more pleasant. The last time I flew was about 6 years ago from New Orleans back to NY and my ticket was flagged for a random search. It didn't take too long but I was not too keen on stretching my arms out and taking off my shoes and having my bags looked through. Having said all that the experience under the current TSA regime makes my experience look pleasurable in comparison.
I think high speed rail is a great idea esp on the East Coast and the West Coast. Cross country well idk but there are hardly any people there anyway.
If I want to buy something, I'll buy it. If I am interested in your product, I'll check it out. I do not like it when people come up to me to cram things down my throat unrequested. This is even worse. I have already bought a product, do not compel me into watching more stupid assed ads to buy more crap. That's what's wrong with the US now. We are inundated with advertising by companies trying to sell us more crap. There is no more public space anymore where people can be free from the influence of companies. I like Apple, but I think this is a step in the wrong direction. Everytime I see this kind of advertising I cannot help but to think of the Josie and the Pussycats movie.
Slashdot Mirror
Apple is gonna dick people around with the Mac Pro just like they did with the Macbook Pro. They will take away ports and functionality and charge $4,000 dollars for it. I used to be an Apple fan but these last several years seems to show that Apple has given up on the desktop. I would rather they just sell licenses to OS X (or open source it)...their bread and butter are the iOS devices anyway.
...will they be able to defend the Frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada?
OOOOh if only I had some mod points. One of my favorite corny sci-fi movies as a youngin. Look out for those Xan-do-Xans as well
I type
sudo yaourt -Syua
like a real man.
are centralized above and beyond efficiency in production, despite the fact that knowledge workers can be sent work digitally and we have high quality teleconferencing if you really need "facetime" (Fuck you, Apple!), they still wake up, put on office clothes, and commute on average 45 minutes to their workplace to do a job that can be done from anyplace in the world. It's about disciplining and control of labor by the bosses. They can make you work at the pace they want you to, regulate your movements, and make you abide to any other policies that they see fit. Hell, if they let them have some autonomy by letting them work at home, they might get the crazy idea to work on their own projects and go independent, taking away profits from Father Corporation that they deserve. Y'know...actually innovate!!!
The reason why the US isnt't doing big science projects is because doesn't have the Soviet Union to play catchup with. The way they fund "innovation" is bass-ackward and will only do so if it is profitable and is "sure to work". As a result we get new electronic gizmos that is basically micronization of older tech and nothing fundamentally radical. David Graeber talks about this in some of his lectures regarding why we don't have robot factories and all the whiz bang tech we were expected to have by now. It's bureaucracy, hierarchy, and how we tend to fund things as a society.
At this time, China isn't really outcompeting the US on any technological strategic front, and the Europeans are more or less on the same squad as the US. If ever the case the Chinese decide to go to Mars, invented a teleporter, or presented a serious strategic threat to the US that may change, but by then it will be too late. I predict that the people to beat in this era will still be the Europeans even in this time of austerity.
If you want innovation, you give a group of smart people who work well together some resources and leave them alone to weave their tapestry of dreams, not regiment them to what bureaucrats think they should be working on or some idiotic timetable.
Then stop using shitty apps?
Like I said, they needed to upgrade a decade ago. Turn that old P3 into a linux server and buy a new machine FFS. Tax time is here, spend 300 bucks and get a better machine.
They shouldn't have fixed it. anyone using Windows XP should have upgraded years ago. Perhaps this would be encouragement to move to Windows 7....or Linux :D
that in American science education, you use SI units for everything. You might use American customary early in elementary but that is the end of it. Also you get a lot of beverages in liters (2 L soda, but only in the stores, also wine and spirits).
If America has any hope of staying on top of scientific innovation henceforth, it needs to learn how to deal with metric in everyday life, and not just in academic scenarios.
If I had mod points I would give you some. Transhumanist and socialist thinkers have been making this very point forever.
Marx talks how capital's need to grow lead to technological innovation to make production more efficient. This in principle could allow for people to work much less and still maintain very high standards of living. However, our production is oriented toward maximizing profits, not human needs, therefore we work longer hours in spite of the mechanization of most of production.
OTOH, the labor theory of value also shows that this mechanization also causes a decrease in the RATE of profit, which has lead to a decline of labor intensive industry in the US and a financialization of capital.
So yea, mechanization not only displaces jobs, but I contend that it is more relevant than outsourcing to the loss of American manufacturing and tech jobs. In fact, there was a Slashdot post not too long ago talking about how rising wages in Asia is causing manufacturing to move back to the US but in the form of robot factories, so the jobs still don't come back.
These effects don't make themselves readily apparent because capitalism shifting these problems in space and time so they show up as problems elsewhere in the economy. Markets also further obscure these problems as consumers arrive at the market place theoretically as "equals" making mutual exchanges while hiding inequalities in labor and production.
Something like FreedomBox running on hardware WE own, and the software tools that allow people to migrate their data trivially from the feudal lords and upload it onto their own devices to run their own clouds. While there is software that allow people to run such service and manage our own data, these tools tend to be harder to use than the solutions that Google or Apple may use in their services (there are exceptions). Furthermore, while the technically inclined among us may take the plunge and create our own Diaspora pods or what have you, we still have to get our friends to do the same! Since most of our friends are going to use Facebook or iCloud services for the reasons I outlined above, that almost compels us to do so as well, lest we be left out of the social scene altogether. At this point I think the way forward is to build those tools, make them compelling, and use them and find ways to integrate them into the corporate clouds, while at the same time advocating to those around us WHY they would want to use the more democratic solutions like Diaspora or StatusNet, then get them to be strong advocates for the same.
Sounds reasonable to me *checks ktorrent*
Maybe Americans are getting smart and using VPN's and proxies :D
At least in liberal democracy, it seems as if democracy is reduced to picking from Corporate Candidate A and Corporate Candidate B. At most, people go out and raise money or campaign for either Corporate Candidate. Once the voting is done, that's the end of the masses' participation in the democratic process.
I see the problem is that we elect and pay people to attempt to do politics on our behalf. There is no participating, deliberation, debating, execution, etc of policy by the people. We are wholly at the whim of people who are bought off by folks who do not have our best interests in mind.
I also agree that the education esp here in America is abysmal. Not only are we not politically educated in the form of govt we have in the US, we are unaware of how any alternatives work. We also don't encourage the well rounded general education and critical thinking skills that would allow us to make at least properly informed decisions. This is further exacerbated by the 24/7 propaganda that comes over the TV by the establishment to get you to act against your own interests.
There are numerous other reasons why democracy is flounder, and they tend to be intimately related, such as the lack of time to do politics because of jobs, cynicism resulting from the obvious failure of our political apparatus to address the real needs of Americans and instead defends the bottom lines of corporations, etc. However until we can address the issue of education and the failures of token representative democracy we will continue to elect people and get results ranging from mediocre to the TEOTWAWKI :?
I have basically written off flying in the US anymore...I prefer taking the train or driving myself. AMTRAK may not be high speed but the experience is definitely more pleasant. The last time I flew was about 6 years ago from New Orleans back to NY and my ticket was flagged for a random search. It didn't take too long but I was not too keen on stretching my arms out and taking off my shoes and having my bags looked through. Having said all that the experience under the current TSA regime makes my experience look pleasurable in comparison. I think high speed rail is a great idea esp on the East Coast and the West Coast. Cross country well idk but there are hardly any people there anyway.
If I want to buy something, I'll buy it. If I am interested in your product, I'll check it out. I do not like it when people come up to me to cram things down my throat unrequested. This is even worse. I have already bought a product, do not compel me into watching more stupid assed ads to buy more crap. That's what's wrong with the US now. We are inundated with advertising by companies trying to sell us more crap. There is no more public space anymore where people can be free from the influence of companies. I like Apple, but I think this is a step in the wrong direction. Everytime I see this kind of advertising I cannot help but to think of the Josie and the Pussycats movie.