I think you should spend some time reading Tomi's blog before spouting such nonsense. He does a GREAT job of explaining in detail that Nokia was most definitely NOT "in free fall." Take a look at this graph from the very post that this Slashdot post linked to. Or this one. Or this. (The blue line on top is Nokia, as Tomi explained in a long, rambling post earlier this year.)
That sure doesn't look like a company in free fall to me! Far from it. It looks instead like a company that is comfortably atop its market and still showing excellent growth.
Sorry, I can't agree with your analysis. I never have really liked the OS/X UI all that much. Apple's implementation of the dock is one of the things I dislike the most.
But then, I'm old school. My first GUI was an XWindows workstation (running CDE or Motif on HP/UX, I think). Right click to bring up a menu anywhere on the background, multiple configurable workplaces, cascading menus, this is the way that FSM intended a UI to be!:-)
But, to each his own. Just goes to show that choice is good, right?
...and Debian for the ones that want all the fun of configuring their boot scripts by hand and none of the excitement that comes with recent packages.
Wait, what? I moved over from Ubuntu to a full time Debian stable configuration after Ubuntu 10.10 trashed my configuration (yet again!). I decided that enough was enough.
I also decided that if I was going to move, I wanted to move to a distro that was (a) as upstream as possible to be close to the app development teams and (b) would let me run a configuration that would Just Work. In my view, that meant one of several choices:
(a) Gentoo, an old favorite of mine that I think lost its way for quite a while (it's also focussed on the bleeding edge, which would risk my desire for a distro that would Just Work with no fuss),
(b) Slackware, a distro that I had no experience with,
(c) Fedora, a distro designed to be on the cutting if not bleeding edge, and
(d) Debian, a distro famed for both its flame wars over some pretty silly stuff (really? confusing trademarks with FLOSS?) and the very high quality of its stable distribution.
I had tried Debian for server builds in the past and had been impressed by its no nonsense attitude toward the twin goals of stability and security. I hadn't been thrilled about the need to drop to the command line, but I thought I might as well give it a go. After all, Debian is upstream of dozens if not hundreds of distros precisely because the breadth and quality of its repository is unquestioned.
What I found was a pleasant surprise. The Debian install script now has a GUI option. Again, in keeping with the Debian philosophy, it's straightforward, simple to use, and Just Works. In fact, if you have installed any distro in the past, you'll feel right at home. The list of tasks is pretty much the same for everyone, after all. That goes double if you have installed any distro that is derived from Debian (Mint, Ubuntu, etc.).
The stable version of Debian has also installed cleanly on every PC that I've thrown it at to date. (Granted, extremely small sample size but important to me.) More importantly, every admin task that I've had to do I've done through a GUI. Whether it was finding networked printers and selecting the right printer driver, upgrading several apps from Debian stable to the latest in the backports repository while keeping the core as stable, setting up a dual monitor configuration, adding users, managing access, you name it. It has been done through the same familiar GUIs that I had been using for years in Ubuntu.
Debian also gives me more choice in versions of software than any other distro. If I got bored with Debian stable, I could move up to Debian testing. Heck, if I really wanted to run the latest and greatest, I could just move to unstable. Or, if I REALLY wanted to go on an exciting ride into an unknown future, I could move to Debian experimental!
So, what are these problems you speak of? Where's my struggle to find the latest version of Firefox or LibreOffice? Where's my need to 'configure my boot script by hand'? Only in your fevered imagination, I suspect.
I'll be the first to say that Debian is not for everyone. The install GUI, while very simple and straightforward, could stand to be a bit better organized. Even that is more about style and presentation than having anything missing, though.
Nope, what Debian could use (but doesn't really need, IMNSHO) are some volunteers with real UI experience to clean up the install UI, and maybe help polish Synaptic. Other than that, I think the distro is in great shape.
Excuse me? Windows 95 was demonstrably WORSE than even Windows NT, fer chrissake! The fact that Microsoft kept actively working on NT for the business market while producing that POS for the home market makes it obvious that he knew it was crap of the worst kind. And NT, don't forget, was deliberately kept hidden from their business partner (IBM) at the time until it was at least semi-ready to replace their joint project (OS/2).
If BG really wanted to produce something for the home market that wasn't crap, all he needed to do was put a little polish on NT and kick it out the door. The fact that he didn't speaks volumes.
Every time I have to do some admin task on my stepdaughters' OS/X laptops, I am reminded forcibly yet again that Apple still thinks that mice should only have one button.
While I personally appreciate you giving your software away, there are plenty of others who have figured out a way to release entertainment over the Internet and make money at it. For example, the Humble Bundle guys are still making money hand over fist releasing entertainment that is DRM-free, and with no set price. A recent blog posting about the last bundle stated:
...What we have found is rather interesting: Android users are actually pretty generous, to the tune of a $7.43 average purchase price. This puts Android users well-above Windows ($5.73) slightly above Mac ($7.02), but below the still mighty Linux ($9.92).
This runs directly against the chorus of posts branding Android users as cheap pessimists and disproportionally resistant to spend money on apps when compared to other platforms, especially when it comes to games.
Ahahahahahahahaaaha. Let's see. Bill Gates complained in a newsletter circa 1980 about people copying software and ideas without permission.
I have no recollection of the "ideas" part of your statement. Care to cite your references?
You're kidding, right? I thought this was one of the most famous statements ever made by Gates. However, it was 1976 (close enough to 1980, I suppose) and it wasn't a newsletter, it was an actual letter to the Homebrew Computer Club.
There are times when you need someone who can come in, find a quick hit solution that works, and moves on. There are also times when you need someone who can sit down, thoroughly analyze the situation, devise a long term plan to resolve it, and stick with it through to completion.
For me, politeness is a sine qua non of civilization.
Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naive, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as 'empty,' 'meaningless,' or 'dishonest,' and scorn to use them. No matter how 'pure' their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best.
On the subject of honesty:
What are the facts? Again and again and again-what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what 'the stars foretell,' avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable 'verdict of history'--what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!
The point is, if you are going to treat someone with real politeness, you should be prepared to tell them the whole truth. Tell it objectively, tell it honestly, and with every consideration of how they might perceive the message. But tell the truth! Anything less does them a great disservice.
Ever heard of, oh, let me think: Threewave's original Capture the Flag, which spawned dozens of imitators just on Quake's engine alone, let alone the countless variations on I don't know how many different engines since?
No? How about the original Team Fortress? TF2 seems to be making Valve a buck or two these days, eh?
Or, how about Rocket Arena, a game mod with built-in maps, a matching system for 1v1, 2v2, and 4v4, complete with scoring system that carried across map changes?
You want something even more off the beaten path? How about QRally, a road racing game? Or Quess, a chess game?
All of those mods, plus hundreds if not thousands of others, were all built using id software's Quake engine and their modding tools. There's been nothing quite like the Quake modding scene since. Lots of imitators, but I don't think any of them ever managed both the depth and breadth of what that modding community did with the tools that id software supplied.
I'm not much of a sports fan myself. I'll watch an occasional baseball game or football game on one of the local digital OTA channels* but that's about it.
Anyhow, I've got a couple of Rokus and I've poked around the Channel Store to see what's available. The sports section has major league baseball, the NBA, the NHL, and others. The notes for the MLB channel state that the games it offers live are in HD. Don't know about the others.
So far as I know, the NFL still insists on only allowing access to streaming content through their own website, so that one isn't easily available. To my disappointment, the streaming live Olympics coverage from NBC is only accessible if you've got a cable or satellite TV subscription. Clearly, there are a few sports sources out there that don't quite get it yet.:-) Still, there are opportunities to watch streaming sports out there that look pretty decent.
* Side note: An interesting geek project if you have some patience is to build your own small fractal tv antenna for less than $50. I built a couple based upon the increased fractal layout that the article's author links to in the comments. They work pretty well. I'm pulling in several more channels with those than I could see through my Dish Network subscription.
Except you're missing the point that at least some of those storefronts are most emphatically NOT closed. There is nothing that holds individual game publishers from listing their wares in multiple storefronts. And in fact, many do. In addition, the fact that multiple storefronts exist immediately means that those publishers have choice that they do not have in the console market.
I'd be glad to be pointed to evidence stating the opposite, but I'm under the impression it's just a handful of publishers who are getting rich and the rest of the industry isn't getting a lot out of selling PC games.
I think it's more accurate to say that like all mature markets, there are a handful of companies at the top of the heap raking in the dough by the double bucketload. However, unlike the console market, the PC gaming market has plentyofalternativestorefronts for the smaller publishers to sell their wares and remain profitable. (And I haven't even really scratched the surface!)
The end result is that there is a far, FAR richer variety of games available for PCs than there is for consoles.
Heck, I learned that tactic from my grandmother, who probably learned it from her grandmother, who probably learned it from hers. Is it more accurate to say that only geeks remember those hard earned lesssons about shopping that have been passed down? Seriously??
A vendor supplied hardware device that is tied to a single storefront is silly on its face. The fact that there are enough gullible people out there to buy them to continue to make it a viable business model is what is truly mind-boggling.
According to this incredibly long, but thoroughly entertaining and educational blog post, the carriers are apparently refusing to sell Windows phones ever since Microsoft bought Skype. He references Elop's own statements to that effect multiple times.
Speaking of the 121 errors, he does have a truly funny take on what they mean to a Finnish Nokia fan:
Well what do you know? The notorious 101 faults list in the Lumia (now with more Lumia! get yours now with 121 faults). When you read that list as a regular Nokia user of many Nokia phones, you tear your eyes out. It feels like.. how can I possibly explain what this feels like as a lifelong Nokia fan and user. When you start to read that list, it feels like... Now I know. BMW the ultimate driving machine. We've all sat in one, many have driven one. We know, out of 'regular' sedans and cars, excluding supercar sportscars, the Ferraris and Porsches, the BMW is the best car to drive, every model, year in and year out, what BMW excels as ie being the driver's car. You won't find BMW owners letting chauffeurs drive them around haha, like you will often see in a big Mercedes or Jaguar or Cadillac. BMW yes. Now imagine a BMW owner, a lifetime BMW owner eager driver amateour race driver passionate BMW owners club driver - seeing a new specs list of what the next model will feature.
And you find out the next 5 series will have coil springs instead of modern suspension. It will have a live rear axle. It won't have modern fuel injection, it has a carborator. It won't come with power steering, won't even offer it as an option. And then you find out the next BMW 5 series will actually be a badge-engineered car, manufactured at the Lada plant in Russia. Lada, if you don't know, was the old Fiat design, that was then 'improved' in Egypt, and then built by Russian tractor engineers. So designed by Italians, improved by Egyptians and built by Russians. This is a sure receipe for automotive excellence. And now the next BMW won't come from a BMW factory in Bavaria, it comes from that Lada factory where yes, this 1970s monstrosity is still produced today in 2012 and the 'latest model' using the original design of Italy from the 1960s was recently driven by Putin across a new superhighway. He was so afraid the brand new car might break down, they had not one but two of them on a flatbed truck trailing brave Mr Putin on his celebrate Russian driving PR trip. I don't want to suggest that all Russian equipment is bad - they were the first to put a man in space and by almost every generation of jet fighters they have been far ahead of the West and the Tupolev 144 was in commercial prodcution as the world's first supersonic passenger jet well before the most magnificent civilian engineering masterpiece of the West, the Concorde. But the Lada. Designed by Italians, improved by the Egyptians, built by the Russians. You have to drive one to believe how horrid that little car is (and we have some in Finland, I've driven a few in my earlier years..)
Granted, these guys didn't have Kickstarter available when they first began work on this project. Granted, development of each release has been agonizingly slow. But if you're looking for a small, open console that plays a bunch of games, why buy Ouya when this is out there? Seriously. If these guys ever get serious dough rolling in, the price on these would drop through the floor now that all the sunk costs have been paid for. I want one. Now. It's definitely high on my list to buy once we get our debt paid down.
Manual weaving is a skill that takes years of practice to properly learn. The people who apprentice to it get committed in their life's course, and changing careers in the 19th Century was not a widely available option. I've had people who tell me John Henry should have put down that hammer and went to work as a mechanical engineer. Sometimes they're just cheerfully oblivious to the fact that an illiterate black man in 1800s America didn't really have that as a choice. Sometimes they're just smug, cold-hearted bastards.
Look, I cheer the invention of the looms, the cotton gin, the steam engine and all the rest of it. I love technology so much I've devoted my life to it. I just think the least we can do as a civilized people is to take some of the plunder that disruptive technology floods us with and use it to pension off the people we've made obsolete.
While what you say is true, and there's no doubt that the smug cold hearted bastards that you refer to tend to end up on top of the heap depressingly often. Still, pension them off? Why not retrain? It's not like there weren't plenty of jobs available in the new industries that were springing up. And no, I'm not thinking about mechanical engineer. But there were a lot of brand new jobs running mills, repairing machinery, in transportation, etc. Jobs that eventually ended up paying better than being a weaver ever did.
On a side note, if you read science fiction; there's a whole universe being built up around a novel written Eric Flint titled 1632. A lot of discussion in Baen's Bar has led to a number of short stories that talk about the disruption that would occur to a global economy if a modern town was suddenly transported back several hundred years. Several of the proposed solutions are a lot more humane than what happened around the world in the early to mid 1800s.
Or, how about offering real incentives to move elsewhere? Australia would have been far better off with a lot more willing colonists instead of penal transport, for example.
BTW, that disruptive change that started with the textile mills was still going on when Tolkien was a child. One of the extras on the extended DVD set talked extensively about how seeing his childhood home disrupted led directly to his description of Saruman's despoiling Isengard.
Whenever somebody speaks with approval about the Luddites, the Know Nothings, or the other regressive movements that sprung up during the 1800s, I like to point them to this graph. Go ahead and play it through a few times. Stop and start it a few years or decades before and after each point. I know, it only goes back to about 10 years before the Luddite violence, but you can still see the long term improvement in the world's economy/and/ our health.
One thing that you'll note is that at the time the Luddites were overreacting to a disruptive change in Britain's economy (and admittedly the government overreacted as well), the UK was already one of the wealthiest nations on Earth with one of the highest life expectancies. To some degree, the displaced textile workers really didn't know how good they had it. They could have had the misfortune to be born in Angola or the Solomon Islands, for example.
The TIOBE Programming Community index is an indicator of the popularity of programming languages......Observe that the TIOBE index is not about the best programming language or the language in which most lines of code have been written.
emphasis in the original
I think it's fair to say that if you take TIOBE for what it's worth, there's a lot to learn about how programming languages wax and wane in popularity over the years. Surely that's worth something.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you should spend some time reading Tomi's blog before spouting such nonsense. He does a GREAT job of explaining in detail that Nokia was most definitely NOT "in free fall." Take a look at this graph from the very post that this Slashdot post linked to. Or this one. Or this. (The blue line on top is Nokia, as Tomi explained in a long, rambling post earlier this year.)
That sure doesn't look like a company in free fall to me! Far from it. It looks instead like a company that is comfortably atop its market and still showing excellent growth.
Sorry, I can't agree with your analysis. I never have really liked the OS/X UI all that much. Apple's implementation of the dock is one of the things I dislike the most.
But then, I'm old school. My first GUI was an XWindows workstation (running CDE or Motif on HP/UX, I think). Right click to bring up a menu anywhere on the background, multiple configurable workplaces, cascading menus, this is the way that FSM intended a UI to be! :-)
But, to each his own. Just goes to show that choice is good, right?
Undoing mod points to post this. If you like FreeMind, you really need to try out Freeplane. Much more functional than FreeMind on so many levels. :-)
Oh, my, that's scary! You mean, we might finally get to a point where we're NOT PAYING 50%-100% MORE OF OUR GDP THAN THE REST OF THE DEVELOPED WORLD DOES FOR DEMONSTRABLY WORSE RESULTS?????????? How WILL we ever survive?
/sarcasm
Wait, what? I moved over from Ubuntu to a full time Debian stable configuration after Ubuntu 10.10 trashed my configuration (yet again!). I decided that enough was enough.
I also decided that if I was going to move, I wanted to move to a distro that was (a) as upstream as possible to be close to the app development teams and (b) would let me run a configuration that would Just Work. In my view, that meant one of several choices:
(a) Gentoo, an old favorite of mine that I think lost its way for quite a while (it's also focussed on the bleeding edge, which would risk my desire for a distro that would Just Work with no fuss),
(b) Slackware, a distro that I had no experience with,
(c) Fedora, a distro designed to be on the cutting if not bleeding edge, and
(d) Debian, a distro famed for both its flame wars over some pretty silly stuff (really? confusing trademarks with FLOSS?) and the very high quality of its stable distribution.
I had tried Debian for server builds in the past and had been impressed by its no nonsense attitude toward the twin goals of stability and security. I hadn't been thrilled about the need to drop to the command line, but I thought I might as well give it a go. After all, Debian is upstream of dozens if not hundreds of distros precisely because the breadth and quality of its repository is unquestioned.
What I found was a pleasant surprise. The Debian install script now has a GUI option. Again, in keeping with the Debian philosophy, it's straightforward, simple to use, and Just Works. In fact, if you have installed any distro in the past, you'll feel right at home. The list of tasks is pretty much the same for everyone, after all. That goes double if you have installed any distro that is derived from Debian (Mint, Ubuntu, etc.).
The stable version of Debian has also installed cleanly on every PC that I've thrown it at to date. (Granted, extremely small sample size but important to me.) More importantly, every admin task that I've had to do I've done through a GUI. Whether it was finding networked printers and selecting the right printer driver, upgrading several apps from Debian stable to the latest in the backports repository while keeping the core as stable, setting up a dual monitor configuration, adding users, managing access, you name it. It has been done through the same familiar GUIs that I had been using for years in Ubuntu.
Debian also gives me more choice in versions of software than any other distro. If I got bored with Debian stable, I could move up to Debian testing. Heck, if I really wanted to run the latest and greatest, I could just move to unstable. Or, if I REALLY wanted to go on an exciting ride into an unknown future, I could move to Debian experimental!
So, what are these problems you speak of? Where's my struggle to find the latest version of Firefox or LibreOffice? Where's my need to 'configure my boot script by hand'? Only in your fevered imagination, I suspect.
I'll be the first to say that Debian is not for everyone. The install GUI, while very simple and straightforward, could stand to be a bit better organized. Even that is more about style and presentation than having anything missing, though.
Nope, what Debian could use (but doesn't really need, IMNSHO) are some volunteers with real UI experience to clean up the install UI, and maybe help polish Synaptic. Other than that, I think the distro is in great shape.
Excuse me? Windows 95 was demonstrably WORSE than even Windows NT, fer chrissake! The fact that Microsoft kept actively working on NT for the business market while producing that POS for the home market makes it obvious that he knew it was crap of the worst kind. And NT, don't forget, was deliberately kept hidden from their business partner (IBM) at the time until it was at least semi-ready to replace their joint project (OS/2).
If BG really wanted to produce something for the home market that wasn't crap, all he needed to do was put a little polish on NT and kick it out the door. The fact that he didn't speaks volumes.
Every time I have to do some admin task on my stepdaughters' OS/X laptops, I am reminded forcibly yet again that Apple still thinks that mice should only have one button.
Actually, GP is correct; that phrase means both citizens and non-citizens. Citizens are a subset of people in this context.
You're kidding, right? I thought this was one of the most famous statements ever made by Gates. However, it was 1976 (close enough to 1980, I suppose) and it wasn't a newsletter, it was an actual letter to the Homebrew Computer Club.
There are times when you need someone who can come in, find a quick hit solution that works, and moves on. There are also times when you need someone who can sit down, thoroughly analyze the situation, devise a long term plan to resolve it, and stick with it through to completion.
On good manners:
On the subject of honesty:
The point is, if you are going to treat someone with real politeness, you should be prepared to tell them the whole truth. Tell it objectively, tell it honestly, and with every consideration of how they might perceive the message. But tell the truth! Anything less does them a great disservice.
Ever heard of, oh, let me think: Threewave's original Capture the Flag, which spawned dozens of imitators just on Quake's engine alone, let alone the countless variations on I don't know how many different engines since?
No? How about the original Team Fortress? TF2 seems to be making Valve a buck or two these days, eh?
Or, how about Rocket Arena, a game mod with built-in maps, a matching system for 1v1, 2v2, and 4v4, complete with scoring system that carried across map changes?
You want something even more off the beaten path? How about QRally, a road racing game? Or Quess, a chess game?
All of those mods, plus hundreds if not thousands of others, were all built using id software's Quake engine and their modding tools. There's been nothing quite like the Quake modding scene since. Lots of imitators, but I don't think any of them ever managed both the depth and breadth of what that modding community did with the tools that id software supplied.
IOW, the more things change, the more they stay the same. :-)
I'm not much of a sports fan myself. I'll watch an occasional baseball game or football game on one of the local digital OTA channels* but that's about it.
Anyhow, I've got a couple of Rokus and I've poked around the Channel Store to see what's available. The sports section has major league baseball, the NBA, the NHL, and others. The notes for the MLB channel state that the games it offers live are in HD. Don't know about the others.
So far as I know, the NFL still insists on only allowing access to streaming content through their own website, so that one isn't easily available. To my disappointment, the streaming live Olympics coverage from NBC is only accessible if you've got a cable or satellite TV subscription. Clearly, there are a few sports sources out there that don't quite get it yet. :-) Still, there are opportunities to watch streaming sports out there that look pretty decent.
* Side note: An interesting geek project if you have some patience is to build your own small fractal tv antenna for less than $50. I built a couple based upon the increased fractal layout that the article's author links to in the comments. They work pretty well. I'm pulling in several more channels with those than I could see through my Dish Network subscription.
Except you're missing the point that at least some of those storefronts are most emphatically NOT closed. There is nothing that holds individual game publishers from listing their wares in multiple storefronts. And in fact, many do. In addition, the fact that multiple storefronts exist immediately means that those publishers have choice that they do not have in the console market.
I think it's more accurate to say that like all mature markets, there are a handful of companies at the top of the heap raking in the dough by the double bucketload. However, unlike the console market, the PC gaming market has plenty of alternative storefronts for the smaller publishers to sell their wares and remain profitable. (And I haven't even really scratched the surface!)
The end result is that there is a far, FAR richer variety of games available for PCs than there is for consoles.
n/t
Check out some of his earlier videos (including other TED talks that he's done) at Gapminder.
Heck, I learned that tactic from my grandmother, who probably learned it from her grandmother, who probably learned it from hers. Is it more accurate to say that only geeks remember those hard earned lesssons about shopping that have been passed down? Seriously??
A vendor supplied hardware device that is tied to a single storefront is silly on its face. The fact that there are enough gullible people out there to buy them to continue to make it a viable business model is what is truly mind-boggling.
According to this incredibly long, but thoroughly entertaining and educational blog post, the carriers are apparently refusing to sell Windows phones ever since Microsoft bought Skype. He references Elop's own statements to that effect multiple times.
Speaking of the 121 errors, he does have a truly funny take on what they mean to a Finnish Nokia fan:
Granted, these guys didn't have Kickstarter available when they first began work on this project. Granted, development of each release has been agonizingly slow. But if you're looking for a small, open console that plays a bunch of games, why buy Ouya when this is out there? Seriously. If these guys ever get serious dough rolling in, the price on these would drop through the floor now that all the sunk costs have been paid for. I want one. Now. It's definitely high on my list to buy once we get our debt paid down.
While what you say is true, and there's no doubt that the smug cold hearted bastards that you refer to tend to end up on top of the heap depressingly often. Still, pension them off? Why not retrain? It's not like there weren't plenty of jobs available in the new industries that were springing up. And no, I'm not thinking about mechanical engineer. But there were a lot of brand new jobs running mills, repairing machinery, in transportation, etc. Jobs that eventually ended up paying better than being a weaver ever did.
On a side note, if you read science fiction; there's a whole universe being built up around a novel written Eric Flint titled 1632. A lot of discussion in Baen's Bar has led to a number of short stories that talk about the disruption that would occur to a global economy if a modern town was suddenly transported back several hundred years. Several of the proposed solutions are a lot more humane than what happened around the world in the early to mid 1800s.
Or, how about offering real incentives to move elsewhere? Australia would have been far better off with a lot more willing colonists instead of penal transport, for example.
BTW, that disruptive change that started with the textile mills was still going on when Tolkien was a child. One of the extras on the extended DVD set talked extensively about how seeing his childhood home disrupted led directly to his description of Saruman's despoiling Isengard.
Whenever somebody speaks with approval about the Luddites, the Know Nothings, or the other regressive movements that sprung up during the 1800s, I like to point them to this graph. Go ahead and play it through a few times. Stop and start it a few years or decades before and after each point. I know, it only goes back to about 10 years before the Luddite violence, but you can still see the long term improvement in the world's economy /and/ our health.
One thing that you'll note is that at the time the Luddites were overreacting to a disruptive change in Britain's economy (and admittedly the government overreacted as well), the UK was already one of the wealthiest nations on Earth with one of the highest life expectancies. To some degree, the displaced textile workers really didn't know how good they had it. They could have had the misfortune to be born in Angola or the Solomon Islands, for example.
From their own description:
emphasis in the original
I think it's fair to say that if you take TIOBE for what it's worth, there's a lot to learn about how programming languages wax and wane in popularity over the years. Surely that's worth something.