Sigh, indeed...we've been planning this downtime (which involves a major upgrade to our streaming capabilities) for weeks now, so it would figure that we would get Slashdotted at precisely this moment!
We're also busy readying some cool new features to be released by the end of the week...subscribers will also have access to a beta site (beta.last.fm) later today to try out some of these new goodies.
I was thinking a lot of the same things -- this is overkill, solar power ha ha, etc -- until I read this from the device profile:
Customers can pay or add time using coins or credit cards from any payment station in the city, provided they remember the parking spot identification code marked on the panel in front of their parking spot.
Sounds to me like you can add time to YOUR parking meter from ANY of the new parking meters in town. How cool/convenient is that?! I hate parking, walking somewhere, doing something that takes longer than expected, and then having to sprint back to my parking spot just to toss a quarter in the meter.
Imagine being able to plug your meter from the closest meter to you...
I agree with some posters claiming that the Register article isn't the best example...like many, I think the two meanings of "Second Superpower" don't seem that different, and both seem productive.
But to focus on that alone is to completely miss the point of the article! What's much more interesting are the claims it makes about PageRank. It makes the case that bloggers only make up 4% of the web-surfing population, which might be a BIT low but sounds right to me. THEN they point out that because of how PageRank works with its distributed scores, all it takes is for 10-20 "A-List Bloggers" (ie. a very small fraction of an already small 4%) to link to something to catapult it to the very top of a Google search. We all use Google, so we know how important this is.
The point, then? PageRank claims to be democratic, yet the article demonstrates that 20 or so people can effectively dictate the order of search results for certain terms. It's not a conspiracy...yet. Certainly worth noting, however!
Page Two of the article is a lot more interesting to me than the first page -- the author describes the technology they're working on RIGHT NOW, and how it might be useful:
So for now Karas is trying to get his technology embedded in high-end, professional digital video-editing equipment, where it would be used to simplify the tedious process of fast-forwarding, stopping, and scanning for the beginnings and endings of scenes. Instead, video editors would be able to enter specific lines from the script and skip straight to the parts they want.
This, to me, is real futuristic progress! Forget watching the news at home and clicking on a link to read a related story (who can read an article and listen to TV news at the same time anyway? and if you can, do you want to?). Instead, this sort of technology would let the computer remove tedious, machine-like work for creative professionals -- like searching through 18 hours of footage to find "the bit where he mentions the monkey and laughs" -- and lets the humans focus on the things they still do way better than any computer.
Having enjoyed the speed of a recent catamaran trip across the Channel, but not enjoyed the seasickness so much...can anyone explain the technology behind this FastShip? Could it really carry passengers? I have my doubts, given the sickness-inducing speed...unless it hovers or something.
How come nobody's mentioned Sega's holographic Time Traveller debacle?
Oh totally! If anyone has more information about this game and what happened to it, I'd love to hear it...
All I remember was seeing it as a kid in my local airport, thinking it was the coolest, most-futuristic thing I'd ever seen ("you can put your hand right through it!"), then wasting something ridiculous ($2/play or something?) only discover it was virtually unplayable.
At the time, I think I attributed my rapid death to my own poor gaming skills, which were obviously no match for any game in 3d that looked like a movie...sigh.
The overwhelming majority of programmers function exactly as car mechanics do in the world -- they help make society function smoother (sometimes not). Just think about it for a minute -- when did the last sales report or customer data entry screen a programmer coded have any significant societal impact?
You're absolutely right, given your examples. The only problem, of course, is that every day, some code made by real programmers does have societal impact - the stunning technological progress of the past several decades hasn't been a spontaneous accident. We are able to have this discussion here today because of the collective efforts of thousands of individual programmers.
Basically, it's back to the tyranny-of-the-majority paradox - if you're not changing the world, who is? It may well be "the other programmers", and so while I understand the injustice of tarring all programmers with the same brush, I can't help but think the more voices of caution, the better.
Wow. I'm all confused now - I don't think we actually disagree about too much here. It's definitely time for me to get back to work, however...cheers!
While I agree on a preliminary level with your statement that as a programmer, your job is to "Write computer programs to store and manipulate data so that businesses can operate more efficiently and effectively", I think it's denying a central aspect of our culture in the year 2000 to simply state that the effects of learning how to program are akin to those of "mechanics who learn how to fix cars". Yes, both are technical, aquired skills, but the similarities end there; it is unwise to discount the incredible cultural capital currently invested in "the programmer", and by extension, technology/computers.
Like it or not, programmers are now seen by the large majority of politicians and the non-programming public at large as people who aren't just "fixing cars" - read a tech product press release or two and you'll see what I mean. Instead, it's all about "creating the future", whether it be the future of the economy or humanity or both. (Ray Kurzweil's moderately disturbing book The Age of Spiritual Machines takes up these issues, and I think drives home the fact that the way things are heading, technology, politics, and society are increasingly inseperable domains.)
I think your post raises some excellent points, and I only really disagree with your first statement: The "burdens" being placed on programmers (while perhaps made more onerous by current marketing hype and politicians ignorant of the issues) are neither unessecary nor unrealistic. Like it or not, the future of society has a lot more to do with what programmers are up to (both individually and as a whole) than the actions of car mechanics.
Slashdot Mirror
Sigh, indeed...we've been planning this downtime (which involves a major upgrade to our streaming capabilities) for weeks now, so it would figure that we would get Slashdotted at precisely this moment!
We're also busy readying some cool new features to be released by the end of the week...subscribers will also have access to a beta site (beta.last.fm) later today to try out some of these new goodies.
-----
http://www.last.fm/user/flaneur
Yup, that's what I saw at first glance too!!
(The story seemed far less exciting once I read the title properly.)
I've got your Macpr0n right here!
Yum.
LED diagnostics? That's way too complicated...
I think THIS Apple tech note is much more helpful.
Thanks for the tip!
The Reg has already posted some of the letters they've received in response to this piece. Some well-written stuff, the article definitely touched a (useful) nerve...
I agree with some posters claiming that the Register article isn't the best example...like many, I think the two meanings of "Second Superpower" don't seem that different, and both seem productive.
But to focus on that alone is to completely miss the point of the article! What's much more interesting are the claims it makes about PageRank. It makes the case that bloggers only make up 4% of the web-surfing population, which might be a BIT low but sounds right to me. THEN they point out that because of how PageRank works with its distributed scores, all it takes is for 10-20 "A-List Bloggers" (ie. a very small fraction of an already small 4%) to link to something to catapult it to the very top of a Google search. We all use Google, so we know how important this is.
The point, then? PageRank claims to be democratic, yet the article demonstrates that 20 or so people can effectively dictate the order of search results for certain terms. It's not a conspiracy...yet. Certainly worth noting, however!
I'd like some insight into what an "insit" is.
The linked article doesn't actually contain the word.
This, to me, is real futuristic progress! Forget watching the news at home and clicking on a link to read a related story (who can read an article and listen to TV news at the same time anyway? and if you can, do you want to?). Instead, this sort of technology would let the computer remove tedious, machine-like work for creative professionals -- like searching through 18 hours of footage to find "the bit where he mentions the monkey and laughs" -- and lets the humans focus on the things they still do way better than any computer.
That's pretty cool.
Having enjoyed the speed of a recent catamaran trip across the Channel, but not enjoyed the seasickness so much...can anyone explain the technology behind this FastShip? Could it really carry passengers? I have my doubts, given the sickness-inducing speed...unless it hovers or something.
-curious flaneur
I'm in Edmonton, Canada, and for my super-sweet cable connection (with 2 IP's), I'm paying $39.95 CAN a month. That's like, what, $25 US?
-flaneur
How come nobody's mentioned Sega's holographic Time Traveller debacle?
Oh totally! If anyone has more information about this game and what happened to it, I'd love to hear it...
All I remember was seeing it as a kid in my local airport, thinking it was the coolest, most-futuristic thing I'd ever seen ("you can put your hand right through it!"), then wasting something ridiculous ($2/play or something?) only discover it was virtually unplayable.
At the time, I think I attributed my rapid death to my own poor gaming skills, which were obviously no match for any game in 3d that looked like a movie...sigh.
The overwhelming majority of programmers function exactly as car mechanics do in the world -- they help make society function smoother (sometimes not). Just think about it for a minute -- when did the last sales report or customer data entry screen a programmer coded have any significant societal impact?
You're absolutely right, given your examples. The only problem, of course, is that every day, some code made by real programmers does have societal impact - the stunning technological progress of the past several decades hasn't been a spontaneous accident. We are able to have this discussion here today because of the collective efforts of thousands of individual programmers.
Basically, it's back to the tyranny-of-the-majority paradox - if you're not changing the world, who is? It may well be "the other programmers", and so while I understand the injustice of tarring all programmers with the same brush, I can't help but think the more voices of caution, the better.
Wow. I'm all confused now - I don't think we actually disagree about too much here. It's definitely time for me to get back to work, however...cheers!
While I agree on a preliminary level with your statement that as a programmer, your job is to "Write computer programs to store and manipulate data so that businesses can operate more efficiently and effectively", I think it's denying a central aspect of our culture in the year 2000 to simply state that the effects of learning how to program are akin to those of "mechanics who learn how to fix cars". Yes, both are technical, aquired skills, but the similarities end there; it is unwise to discount the incredible cultural capital currently invested in "the programmer", and by extension, technology/computers.
Like it or not, programmers are now seen by the large majority of politicians and the non-programming public at large as people who aren't just "fixing cars" - read a tech product press release or two and you'll see what I mean. Instead, it's all about "creating the future", whether it be the future of the economy or humanity or both. (Ray Kurzweil's moderately disturbing book The Age of Spiritual Machines takes up these issues, and I think drives home the fact that the way things are heading, technology, politics, and society are increasingly inseperable domains.)
I think your post raises some excellent points, and I only really disagree with your first statement: The "burdens" being placed on programmers (while perhaps made more onerous by current marketing hype and politicians ignorant of the issues) are neither unessecary nor unrealistic. Like it or not, the future of society has a lot more to do with what programmers are up to (both individually and as a whole) than the actions of car mechanics.
-flaneur
Bible-thumping *lefties*? Man, I wish there were some of those where *I* live. Sigh. Ahem. Sorry for more off-topicness, I be quiet now.