I want documents not files. Sometimes multiple files make up one document (webpage + stylesheet + media), sometimes there are multiple documents in one file (zip).
When will anyone come up with a persistant storage system which allows me to make random tags to documents and groups of documents. Drop the folders and give me 'search queries' on content and tags. Automatically save all data and don't bother me with giving it a name... When it's important I will give it the proper tags until then just remember it for me.
My anwser: "Duh... Don't Worry. Humanity will survive."
In 2106: Slowly humanity has learned that real power is its ability to maintain, sustain and create. Causing pain and destruction is frowned upon, war is no longer profitable. None of the national governments of today will still exist. A multitude of organized religions will no longer cause (political) division. There is a kind of government, although we would not recognize it as such. Humanity has learned to let go of these childish things. The original internet was lost a long time ago, but an improved new wireless network is being deployed worldwide. Humanity is spreading out over the planet, in time it will have distributed itself nearly evenly around the world in small communities. The last desert has come to life, the whole planet looks like a beautiful garden. People are happy. Everyone loves to create and learn stuff, people still read and write books; more then ever before. Food, clothes, energy, and shelter will never become a problem again.
The old internet is almost dead. Because of the way the hardware is implemented control is centralized and concentrated at government agencies and big businesses. While the internet was designed to be decentralized this is not the way it was implemented in the current top-down form. The current internet is nearly dead, but that does not mater: Replacement is already on it's way.
The Next Internet will work without centralised control. It will be dynamic and configuration will be automated. No government will be able to control it, regulate it, not even tap it. Information will travel freely.
The future internet will be a global cloud of mesh networks. Who needs the current internet providers when we have a free mesh network of all the computers in the neighbourhood?
The only question: Which government will make mesh networks illegal first? And could they succeed? Or will this cause a spread spectrum revolution?
Breaking in to something is a physical act as far as I am concerned. So it would cover the act op opening the computer or something like it.
This whole metaphor has gone to far. People don't break in to computers, they communicate with them.
If I ask someone (or a computer) for a copy of X and the other side sends me this is this then a crime? Was the sender authorized to allow me access? if I send something to someone and they accept it is this a crime? Maybe, if the thing, I was sending was a bomb or something else equally nasty.
Why is a 14 year old allowed unsupervised access to the internet. I maybe getting old...
The internet is the greatest market place in the world. People go here for trade, conversation, news/gissip and inspiration. There are public spaces where you can make a fool of yourself and there are dark back alleys where other people can make a fool of you. This is a place where everyone is treated like a adult with no regard for your age.
How many parents would let their 14yr old children roam a big unknown city at night by themselves? How do children learn to recognize the good from the bad it their parents don't guide them?
When someone has a private party (myspace) and is inviting children to join in... what may be expected? What is posible to expect?
In this case, myspace had no way of knowing that this man could be treat to this girl. You can not assume that every 18+ male is a pervert. This relationship (if that's the word) developed mostly outside the control and supervision of myspace. I think that there is really nothing myspace could have done differently; except maybe, not to invite children to begin with.
He is not talking about eliminating incentive for succes. Only about limiting the incentive for succes.
It would make it the logical choice (for the shareholders) to break up a company when the company becomes too successful. It would correct the problem we now have with concentration of power; it would make it the logical (profitable) choice to keep the free market alive.
My school did the same thing, problem was that they choose in 1990 that the way to go was with business software because the children needed to learn to use business software if they wanted to be able to work when they graduate 5 years later... So Apple was not allowed and MSDOS was forced down on us. When we graduated in 1995 we could not use a mouse... and every business was running Windows 95.
The point I want to make is this: Education takes a lot of time and they should learn principles and tricks. Because the principles will stay much longer the same, while the tricks will change ever new version.
I long for the day that children will learn to program (in scheme) when they are still only 6 years old.
I believe that the reason that Apple is still around is mainly to do with their control over their own hardware, and as the article points out the real treat to Microsoft will never be a software-only thing.
Most likely a few years in the future some chinees firms will think of a cheap and useful mobile gizmo, which will represent for many people all they really need. Think collaboration tool. Apple will make a usable version and others will see it and try to do the same (like always?).
Because most business data and applications are fast becoming web based (the new word for good old client-server) the desktop will become less important and after a while people will not upgrade their desktops anymore but buy in to the new market.
Microsoft will keep dominating the desktop market forever... it's just that the desktop market will not last very long and will be replaced in the next decade. The desktop is irrelevant.
If Microsoft is swift they will still be around, taking a page out of Apples book and produce a beter usable devices and such. Apple will most likely hang on and continue to lead in design and innovation; just not in market share.
The future is not the desktop; its tabs, pads, and boards. Even Microsoft knows that.
MacOSX is really kind of like Jobs vision of how NeXT 1.0 should have been like and a backward-looking, if-we-had-this-then, re-edited Star Wars kind of way.
I however don't know anybody which has a dream anymore... I like to think that if Lisp/scheme had been on every computer in stead of basic we now would have beter programmers. It could still happen.
If MS would close shop now, the world would just go on...
XP wil be used for 10-15 years and slowly system would be replaced. Some Apple, some Gnu/Linux, some Gnu/BSD, some Gnu/hurd -- GNUStep would get a boost.
Upgrade cycles would slow down, people would not over hype feature creep anymore. We would become more realistic about computers and use them where they make sense and not where it would be pointless.
For the blind there would be specially designed computers for when MS is gone Windows will no longer be the default OS for everyone... When your blind a GUI is kind of a pain in the ass.
More variation and standardization on (abstract) protocols, which would together mean the end of worm's and viruses which grow out of control exponentially and disrupt 80-90% of the internet.... (He... isn't that how much MS is used?)
EMail (MS = hotmail) would become a niche and Jabber will grow, taking over much of the email communication. Running your own server (http or bittorrent) would become common place.
People would be forced to RTFM, realise that computers a difficult hi-tech devices which are sometimes hard to use, and that you should not expect it to be easy -- just as that no-body would expect a 747 to be easy. More respect for the programmer... maybe that some children will say, when they are 8, that they too want to become a programmer when they grow up. (Just kidding)
Open Source would have no Windows to copy and they would be forced to think for them selfs... to think of new way's to do things. To be really innovative. This would force Open Source to change some of it's structure, maybe even loose some of its openness: invitation only commit-access to the SVN server?
The new culture of 'copy-paste-edit' would bloom...
Mmm... maybe we'll get there despite MS still hanging around? How relevant is MS really and how much is hype?
What if the geeks (like the people here) would choose to ignore MS for 10 years -- don't look at it, don't use it, don't work at it, don't copy it, don't helping that friend who's XP has failed him, not even saying a word about it anymore -- Believe that Windows is irrelevant, not something anyone how is serious would use. Consider it a toy and behave as such... Gee... We could change the world!
It is very unlikely that they have the ability to understand the difference between specification and implementation. This is true, even for many people in the open source community if we just remember what happened when openssl had a security hole last year we see this was also a monoculture.
Choosing monoculture means that paying less (money, time, compatibility) in the normal case is more important then limiting the damage done in the special case. While choosing many different implementations means paying more in the normal case but also having a buffer in the special case so that operation are not disrupted more then usual.
The problem is that most people tend to choose stability and monolithic solutions, especially when in doubt, above endurance or flexibility. Maybe it's in our genes but most people have no-clue at all about the fact that change is normal in the world and that the stability they think they see is just a illusion.
So they do not choose the flexible solution which would have given them 99% service 100% of the time, and would have forced the people to cope with failure. No, they will choose the stable solution which gives them 100% service 99% of the time, and a workforce which doesn't have a clue when the system fails.
Maybe we are just not wise enough to use this technology.
I did not dismiss it as useless, and I'm sorry that you where led to think that, I only wanted to add to you comment that given the kind of usage I'd expected I would think that node-to-node encryption would not be enough.
Finally, one thing that is missing from the discussion is security. If we make any enhancement to IP, this would seem the most likely candidate (ie: packet-level encryption at the transport layer).
If you did that, then you will only encrypt node-to-node (identifying only nodes; not people) which means that all kind of man in the middle attacks would become posible. I think they would want person-to-person encryption, to make sure that order X really came for general Y and that really only mayor Z can read it. This can only be done at application level. Read this paper which explains it in-depth.
If someone can figure out a way to make a computer with pre-installed a linux which then has the same kind of integrated OS on top (GnuStep+Gnome; and a lot of glue?) as Apple made with MacOSX... A computer which will not run Windows maybe?
Please define "a proper functional state", because should that not also include usability? Discoverability?
When I write a GUI I keep a few rules in mind:
An error message is a bug. Design the interface such that the user can not select an option which will result in a error message.
Use verbs and context. The user wants to initiatie a action... using verbs makes this clear. Label buttons and menus with relevant words and options: "open" in a open dialog; "save" in a save dialog. etc.
Don't open new windows with out a darn good reason. A new window is a other room, "Let's step outside for a moment" is the message the GUI gives when it opens a new window.
Keep the screen usage as small as posible. A IM needs to cooperate with other apps and thus can not take up to much screen space. A Movie Editor will most likely be the only app running at the time and can take up nearly all the screen space.
The problem with software patents is that they will make it imposible for anyone to write software unless they are working for a big company which hold a lot of patents and has a deal with all the other bigco's not to sue each other. Ohterwise you are working in a mine field of algorithms which you think of while working on the problem but maybe belong to someone else... No programer will get anything positive out of software patents of copyright, only managers and lawyers.
All those creative thinkers with their one great idear will be forced to accept the token payment from the bigco's or else get nothing for their patent. Worse: if BigCo just uses your technology without your permission you will have to choose if you want to pay the money to go to court and fight them on it knowing that they have the money and you don't... They have the lawyers and you don't...
Patents where a good idear at the time but right now they are just a tool to keep new innovations outside the market and to keep or gain market control for BigCo. The samething is happening with copyright.
One posible solution would be that only the author or inventor, a natural person, would be able to hold a patent or copyright and that these right are non-transferable and that licences will expire after one year. That would solve a lot of problems overnight.
I think they should put a 500 euro tax on Microsoft Windows Retail and 1000 euro tax on every computer which has Windows per installed. This will go a long way to pay for the damage caused by Windows usage.
People can then choose between a 500 euro empty box, a 550 euro Linux box and a whooping 1500 for the Windows box. Hell, even Apple would be cheaper by then.
This policy will then extend until that time that Windows is used by no more then 20-30% of the internet connected computers (according to the ISP's) which is, among other things, measurable by the fact that there are almost no worm's of viruses going round anymore.
Apple has no monopoly, nor has she ever abused a monopoly to enter a market in which she had no presence. The point is not that this is Microsoft, nor that this is a monopoly, the point is dat Microsoft has to play in a level playing field and it does not do that, that is a abuse of influence and that is the reason why the government needs to correct this infraction.
The best way, if anyone would ask me, is to split Microsoft up in to a MS Media, a MS Windows, and a MS Applications. But who am I to say?... in the long run I think it would save Microsoft from oblivion, but that's just me.
What you are talking about is protocol, analog to RNA and DNA in biology. Monoculture on protocol is not bad of dangerous and will make life much less difficult.
However: all protocols need to be implemented and every and all implementations will have bugs. To have a monoculture of implementation will cause there to be a monoculture of one of more bugs which are things outside of the protocol, which should not happen but sometimes it does... if one fails, they all fail.
IPv4 is so trivial that I could write (have writen) my own, but what is the point?... My MTA (SMTP protocol) is postfix, my web server (http, webdav) is Apache1, but there are others out there and not many people have the same as me...
Getting really real: there is NOTHING at all visual about bits and bytes.
That is basically the whole point of the web: The user can choose her own browser and it renders it to fit the platform and ability of the user, because no designer knows these things.
Unless you can understand the abstract DOM tree which is the real representation of html you are very much disabled and need a renderer/compiler which transforms it in to a presentation which you can enjoy. Some like the visual, alpha-blending, anti-aliased tabloid-style view, some like text-only, some like auditory... get used to it that not everyone is the same!
Slashdot Mirror
Writing small is difficult and I don't think it can be done in a group. Most software which is small is written bij less then 3 programmers.
Compare: "Easy writing makes hard reading." -- Ernest Hemingway
I want documents not files. Sometimes multiple files make up one document (webpage + stylesheet + media), sometimes there are multiple documents in one file (zip).
When will anyone come up with a persistant storage system which allows me to make random tags to documents and groups of documents. Drop the folders and give me 'search queries' on content and tags. Automatically save all data and don't bother me with giving it a name... When it's important I will give it the proper tags until then just remember it for me.
Do I have to name the paper before printing?
My anwser: "Duh... Don't Worry. Humanity will survive."
In 2106: Slowly humanity has learned that real power is its ability to maintain, sustain and create. Causing pain and destruction is frowned upon, war is no longer profitable. None of the national governments of today will still exist. A multitude of organized religions will no longer cause (political) division. There is a kind of government, although we would not recognize it as such. Humanity has learned to let go of these childish things. The original internet was lost a long time ago, but an improved new wireless network is being deployed worldwide. Humanity is spreading out over the planet, in time it will have distributed itself nearly evenly around the world in small communities. The last desert has come to life, the whole planet looks like a beautiful garden. People are happy. Everyone loves to create and learn stuff, people still read and write books; more then ever before. Food, clothes, energy, and shelter will never become a problem again.
The old internet is almost dead. Because of the way the hardware is implemented control is centralized and concentrated at government agencies and big businesses. While the internet was designed to be decentralized this is not the way it was implemented in the current top-down form. The current internet is nearly dead, but that does not mater: Replacement is already on it's way.
The Next Internet will work without centralised control. It will be dynamic and configuration will be automated. No government will be able to control it, regulate it, not even tap it. Information will travel freely.
The future internet will be a global cloud of mesh networks. Who needs the current internet providers when we have a free mesh network of all the computers in the neighbourhood?
The only question: Which government will make mesh networks illegal first? And could they succeed? Or will this cause a spread spectrum revolution?
Breaking in to something is a physical act as far as I am concerned. So it would cover the act op opening the computer or something like it.
This whole metaphor has gone to far. People don't break in to computers, they communicate with them.
If I ask someone (or a computer) for a copy of X and the other side sends me this is this then a crime? Was the sender authorized to allow me access?
if I send something to someone and they accept it is this a crime? Maybe, if the thing, I was sending was a bomb or something else equally nasty.
Why is a 14 year old allowed unsupervised access to the internet. I maybe getting old...
The internet is the greatest market place in the world. People go here for trade, conversation, news/gissip and inspiration. There are public spaces where you can make a fool of yourself and there are dark back alleys where other people can make a fool of you. This is a place where everyone is treated like a adult with no regard for your age.
How many parents would let their 14yr old children roam a big unknown city at night by themselves? How do children learn to recognize the good from the bad it their parents don't guide them?
When someone has a private party (myspace) and is inviting children to join in... what may be expected? What is posible to expect?
In this case, myspace had no way of knowing that this man could be treat to this girl. You can not assume that every 18+ male is a pervert. This relationship (if that's the word) developed mostly outside the control and supervision of myspace. I think that there is really nothing myspace could have done differently; except maybe, not to invite children to begin with.
It will suck.
All software sucks, all computers suck and most people (all except maybe me) suck too.
The trick is to suck less then the previous version, and to suck not to much more then the other guy's frelling stuff.
;> Why not use Lisp instead?
He is not talking about eliminating incentive for succes. Only about limiting the incentive for succes.
It would make it the logical choice (for the shareholders) to break up a company when the company becomes too successful. It would correct the problem we now have with concentration of power; it would make it the logical (profitable) choice to keep the free market alive.
My school did the same thing, problem was that they choose in 1990 that the way to go was with business software because the children needed to learn to use business software if they wanted to be able to work when they graduate 5 years later... So Apple was not allowed and MSDOS was forced down on us. When we graduated in 1995 we could not use a mouse... and every business was running Windows 95.
The point I want to make is this: Education takes a lot of time and they should learn principles and tricks. Because the principles will stay much longer the same, while the tricks will change ever new version.
I long for the day that children will learn to program (in scheme) when they are still only 6 years old.
People who buy anything which *could* run windows *will* in time run Windows.
Only a computer which *can not* run windows is a potential windows killer.
I believe that the reason that Apple is still around is mainly to do with their control over their own hardware, and as the article points out the real treat to Microsoft will never be a software-only thing.
Most likely a few years in the future some chinees firms will think of a cheap and useful mobile gizmo, which will represent for many people all they really need. Think collaboration tool. Apple will make a usable version and others will see it and try to do the same (like always?).
Because most business data and applications are fast becoming web based (the new word for good old client-server) the desktop will become less important and after a while people will not upgrade their desktops anymore but buy in to the new market.
Microsoft will keep dominating the desktop market forever... it's just that the desktop market will not last very long and will be replaced in the next decade. The desktop is irrelevant.
If Microsoft is swift they will still be around, taking a page out of Apples book and produce a beter usable devices and such. Apple will most likely hang on and continue to lead in design and innovation; just not in market share.
The future is not the desktop; its tabs, pads, and boards. Even Microsoft knows that.
Don't forget horses.
Very valid point.
MacOSX is really kind of like Jobs vision of how NeXT 1.0 should have been like and a backward-looking, if-we-had-this-then, re-edited Star Wars kind of way.
I however don't know anybody which has a dream anymore... I like to think that if Lisp/scheme had been on every computer in stead of basic we now would have beter programmers. It could still happen.
If MS would close shop now, the world would just go on...
XP wil be used for 10-15 years and slowly system would be replaced. Some Apple, some Gnu/Linux, some Gnu/BSD, some Gnu/hurd -- GNUStep would get a boost.
Upgrade cycles would slow down, people would not over hype feature creep anymore. We would become more realistic about computers and use them where they make sense and not where it would be pointless.
For the blind there would be specially designed computers for when MS is gone Windows will no longer be the default OS for everyone... When your blind a GUI is kind of a pain in the ass.
More variation and standardization on (abstract) protocols, which would together mean the end of worm's and viruses which grow out of control exponentially and disrupt 80-90% of the internet.... (He... isn't that how much MS is used?)
EMail (MS = hotmail) would become a niche and Jabber will grow, taking over much of the email communication. Running your own server (http or bittorrent) would become common
place.
People would be forced to RTFM, realise that computers a difficult hi-tech devices which are sometimes hard to use, and that you should not expect it to be easy -- just as that no-body would expect a 747 to be easy. More respect for the programmer... maybe that some children will say, when they are 8, that they too want to become a programmer when they grow up. (Just kidding)
Open Source would have no Windows to copy and they would be forced to think for them selfs... to think of new way's to do things. To be really innovative. This would force Open Source to change some of it's structure, maybe even loose some of its openness: invitation only commit-access to the SVN server?
The new culture of 'copy-paste-edit' would bloom...
Mmm... maybe we'll get there despite MS still hanging around? How relevant is MS really and how much is hype?
What if the geeks (like the people here) would choose to ignore MS for 10 years -- don't look at it, don't use it, don't work at it, don't copy it, don't helping that friend who's XP has failed him, not even saying a word about it anymore -- Believe that Windows is irrelevant, not something anyone how is serious would use. Consider it a toy and behave as such... Gee... We could change the world!
It is very unlikely that they have the ability to understand the difference between specification and implementation. This is true, even for many people in the open source community if we just remember what happened when openssl had a security hole last year we see this was also a monoculture.
Choosing monoculture means that paying less (money, time, compatibility) in the normal case is more important then limiting the damage done in the special case. While choosing many different implementations means paying more in the normal case but also having a buffer in the special case so that operation are not disrupted more then usual.
The problem is that most people tend to choose stability and monolithic solutions, especially when in doubt, above endurance or flexibility. Maybe it's in our genes but most people have no-clue at all about the fact that change is normal in the world and that the stability they think they see is just a illusion.
So they do not choose the flexible solution which would have given them 99% service 100% of the time, and would have forced the people to cope with failure. No, they will choose the stable solution which gives them 100% service 99% of the time, and a workforce which doesn't have a clue when the system fails.
Maybe we are just not wise enough to use this technology.
I did not dismiss it as useless, and I'm sorry that you where led to think that, I only wanted to add to you comment that given the kind of usage I'd expected I would think that node-to-node encryption would not be enough.
I think they would want person-to-person encryption, to make sure that order X really came for general Y and that really only mayor Z can read it. This can only be done at application level. Read this paper which explains it in-depth.
What Linux maybe needs is a Apple.
If someone can figure out a way to make a computer with pre-installed a linux which then has the same kind of integrated OS on top (GnuStep+Gnome; and a lot of glue?) as Apple made with MacOSX... A computer which will not run Windows maybe?
Please define "a proper functional state", because should that not also include usability? Discoverability?
When I write a GUI I keep a few rules in mind:
An error message is a bug. Design the interface such that the user can not select an option which will result in a error message.
Use verbs and context. The user wants to initiatie a action... using verbs makes this clear. Label buttons and menus with relevant words and options: "open" in a open dialog; "save" in a save dialog. etc.
Don't open new windows with out a darn good reason. A new window is a other room, "Let's step outside for a moment" is the message the GUI gives when it opens a new window.
Keep the screen usage as small as posible. A IM needs to cooperate with other apps and thus can not take up to much screen space. A Movie Editor will most likely be the only app running at the time and can take up nearly all the screen space.
The problem with software patents is that they will make it imposible for anyone to write software unless they are working for a big company which hold a lot of patents and has a deal with all the other bigco's not to sue each other. Ohterwise you are working in a mine field of algorithms which you think of while working on the problem but maybe belong to someone else... No programer will get anything positive out of software patents of copyright, only managers and lawyers.
All those creative thinkers with their one great idear will be forced to accept the token payment from the bigco's or else get nothing for their patent. Worse: if BigCo just uses your technology without your permission you will have to choose if you want to pay the money to go to court and fight them on it knowing that they have the money and you don't... They have the lawyers and you don't...
Patents where a good idear at the time but right now they are just a tool to keep new innovations outside the market and to keep or gain market control for BigCo. The samething is happening with copyright.
One posible solution would be that only the author or inventor, a natural person, would be able to hold a patent or copyright and that these right are non-transferable and that licences will expire after one year. That would solve a lot of problems overnight.
I think they should put a 500 euro tax on Microsoft Windows Retail and 1000 euro tax on every computer which has Windows per installed. This will go a long way to pay for the damage caused by Windows usage.
People can then choose between a 500 euro empty box, a 550 euro Linux box and a whooping 1500 for the Windows box. Hell, even Apple would be cheaper by then.
This policy will then extend until that time that Windows is used by no more then 20-30% of the internet connected computers (according to the ISP's) which is, among other things, measurable by the fact that there are almost no worm's of viruses going round anymore.
Apple has no monopoly, nor has she ever abused a monopoly to enter a market in which she had no presence. The point is not that this is Microsoft, nor that this is a monopoly, the point is dat Microsoft has to play in a level playing field and it does not do that, that is a abuse of influence and that is the reason why the government needs to correct this infraction.
... in the long run I think it would save Microsoft from oblivion, but that's just me.
The best way, if anyone would ask me, is to split Microsoft up in to a MS Media, a MS Windows, and a MS Applications. But who am I to say?
What you are talking about is protocol, analog to RNA and DNA in biology. Monoculture on protocol is not bad of dangerous and will make life much less difficult.
However: all protocols need to be implemented and every and all implementations will have bugs. To have a monoculture of implementation will cause there to be a monoculture of one of more bugs which are things outside of the protocol, which should not happen but sometimes it does... if one fails, they all fail.
IPv4 is so trivial that I could write (have writen) my own, but what is the point?... My MTA (SMTP protocol) is postfix, my web server (http, webdav) is Apache1, but there are others out there and not many people have the same as me...
Getting really real: there is NOTHING at all visual about bits and bytes.
That is basically the whole point of the web: The user can choose her own browser and it renders it to fit the platform and ability of the user, because no designer knows these things.
Unless you can understand the abstract DOM tree which is the real representation of html you are very much disabled and need a renderer/compiler which transforms it in to a presentation which you can enjoy. Some like the visual, alpha-blending, anti-aliased tabloid-style view, some like text-only, some like auditory... get used to it that not everyone is the same!
To a computer we are all disabled.