1.) Trying to explain to idiots how they're doing things wrong and trying to correct them?... Very difficult. As soon as they're overwelmed they'll start voting for Trump and Co. and things will go downhill from there.
2.) Exploiting idiots and getting obscenely rich whilst giving them PHP doodads / toy apps or virutal swords?... Very easy. You just once need to fathom how truely unbelievably stupid most people are and what stupid shit they will spend money on, then you're good.
Bottom line: While I get that we need to save the world (Elon Musk is showing us how it can be done) I also get the enticing proposition of simply manipulating the masses and enjoying yourself while doing it. If you get bored, then you can go about saving the world. Which is basically what Bill Gates and the likes are doing.
... but if you can't infer my skillset from my code and what I have to tell about it, I don't want to work for you. If you judge my skills by the amount of commits or the amount of lines in a given set of repos, you're an idiot, plain and simple.
With modern PLs there are as many coding styles as there are coders. We get into religious wars over indent, bracketing and tabs versus spaces. Any judge over my code who isn't aware of this bias inherent to all of us is utterly unable to judge code at a cursory glance.
Point in case: Two weeks ago a potential employer ditched a first interview with me after checking a GitHub account of mine. After I told him that it was only one of many. Provably one of his crew noticed only a few commits every few weeks and didn't realize it was a toolkit I was working on and not some project I couldn't disclose.
Their loss, not mine. If you don't have the time to ask what's up with repo X and my commits you're not qualified as a project lead. End of story.
They're both just about the same thing anyway. Yeah, Android is built around the JVM and has some low-level stuff concerning cellular connectivity and such, but I expect such things to be covered with in an afternoon of recompiling kernel modules for whatever OS (read: customised cross-platform FOSS *nix variant) Google has lying around, be it Chrome, Android or something else
As for the Chromebooks getting Android: That's a nice thing and of course will push back an android tablet if you have money to spare and dig Big Brother Google and all the niceties he has to offer for his minions. So, yeah, chances are that a high profile Android tablet actually is a Chromebook with keyboard attached running Android (see Pixelbook) and perhaps that way of doing things will catch on with vendors.
I wouldn't mind.
Then again, well matured dirt cheap android tablets for the mother of my daughter to watch 'tube-clips and read the local news is a neat thing too, so, no, I doin't think Android tablets are going away. But again, who cares, Android runs Chrome and has all the Google nifties integrated, so it's not that much of a difference anyway.
??!? Huh? Sorry, but I'm writing this on an official ARM Chromebook and things are working just fine, thank you. Wether Chrome OS or Android is running on x86 or ARM makes just about no difference at all for the upper layers, OSes included.
It's always been there! It's the hole that leads to Nazi occupied Hollow-Earth, where they have there domesticated dinosaurs to ride on and keep their UFOs. Every educated person knows this.
I know the neuromancer and the bridge triology and like both. Perhaps the Bridge triology is a bit better because the scenarios described are more plausible, as is the character of Chevette in "Virtual Light". Then again, in the neuromancer triology all three books where quite memorable, whereas Idoru was sort of meh IMHO.
RISC is generally considered "The better Architecture" (TM). Of course that statement is super-broad but truth be told, ARM was initially designed with lots of modern day improvements in mind whilst x86 was made with a more "make it work and get it to mass market ASAP" approach. Hence the success of x86 despite ARM microcomputers being roughly 2 decades ahead back in the late 80ies/early 90ies. ARM actually is the newer architecture but the Acorn Archimedes was proprietary and closed, just like the Amiga back in the day, that's why they lost out against PC/x86.
Point in case: Modern ARM performance per Watt is through the friggin roof vis-a-vis current x86 for relatively standard operations. That's why cheapo ARM netbooks with laughable batteries still get 6 hours of runtime per charge. Also is ARM in some ways way simpler in architecture (*reduced* instruction set command - RISC) and thus easier to produce and optimize.
I expect ARM to take over userspace computing once the entire stack is covered by open hardware. Smartphones and tablets already are on this path, when FOSH (Free Open Source Hardware) hits the road, this trend will accelerate, IMHO.
I do. As far as digital content and connectivity goes, we live in a world of abundance. Today true wealth lies in focus. And today, disconnecting from always-online can provide that to a very high degree, much better than trying to discipline yourself. Every time upgrading my smartphone is due, I think about going back to a feature phone and a paper calendar / filofax.
I never really dug the Internet in whole. This always-online thing was suspicious to me back in the 90ies and - to a certain extent - still is today. I remember the Fidonet and pulling/pushing my stuff once a day. Perfect.
Long story short, disconnecting is a good idea and I understand that for some only a radical move does the trick. I could be that one.
How long can warranties be extended? How long will particular models be available? How long is Google commiting to make parts available? How long will Google provide Tier-1 software updates?
There is one big advantage to this cloud thing (or so I suspect): All those questions you posted don't really matter. Device discontinued? Lost? Stolen?
Your stuff is in the cloud. Get the next cheapo box/laptop you can lay your hands on, log in and continue to work where you left off. I'm trying this sort of workflow right now, and it is compelling - I'll give Google that much. I'm typing this on a new dirt cheap 130 Euro Chromebook and have all my sh*t synced with my Smartphone just about instantly. Couldn't say that for any other system. Unless, of course, Apple. But I simply don't have the money for them right now. The current gen portables by Apple are way to expensive and where much cheaper in comparsion 10 years ago. The 13" iBook G4 - my first Apple - was 700$ cheaper than the next cheapest subnotebook. Not anymore with Apple. They've moved beyond what I'm currently willing to spend on hardware - that's the cold hard truth.
So cloud it is then for me, now. For the time being.
The vendors are all about saving space and thus want to ditch the headphone jacks. They say "courage", I say bullshit.
How about finally making virtual SIM Technology real ?? - now that would be an innovation I can support. Removing the headphone jack is all about selling more expensive hardware (headphones)....
The year of the Linux desktop has past mostly unnoticed. And the OS is nothing more than a terminal for services. Just got a Chromebook for 130€ to try out this cloud thing. (I'm a 20 year Linux user and my other portable is a MB Air from 2011). The Chromebook concept is amazing. Dirt cheap, boots in seconds, runs for hours on a single charge with a very small battery (ARM system) and is totally idiot safe, usable but the other 99.999% of the population who aren't computer experts like us. Two-factor auth setup with two mouseclicks.
Given, I have to do *everything* with cloud services now (IDE, CI, Testing, Documents, Storage, etc.) and everything is hooked to accounts in the cloud. But as you know, that's not just disadvantage but also comes with huge advantages. Having Travis and Codeanywhere do the setup work for me lets me focus on coding. If the Chromebook gets stolen, I'll disable it remotely and pick up where I left somewhere else. I don't have to think twice about syncing my Smartphone with the stuff I did on the cBook.
Note that this stuff can be used by some kid in the third world aswell. Which is exactly how Google intended it to be. You have to hand it to Google, when it comes to enablement, they are lightyears ahead of everybody else, including Apple.
Bottom line: The Linux Desktop is long since here and it will take the world in a storm. It's called Chrome OS.
I'm currently testing "cloud only" for most of my computing needs. I've been thinking about this for quite some time and now I'm giving it a testrun. I meet a guy at our local hackerspace who uses Chrome OS exclusively. He won't go back.
The side effect is that I'm spending less time at the computer and getting more real work done. Going all-out Google can be a really neat thing. Google watches over you and that's not just a bad thing. The speed at which I get work done and the time and effort saved by using specialized cloud services for every specific little detail about my work as a developer does have a solid positive impact on my overall productivity.
The only problem with highly optimized systems such as an all-present cloud is that they are notably fragile. If we're all using the cloud and the cloud goes down - then we're all screwed.
I woudln't say the companies are robbing us blind. I see a few targeted ads and some analysis of the documents I'm writing might have prompted some professional service to send me a premium test voucher right smack as I'm preparing for freelance carreer options again. This is probably no coincidence "Preparing for a freeelance career in IT" probably is a Google Target Option or something.
Creepy?... In a way, yes. But then again, we know about NSA ever since Snowden and still we haven't managed to build a zero-fuss end-to-end encrypted replacement/update for E-Mail, so it can't be that bad.
BTW, I'm more scared about the NSA than Google at this point.... But I wouldn't use Facebook aside from using it with a spoof account either.
Shitty project management is doing this. But this is no news, is it?
Software stuff is infinetely creative and infinitely complex - it is very easy to screw stuff like this up from a management perspective. Especially since software developers themselves often get predictions about their work wrong - even in an environment where they can control all aspects of their project. Good project managment is an art and with software it is an exceptionally arcane art. Screw it up even a little and your project goes haywire.
All this is long since well established and it's one of the bains of our profession that we have to deal with day in and day out.
I basically program exclusively in PLs with sloppy typing and no compiling and stuff. Python, PHP, JavaScript the works. The speed at which you get stuff done is notable, especially compared to classic "Type Nazi" languages. However, the trade-off is clear as can be: Write critical code beyond a certain scale in sloppy type PLs, and you're asking for trouble. Type Nazi languages force you to think before typing... errrm... hitting the keys..., and that is a good and useful thing if the use case isn't a trivial scripting stuff that you can debug and modify on your Smartphone willst sitting on the bus.
Sloppy typed PLs have some stopgaps (code standards, frameworks, hacks, transpired dialects (such as JavaScripts TypeScript) but those are things intended to cover the gap and cater to specific needs.
Long story short: Nazi typing is more work to front but prevents lots of trouble downstream of large non-trivial projects, including a specific subset of bugs.
Elon hasn't done shit with AI and can't speak from any experience.
Well, since he's the one and only big name and largest supporter behind OpenAI, the only real feasible contender/competitor to Google/TensorFlow, pardon me while I just presume that you're talking out of your behind and Elon Musk might actually know what he's talking about. He's proven it in Space and Electric Cars already too.
So unless you can point me to some significant contributions in the field of AI that you have been "studying for 15 years" (perhaps your involvement in OpenAI or TensorFlow would prove your expertise, no?) I'm trusting Musk's warnings more that some random Anon on slashdot, thank you very much.
Slashdot Mirror
1.) Trying to explain to idiots how they're doing things wrong and trying to correct them? ... Very difficult. As soon as they're overwelmed they'll start voting for Trump and Co. and things will go downhill from there.
2.) Exploiting idiots and getting obscenely rich whilst giving them PHP doodads / toy apps or virutal swords? ... Very easy. You just once need to fathom how truely unbelievably stupid most people are and what stupid shit they will spend money on, then you're good.
Bottom line:
While I get that we need to save the world (Elon Musk is showing us how it can be done) I also get the enticing proposition of simply manipulating the masses and enjoying yourself while doing it. If you get bored, then you can go about saving the world. Which is basically what Bill Gates and the likes are doing.
... but if you can't infer my skillset from my code and what I have to tell about it, I don't want to work for you. If you judge my skills by the amount of commits or the amount of lines in a given set of repos, you're an idiot, plain and simple.
With modern PLs there are as many coding styles as there are coders. We get into religious wars over indent, bracketing and tabs versus spaces. Any judge over my code who isn't aware of this bias inherent to all of us is utterly unable to judge code at a cursory glance.
Point in case:
Two weeks ago a potential employer ditched a first interview with me after checking a GitHub account of mine. After I told him that it was only one of many. Provably one of his crew noticed only a few commits every few weeks and didn't realize it was a toolkit I was working on and not some project I couldn't disclose.
Their loss, not mine. If you don't have the time to ask what's up with repo X and my commits you're not qualified as a project lead. End of story.
My 2 eurocents.
... and until then probably nothing else.
Speaking uses 80% brain power, typing use 20%, roughly. Typing is pretty fast and efficient. Talking won't replace it entirely.
The study notes the rise in suicides of women. ... Looks like the equality thing is panning out. Also observed in higher heart attack rates with women.
They're both just about the same thing anyway. Yeah, Android is built around the JVM and has some low-level stuff concerning cellular connectivity and such, but I expect such things to be covered with in an afternoon of recompiling kernel modules for whatever OS (read: customised cross-platform FOSS *nix variant) Google has lying around, be it Chrome, Android or something else
As for the Chromebooks getting Android: That's a nice thing and of course will push back an android tablet if you have money to spare and dig Big Brother Google and all the niceties he has to offer for his minions. So, yeah, chances are that a high profile Android tablet actually is a Chromebook with keyboard attached running Android (see Pixelbook) and perhaps that way of doing things will catch on with vendors.
I wouldn't mind.
Then again, well matured dirt cheap android tablets for the mother of my daughter to watch 'tube-clips and read the local news is a neat thing too, so, no, I doin't think Android tablets are going away. But again, who cares, Android runs Chrome and has all the Google nifties integrated, so it's not that much of a difference anyway.
My 2 eurocents.
Chromebook is Intel, not ARM.
??!? Huh?
Sorry, but I'm writing this on an official ARM Chromebook and things are working just fine, thank you. Wether Chrome OS or Android is running on x86 or ARM makes just about no difference at all for the upper layers, OSes included.
It's always been there!
It's the hole that leads to Nazi occupied Hollow-Earth, where they have there domesticated dinosaurs to ride on and keep their UFOs. Every educated person knows this.
I know the neuromancer and the bridge triology and like both. Perhaps the Bridge triology is a bit better because the scenarios described are more plausible, as is the character of Chevette in "Virtual Light".
Then again, in the neuromancer triology all three books where quite memorable, whereas Idoru was sort of meh IMHO.
This question is straight from the Captain Obvious department IMHO.
Besides, the "Blade Runners" are mentioned in a dialog in the opening scene.
RISC is generally considered "The better Architecture" (TM). Of course that statement is super-broad but truth be told, ARM was initially designed with lots of modern day improvements in mind whilst x86 was made with a more "make it work and get it to mass market ASAP" approach. Hence the success of x86 despite ARM microcomputers being roughly 2 decades ahead back in the late 80ies/early 90ies.
ARM actually is the newer architecture but the Acorn Archimedes was proprietary and closed, just like the Amiga back in the day, that's why they lost out against PC/x86.
Point in case: Modern ARM performance per Watt is through the friggin roof vis-a-vis current x86 for relatively standard operations. That's why cheapo ARM netbooks with laughable batteries still get 6 hours of runtime per charge. Also is ARM in some ways way simpler in architecture (*reduced* instruction set command - RISC) and thus easier to produce and optimize.
I expect ARM to take over userspace computing once the entire stack is covered by open hardware. Smartphones and tablets already are on this path, when FOSH (Free Open Source Hardware) hits the road, this trend will accelerate, IMHO.
My 2 eurocents.
I do. As far as digital content and connectivity goes, we live in a world of abundance. Today true wealth lies in focus. And today, disconnecting from always-online can provide that to a very high degree, much better than trying to discipline yourself. Every time upgrading my smartphone is due, I think about going back to a feature phone and a paper calendar / filofax.
I never really dug the Internet in whole. This always-online thing was suspicious to me back in the 90ies and - to a certain extent - still is today. I remember the Fidonet and pulling/pushing my stuff once a day. Perfect.
Long story short, disconnecting is a good idea and I understand that for some only a radical move does the trick. I could be that one.
How long can warranties be extended?
How long will particular models be available?
How long is Google commiting to make parts available?
How long will Google provide Tier-1 software updates?
There is one big advantage to this cloud thing (or so I suspect):
All those questions you posted don't really matter. Device discontinued? Lost? Stolen?
Your stuff is in the cloud. Get the next cheapo box/laptop you can lay your hands on, log in and continue to work where you left off.
I'm trying this sort of workflow right now, and it is compelling - I'll give Google that much. I'm typing this on a new dirt cheap 130 Euro Chromebook and have all my sh*t synced with my Smartphone just about instantly. Couldn't say that for any other system. Unless, of course, Apple. But I simply don't have the money for them right now. The current gen portables by Apple are way to expensive and where much cheaper in comparsion 10 years ago. The 13" iBook G4 - my first Apple - was 700$ cheaper than the next cheapest subnotebook. Not anymore with Apple. They've moved beyond what I'm currently willing to spend on hardware - that's the cold hard truth.
So cloud it is then for me, now. For the time being.
My 2 eurocents.
Those who breakfast are more chill than those who start the day off going 120%.
Sounds plausible to me.
The vendors are all about saving space and thus want to ditch the headphone jacks. They say "courage", I say bullshit.
How about finally making virtual SIM Technology real ?? - now that would be an innovation I can support. Removing the headphone jack is all about selling more expensive hardware (headphones). ...
What a load of nonsense.
... does not compute.
Not really news.
Fly faster than eagles.
Or at night.
Don't piss off sky predators.
The year of the Linux desktop has past mostly unnoticed. And the OS is nothing more than a terminal for services. Just got a Chromebook for 130€ to try out this cloud thing. (I'm a 20 year Linux user and my other portable is a MB Air from 2011). The Chromebook concept is amazing. Dirt cheap, boots in seconds, runs for hours on a single charge with a very small battery (ARM system) and is totally idiot safe, usable but the other 99.999% of the population who aren't computer experts like us. Two-factor auth setup with two mouseclicks.
Given, I have to do *everything* with cloud services now (IDE, CI, Testing, Documents, Storage, etc.) and everything is hooked to accounts in the cloud. But as you know, that's not just disadvantage but also comes with huge advantages. Having Travis and Codeanywhere do the setup work for me lets me focus on coding. If the Chromebook gets stolen, I'll disable it remotely and pick up where I left somewhere else. I don't have to think twice about syncing my Smartphone with the stuff I did on the cBook.
Note that this stuff can be used by some kid in the third world aswell. Which is exactly how Google intended it to be.
You have to hand it to Google, when it comes to enablement, they are lightyears ahead of everybody else, including Apple.
Bottom line: The Linux Desktop is long since here and it will take the world in a storm. It's called Chrome OS.
... to get a camera in your bedroom.
FTFY.
IMHO it's extreme consolidation, not much more.
I'm currently testing "cloud only" for most of my computing needs. I've been thinking about this for quite some time and now I'm giving it a testrun.
I meet a guy at our local hackerspace who uses Chrome OS exclusively. He won't go back.
The side effect is that I'm spending less time at the computer and getting more real work done. Going all-out Google can be a really neat thing. Google watches over you and that's not just a bad thing. The speed at which I get work done and the time and effort saved by using specialized cloud services for every specific little detail about my work as a developer does have a solid positive impact on my overall productivity.
The only problem with highly optimized systems such as an all-present cloud is that they are notably fragile. If we're all using the cloud and the cloud goes down - then we're all screwed.
I woudln't say the companies are robbing us blind. I see a few targeted ads and some analysis of the documents I'm writing might have prompted some professional service to send me a premium test voucher right smack as I'm preparing for freelance carreer options again. This is probably no coincidence "Preparing for a freeelance career in IT" probably is a Google Target Option or something.
Creepy? ... In a way, yes. But then again, we know about NSA ever since Snowden and still we haven't managed to build a zero-fuss end-to-end encrypted replacement/update for E-Mail, so it can't be that bad.
BTW, I'm more scared about the NSA than Google at this point. ... But I wouldn't use Facebook aside from using it with a spoof account either.
My 2 cents.
Shitty project management is doing this. But this is no news, is it?
Software stuff is infinetely creative and infinitely complex - it is very easy to screw stuff like this up from a management perspective. Especially since software developers themselves often get predictions about their work wrong - even in an environment where they can control all aspects of their project.
Good project managment is an art and with software it is an exceptionally arcane art. Screw it up even a little and your project goes haywire.
All this is long since well established and it's one of the bains of our profession that we have to deal with day in and day out.
So no news here.
Would they?
I basically program exclusively in PLs with sloppy typing and no compiling and stuff. Python, PHP, JavaScript the works. The speed at which you get stuff done is notable, especially compared to classic "Type Nazi" languages. However, the trade-off is clear as can be: Write critical code beyond a certain scale in sloppy type PLs, and you're asking for trouble. Type Nazi languages force you to think before typing ... errrm ... hitting the keys ..., and that is a good and useful thing if the use case isn't a trivial scripting stuff that you can debug and modify on your Smartphone willst sitting on the bus.
Sloppy typed PLs have some stopgaps (code standards, frameworks, hacks, transpired dialects (such as JavaScripts TypeScript) but those are things intended to cover the gap and cater to specific needs.
Long story short: Nazi typing is more work to front but prevents lots of trouble downstream of large non-trivial projects, including a specific subset of bugs.
Telescope Builders are often only mediocre Astronomers.
Big surprise!
"Why not?"
Elon hasn't done shit with AI and can't speak from any experience.
Well, since he's the one and only big name and largest supporter behind OpenAI, the only real feasible contender/competitor to Google/TensorFlow, pardon me while I just presume that you're talking out of your behind and Elon Musk might actually know what he's talking about. He's proven it in Space and Electric Cars already too.
So unless you can point me to some significant contributions in the field of AI that you have been "studying for 15 years" (perhaps your involvement in OpenAI or TensorFlow would prove your expertise, no?) I'm trusting Musk's warnings more that some random Anon on slashdot, thank you very much.