No. Time is for humans. And timezones make perfect sense. One look at my smartphone and I know wether my sweetheart in Moscow is having lunch or gearing up to leave work for home. Or perhaps ready for some longer chat or Skype session.
Timezones are for humans. Everybody who needs something different should use UTC or Beats or whatever. And it's very easy for them to do so.
Summertime, OTOH, that's a thing we should get rid of IMHO. The value is negligible vis-a-vis the hassle it causes.
I'd say this all is classic over-engineering. As with the F35 JSF, Airbus A400M and Jaeger90... errrm, sorry, "Eurofighter". These projects have been running over time and budget for *decades* (you may guess when the Jaeger90 was supposed to enter service...) and are just about outdated by drones and new types of asymmetric warfare when they'll finally will be finished. Meanwhile the russians are gradually updating their Mig29s and Sukolevs with junkyard scraps or something and can actually fly. Like, they have pilots trained on them that can strap in and take off in 3.5 Minutes flat.
If I were king of the US i'd cancel these projects inmediately and do a maintainable iteration of existing aircraft. Upgrade/iterate the F15, F16 and A10, get some new upgraded missiles and stuff and built 700 of each and get some pilots to learn to fly them.
This new warship is also not much more than some PR move/dick measuring contest of the US Navy vis-a-vis the other forces. Insanely expensive and not really of any pivotal value in a conflict I would guess. Not much different than in WW1.
New-toy-cash would be way better invested in stealth drones or something.
You never get them in the right way. I sort of appreciate Apple just ditching the standard connectors altogether and moving to USB-C. It's a jerk move of sort, but they actually can get away with it and that way more will make the switch sooner as well.
Dude, you got just about *everything* wrong in that headline. The only correct thing is "Mark Zuckerberg".
No trial. The Attorney Generals of Munich are investigating against Mark Zuckerberg. Big difference. And it's not for inciting hatred. It is for enabling "Hate Speech". Big difference.
If it ever comes to a trial, I wonder how well this holds up in court. I doubt it will come to a trial.
With the amount of borderline insane screaming and poo-flinging taking place in US elections and fascism, xenophobia and abrahamic revelation cult fanatism drowning out many reasonable debates in the US and in Europe, I am worried that western post-war society is on the decline and the unwritten social contract in the US and other first world countries is up for grabs.
What are your thoughts on the future of our society in general, with megacorps gaining more and more unchecked power, universal 24/7 surveillance, the attack on cash and the decline of reason in the public discourse? Should we be worried? Are you? How do things look today compared to the good ol' days in your opinion?
Thanks for your insights on this. And on a sidenote: I love your podcast interview with Tim Ferriss - it's a ball to listen to you two.
The Gema claims to be there for the artists, but they are just about one of the most annoying German authorities out there. Example: You can't just play music in your cafe, you have to pay fees to the Gema. Pretty steep ones too.
Likewise we know how much Youtube cares about artists publishing their stuff on Youtube - not at all.
I'd like to emphasis that just about in every 1st world country on the planet the general populace agrees and acknowledges the science that man-made climate change is real and happening. It is only in the US that anti-eco idiots appear in such numbers have such a widespread platform and that they are actually listened to. These crackpots would be laughed out of the room in just about any european country, by any party, left or right.
This all fits snuggly into the type of political debate taking place in the US right now, that has everybody outside the US shake their head in disbelief.
This is good. I'm torn too and fro about the new Mac laptops, but they're going to much of the lock-in route and have gotten more expensive. Seeing System76 and others get a bump shows what Seth Godin hinted at just recently and what I have been observing for about 10 years: Apple is losing the opinion leaders.
Same with me btw. After the MacBook Pro presentation I'm still in doubt if I will ever again get a mac. Not a good sign IMHO. I've been on the Mac bandwagon ever since the iBook G4. Linux too, of course, but also Mac.
But these days I'm also leaning towards Linux, as I did 15 years ago.
It was designed to strafe tanks, but modern tanks will survive its shitty popgun, and it's vulnerable to SAM. IOW it can't be used against an enemy with an air force and it can't fly low enough to use its gun.
It's "shitty popgun" as you call it is just about the most powerful fully automatic firearm on the planet and has been ever since. At least as far as airbourne fully-automatics go. It might be that some soviet tank with active armour can survive a first attack run or a fully armoured Leo2 can surfive even a little longer, but thats not the point.
Todays enemies are ISIS troupers in modified Toyota Trucks and Bulldozers, they don't have Leo2s. For that type of enemy the A10 is more than a perfect match. And the most important thing: It's actually finished. We have quite a few of those sitting there and ready to fly and kill stuff. Can't say that of the F35 or the Jaeger90,... errrrm sorry, "Eurofighter" it's now called.
This is awesome. This is what we want. Machines doing all the dirty, unhealthy, badly paid and dangerous work. Nice to hear we're finally moving along another few steps in this regard.
Although I have to admit this is not really that much of a surprise. This has been going on since the dawn of industrial mining. Back in 18 hundred something it was completely normal for 10-year olds working 16 hours a day in the mines and dying very early deaths. Specialised machines came in and the children and the slavery went. Good thing!
We still have that in Afrika and other parts of the world (Fun fact: the rare-earth metals in your smartphone are paid for with blood and slavery) but as soon as robots are cheap enough to replace even those contemporary slaves, that will be a reason to celebrate.
Hey, guys. Thanks for all the wonderful input, I'm learning quite a bit.
I get the 'refurbished ThinkPad' path, I've done that myself. My large refurbished 15" W530 running Xubuntu 16.4 LTS is basically my luggable workstation. However, knowing myself I'd get a 12" X230 for 350 Euros, then an extra battery pack for 200 Euros to extend the battery life from 4 hours to 16, then I'd get extra RAM and an SSD and land somewhere around 800 - 1000 Euros. I'd have a small and good machine that would be overkill for what I want to do and still be compareatively heavy with the battery pack included. This all, including the final price, is sort of the scenario I'm trying to avoid.:-)
I wasn't aware of the crouton alternateive chrx + GalliumOS, which looks really neat and intrigueing.
I'm not sure which way I'm going to go but I'm following your input carefully.
1.) I *do* like the concept of cash. And I always like to have some in my pocket. And I bet there are many people like me in that regard.
2.) Killing cash in developing and third world countries isn't going to work anytime soon. And it will be difficult in quite some 1st world countries too, especially those where citizens have learned to distrust Gouvernment and the banks.
3.) If anyone actually does kill cash, it will be Google and not you guys. Sorry.
Say what you will, but I don't like the way things are going in the broad perspective.
Yes, we are the dominant species. And yes that is cool.
But we need to start and act as responsible as we are. Right now we only have one planet and it's probably going to stay that way - any people moving to mars in 300 years probably will go to stay there. Just watching those old films of english colonial lords shooting tigers by the dozen just for the kicks or seeing japanese firms chopping down rainforests in the indonesian sea for precious wood because the imprint of it looks cool on cast concrete (seriously) makes me sick. This sort of behaviour is totally insane.
I actually think it might well placed and targeted eco terrorism/sabotage might even be waranted in a few situations happening around the globe. Ignorant idiots are fucking up the planet and we need a global military force to stop them. Make it really expensive in hardware, money and lives to poison rivers in south america where metals are being mined. Stop bulldozers in the amazon with an AMG shot to the motor.
He is, IMHO, 100% correct with his analysis, including the critisism of the quality of what made Apple great. Apple abandoned their opinion leaders (us) about the time they started requireing a sign-up to get the devtools. Slowly but surely their Unix isn't quite that attractive as it used to be and the quality of their utility software has been in steady decline ever since. The last few versions of Preview can't even render PDFs correctly anymore.
Meanwhile the open web, pushed by Google, is taking over. Devices and web environments are steeply growing in power, and the line between website, service, VMed and native app is blurring faster than we can follow.
I've been seeing it ever since I finally understood ChromeOS. Remember when it came out? Everyone, including me, was like "WTF?".
But now we understand. Chromebooks are the poor mans and the developing worlds (80% of all potential users globally) MacBook Air. They're dirt cheap, boot nigh instantly and run for a day on one charge. And Google takes care of you all along the way.
Today it's blatantly obvious that Google, of all megacorps, has the best long-term strategy and thus is pushing a standards based open web. It's the only plattform they can win with and it is more and more becoming the plattform with which people can develop safely and be guraranteed some sort of userbase, no matter the underlying OS or device. The Pixel comes as a premium phone - an unusual thing from Google - but everyone knows it's just an upgraded iPhone knock-off hardware wise. The real deal is with Google Assistant and the unlimited storage they offer.
As for the web being the plattform that is evolving the fastest - yes, of course it is. Updates are as close as refreshing a pageview and storage and AI are dropping in prices and power in huge leaps as we speak. I've been torn to and fro about wether I should leave the web for some 'real' programming and environment ever since I switched my career into it 16 years ago, but I have to say that it never has been as interesting as it is now to stick with it, sit back, and quietly watch as the toy language JavaScript takes over fields no one ever even dreamt of 10 years ago.
... because we - the FOSS experts - are sitting on our hands and asses.
It takes a dedicated small crew of developers just a few weeks to develop a full-stack replacement of the E-Mail protocol and service, daemons and end user clients included. Fully encrypted, signed and 100% anonymised by default, with a distributed meta DNS to handle routing.
Likewise replacing the web can't be that hard either. Sure there is rendering, but remove 2 decades worth of document markup and build a working alternative, removing all the downfalls using the very same meta-dns described above and the web is history.
I actually think we will tackle this problem if it get's bad enough. Replace DNS, E-Mail and the Web with modern encrypted distributed services and the web will start going the way of the dodo.
This isn't really news. OS X is a good working unix, it is built and controlled by the same people who build the hardware. It's basically fully integrated into the hardware. It has always had a very clear separation of user and system space and Macs aren't plagued by bloat and shovelware.
You get a mac unpack it, start it and it works. That hasn't changed in decades and holds true to this very day. Not so with a PC. Just watching my colleague hassling with Windows 10 and Office365 at my shop has me stand in amazement over the eternal shittyness of the MS provided solutions that apparently holds to this very day as it did in the Windows ME days. Even today you can't get a basic Groupware from them up and running without a total messy frustration ensuing.
I remember thinking about the brand-new first ever iMac and noticing that you could get one, start it, and didn't even need to adjust the CRT monitor or resolution. A godsend for ordinary users and maintenance personnel. That type of integration and result oriented setup was lightyears ahead of any ugly clunky Windows box. And it still is.
That they are cheaper in maintenance is blatantly obvious IMHO.
A windows PC that doesn't suck is still a rare thing. Probably these surface books from MS themselves are what comes closest to a MacBook.
I've said it in the 90ies and it holds true to this very day: In terms of basic system integrity Windows combines all the disadvantages of Linux with all the disadvantages of a Mac. The only reason ever to get Windows was and still is to run programms on it that wouldn't run anywhere else. And those are pirated software, Games or some obscure CAD program for engineers that don't know anything other than Windows.
That's why Google is moving into their Groupware and productivity space and Chromebooks, as the poor mans mac, are taking over. Not that I like the prospect of Big Google watching everything, but anything that removes MSes abysmal model from the body public is a good deed. It's not that MS would be any better. Only with Google at least it works and you don't have to pay for it.
If I lose my job to robots or - way more likely - optimised standardised software and can't have any share in the production gain, then I just grab myself a Kalashnikov and take what I need.
Glad we could clear this up so quickly. Be seeing you soon.
... Elon Musks Massive Mars Flight Presentation and now this. Just because we have better and more realistic computer animation today doesn't make these 'ambitions' any less "new agegy".
It would make more sense to first finish Auroville or found a Quasi National Entity as an independant organisation for improving things here on earth.
I'm pretty sure that we need a Skyhook/Space Elevator before we can seriously start settling in space, be it on mars or on some massive space station. No way are we going to get matierials for projects like these into space consistently with regular rockets. Not in these payload sizes. I just don't see it happening.
Our job is to make ourselves superfluos. Get over it.
We are programmers. Which means we tell a computer what to do and then it does it without any person required, including us. By very definition we are the last in the line to replace humans. What is heading towards us will make current issues seem like a piece of cake. There will be a massively rough transition into an all-out post-scarcity economy with probably a lot of ugly things happening inbetween. US HB1 visa issues aren't even close to what you should expect down the road.
A personal answer to this problem is twofold: 1.) Specialize,perhaps even to the extreme, and be ready to work/travel globally. There will always be someone who needs robotic programming in Python 3 for milling tools somewhere on the planet.
2.) Observe the development of society carefully and prepare for *massive* changes. That might even include prepping for some 1930s Great Depression type 'action'. Adjust your behaviour and your expectations according to what we all are observing in societies currently. The sub-Weimar-Republic tone in the US election and the Weimar Republic tendencies in Germany alone should be an indicator where we are headed - a total disintegration of core aspects of our current post-WW2 society. A litte perspective on that: My current GF lives in a big city in russia. I traveled there this year. It's basically a one-on-one all-out implementation of Neal Stephensons Snow Crash or William Gibsons Bridge Triology over there. With a dangerously deluded autocrat at the top. A real-life explosive Bladerunner / Strange Days mix.
Bottom line: Meanwhile I'm enjoying a cushy job as a Consultant and Webdev at a neat agency in Germany. But I'm prepared for it to end immediately at any time. I myself am actually prepared to move to another continent on comparatively short notice should shit hit the fan here in Europe. You should be prepared to do the same thing where you are.
The UI/UX is from the stone age. I'm actually glad it doesn't require punch-cards or something. Turn-by-turn audio is broken and unsuable. The particular model I have (got it as a present) was shipped in an early beta state and has a solid 3 stars on amazon, which basically means it's officially a piece of sh*t.
The only three things these devices have going for them are full screen lane-assist with countryside detail included - a thing I *do* miss with Google Navigate - relatively solid cases and useful attachment systems for the windscreen. The one from Tomtom is actually quite well done. Could be better, but quite OK non-the-less.
My Moto G2 OTOH runs Android Marshmallow and has a a navigation system with Google Maps + Navigate, I can just tell it where I want to go without taking my hands of the wheel and it's navigation is among the very best in first world countries. The display and the variations it offers is top notch aswell. The turn-by-turn audio doesn't lag a bit and announces just at the right time.
Oh, and I can use it with my bike, while walking - I actually use it more often on the bike and when walking - and for public transport, with the navigation variants selectable with one touch.... And that it has a phone and a camera and all that built in we know already.
Bottom line: GPS Navis are a niche market or throw-away devices for roughshod use in fringe cases and no where near compareable to modern smartphones with armies of experts toiling away at UX, AI features and performance. I think it's safe to say that they are on their way out. And yes, that includes BMWs clunky and awkward built-in middle-console click-wheel gadget for entering destinations they tried to sell as some luxury-car UX innovation a few years back (no joke).
Slashdot Mirror
No. Time is for humans. And timezones make perfect sense.
One look at my smartphone and I know wether my sweetheart in Moscow is having lunch or gearing up to leave work for home.
Or perhaps ready for some longer chat or Skype session.
Timezones are for humans. Everybody who needs something different should use UTC or Beats or whatever. And it's very easy for them to do so.
Summertime, OTOH, that's a thing we should get rid of IMHO.
The value is negligible vis-a-vis the hassle it causes.
I'd say this all is classic over-engineering. As with the F35 JSF, Airbus A400M and Jaeger90 ... errrm, sorry, "Eurofighter". These projects have been running over time and budget for *decades* (you may guess when the Jaeger90 was supposed to enter service ...) and are just about outdated by drones and new types of asymmetric warfare when they'll finally will be finished.
Meanwhile the russians are gradually updating their Mig29s and Sukolevs with junkyard scraps or something and can actually fly. Like, they have pilots trained on them that can strap in and take off in 3.5 Minutes flat.
If I were king of the US i'd cancel these projects inmediately and do a maintainable iteration of existing aircraft.
Upgrade/iterate the F15, F16 and A10, get some new upgraded missiles and stuff and built 700 of each and get some pilots to learn to fly them.
This new warship is also not much more than some PR move/dick measuring contest of the US Navy vis-a-vis the other forces.
Insanely expensive and not really of any pivotal value in a conflict I would guess. Not much different than in WW1.
New-toy-cash would be way better invested in stealth drones or something.
My 2 cents.
The tenacity is noteworthy. This guy did a very good job at getting to the bottom of things and enabling total control over his tablet.
Well done!
You never get them in the right way. I sort of appreciate Apple just ditching the standard connectors altogether and moving to USB-C.
It's a jerk move of sort, but they actually can get away with it and that way more will make the switch sooner as well.
Dude, you got just about *everything* wrong in that headline. The only correct thing is "Mark Zuckerberg".
No trial. The Attorney Generals of Munich are investigating against Mark Zuckerberg. Big difference.
And it's not for inciting hatred. It is for enabling "Hate Speech". Big difference.
If it ever comes to a trial, I wonder how well this holds up in court.
I doubt it will come to a trial.
With the amount of borderline insane screaming and poo-flinging taking place in US elections and fascism, xenophobia and abrahamic revelation cult fanatism drowning out many reasonable debates in the US and in Europe, I am worried that western post-war society is on the decline and the unwritten social contract in the US and other first world countries is up for grabs.
What are your thoughts on the future of our society in general, with megacorps gaining more and more unchecked power, universal 24/7 surveillance, the attack on cash and the decline of reason in the public discourse? Should we be worried? Are you? How do things look today compared to the good ol' days in your opinion?
Thanks for your insights on this.
And on a sidenote: I love your podcast interview with Tim Ferriss - it's a ball to listen to you two.
The Gema claims to be there for the artists, but they are just about one of the most annoying German authorities out there. Example: You can't just play music in your cafe, you have to pay fees to the Gema. Pretty steep ones too.
Likewise we know how much Youtube cares about artists publishing their stuff on Youtube - not at all.
I'd like to emphasis that just about in every 1st world country on the planet the general populace agrees and acknowledges the science that man-made climate change is real and happening. It is only in the US that anti-eco idiots appear in such numbers have such a widespread platform and that they are actually listened to. These crackpots would be laughed out of the room in just about any european country, by any party, left or right.
This all fits snuggly into the type of political debate taking place in the US right now, that has everybody outside the US shake their head in disbelief.
Just wanted to get that out.
This is good. I'm torn too and fro about the new Mac laptops, but they're going to much of the lock-in route and have gotten more expensive. Seeing System76 and others get a bump shows what Seth Godin hinted at just recently and what I have been observing for about 10 years: Apple is losing the opinion leaders.
Same with me btw. After the MacBook Pro presentation I'm still in doubt if I will ever again get a mac. Not a good sign IMHO. I've been on the Mac bandwagon ever since the iBook G4. Linux too, of course, but also Mac.
But these days I'm also leaning towards Linux, as I did 15 years ago.
My 2 cents.
... treat them like grown-ups. They know what they're doing.
And if they don't,I doubt you're gonna help it.
My 2 cents.
It was designed to strafe tanks, but modern tanks will survive its shitty popgun, and it's vulnerable to SAM. IOW it can't be used against an enemy with an air force and it can't fly low enough to use its gun.
It's "shitty popgun" as you call it is just about the most powerful fully automatic firearm on the planet and has been ever since. At least as far as airbourne fully-automatics go. It might be that some soviet tank with active armour can survive a first attack run or a fully armoured Leo2 can surfive even a little longer, but thats not the point.
Todays enemies are ISIS troupers in modified Toyota Trucks and Bulldozers, they don't have Leo2s. For that type of enemy the A10 is more than a perfect match. And the most important thing: It's actually finished. We have quite a few of those sitting there and ready to fly and kill stuff. Can't say that of the F35 or the Jaeger90, ... errrrm sorry, "Eurofighter" it's now called.
This is awesome. This is what we want.
Machines doing all the dirty, unhealthy, badly paid and dangerous work.
Nice to hear we're finally moving along another few steps in this regard.
Although I have to admit this is not really that much of a surprise. This has been going on since the dawn of industrial mining. Back in 18 hundred something it was completely normal for 10-year olds working 16 hours a day in the mines and dying very early deaths. Specialised machines came in and the children and the slavery went. Good thing!
We still have that in Afrika and other parts of the world (Fun fact: the rare-earth metals in your smartphone are paid for with blood and slavery) but as soon as robots are cheap enough to replace even those contemporary slaves, that will be a reason to celebrate.
My 2 cents.
Hey, guys. Thanks for all the wonderful input, I'm learning quite a bit.
I get the 'refurbished ThinkPad' path, I've done that myself. My large refurbished 15" W530 running Xubuntu 16.4 LTS is basically my luggable workstation. However, knowing myself I'd get a 12" X230 for 350 Euros, then an extra battery pack for 200 Euros to extend the battery life from 4 hours to 16, then I'd get extra RAM and an SSD and land somewhere around 800 - 1000 Euros. I'd have a small and good machine that would be overkill for what I want to do and still be compareatively heavy with the battery pack included. This all, including the final price, is sort of the scenario I'm trying to avoid. :-)
I wasn't aware of the crouton alternateive chrx + GalliumOS, which looks really neat and intrigueing.
I'm not sure which way I'm going to go but I'm following your input carefully.
Again, thanks a bunch!
1.) I *do* like the concept of cash. And I always like to have some in my pocket. And I bet there are many people like me in that regard.
2.) Killing cash in developing and third world countries isn't going to work anytime soon. And it will be difficult in quite some 1st world countries too, especially those where citizens have learned to distrust Gouvernment and the banks.
3.) If anyone actually does kill cash, it will be Google and not you guys. Sorry.
Say what you will, but I don't like the way things are going in the broad perspective.
Yes, we are the dominant species. And yes that is cool.
But we need to start and act as responsible as we are. Right now we only have one planet and it's probably going to stay that way - any people moving to mars in 300 years probably will go to stay there. Just watching those old films of english colonial lords shooting tigers by the dozen just for the kicks or seeing japanese firms chopping down rainforests in the indonesian sea for precious wood because the imprint of it looks cool on cast concrete (seriously) makes me sick. This sort of behaviour is totally insane.
I actually think it might well placed and targeted eco terrorism/sabotage might even be waranted in a few situations happening around the globe. Ignorant idiots are fucking up the planet and we need a global military force to stop them. Make it really expensive in hardware, money and lives to poison rivers in south america where metals are being mined. Stop bulldozers in the amazon with an AMG shot to the motor.
He is, IMHO, 100% correct with his analysis, including the critisism of the quality of what made Apple great. Apple abandoned their opinion leaders (us) about the time they started requireing a sign-up to get the devtools. Slowly but surely their Unix isn't quite that attractive as it used to be and the quality of their utility software has been in steady decline ever since. The last few versions of Preview can't even render PDFs correctly anymore.
Meanwhile the open web, pushed by Google, is taking over. Devices and web environments are steeply growing in power, and the line between website, service, VMed and native app is blurring faster than we can follow.
I've been seeing it ever since I finally understood ChromeOS.
Remember when it came out? Everyone, including me, was like "WTF?".
But now we understand. Chromebooks are the poor mans and the developing worlds (80% of all potential users globally) MacBook Air. They're dirt cheap, boot nigh instantly and run for a day on one charge. And Google takes care of you all along the way.
Today it's blatantly obvious that Google, of all megacorps, has the best long-term strategy and thus is pushing a standards based open web. It's the only plattform they can win with and it is more and more becoming the plattform with which people can develop safely and be guraranteed some sort of userbase, no matter the underlying OS or device. The Pixel comes as a premium phone - an unusual thing from Google - but everyone knows it's just an upgraded iPhone knock-off hardware wise. The real deal is with Google Assistant and the unlimited storage they offer.
As for the web being the plattform that is evolving the fastest - yes, of course it is. Updates are as close as refreshing a pageview and storage and AI are dropping in prices and power in huge leaps as we speak. I've been torn to and fro about wether I should leave the web for some 'real' programming and environment ever since I switched my career into it 16 years ago, but I have to say that it never has been as interesting as it is now to stick with it, sit back, and quietly watch as the toy language JavaScript takes over fields no one ever even dreamt of 10 years ago.
My 2 cents.
... because we - the FOSS experts - are sitting on our hands and asses.
It takes a dedicated small crew of developers just a few weeks to develop a full-stack replacement of the E-Mail protocol and service, daemons and end user clients included. Fully encrypted, signed and 100% anonymised by default, with a distributed meta DNS to handle routing.
Likewise replacing the web can't be that hard either. Sure there is rendering, but remove 2 decades worth of document markup and build a working alternative, removing all the downfalls using the very same meta-dns described above and the web is history.
I actually think we will tackle this problem if it get's bad enough.
Replace DNS, E-Mail and the Web with modern encrypted distributed services and the web will start going the way of the dodo.
This isn't really news. OS X is a good working unix, it is built and controlled by the same people who build the hardware. It's basically fully integrated into the hardware. It has always had a very clear separation of user and system space and Macs aren't plagued by bloat and shovelware.
You get a mac unpack it, start it and it works. That hasn't changed in decades and holds true to this very day. Not so with a PC. Just watching my colleague hassling with Windows 10 and Office365 at my shop has me stand in amazement over the eternal shittyness of the MS provided solutions that apparently holds to this very day as it did in the Windows ME days. Even today you can't get a basic Groupware from them up and running without a total messy frustration ensuing.
I remember thinking about the brand-new first ever iMac and noticing that you could get one, start it, and didn't even need to adjust the CRT monitor or resolution. A godsend for ordinary users and maintenance personnel. That type of integration and result oriented setup was lightyears ahead of any ugly clunky Windows box. And it still is.
That they are cheaper in maintenance is blatantly obvious IMHO.
A windows PC that doesn't suck is still a rare thing. Probably these surface books from MS themselves are what comes closest to a MacBook.
I've said it in the 90ies and it holds true to this very day: In terms of basic system integrity Windows combines all the disadvantages of Linux with all the disadvantages of a Mac. The only reason ever to get Windows was and still is to run programms on it that wouldn't run anywhere else. And those are pirated software, Games or some obscure CAD program for engineers that don't know anything other than Windows.
That's why Google is moving into their Groupware and productivity space and Chromebooks, as the poor mans mac, are taking over.
Not that I like the prospect of Big Google watching everything, but anything that removes MSes abysmal model from the body public is a good deed. It's not that MS would be any better. Only with Google at least it works and you don't have to pay for it.
My 2 cents.
If that didn't matter, we Linux enthusiasts would be merrily running FVWM and Blackbox.
BlackBox can actually look pretty neat, if themed correctly.
If I lose my job to robots or - way more likely - optimised standardised software and can't have any share in the production gain, then I just grab myself a Kalashnikov and take what I need.
Glad we could clear this up so quickly.
Be seeing you soon.
Next question.
EOM
... Elon Musks Massive Mars Flight Presentation and now this.
Just because we have better and more realistic computer animation today doesn't make these 'ambitions' any less "new agegy".
It would make more sense to first finish Auroville or found a Quasi National Entity as an independant organisation for improving things here on earth.
I'm pretty sure that we need a Skyhook/Space Elevator before we can seriously start settling in space, be it on mars or on some massive space station. No way are we going to get matierials for projects like these into space consistently with regular rockets. Not in these payload sizes. I just don't see it happening.
Our job is to make ourselves superfluos. Get over it.
We are programmers. Which means we tell a computer what to do and then it does it without any person required, including us.
By very definition we are the last in the line to replace humans.
What is heading towards us will make current issues seem like a piece of cake. There will be a massively rough transition into an all-out post-scarcity economy with probably a lot of ugly things happening inbetween. US HB1 visa issues aren't even close to what you should expect down the road.
A personal answer to this problem is twofold:
1.) Specialize,perhaps even to the extreme, and be ready to work/travel globally. There will always be someone who needs robotic programming in Python 3 for milling tools somewhere on the planet.
2.) Observe the development of society carefully and prepare for *massive* changes. That might even include prepping for some 1930s Great Depression type 'action'. Adjust your behaviour and your expectations according to what we all are observing in societies currently. The sub-Weimar-Republic tone in the US election and the Weimar Republic tendencies in Germany alone should be an indicator where we are headed - a total disintegration of core aspects of our current post-WW2 society. A litte perspective on that: My current GF lives in a big city in russia. I traveled there this year. It's basically a one-on-one all-out implementation of Neal Stephensons Snow Crash or William Gibsons Bridge Triology over there. With a dangerously deluded autocrat at the top. A real-life explosive Bladerunner / Strange Days mix.
Bottom line:
Meanwhile I'm enjoying a cushy job as a Consultant and Webdev at a neat agency in Germany. But I'm prepared for it to end immediately at any time.
I myself am actually prepared to move to another continent on comparatively short notice should shit hit the fan here in Europe.
You should be prepared to do the same thing where you are.
My 2 Eurocents.
I have a Tomtom.
The UI/UX is from the stone age. I'm actually glad it doesn't require punch-cards or something.
Turn-by-turn audio is broken and unsuable. The particular model I have (got it as a present) was shipped in an early beta state and has a solid 3 stars on amazon, which basically means it's officially a piece of sh*t.
The only three things these devices have going for them are full screen lane-assist with countryside detail included - a thing I *do* miss with Google Navigate - relatively solid cases and useful attachment systems for the windscreen. The one from Tomtom is actually quite well done. Could be better, but quite OK non-the-less.
My Moto G2 OTOH runs Android Marshmallow and has a a navigation system with Google Maps + Navigate, I can just tell it where I want to go without taking my hands of the wheel and it's navigation is among the very best in first world countries. The display and the variations it offers is top notch aswell. The turn-by-turn audio doesn't lag a bit and announces just at the right time.
Oh, and I can use it with my bike, while walking - I actually use it more often on the bike and when walking - and for public transport, with the navigation variants selectable with one touch. ... And that it has a phone and a camera and all that built in we know already.
Bottom line:
GPS Navis are a niche market or throw-away devices for roughshod use in fringe cases and no where near compareable to modern smartphones with armies of experts toiling away at UX, AI features and performance. I think it's safe to say that they are on their way out. And yes, that includes BMWs clunky and awkward built-in middle-console click-wheel gadget for entering destinations they tried to sell as some luxury-car UX innovation a few years back (no joke).