Minimalism and focus on the web is what Chrome OS is all about. I don't know if bloating it with junk from the Android store will improve it's overall perception. Right now Chromebooks are the poor mans MacBook Air and impress with a clean slate concept - this image could suffer from Android integration.
Ageism exists, as I've pointed out here at earlyer occasions - but it works both ways. Some "young punk" won't become senior easyer than me - my age is an advantage here.
People react differently to differently aged people. That's evolution and psychology. And really not that dumb if you think about it. If you're showing grey hair and you come in wearing ragged jeans and a printed sweatshirt people will subconsciously react to you in a different way. That *will* spill over into how they consciously think about you.
I'm in my mid-40ies but come across roughly 5-8 years younger. While I'm well off compared to some wasted people at my age - I ride the bike as main means of transport, I've got 10 years of performing arts under my belt, don't smoke, live frugal, don't drink alcohol and am just 3-5kg above ideal weight which go back to normal after two weeks of consciously eating less. That aside I am quickly moving into senior vibe with my whole physical appearance. Grey hair, increasing baldness and wrinkles coming up on me stronger now, ribcage sinking further, skull shrinking (the main cause for wrinkles btw)...the whole nine yards.
I have no doubt that I'll run into ageism and that I'll have to deal with it in a change of habbits including the way I dress, move and talk. I'm also pretty confident that that ageism will turn to my advantage if I get myself a tailored suit, some dress-shirts, a few more ties and ajust my speaking to be calmer and a little cooler/low key. It's just last year that I wore a shirt and a tie for the first time. I've also grown a slight hippster-beard in the last half year - the change in reaction towards me is palpable and actually quite positive.
A friend of mine once said: As soon as I'm gettig grey hair in Germany, I'll be getting a suit and become a fraud-schemer. That pretty much hit's the nail on the head on German society.
Bottom line: Modern society is just as tribal as primitives are - and as stupid that may seem for a smart guy like me, it's astonishing how smoothly things go with other people if you play along. Act like people expect a superiour elder to act and you'll do just fine. That's my hope anyway.
Yeah right. Until some college students find the ultimate "SuperCrushRush(TM) StarCraft Bluff Algorithm" and their box mops the floor with every number of human opponents in a game of SC.
It's a modern microcomputer people! Take one, give it insane specs, a small army of engineers and a few years time and they will find a way that the machine outperforms every human at a very specific task.... This isn't news, this is blatantly obvious.
We're at peak Smartphone when each device has 2TG of storage, 64GB of memory, some 3GHz something 8-16 core CPU, 50 hrs. of battery life and enought gfx power to be used as a PS4 replacement and a desktop workstation. At the same time.
Give, we could already be there, but convergence hasn't caught on yet as an overall concept with the general populace and phonemakers are still making plenty a buck by inching out increasingly smaller upgrades to strange early-adopter flagship markups of 2-3 times the price for a slightly weaker phone. As look as that stiil works, we won't see an ultimat smartphone.
I've still got 20+ unplayed games on my XBox 360 which I bought two years ago. For the reason that it is a mature product with the glitches removed and an excellent lineup of countless dirt-cheap multiple-award-winning AAA titles.
Make the XBone backwards compatible and I might even consider getting one. Other than that I'll wait 10 years. Some time in the not so distant future somebody will finally come up with convergence and we'll have tablet and mobile consoles you hook up to you TV or monitor. But for that to happen, the mobile vendors need to stop scimping on storage.
Other than that I'd say the market is probably saturated at the moment. I think we can all agree that there is no lack of high-powered electronic computer-like thingies floating about to care too much about yet another generation of consoles. VR and ginormous cheap ultra-high-resolution displays might change that, but for now I'm not holding my breath.
I type and write. But I wish my handwriting were better.
I like it when I find the time, peace and place to do some good handwriting. When I'm relaxed and not exausted my handwriting is actually quite good. I'm also a geek for all sorts of pens, pencils, calligraphy brushes, notebooks and paper-types.
I've always gotten flak in school and especially from my mom because of my bad handwriting. Turns out my handwriting isn't bad, I just don't have that much practice.
With all the typing however, digital is still not my main means for notes. My main notebook is still physical (Moleskine Reporter) and I use a regular ink ballpoint pen (Lamy Ink Ballpoint, Lamy Fountain Pen Aluminum regular, Lamy Fountain Pen Aluminum Orange (with organge ink) + Faber Castel Technical Pencil with 0.7 mm leads).
I simply don't trust those services and my Emacs Skills arent that mad as to mitigate the platform and device mix I use every day (Tablet, Smartphone, MB Air, big ThinkPad, iMac). I'd like to try Emacs org mode some day and see if there's a cross-platform sync in there some where - then I'd might move to electronic entirely.
Evernote has become cumbersome recently with an aditional selection to be made before taking notes and Wunderlist is only for ToDos.
For larger and project specific stuff I use a mix of online services and accounts. Google Docs, Evernote, & Wunderlist.
He does mass-compatible popcorn movies. They may be not your exact taste (mine neither) but they're not bad. Point in case: Compare Avatar to the latest Batman vs. Superman. Later is bad movie. Former is not.
Avatar may be a rehash of a generic story with predicable plot - but it is well executed. The SFX in Avatar are top-of-the-line as is the art direction. The acting is mostly ok, with Saldana, Weaver and Ribisi actually being quite good. And while Stephen Lang does play a relatively generic badass bad-guy, I would say he nailed it pretty good - well supported by Camerons narative and shooting. It's definitely fun to watch him - mostly because he's so over-the-top.
It's a balls of fun popcorn movie that won't hurt or overload your brain with big questions about life and existance. No big deal. In terms of mass-compatible pop-corn movies, it's exactly what Cameron was aiming for. Which makes him a fine director, if you ask me. Not the best, not top ten im my book, but good.
- It's all finished, just needs to be programmed. - Can't you just write a three-liner and fix this? - That's not important for the requirements, that's just technical stuff. - Why is this taking so long? My nephew can do this in two days. - I need the image in 300dpi (web development, where print resolution means squat).
In that regard I think we can put the merit squarley in Space Xs' ballpark.
Same goes for Tesla. No matter now many billions of public funding go into it, they acutally have a few car models to show around and have achieved something yet unseen: Making electic cars sexy. Say what you want - Musk has pulled some stunts that others would've put in the domain of science fiction just a decade ago and so far he's come out on top. If it's all publicly funded, that's absolutely fine by me. He and his crew get the job done. Give him all the billions he needs is my call.
As for overpriced publicly funded projects that smack against the wall head on due to some irresponsible abysmal stupidity and lack of accountability - we still have plenty of those to bicker about.
I get that a wrist-computer with connection to your pocket computer with connection to the intarwebs can be a total gamechanger - especially as a health-tracker, if it has the approriate sensors on board that fit your health-condition.
However, as far as watches go, I don't see the point of smartwatches these days. They are decades behind regular electronic watches. If I would need a watch, I'd buy one of those. For instance: For little more than 100 Euros you can get a Casio G-Shock that is solar powered, runs endlessly, has a global atomic time clock receiver, can survive a drop from any height, is watertight to any depth a normal human can dive, is operatable with gloves and will run in conditions hot, cold, wet or dirty where Apples watch would long be reduced to a useless hunk of metal on you wrist.
Like many other geeks I don't wear a wristwatch these days - I have my smartphone on or near me 24/7.
The only reason for me to wear a wristwatch would be in situations where I *don't* have a power outlet and my smartphone would be useless - such as when climbing, hiking, diving, surfing or paragliding or being on my way in other extreme conditions. Until a smartwatch exists that matches all of the traits for the Casio G-Shock described above I don't see me getting one. I simply don't have a usecase for it now. That might change, but my main issue remains: Usecases for smartwatches are quite narrow with todays state of technology.
Being considered a toy is a requirement for being a game changer. If a technology is taken seriously early on, it's inmediately locked down with patents and pricetags by big business. That's why toys always win in the long run.
iPhone? Toy. Who want's that? PC? Toy. Here are the specs and the architecture, for free. Go play. We sell real computers. 20 years later x86 is all there is. The Web? A toy.... Whooops. PHP? JavaScript? Toy languages, laughed out of the room, even still yet. While everybodys laughing, they're taking over the web. Well, PHP at least. WordPress? Yet another shitty CMS/bloggin engine by someone who can't programm. Toy. Oh. 102 Million active installs. 25% of the web. Mmmh.
Toys win, because they initialy aren't taken seriously and thus have room to get adopted by those who want to build stuff without being at the mercy of some psychopath corporation. Once they've gained traction it's to late to box them in and everybody has to follow suit to stay in the game.
One interesting thing we're now seeing is how a lot of software is getting worse. This includes not only commercial software like Windows 8 (and 10, to some extent), but also a lot of open source software. Firefox, GNOME 3, systemd and the Slashdot Beta site are good examples of how inferior software is being forced on users, without any benefit in quality, price, capability, or any other traditional metric.
I see your point.
My favorite example: The Typo3 successor Neos - a type-a software trainwreck entirely from the open source community. A huge bloated, badly designed blob of unmanageble software built on a mix of countless technologies and PHP-driven gimmicks.. If you think Typo3s architecture is bad, prepare for incoming if you choose to check out Neos. Its bizar beyond imagination.
I imagine people would argue the same about systemd.
That's why I want to start doing exercise, 5-10 hours a week. I'm 46, look like 38, have 10 years of performing Arts, only ride Bike, walk and use PT. I've been doing Tango for 8 years and started Yoga this year. I slumped on it the last six weeks but I'm getting back to 3-5 per week on Monday. Sensei Ueshiba, founder of Aikido was doing Aikido daily just up to the age of 83, weeks before he died.
Shaolin Monks can do splits, unassisted, at the age of 80+ and on Okinawa you've got men aged 76 starting to train for marthons because they're bored.
Good diet (Palo/slow Carb), permanent exercise, cult of less, stoic/student lifestyle and part-time with enough time for all that with fun contrast Programms. Plus systematic and persistent muscle Training/workout from the age of 50.
That's what keeps you up and healthy until the day your time is up.
I'm not scared about getting old, but I sure as hell don't want to become a whimp about it.
For those of you geeks who see an abrevation they've never heard of and that is presented as some super high-tech thing that you should know (I know, I've had the same problem):
IFTTT (if this then that) is a commercial web service (free as in beer, but they want all your data, like Google or Facebook) that hooks together a slew of popular other services using API calls and probably a little scraping aswell to automate tasks and data migration using a neat and shiny web-based click-ui. Think Apples Automator on OS X, but for all those shiny Web SaaS thingies hippsters get a hard-on about these days.
The wannabees like to throw around "IFTTT" because it sounds really nerdy, geeky and high-tech and they get all giddy when their Linux admin looks really confused having never heard the word. But don't worry, they just use it to send smilies on facebook whenever they've taken a picture in instagram and stuff like that. Your Perl & Python scripts are just as indespensible as always - so no trouble here.
Slashdot Mirror
EOM
Minimalism and focus on the web is what Chrome OS is all about. I don't know if bloating it with junk from the Android store will improve it's overall perception. Right now Chromebooks are the poor mans MacBook Air and impress with a clean slate concept - this image could suffer from Android integration.
Ageism exists, as I've pointed out here at earlyer occasions - but it works both ways. Some "young punk" won't become senior easyer than me - my age is an advantage here.
People react differently to differently aged people. That's evolution and psychology. And really not that dumb if you think about it. If you're showing grey hair and you come in wearing ragged jeans and a printed sweatshirt people will subconsciously react to you in a different way. That *will* spill over into how they consciously think about you.
I'm in my mid-40ies but come across roughly 5-8 years younger. While I'm well off compared to some wasted people at my age - I ride the bike as main means of transport, I've got 10 years of performing arts under my belt, don't smoke, live frugal, don't drink alcohol and am just 3-5kg above ideal weight which go back to normal after two weeks of consciously eating less. That aside I am quickly moving into senior vibe with my whole physical appearance. Grey hair, increasing baldness and wrinkles coming up on me stronger now, ribcage sinking further, skull shrinking (the main cause for wrinkles btw) ...the whole nine yards.
I have no doubt that I'll run into ageism and that I'll have to deal with it in a change of habbits including the way I dress, move and talk. I'm also pretty confident that that ageism will turn to my advantage if I get myself a tailored suit, some dress-shirts, a few more ties and ajust my speaking to be calmer and a little cooler/low key. It's just last year that I wore a shirt and a tie for the first time. I've also grown a slight hippster-beard in the last half year - the change in reaction towards me is palpable and actually quite positive.
A friend of mine once said: As soon as I'm gettig grey hair in Germany, I'll be getting a suit and become a fraud-schemer. That pretty much hit's the nail on the head on German society.
Bottom line: Modern society is just as tribal as primitives are - and as stupid that may seem for a smart guy like me, it's astonishing how smoothly things go with other people if you play along. Act like people expect a superiour elder to act and you'll do just fine. That's my hope anyway.
Overmind.
"A machine isn't good at lying."
Yeah right. Until some college students find the ultimate "SuperCrushRush(TM) StarCraft Bluff Algorithm" and their box mops the floor with every number of human opponents in a game of SC.
It's a modern microcomputer people! ... This isn't news, this is blatantly obvious.
Take one, give it insane specs, a small army of engineers and a few years time and they will find a way that the machine outperforms every human at a very specific task.
Film at 11.
We're at peak Smartphone when each device has 2TG of storage, 64GB of memory, some 3GHz something 8-16 core CPU, 50 hrs. of battery life and enought gfx power to be used as a PS4 replacement and a desktop workstation. At the same time.
Give, we could already be there, but convergence hasn't caught on yet as an overall concept with the general populace and phonemakers are still making plenty a buck by inching out increasingly smaller upgrades to strange early-adopter flagship markups of 2-3 times the price for a slightly weaker phone. As look as that stiil works, we won't see an ultimat smartphone.
Simply its this: the world doesn't owe you a living, get over yourself and suck it up. Live or die on your own efforts, not mine.
Fine. If robots take my job and I don't get to have part in the production gain I'll just grab myself a Kalashnikov and take what I want.
Glad we could clear this up so quickly.
' be seeing you soon.
Just sayin'.
I've still got 20+ unplayed games on my XBox 360 which I bought two years ago. For the reason that it is a mature product with the glitches removed and an excellent lineup of countless dirt-cheap multiple-award-winning AAA titles.
Make the XBone backwards compatible and I might even consider getting one. Other than that I'll wait 10 years. Some time in the not so distant future somebody will finally come up with convergence and we'll have tablet and mobile consoles you hook up to you TV or monitor. But for that to happen, the mobile vendors need to stop scimping on storage.
Other than that I'd say the market is probably saturated at the moment. I think we can all agree that there is no lack of high-powered electronic computer-like thingies floating about to care too much about yet another generation of consoles. VR and ginormous cheap ultra-high-resolution displays might change that, but for now I'm not holding my breath.
... those complaints could apply to Apple aswell.
Just sayin'.
There, FTFY.
I type and write. But I wish my handwriting were better.
I like it when I find the time, peace and place to do some good handwriting. When I'm relaxed and not exausted my handwriting is actually quite good. I'm also a geek for all sorts of pens, pencils, calligraphy brushes, notebooks and paper-types.
I've always gotten flak in school and especially from my mom because of my bad handwriting. Turns out my handwriting isn't bad, I just don't have that much practice.
With all the typing however, digital is still not my main means for notes.
My main notebook is still physical (Moleskine Reporter) and I use a regular ink ballpoint pen (Lamy Ink Ballpoint, Lamy Fountain Pen Aluminum regular, Lamy Fountain Pen Aluminum Orange (with organge ink) + Faber Castel Technical Pencil with 0.7 mm leads).
I simply don't trust those services and my Emacs Skills arent that mad as to mitigate the platform and device mix I use every day (Tablet, Smartphone, MB Air, big ThinkPad, iMac). I'd like to try Emacs org mode some day and see if there's a cross-platform sync in there some where - then I'd might move to electronic entirely.
Evernote has become cumbersome recently with an aditional selection to be made before taking notes and Wunderlist is only for ToDos.
For larger and project specific stuff I use a mix of online services and accounts. Google Docs, Evernote, & Wunderlist.
Tech ain't bad, Cameron is.
No he's not.
He does mass-compatible popcorn movies. They may be not your exact taste (mine neither) but they're not bad.
Point in case: Compare Avatar to the latest Batman vs. Superman. Later is bad movie. Former is not.
Avatar may be a rehash of a generic story with predicable plot - but it is well executed. The SFX in Avatar are top-of-the-line as is the art direction. The acting is mostly ok, with Saldana, Weaver and Ribisi actually being quite good. And while Stephen Lang does play a relatively generic badass bad-guy, I would say he nailed it pretty good - well supported by Camerons narative and shooting. It's definitely fun to watch him - mostly because he's so over-the-top.
It's a balls of fun popcorn movie that won't hurt or overload your brain with big questions about life and existance. No big deal. In terms of mass-compatible pop-corn movies, it's exactly what Cameron was aiming for. Which makes him a fine director, if you ask me. Not the best, not top ten im my book, but good.
My 0.02 Euros.
Vi is a modal editor. It has two modes: "Beep repeatedly" and "Break everything".
Pet Enragers:
- It's all finished, just needs to be programmed.
- Can't you just write a three-liner and fix this?
- That's not important for the requirements, that's just technical stuff.
- Why is this taking so long? My nephew can do this in two days.
- I need the image in 300dpi (web development, where print resolution means squat).
... it's about getting the job done.
In that regard I think we can put the merit squarley in Space Xs' ballpark.
Same goes for Tesla. No matter now many billions of public funding go into it, they acutally have a few car models to show around and have achieved something yet unseen: Making electic cars sexy. Say what you want - Musk has pulled some stunts that others would've put in the domain of science fiction just a decade ago and so far he's come out on top. If it's all publicly funded, that's absolutely fine by me. He and his crew get the job done. Give him all the billions he needs is my call.
As for overpriced publicly funded projects that smack against the wall head on due to some irresponsible abysmal stupidity and lack of accountability - we still have plenty of those to bicker about.
My 0.02 Euros.
I get that a wrist-computer with connection to your pocket computer with connection to the intarwebs can be a total gamechanger - especially as a health-tracker, if it has the approriate sensors on board that fit your health-condition.
However, as far as watches go, I don't see the point of smartwatches these days. They are decades behind regular electronic watches. If I would need a watch, I'd buy one of those. For instance: For little more than 100 Euros you can get a Casio G-Shock that is solar powered, runs endlessly, has a global atomic time clock receiver, can survive a drop from any height, is watertight to any depth a normal human can dive, is operatable with gloves and will run in conditions hot, cold, wet or dirty where Apples watch would long be reduced to a useless hunk of metal on you wrist.
Like many other geeks I don't wear a wristwatch these days - I have my smartphone on or near me 24/7.
The only reason for me to wear a wristwatch would be in situations where I *don't* have a power outlet and my smartphone would be useless - such as when climbing, hiking, diving, surfing or paragliding or being on my way in other extreme conditions. Until a smartwatch exists that matches all of the traits for the Casio G-Shock described above I don't see me getting one. I simply don't have a usecase for it now. That might change, but my main issue remains: Usecases for smartwatches are quite narrow with todays state of technology.
Grabbing ladies butts? :-)
Apparently it's a new DE for the next Ubuntu LTS release and forward.
Here's a project link.
It has the vibe of a Korora/OzoneOS or Elementary ripp, both of which look way more mature than this "Ubuntu Budgie" thing.
I don't get the buzz.
Looks like a project in pre-alpha stage, if you ask me.
Being considered a toy is a requirement for being a game changer. If a technology is taken seriously early on, it's inmediately locked down with patents and pricetags by big business. That's why toys always win in the long run.
iPhone? Toy. Who want's that? ... Whooops.
PC? Toy. Here are the specs and the architecture, for free. Go play. We sell real computers. 20 years later x86 is all there is.
The Web? A toy.
PHP? JavaScript? Toy languages, laughed out of the room, even still yet. While everybodys laughing, they're taking over the web. Well, PHP at least.
WordPress? Yet another shitty CMS/bloggin engine by someone who can't programm. Toy. Oh. 102 Million active installs. 25% of the web. Mmmh.
Toys win, because they initialy aren't taken seriously and thus have room to get adopted by those who want to build stuff without being at the mercy of some psychopath corporation. Once they've gained traction it's to late to box them in and everybody has to follow suit to stay in the game.
It's that simple.
One interesting thing we're now seeing is how a lot of software is getting worse. This includes not only commercial software like Windows 8 (and 10, to some extent), but also a lot of open source software. Firefox, GNOME 3, systemd and the Slashdot Beta site are good examples of how inferior software is being forced on users, without any benefit in quality, price, capability, or any other traditional metric.
I see your point.
My favorite example: The Typo3 successor Neos - a type-a software trainwreck entirely from the open source community.
A huge bloated, badly designed blob of unmanageble software built on a mix of countless technologies and PHP-driven gimmicks..
If you think Typo3s architecture is bad, prepare for incoming if you choose to check out Neos. Its bizar beyond imagination.
I imagine people would argue the same about systemd.
"Furze" is actually the German plural for "fart", i.e. his name is "Farts" in German.
"Furz" being singular.
Just sayin'. :-)
That's why I want to start doing exercise, 5-10 hours a week. I'm 46, look like 38, have 10 years of performing Arts, only ride Bike, walk and use PT. I've been doing Tango for 8 years and started Yoga this year. I slumped on it the last six weeks but I'm getting back to 3-5 per week on Monday. Sensei Ueshiba, founder of Aikido was doing Aikido daily just up to the age of 83, weeks before he died.
Shaolin Monks can do splits, unassisted, at the age of 80+ and on Okinawa you've got men aged 76 starting to train for marthons because they're bored.
Good diet (Palo/slow Carb), permanent exercise, cult of less, stoic/student lifestyle and part-time with enough time for all that with fun contrast Programms. Plus systematic and persistent muscle Training/workout from the age of 50.
That's what keeps you up and healthy until the day your time is up.
I'm not scared about getting old, but I sure as hell don't want to become a whimp about it.
My 2 cents.
For those of you geeks who see an abrevation they've never heard of and that is presented as some super high-tech thing that you should know (I know, I've had the same problem):
IFTTT (if this then that) is a commercial web service (free as in beer, but they want all your data, like Google or Facebook) that hooks together a slew of popular other services using API calls and probably a little scraping aswell to automate tasks and data migration using a neat and shiny web-based click-ui. Think Apples Automator on OS X, but for all those shiny Web SaaS thingies hippsters get a hard-on about these days.
The wannabees like to throw around "IFTTT" because it sounds really nerdy, geeky and high-tech and they get all giddy when their Linux admin looks really confused having never heard the word. But don't worry, they just use it to send smilies on facebook whenever they've taken a picture in instagram and stuff like that. Your Perl & Python scripts are just as indespensible as always - so no trouble here.
Glad I could help.
There is no software on the planet that is more scrutinised and more meticulously developed than software for spacecraft.
Start a Softwareproject like that without having it properly planned or the right people involved and your project will go over budget manifold inmediately.
No surprise here.