For what it's worth, my focus in my study of anthropology was human evolution, and I spent about six years post-grad school working in IT. If you check the archives of my articles at Worldchanging.com, you'll see that I have a reasonable grasp of a variety of sciences. Regardless, the larger issue of being skeptical of "experts" (self-described or otherwise) is a good one. I'd gently suggest, however, that it's not just scientists and engineers who are "helping to create the future," but also folks in a variety of non-technical fields. That's actually the point of the article -- there's more to futurism (professional or otherwise) than the latest technology.
I was quite startled to see my name in a Slashdot headline this morning. I knew the Futurismic editor was going to submit it, but didn't seriously expect that the/. editors would pick up the piece. It's not exactly on-topic for this forum, and the venom that erupted in the first few hours of comments (most of which appears to have been modded down) likely reflects that off-topic nature as much as anything else. Fortunately, I've been reading/. for a very long time, so I know how seriously to take the nasty comments.
Anyway, thanks for the (good) comments, and for not crashing my server.
>Its a damned OS, its a TOOL.. its not some drug induced altered state of mind...
You're partially right - it's an OS, but it's also a user interface, and all of the changes shown in the screenshots are UI changes. It may be jargon that reeks of marketspeak, but "experience" is actually a fairly useful way of thinking about how people work with UIs. It's more than file management and app launching, it's the utility of system alerts and messages, the clarity of the typeface, the ease with which the user understands what's going on, the myriad ways the user's time using the interface is helped or hindered by the UI design.
I worked for three years as the Computer Resource Specialist at the Disabled Students' Program at UC Berkeley. My job was to support the computing needs of students (and, to a lesser extent, staff and faculty) with a very wide variety of disabilities. This was back in the early-mid 1990's, just when Windows 3.1 was starting to hit big and Macs still ruled the academic market.
The problem isn't simply that there aren't screen magnifiers or sticky-keys or the like. The problem is the inability of many software designers to even think about the implications of their code for people with disabilities. Alert messages that rely upon color codes to show degree are pretty useless for people with color blindness; instant message or email apps that assume that you can hear the "you've got mail" equivalent message are frustrating to the deaf. GUIs without sticky-keys and keyboard equivalents aren't just hell for blind people with screen readers, they're a barrier for people with severe motor impairment.
The answer isn't just "use the terminal." People with disabilities have to work in the same interconnected world everyone else does. Which terminal app will display a Word document? How many websites give you configuration options letting you turn off multiple-columns and frames (just try using a screen-reader on a multi-column web page like unadjusted Slashdot)?
As has been posted elsewhere in this discussion, accessibility isn't just for the handicapped, it's a sign of good design. Accessibility as a conscious feature typically results in greater clarity, efficiency, and overall usability. Everyone can benefit from accessible design.
The problem for Linux regarding accessibility is that there isn't a single master UI that all Linux users must use, as with Windows or the MacOS, so it's up to individual UI hackers and app programmers to add it in. This often results in a lack of consistency and predictability, two features that people with disabilities usually need in accessible interfaces. Maybe there needs to be an open standard for accessible interfaces that the various UI developers can come together on.
Unlike most of the posters here, I actually have a Cube in my home -- it's my wife's machine, which she uses for 'net stuff and work-at-home layout & image work. She didn't want an iMac because she already had a flat-screen display, and she didn't want a G4 tower because she didn't want to take up the space in her small office.
The machine is a delight, to be honest. Utterly, completely silent and, when combined with a flat-screen display, a very calming experience to use. No low-level buzzing droning in the background. Just a quiet box on the corner of her desk.
Expandability? She had an external CDR from an earlier machine, and a USB scanner works just fine. Because of the internal 802.11b card, she doesn't have to worry about network wiring. She currently has half a gig of RAM in it. And with OS 9.1, it's been rock-solid. It's a great machine.
So what happened? As others have said, the price kept a lot of people away. If the Cube had been a sub-$1K system, Apple would have cannibalized their (more profitable) iMac sales, but they wouldn't have been able to keep the Cubes on the shelves.
When was the last time you saw an image for a bootable ZIP
Um, last time I glanced over at my bookshelf. I have a Zip disk set up with a System folder and hard drive recovery tools. I can pop the disk in and boot from it quite easily.
Not simply "deeply religious", he's deeply homophobic. I've read his pieces for the Mormon magazine (Somerset? something like that) where he flat out claims that gays should not be considered human and should not be tolerated in society. Period.
I really enjoyed Ender's Game when I read it, but it was very disturbing to read this guy's non-SF views.
While this more or less answers my question about restricting Linux -- which will probably be the first operating system to be rated MA for coarse language [...]
The US ratings system and the Aussie system are not exactly comparable. Aus-MA is *roughly* like the US-R, except that it's 15 and up (US=17/18 and up), and US-R can include harder stuff than it sounds like Aus-MA can. The US doesn't have an M rating, but it does have a PG13 rating, which seems to be a little more restrictive than an Aus-M.
The Australian R is the weird one, because -- as I point out in the article (yeah, I'm the one who wrote it) -- it's so ambiguously broad. The entire legal description of the Australian R rating for film is:
Film (other than X or RC) containing material that is unsuitable for minors.
How does that apply to web content? What is "unsuitable", and who decides? My article was really just an attempt, in a semi-humorous way, to show how ridiculous censorship laws are.
I have a picture of myself at a "cyber-burger king" on the Champs Elysee in Paris in 1997. I bought a little smart card with 20 minutes of use to go along with my meal. My wife was amused, but not surprised.
Why was I eating at Burger King of all places in Paris? I was tired, and it was cheap & quick. Don't worry, though, we had Real French Food (Algerian, if I recall) that night.
Slashdot Mirror
Jamais Cascio here.
/. editors would pick up the piece. It's not exactly on-topic for this forum, and the venom that erupted in the first few hours of comments (most of which appears to have been modded down) likely reflects that off-topic nature as much as anything else. Fortunately, I've been reading /. for a very long time, so I know how seriously to take the nasty comments.
For what it's worth, my focus in my study of anthropology was human evolution, and I spent about six years post-grad school working in IT. If you check the archives of my articles at Worldchanging.com, you'll see that I have a reasonable grasp of a variety of sciences. Regardless, the larger issue of being skeptical of "experts" (self-described or otherwise) is a good one. I'd gently suggest, however, that it's not just scientists and engineers who are "helping to create the future," but also folks in a variety of non-technical fields. That's actually the point of the article -- there's more to futurism (professional or otherwise) than the latest technology.
I was quite startled to see my name in a Slashdot headline this morning. I knew the Futurismic editor was going to submit it, but didn't seriously expect that the
Anyway, thanks for the (good) comments, and for not crashing my server.
-Jamais
20 SWEET
30 GOTO 10
My wife actually made one of these samplers for our house -- it is displayed proudly on our entryway wall.
I downloaded the test file, fired up MPlayer OSX, and the song played just fine.
Not that I'd be buying my music from WalMart, of course. I do have standards.
>Its a damned OS, its a TOOL.. its not some drug induced altered state of mind...
You're partially right - it's an OS, but it's also a user interface, and all of the changes shown in the screenshots are UI changes. It may be jargon that reeks of marketspeak, but "experience" is actually a fairly useful way of thinking about how people work with UIs. It's more than file management and app launching, it's the utility of system alerts and messages, the clarity of the typeface, the ease with which the user understands what's going on, the myriad ways the user's time using the interface is helped or hindered by the UI design.
See the iMac/G3 section on the Apple website.
I worked for three years as the Computer Resource Specialist at the Disabled Students' Program at UC Berkeley. My job was to support the computing needs of students (and, to a lesser extent, staff and faculty) with a very wide variety of disabilities. This was back in the early-mid 1990's, just when Windows 3.1 was starting to hit big and Macs still ruled the academic market.
The problem isn't simply that there aren't screen magnifiers or sticky-keys or the like. The problem is the inability of many software designers to even think about the implications of their code for people with disabilities. Alert messages that rely upon color codes to show degree are pretty useless for people with color blindness; instant message or email apps that assume that you can hear the "you've got mail" equivalent message are frustrating to the deaf. GUIs without sticky-keys and keyboard equivalents aren't just hell for blind people with screen readers, they're a barrier for people with severe motor impairment.
The answer isn't just "use the terminal." People with disabilities have to work in the same interconnected world everyone else does. Which terminal app will display a Word document? How many websites give you configuration options letting you turn off multiple-columns and frames (just try using a screen-reader on a multi-column web page like unadjusted Slashdot)?
As has been posted elsewhere in this discussion, accessibility isn't just for the handicapped, it's a sign of good design. Accessibility as a conscious feature typically results in greater clarity, efficiency, and overall usability. Everyone can benefit from accessible design.
The problem for Linux regarding accessibility is that there isn't a single master UI that all Linux users must use, as with Windows or the MacOS, so it's up to individual UI hackers and app programmers to add it in. This often results in a lack of consistency and predictability, two features that people with disabilities usually need in accessible interfaces. Maybe there needs to be an open standard for accessible interfaces that the various UI developers can come together on.
Unlike most of the posters here, I actually have a Cube in my home -- it's my wife's machine, which she uses for 'net stuff and work-at-home layout & image work. She didn't want an iMac because she already had a flat-screen display, and she didn't want a G4 tower because she didn't want to take up the space in her small office.
The machine is a delight, to be honest. Utterly, completely silent and, when combined with a flat-screen display, a very calming experience to use. No low-level buzzing droning in the background. Just a quiet box on the corner of her desk.
Expandability? She had an external CDR from an earlier machine, and a USB scanner works just fine. Because of the internal 802.11b card, she doesn't have to worry about network wiring. She currently has half a gig of RAM in it. And with OS 9.1, it's been rock-solid. It's a great machine.
So what happened? As others have said, the price kept a lot of people away. If the Cube had been a sub-$1K system, Apple would have cannibalized their (more profitable) iMac sales, but they wouldn't have been able to keep the Cubes on the shelves.
Um, last time I glanced over at my bookshelf. I have a Zip disk set up with a System folder and hard drive recovery tools. I can pop the disk in and boot from it quite easily.
Oh, right. This is for my Mac, of course.
--jamais
He uses a Mac. Up until recently, it was an old IIsi. I think he's upgraded to a G3 of some sort more recently... --jamais
I really enjoyed Ender's Game when I read it, but it was very disturbing to read this guy's non-SF views.
While this more or less answers my question about restricting Linux -- which will probably be the first operating system to be rated MA for coarse language [...]
The US ratings system and the Aussie system are not exactly comparable. Aus-MA is *roughly* like the US-R, except that it's 15 and up (US=17/18 and up), and US-R can include harder stuff than it sounds like Aus-MA can. The US doesn't have an M rating, but it does have a PG13 rating, which seems to be a little more restrictive than an Aus-M.
The Australian R is the weird one, because -- as I point out in the article (yeah, I'm the one who wrote it) -- it's so ambiguously broad. The entire legal description of the Australian R rating for film is:
Film (other than X or RC) containing material that is unsuitable for minors.
How does that apply to web content? What is "unsuitable", and who decides? My article was really just an attempt, in a semi-humorous way, to show how ridiculous censorship laws are.
--Jamais Cascio
My home page, with links to other articles
I have a picture of myself at a "cyber-burger king" on the Champs Elysee in Paris in 1997. I bought a little smart card with 20 minutes of use to go along with my meal. My wife was amused, but not surprised.
Why was I eating at Burger King of all places in Paris? I was tired, and it was cheap & quick. Don't worry, though, we had Real French Food (Algerian, if I recall) that night.