Modern UI design is often more and more "hide and seek". URLs are hidden, menus disappear, scroll bars appear and disappear. Sometimes, one has the impression, UI designers wanted to play a prank. Adding more stuff in the title bar can be a good thing. But first a rant: I have worked on clunky user interfaces before in my life like VMS workstations, DOS, GEM on Atari or old Mac OS or even gopher browsers pre Mosaic, but the trend of "hide stuff" is driving me nuts. OS X by default does not show the hard drive, nor scroll bars. On browsers, both phone or desktop, things like URLs disappear. It is now cool to hide important things in cryptic places like three dots on the upper right corner in chrome. Or then windows which like to become full screen or adjust their position on their own. I have experienced less frustration writing from scratch a printer driver on an Atari than solving the trivial task to find the print button on a modern browser. Fortunately, it is in most cases still possible to configure things but it often needs first some searching maybe even looking up manuals. I understand that there are two forces in UI design, one which wants to hide things so that it is elegant and beautiful and so that the complexity is hidden and users protected from screwing things up. This is the "passenger" point of view, which mostly applies to consuming stuff. And then there is the need of speed and convenience, which asks for putting many things on the radar so that they can be accessed and found quickly. This is the "pilot" point of view, which mostly applies when producing stuff. The CSD initiative could be a good thing. I for myself like the title bar information. It tells me for each window, where and what it is. Let the user be able to configure it. And in general, be very gentle with changes. Even small modifications can disrupt work flows.
The problem is not only security. It is monoculture, dependence on a few big players. Already now, if one of the big cloud providers goes titsup, then we have a catastrophe. If also important government services die at the same time, the consequences could be severe. Is it healthy, if all the information, from universities, law enforcement, government, health, news etc use the same services? Already now, these companies have to bend over to hand over their data to law enforcement. Hacking with one strike all the essential infrastructure of the country will be more and more likely.
It is a scandal that such a group can make such important decisions and that the congress is not taking action. It is very likely that the vote on December 14 will just follow the recommendation of its chairman and that the comments of the public are completely ignored. Instead, there is a lot of PR: there was a recent comment by Ken Engelhart in the New York times with the title "Why Concerns About Net Neutrality Are Overblown" Well Engelhat had been a Telecom guy for 25 years. Well what ever helps old friends... It looks not good. If one believes this article then the only remaining hope would be the courts.
What I want from a programming language
are Standard, Stability and Speed.
Nobody minds the little quirks, redundancies
or the lack of elegance. When I program something
today, I want it to run in 10 years, without
modifications! In particular, I want the language
to be around still, the grammar once put
stay a standard. I want the program to run
stably. In particular, I expect developers
to be very careful when changing the compiler.
Even small changes annoy. An example in C (which is in general quite good in respect to stability) it was no more possible to run gcc -lm example.c . Linking the math library required gcc example.c -lm. One has to change now 700 Makefiles just because somebody thought this is more elegant? I don't mind if a language is extended or sped up,
but don't for change old grammar, not even the
smallest things. There is lot of code around which
would need to be fixed.
I'm in particular careful with new languages.
They first hype and spike. A language needs to
earn respect, prove that it is stable over a long
period of time.
how few of the hubs or converters actually contain a USB C port themselves which allows charging. I'm still looking for something reliable which also allows to attach more USB C devices.
It is a difficult battle. The publishers see revenues drop as globally libraries start to scale down on purchasing expensive journals. On the other hand, having no access to an article because the libraries don't have them any more locally hurts research. One of the outcomes of this battle is that scientists in the western world will have less access to information. It could well be that the publishers will win a Pyrrhic victory, one which will destroy them eventually: it will drive more users to pirate sites or similar services outside the reach of the courts. There are parallels how work wages and publishing industries have got under pressure. It is of course a consequence of globalisation and the web. Regulating this through court might relieve the publishers but the battle will harm the research output. The long term effect will be that these publishers will be bypassed and eventually become obsolete. I wonder how the reputation of Elsevier will change through this court battle. There are 13 million uses of research gate. And they are mostly customers. Elsevier and ACS now their own customer base to court. Maybe, both in journalism where publicly funded information channels should be available, also in research, there should be more publicly funded outlets a la ArXiv, but where peer reviewed research appears. Having free access to news information should be "service public". Having free access to research information is important for the prosperity of research communities. But to convince the public to pay taxes to finance such things will be even harder. We don't want to pay even for crumbling bridges, health care or schools any more.
Large players currently can grow, buy, or merge without any oversight. If that continues the prediction might be right. But there are many unknowns. Facebook and Google rely on advertisement. If the technology for blocking or removing or filtering adds gets better and more wide spread, that revenue might dry out. On the other hand these players are so large (similarly like Amazon, Microsoft or Oracle) that they can diversify and buy up new technology, surviving in other sectors , even so the original sectors dry out.One has learned from the lessons of the past. Its very hard to predict the future in technology. Most experts in the past were dead wrong. examples.
I wonder how the desktop market share data are obtained. From browser data? This is naive as many linux users change or randomize their user agent. It must be that since counting OS sales does not work.
I use linux as my major operating system since 20 years. But there are still things I can only do on a commercial OS like Mac OS X: For example solid video editing, screen recording, Keynote, garage band, and serious gaming. But for most day to day operations, there is very little difference between OS X (when used as a Unix workstation) and linux. My desktops and workflows look almost identical. I guess, also windows could be configured today to behave like a unix workstation. But the loss of control which the the user over the OS (basic things like when and how to upgrade, or the look over the shoulder of the user) which happens today in windows makes it unfit for serious work.
What would really be nice if virtualization would exist which allowed to run any OS X software on a linux box. It seems that installing OSX on a virtual box has not yet worked well. The few who have got it to work claim slow graphics, sound failures. I have not heard for example of a successful and solid Final cut run virtualized under linux. Parallels does a good job virtualizing windows on OSX.
4 Gig ram, 64 gig SSD, 1080p display, 500 bucks. I'm sorry but most phones come with more storage and a multiple of that resolution. Even as a minimalist tool, a phone alone
works better already. When doing serious writing or reading (a high resolution screen is pivotal when reading long, especially with technical documentation) its important to have a decent resolution screen, have a solid keyboard, have a local library and programs (which work also if the internet connection is off and where it is not logged what and how long you are reading what). Paying twice as much but being the master of your data and programs and have a multiply times the storage is well worth it. Actually, it can sometimes be really good to get off the web and concentrate on work alone for a day or two.
Maybe just avoid companies which persue such practices. FOr me, Carnival Corp would keep my feet off any Carnival cruise ship. Yes these are strong forces of globalization but the least they could have done is would be to give the employees a decent severance package and some time regardless whether they train their cheaper replacements. Such stories do good to motivate kids to pursue any STEM area.
There should be a system in place such that business leaders or politicians get awarded only long term benefits. Obviously, laying off a lot of people or stop investing in development gives a short term boost and savings but destroys the company or country in the long term. Unfortunately, today, the CEOs or presidents have not to pay for actions which hurt in the long term but are evaluated on short term profit. In this case, the morale in the IT part of that health care service provider will take a huge hit. It happened to many technology firms. As a customer there, I would be worried, whether my health information will be safe in the future. And its questionable whether they will ever be able to acquire really good new talent.
I'm pretty happy with the Linux kernel and XNU for OSX. I would consider them rock solid. As for Video editing software, I find that Final cut is rock solid. Its so cool to complain and tear down. Maybe we more to listen to folks who have really built substantial things like a Ubilos or Torwalds. Yes, the new kids like Go and Rust might some day grow up but they still have first to show that can deliver and enable to build great things. And what does your comment about installing updates have to do with anything?
What a nihilistic article: quote:
" it unrealistic to expect programmers to write secure code in memory-unsafe languages."
No, its not unrealistic, because it reality disproves the statement.
Rock solid things have been built safely in C: most operating systems kernels, modern video editing software, games. Things which need to work directly with the memory like juggling smoothly dozens of gigabytes of video data and fast. not just a smart phone app. Good luck with programming a video editing app in a memory safe language today. Maybe one should pay attention to programmers who have actually created something substantial.
Cycle of life for social network companies: start-up builds up a large user base using free services, indicating a business model with optional services, selling out to a big fish, big fish digests it, squeezing out its gut. Big fish removes free services more and more, adding advertisement. User jumps to new free service. Alternatively: start-up becomes big fish and lives from eating other alive communities, remaining the big fish, as there are no alternatives.
its a bit like the idea of strapping a VR google on while riding a roller coaster
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/04...
where it says: "Users will still physically be on a roller coaster as usual, but the headsets will add extra sensory experiences."
It will be a thrill to be able to run linux on an operating system where the dangers of falling of the tracks are so real. The simulation of adventure can not be more authentic.
The article hints at other reasons. The latest youtube boston dynamics video showing the robot doing human work, was not only impressive, it was frightening. Not that we don't know that it is going to happen (not only in transportation, or manufacturing but also in service, consulting, transportation, delivery, military, health care or teaching), it was scary to see a bot doing things so well, to walk around, do errands. For a company, to be associated or identified with a job eliminator, this is a PR disaster in the long term. Its more subtle in AI or other domains of automation, where we don't see it. And then the article mentions also the lack of short term profitable products and leadership problems. But its interesting to see how non-technical factors start to matter more and more. But as mentioned before, the most important asset which google probably got from the company is the know-how, the top notch engineering, the human potential which can do be used also in non-robotic things. But whoever buys the company, the technology will continue change the future. Amazon is interested. Imagine all the packing and delivery work done by such droids. Maybe they should dress them as minions to make it more acceptable...
This used to be. Adds from IBM illustrate: its already reality, investing, harvesting and research data, make an medical analysis, find the best defense strategy for a trial: is all AI dominated already. In education, partly automatically written textbooks are already reality. The push for grading by the machine, to online learning are all driven mostly by reducing labor and so workers. Whether the promise that this will allow us to do more interesting thing, is constantly fading.
This means now developers, doctors, lawyers, teachers. The time when only robots, self driving cars have been a threat to the workforce are long over. Even research will be affected.
It is a challenge which is so urgent already now that industry leaders at the World economic forum 2016 were discussing it. It will be an important problem to tackle: what to do if we have programmed us out of work. Developers are smart, they can not be persuaded so easily by propaganda. They can read the writings on the wall, because they write it!
The key will be scalability. Its an interesting experiment as it taps into the fundamentals of computing. It could however well be that the effort of keeping things disentangled grows exponentially (something which Shor's algorithm does not address).
Like in dynamical systems theory, where computing the 10th iterate of f(x)=4x(1-x) with some initial condition like x=0.4 is no problem. It gives 0.297... already for a a hundred iterations the result become ambiguous and the answer becomes hardware and software dependent. No error correction can bypass these fundamental sensitive dependence of initial condition difficulty. So, it could well be that it is possible to factor a 10^10 digit number nicely but that things become more and more difficult larger numbers like integers with 100reds of digits and that RSA will remain save from quantum computer attacks. But who knows? The nice thing is that if it will be faster, one will be able to demonstrate it by factoring otherwise not yet factored numbers.
online tools and wikipedia are not bad at the moment. Who tells that this will remain so? Organizations like wikipedia needs money and there is no long term guarantee that not at one point in the future, a "sponsor" will jump in, and searches or articles will be "internally vetted". Like for anything, it is good to have many independent sources. And yes, I keep as many copies of old encyclopedias and handbooks as possible, so that if needed, things can be double checked. Even in math software (like computer algebra systems) it can be healthy from time to time to check results with old handbooks or other systems, like integration tables. And of course be able to look up the original sources or reproduce things yourself. Never trust one source alone.
There are different takes on the scientific method.
Poppers view is the gold standard but there others like
Feyerabend, (from whom I could myself attend lectures
as a student at ETH) who similar than Lacatos had
a more liberal point of view: science also allows
chaotic, anarchistic developments.
The hype of parallel universes is maybe just the troll
which is needed to value what is science really is and what
is just speculation or belief. Similarly as political trolls,
they remind us what values we really should treasure.
History has shown that also unscientific approaches were
motivational. Spiritual approaches for example were driving
mathematicians from Pythagoreans to Kepler. Historically they
had value as a motivator, even so one knows now that most of
these believes were nonsense:
Keplers harmonices mundi for example was one of these heavenly
ideas which today just look plain silly and have lost all their
scientific value. The other work which was produced (Kepler's laws)
is a gem.
Talking about parallel universes is maybe a bit like the Cretan
Epimenides telling that All Cretans are liars or Russels set of
all sets which are not subsets of themselves. These paradoxa
have been resolved by setting up set theory carefully and using
precise nomenclature what a set is. Any theory of the universe
needs good definitions first of all. A notion of a universe which
which does contain more than we can access, is strange.
While liars paradoxa have initially been intended as jokes or trolls,
they turned out to be a central idea for Goedel when working on incompleteness
results. Also on the positive side, books about parallel universes
have produced interest in the public about science.
With the eyes of Feyerabend, we should see it as anarchism. Compare it
with Keplers harmonices mundi. Maybe there is some nice mathematics or
eventially some physics coming out it which will remain valuable.
There could be a much simpler explanation: it might also simply be a
way to gain publicity, get grant. Parallel universes
just inspire our imagination, as countless many science fiction books
have shown. An nice example is Ruckers "Mathemticians in Love"
in which parallel universes play a role.
even when checking to always show scroll bars in general preferences, it happened until recently that scroll bars would disappear in some applications or worse: be there and disappear if the mouse came close to them as if somebody played a hoax. Seems to fixed now in ElCapitan. Minimal is good but too minimal can sometimes look like a bad joke.
similar than the non-standard MS symbols, which still hunt me sometimes. Since more than a decade, I use
https://www.fourmilab.ch/webto...
to get rid of nonstandard Latin 1. There is nothing more frustrating than have two versions of a program, which both look the same, but only one actually does the right thing.
Slashdot Mirror
Modern UI design is often more and more "hide and seek". URLs are hidden, menus disappear, scroll bars appear and disappear. Sometimes, one has the impression, UI designers wanted to play a prank. Adding more stuff in the title bar can be a good thing. But first a rant: I have worked on clunky user interfaces before in my life like VMS workstations, DOS, GEM on Atari or old Mac OS or even gopher browsers pre Mosaic, but the trend of "hide stuff" is driving me nuts. OS X by default does not show the hard drive, nor scroll bars. On browsers, both phone or desktop, things like URLs disappear. It is now cool to hide important things in cryptic places like three dots on the upper right corner in chrome. Or then windows which like to become full screen or adjust their position on their own. I have experienced less frustration writing from scratch a printer driver on an Atari than solving the trivial task to find the print button on a modern browser. Fortunately, it is in most cases still possible to configure things but it often needs first some searching maybe even looking up manuals. I understand that there are two forces in UI design, one which wants to hide things so that it is elegant and beautiful and so that the complexity is hidden and users protected from screwing things up. This is the "passenger" point of view, which mostly applies to consuming stuff. And then there is the need of speed and convenience, which asks for putting many things on the radar so that they can be accessed and found quickly. This is the "pilot" point of view, which mostly applies when producing stuff. The CSD initiative could be a good thing. I for myself like the title bar information. It tells me for each window, where and what it is. Let the user be able to configure it. And in general, be very gentle with changes. Even small modifications can disrupt work flows.
The problem is not only security. It is monoculture, dependence on a few big players. Already now, if one of the big cloud providers goes titsup, then we have a catastrophe. If also important government services die at the same time, the consequences could be severe. Is it healthy, if all the information, from universities, law enforcement, government, health, news etc use the same services? Already now, these companies have to bend over to hand over their data to law enforcement. Hacking with one strike all the essential infrastructure of the country will be more and more likely.
It is a scandal that such a group can make such important decisions and that the congress is not taking action. It is very likely that the vote on December 14 will just follow the recommendation of its chairman and that the comments of the public are completely ignored. Instead, there is a lot of PR: there was a recent comment by Ken Engelhart in the New York times with the title "Why Concerns About Net Neutrality Are Overblown" Well Engelhat had been a Telecom guy for 25 years. Well what ever helps old friends ... It looks not good. If one believes this article then the only remaining hope would be the courts.
What I want from a programming language are Standard, Stability and Speed. Nobody minds the little quirks, redundancies or the lack of elegance. When I program something today, I want it to run in 10 years, without modifications! In particular, I want the language to be around still, the grammar once put stay a standard. I want the program to run stably. In particular, I expect developers to be very careful when changing the compiler. Even small changes annoy. An example in C (which is in general quite good in respect to stability) it was no more possible to run gcc -lm example.c . Linking the math library required gcc example.c -lm. One has to change now 700 Makefiles just because somebody thought this is more elegant? I don't mind if a language is extended or sped up, but don't for change old grammar, not even the smallest things. There is lot of code around which would need to be fixed. I'm in particular careful with new languages. They first hype and spike. A language needs to earn respect, prove that it is stable over a long period of time.
how few of the hubs or converters actually contain a USB C port themselves which allows charging. I'm still looking for something reliable which also allows to attach more USB C devices.
separation of power still works.
It is a difficult battle. The publishers see revenues drop as globally libraries start to scale down on purchasing expensive journals. On the other hand, having no access to an article because the libraries don't have them any more locally hurts research. One of the outcomes of this battle is that scientists in the western world will have less access to information. It could well be that the publishers will win a Pyrrhic victory, one which will destroy them eventually: it will drive more users to pirate sites or similar services outside the reach of the courts. There are parallels how work wages and publishing industries have got under pressure. It is of course a consequence of globalisation and the web. Regulating this through court might relieve the publishers but the battle will harm the research output. The long term effect will be that these publishers will be bypassed and eventually become obsolete. I wonder how the reputation of Elsevier will change through this court battle. There are 13 million uses of research gate. And they are mostly customers. Elsevier and ACS now their own customer base to court. Maybe, both in journalism where publicly funded information channels should be available, also in research, there should be more publicly funded outlets a la ArXiv, but where peer reviewed research appears. Having free access to news information should be "service public". Having free access to research information is important for the prosperity of research communities. But to convince the public to pay taxes to finance such things will be even harder. We don't want to pay even for crumbling bridges, health care or schools any more.
Large players currently can grow, buy, or merge without any oversight. If that continues the prediction might be right. But there are many unknowns. Facebook and Google rely on advertisement. If the technology for blocking or removing or filtering adds gets better and more wide spread, that revenue might dry out. On the other hand these players are so large (similarly like Amazon, Microsoft or Oracle) that they can diversify and buy up new technology, surviving in other sectors , even so the original sectors dry out.One has learned from the lessons of the past. Its very hard to predict the future in technology. Most experts in the past were dead wrong. examples.
I wonder how the desktop market share data are obtained. From browser data? This is naive as many linux users change or randomize their user agent. It must be that since counting OS sales does not work. I use linux as my major operating system since 20 years. But there are still things I can only do on a commercial OS like Mac OS X: For example solid video editing, screen recording, Keynote, garage band, and serious gaming. But for most day to day operations, there is very little difference between OS X (when used as a Unix workstation) and linux. My desktops and workflows look almost identical. I guess, also windows could be configured today to behave like a unix workstation. But the loss of control which the the user over the OS (basic things like when and how to upgrade, or the look over the shoulder of the user) which happens today in windows makes it unfit for serious work. What would really be nice if virtualization would exist which allowed to run any OS X software on a linux box. It seems that installing OSX on a virtual box has not yet worked well. The few who have got it to work claim slow graphics, sound failures. I have not heard for example of a successful and solid Final cut run virtualized under linux. Parallels does a good job virtualizing windows on OSX.
= " I opt for a Tomb"
4 Gig ram, 64 gig SSD, 1080p display, 500 bucks. I'm sorry but most phones come with more storage and a multiple of that resolution. Even as a minimalist tool, a phone alone works better already. When doing serious writing or reading (a high resolution screen is pivotal when reading long, especially with technical documentation) its important to have a decent resolution screen, have a solid keyboard, have a local library and programs (which work also if the internet connection is off and where it is not logged what and how long you are reading what). Paying twice as much but being the master of your data and programs and have a multiply times the storage is well worth it. Actually, it can sometimes be really good to get off the web and concentrate on work alone for a day or two.
Maybe just avoid companies which persue such practices. FOr me, Carnival Corp would keep my feet off any Carnival cruise ship. Yes these are strong forces of globalization but the least they could have done is would be to give the employees a decent severance package and some time regardless whether they train their cheaper replacements. Such stories do good to motivate kids to pursue any STEM area.
There should be a system in place such that business leaders or politicians get awarded only long term benefits. Obviously, laying off a lot of people or stop investing in development gives a short term boost and savings but destroys the company or country in the long term. Unfortunately, today, the CEOs or presidents have not to pay for actions which hurt in the long term but are evaluated on short term profit. In this case, the morale in the IT part of that health care service provider will take a huge hit. It happened to many technology firms. As a customer there, I would be worried, whether my health information will be safe in the future. And its questionable whether they will ever be able to acquire really good new talent.
I'm pretty happy with the Linux kernel and XNU for OSX. I would consider them rock solid. As for Video editing software, I find that Final cut is rock solid. Its so cool to complain and tear down. Maybe we more to listen to folks who have really built substantial things like a Ubilos or Torwalds. Yes, the new kids like Go and Rust might some day grow up but they still have first to show that can deliver and enable to build great things. And what does your comment about installing updates have to do with anything?
What a nihilistic article: quote: " it unrealistic to expect programmers to write secure code in memory-unsafe languages." No, its not unrealistic, because it reality disproves the statement. Rock solid things have been built safely in C: most operating systems kernels, modern video editing software, games. Things which need to work directly with the memory like juggling smoothly dozens of gigabytes of video data and fast. not just a smart phone app. Good luck with programming a video editing app in a memory safe language today. Maybe one should pay attention to programmers who have actually created something substantial.
Cycle of life for social network companies: start-up builds up a large user base using free services, indicating a business model with optional services, selling out to a big fish, big fish digests it, squeezing out its gut. Big fish removes free services more and more, adding advertisement. User jumps to new free service. Alternatively: start-up becomes big fish and lives from eating other alive communities, remaining the big fish, as there are no alternatives.
its a bit like the idea of strapping a VR google on while riding a roller coaster http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/04... where it says: "Users will still physically be on a roller coaster as usual, but the headsets will add extra sensory experiences." It will be a thrill to be able to run linux on an operating system where the dangers of falling of the tracks are so real. The simulation of adventure can not be more authentic.
The article hints at other reasons. The latest youtube boston dynamics video showing the robot doing human work, was not only impressive, it was frightening. Not that we don't know that it is going to happen (not only in transportation, or manufacturing but also in service, consulting, transportation, delivery, military, health care or teaching), it was scary to see a bot doing things so well, to walk around, do errands. For a company, to be associated or identified with a job eliminator, this is a PR disaster in the long term. Its more subtle in AI or other domains of automation, where we don't see it. And then the article mentions also the lack of short term profitable products and leadership problems. But its interesting to see how non-technical factors start to matter more and more. But as mentioned before, the most important asset which google probably got from the company is the know-how, the top notch engineering, the human potential which can do be used also in non-robotic things. But whoever buys the company, the technology will continue change the future. Amazon is interested. Imagine all the packing and delivery work done by such droids. Maybe they should dress them as minions to make it more acceptable ...
This used to be. Adds from IBM illustrate: its already reality, investing, harvesting and research data, make an medical analysis, find the best defense strategy for a trial: is all AI dominated already. In education, partly automatically written textbooks are already reality. The push for grading by the machine, to online learning are all driven mostly by reducing labor and so workers. Whether the promise that this will allow us to do more interesting thing, is constantly fading. This means now developers, doctors, lawyers, teachers. The time when only robots, self driving cars have been a threat to the workforce are long over. Even research will be affected. It is a challenge which is so urgent already now that industry leaders at the World economic forum 2016 were discussing it. It will be an important problem to tackle: what to do if we have programmed us out of work. Developers are smart, they can not be persuaded so easily by propaganda. They can read the writings on the wall, because they write it!
The key will be scalability. Its an interesting experiment as it taps into the fundamentals of computing. It could however well be that the effort of keeping things disentangled grows exponentially (something which Shor's algorithm does not address). Like in dynamical systems theory, where computing the 10th iterate of f(x)=4x(1-x) with some initial condition like x=0.4 is no problem. It gives 0.297... already for a a hundred iterations the result become ambiguous and the answer becomes hardware and software dependent. No error correction can bypass these fundamental sensitive dependence of initial condition difficulty. So, it could well be that it is possible to factor a 10^10 digit number nicely but that things become more and more difficult larger numbers like integers with 100reds of digits and that RSA will remain save from quantum computer attacks. But who knows? The nice thing is that if it will be faster, one will be able to demonstrate it by factoring otherwise not yet factored numbers.
I'm a cognitive system. I want to work with humans to outthink challenges ...
online tools and wikipedia are not bad at the moment. Who tells that this will remain so? Organizations like wikipedia needs money and there is no long term guarantee that not at one point in the future, a "sponsor" will jump in, and searches or articles will be "internally vetted". Like for anything, it is good to have many independent sources. And yes, I keep as many copies of old encyclopedias and handbooks as possible, so that if needed, things can be double checked. Even in math software (like computer algebra systems) it can be healthy from time to time to check results with old handbooks or other systems, like integration tables. And of course be able to look up the original sources or reproduce things yourself. Never trust one source alone.
There are different takes on the scientific method. Poppers view is the gold standard but there others like Feyerabend, (from whom I could myself attend lectures as a student at ETH) who similar than Lacatos had a more liberal point of view: science also allows chaotic, anarchistic developments. The hype of parallel universes is maybe just the troll which is needed to value what is science really is and what is just speculation or belief. Similarly as political trolls, they remind us what values we really should treasure. History has shown that also unscientific approaches were motivational. Spiritual approaches for example were driving mathematicians from Pythagoreans to Kepler. Historically they had value as a motivator, even so one knows now that most of these believes were nonsense: Keplers harmonices mundi for example was one of these heavenly ideas which today just look plain silly and have lost all their scientific value. The other work which was produced (Kepler's laws) is a gem. Talking about parallel universes is maybe a bit like the Cretan Epimenides telling that All Cretans are liars or Russels set of all sets which are not subsets of themselves. These paradoxa have been resolved by setting up set theory carefully and using precise nomenclature what a set is. Any theory of the universe needs good definitions first of all. A notion of a universe which which does contain more than we can access, is strange. While liars paradoxa have initially been intended as jokes or trolls, they turned out to be a central idea for Goedel when working on incompleteness results. Also on the positive side, books about parallel universes have produced interest in the public about science. With the eyes of Feyerabend, we should see it as anarchism. Compare it with Keplers harmonices mundi. Maybe there is some nice mathematics or eventially some physics coming out it which will remain valuable. There could be a much simpler explanation: it might also simply be a way to gain publicity, get grant. Parallel universes just inspire our imagination, as countless many science fiction books have shown. An nice example is Ruckers "Mathemticians in Love" in which parallel universes play a role.
even when checking to always show scroll bars in general preferences, it happened until recently that scroll bars would disappear in some applications or worse: be there and disappear if the mouse came close to them as if somebody played a hoax. Seems to fixed now in ElCapitan. Minimal is good but too minimal can sometimes look like a bad joke.
similar than the non-standard MS symbols, which still hunt me sometimes. Since more than a decade, I use https://www.fourmilab.ch/webto... to get rid of nonstandard Latin 1. There is nothing more frustrating than have two versions of a program, which both look the same, but only one actually does the right thing.