Automation reduces the need for human workers. There is no doubt about that. However, it doesn't mean that there aren't a certain number and class of jobs that need doing by people. Stating general arithmetic regarding worker to machine ratios lacks the subtlety to include the fact that not all the jobs can be done by machines in the first place. Do factory owners want more automation and is there a general trend toward it? Yes, of course. That, however, is definitely not my point.
That's a very interesting theory, actually. You might be onto something. There was definitely *something* that forced those "old timers" to learn so much more than I'm used to hearing from the average millennial (and younger). One interesting thing that I've also noticed is that there seems to also be a minimum number of folks in every generation who will learn the metal regardless of it's cool, trendy, or taught in school. They are just driven to understand. At the local "hacker space" 9 out 10 kids I run into are hopeless, but every now and then I'll meet one of the throwbacks/luddites and I might as well be having a conversation with myself or my old CS professor. So, I don't mean to make this such a generational mudslinging thing, rather than just sorta speaking in generalities. I fully acknowledge there are hella-smart people in every generation. However, in the end, "the system", culture, and tech-level definitely seem to have a huge impact on the frequency that you meet actual tech-savvy people in any given generation. Also, if some annoyed millenial reads this, just understand, I'm speaking in general terms. If it makes you feel any better, I get annoyed with younger folks who always assume I'm going to be tech-illiterate as much as they are probably tired and annoyed with people calling them lazy. There are always exceptions, and you very well might be one.
Bullshit. Fool. I know several ASM programmers who definitely at least 98% of the modern x86_64 ISA like a fucking encyclopedia. I mean give me a fucking break, it's not that huge. The only parts that are even marginally hard are the SIMD ops. It's easily learned by a kid (taught my brother ASM when he was 12). It's the design patterns and memorizing lots of ROM holes on weird architectures that make ASM a challenge. Anyhow, do you even code, bro? I program in C and ASM about 4 times a week. You?
Well, I have to admit you are right. My beef with RISC isn't so much any problem with an internal microarchitecture, it's the lack of handy ASM instructions I'm used to from other platforms (most notably the VAX and the 68k). When you spend time coding on the 68k or VAX then switch to a RISC platform, you feel the suck. However, I do question your assertion that RISC was just have a more machine-clean ISA. There *was* a lack of space on silicon in the 1990's and some of the motivation to "go RISC" did stem from that fact, too.
Wrong. There are multiple Unix variants that run on micros and were during the 1980's, too. Xenix comes to mind rather rapidly (ran mostly on 68k), SunOS also was around in the 1980s along with early versions of IRIX. Those are not mainframes or mini's either, but they weren't exactly micros, either. You also might not be aware but Amiga's (and a lot of other 68k variants) could run a special version of SysV. NCR also had "regular" computer that ran it's Unix variants. Check out Micro implementations of Unix by Jorn Berg. You'll find out that Unix was a lot more widespread on non-mainframe/non-minicomputer machines than you seem to believe.
Agreed. Systemd and the whole tawdry drama put deep disgust & distrust into Linux. However, just keep in mind Linux one of over a hundred Unix variants. There are now mo'betta ones to choose from, IMHO. I think the BSDs are just awesome. I have no reason to use Linux these days. Also, I still enjoy using older Unix variants, too. I just don't do that for production.
Ah, well, that's completely true. Van Neuman, Babbage, and many others were computing long before there was a Computer Science major available at universities. I should have added "degree" or "program" to be more clear, I just kinda thought it was obvious.
As an SGI collector and fan of Unix hardware it pains me to say this, but: get real RISC is shit and so are it's engineers. This guy didn't get enough of being completely wrong in the 1990's he's gotta pile some more bullshit on top. First off, look around you, see any RISC processors that are worth a shit? I'm sure many will say ARM because they don't realize that the compute performance of an ARM chip is utter shit when seen in the light of what CISC has done. Yes, Intel and others have done silly-shit with execution pipelines and other now-dangerous-tricks. However, that still doesn't detract from the big flaw in RISC - the ISA. RISC was supposed to be just fine because everyone would just write everything in C and never get horrified at how idiotic the ISA was underneath. Compilers don't tend to use as many tricks as ASM coders do/can because any tricks they use have to be absolutely rigidly repeatable. A human ASM coder knows when he can use certain techniques and when they are better avoided. So, compilers did get better, and they sorta kinda partially made up for the shitty internal design of their RISC chips. Trouble was, RISC solved a problem that was temporary - lack of space on the silicon. The advances in lithography since the 1990's has made RISC seem pretty damn ridiculous. In fact, chip makers had so much space from the smaller litho, they didn't even know what to do with it! Heaven forbid they hire more engineers or do anything interesting - so they just stamped out more cores on the same silicon. These days, we are drowning in so much geography on the chips that the problems RISC aimed to solve are totally irrelevant. Anyone who cut their teeth making RISC chips is already extremely suspect to me. Though I can see why they'd call for new architectures, they are used to ones that suck balls.
I started down the "burn them with fire" road, until I read that part about the mosquitoes. I hate them worse. Yeah, okay then, have your party little spiders. The enemy of my enemy is my friend (for now... kinda).
No, it's because of two facts. First, Plan9 never really tried to be useful. It's always been a proving ground for Ken Thompson's (and other Plan9 contributors) ideas. Second, Plan9 is billed as some kind of next-gen Unix, but it just doesn't live up to that standard. I've installed Plan9 and used it quite a bit, and there are some interesting ideas. However, the lack of device driver or dedicated hardware platforms for it is the final nail in it's coffin. Unix has over 100 variants and runs on literally hundreds of hardware platforms. When I talk about Unix, I'm not talking about AT&T SysV, I'm talking about a philosophy. Plan9 is cool, but it was never meant to compete or replace Unix, it was meant to be an exploration of new ideas which it does accomplish. I should also mention that Ken's "new ideas" for Plan9 are actually new, as opposed to being "I'm a millennial and I invented this 15 minutes ago after a lifetime of imitating my betters. It must be unique I just know it" kinda new.
Indian English is a recognized distinct dialect of English. It's hard to understand because the regional linguistics differ greatly from American favorite phonemes. Would have been nice if corporate America realized this before they sent all the call center jobs to India. Then again, companies like Dell have paid a price for their Indian misadventures after having to bring back call center jobs at great cost to themselves after a pitchfork rebellion by their incensed customers.
Agreed. They've already started. Gated communities anyone? The rich are increasingly protecting themselves. Problem is the French tried that. Before the French revolution the rich aristocrats all hired private guards. They were mostly foreigners without any skin in the local political system. The trouble was, that when 3000 angry revolutionaries showed up at the door, the guards said "Fuck this shit!" and left or hunkered down like the idiots at the Bastille did. Eventually the angry populace stormed those jails and palatial guard posts and dragged the occupants out to be hung from a lamp post or stuffed into a guillotine. The revolution was a complicated mess, mostly, and it wasn't perfect (their leadership mostly sucked and they had some collectivism poisoning them quite often). However, after the revolution ended pay went up for damn near everyone but the rich folks. The theory is, they were a bit worried someone would drag their greedy ass out into the street and chop their deserving heads off. Personally, I believe nothing short of a similar event in this country will wake up the elites to the historical fact that no matter how many walls and guards you have, when the people come for you, they are going to wade through that shit like it was made of wet toilet paper. In a nation with huge levels of gun ownership... well... It's pretty clear that could get ugly in a hurry (like the founders intended).
So, true. I was lucky. In college (1992-1997) I noticed that the older generations (some, not all of my profs) were so much freakin' smarter than my contemporaries. At first I felt it was unfair. How did they get so smart? Then I started asking them. It turns out there was no such thing as Computer Science until the 1980's. They'd all honed their chops in Electrical Engineering programs and basically had to learn computing from the "bits up". So, while I struggled to learn C and Assembler outside of Java and C++ classes, my peers laughed at me (why couldn't I embrace C++ and Java?) and my professors acted like I was struggling with the fundamentals but some respected my effort, too. Later on as my career gained steam, I realized that my fetish with "old stuff" was paying off huge dividends compared to my peers backgrounds of flavor-of-the-month IT fads and trendy scripting languages. It still is. I still use Unix and C on a daily basis. I write ASM at least once a week, too. I've also got a huge library of actual, real, physical books (*GASP*). I find that they still have information I can't get online. That's especially true for certain programming algorithms and EE firmware programming topics. Some of my expensive EE books have solutions to problems that you simply can't find online at all.
Hehe, it's a steam powered device from before your time. Yes, home phones are an anachronism. Mine costs $16 a month, though. It's worth paying it just to hear people flip out over the fact that I still have one. They also tend to lose their minds that they have to leave a message or just fuck off. People are so used to instantly being able to yank someone chain. They have a conniption fit when they can't do that and I enjoy every second of their discomfort like an alien protoplasm that feeds on hate. I do carry an ancient symbian cell phone for my job, though. They pay for the service.
Wow, Apple fanboy much? Suckin' the big apple, eh? You are a fucking idiot if you think iOS is 100% open source. Why should anyone fight the vendor to service something they paid for? They make it intentionally difficult, speaking from the experience of actually replacing sealed-in batteries. It's cute (and ignorant) that you think Apple is an innocent lamb that doesn't spy. Of course, the rest of the ignorant Apple apologist blather in your post should have presaged that. Guess you've been living in a cave and you missed the zillions of news stories about them being a giant spying corporate asshole. Speaking of seeking great tools, I've already got that nailed (things like compilers and *real* tools that produce real results). So, that's why I didn't need to fork over $1000 and a bunch of personal liberty to Apple for an inferior, overpriced, spying, sealed-in battery, no headphone-jack, opaque OS, Chinese made, corporate ass-phone. If it means I don't have to put up with some asshole's horn-rimed glasses and Apple-latte attitude, then so much the better!
You sound like an H1B faggot who used Google translate just to post this out of your native monkey language. Now go dispose of yourself, quietly, Coward.
Interesting. I'll have to check them out, especially if there are alternative operating systems. Right now I alternate between a Blackberry and an old Sony Walkman phone running Symbian (and no IP stack) Thanks!
Unix solved most of the problems associated with an operating system. It's just that most folks don't take the time to learn their history or look at existing solutions. Instead NIH and "I can do it better" syndrome are the rule. I see this constantly on/. and elsewhere. Folks acting like very old technology is brand new, or acting like something that was invented yesterday isn't a blatant copy of previous tech. Even Window is still trying to catch up to technology that's been in various Unix variants for 20+ years. Unix is the way and the light. Specifically, I think the BSD's have the right mindset. As a nice bonus, the non-graphical installation runs off all the Ubuntites. Yay!
Smartphones are devices for consumers. I'm a maker not a taker. I've got no use for a spying, expensive, closed-source, sealed battery, crippled computing device with no keyboard. I'd rather carry a flip phone or "dad" phone or whatever. Hell, I'd rather have people have to call my home phone at the house and get the fucking answering machine and I don't eve know they called until hours later when I *might* feel like calling them back (maybe). Da fuck do I want to give every spammer and griefer instant access to me for? Lastly, FFS, why would I pay $1000 for the privilege of being harassed and spied on?
Wrong. I've visited two modern plants in the last five years. One was a tea packaging facility and the other was a tape drive assembly plant. Not only do I know exactly what kind of automation they used, I also got to talk to several plant engineers about the software side, too. There are still a shitton of people working in manufacturing. It's not some empty robot plant. "Modern" shit didn't just come along and replace everyone. It didn't happen yesterday, it didn't happen 40 or 50 years ago when people were saying the same shit, and it isn't going to happen tomorrow. As I said, just calm the fuck down. This is evolutionary not revolutionary.
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Automation reduces the need for human workers. There is no doubt about that. However, it doesn't mean that there aren't a certain number and class of jobs that need doing by people. Stating general arithmetic regarding worker to machine ratios lacks the subtlety to include the fact that not all the jobs can be done by machines in the first place. Do factory owners want more automation and is there a general trend toward it? Yes, of course. That, however, is definitely not my point.
Wow, super-insightful. Totally agree about abstraction. I think you are 100% right, sir!
That's a very interesting theory, actually. You might be onto something. There was definitely *something* that forced those "old timers" to learn so much more than I'm used to hearing from the average millennial (and younger). One interesting thing that I've also noticed is that there seems to also be a minimum number of folks in every generation who will learn the metal regardless of it's cool, trendy, or taught in school. They are just driven to understand. At the local "hacker space" 9 out 10 kids I run into are hopeless, but every now and then I'll meet one of the throwbacks/luddites and I might as well be having a conversation with myself or my old CS professor. So, I don't mean to make this such a generational mudslinging thing, rather than just sorta speaking in generalities. I fully acknowledge there are hella-smart people in every generation. However, in the end, "the system", culture, and tech-level definitely seem to have a huge impact on the frequency that you meet actual tech-savvy people in any given generation. Also, if some annoyed millenial reads this, just understand, I'm speaking in general terms. If it makes you feel any better, I get annoyed with younger folks who always assume I'm going to be tech-illiterate as much as they are probably tired and annoyed with people calling them lazy. There are always exceptions, and you very well might be one.
Bullshit. Fool. I know several ASM programmers who definitely at least 98% of the modern x86_64 ISA like a fucking encyclopedia. I mean give me a fucking break, it's not that huge. The only parts that are even marginally hard are the SIMD ops. It's easily learned by a kid (taught my brother ASM when he was 12). It's the design patterns and memorizing lots of ROM holes on weird architectures that make ASM a challenge. Anyhow, do you even code, bro? I program in C and ASM about 4 times a week. You?
Well, I have to admit you are right. My beef with RISC isn't so much any problem with an internal microarchitecture, it's the lack of handy ASM instructions I'm used to from other platforms (most notably the VAX and the 68k). When you spend time coding on the 68k or VAX then switch to a RISC platform, you feel the suck. However, I do question your assertion that RISC was just have a more machine-clean ISA. There *was* a lack of space on silicon in the 1990's and some of the motivation to "go RISC" did stem from that fact, too.
Wrong. There are multiple Unix variants that run on micros and were during the 1980's, too. Xenix comes to mind rather rapidly (ran mostly on 68k), SunOS also was around in the 1980s along with early versions of IRIX. Those are not mainframes or mini's either, but they weren't exactly micros, either. You also might not be aware but Amiga's (and a lot of other 68k variants) could run a special version of SysV. NCR also had "regular" computer that ran it's Unix variants. Check out Micro implementations of Unix by Jorn Berg. You'll find out that Unix was a lot more widespread on non-mainframe/non-minicomputer machines than you seem to believe.
Agreed. Systemd and the whole tawdry drama put deep disgust & distrust into Linux. However, just keep in mind Linux one of over a hundred Unix variants. There are now mo'betta ones to choose from, IMHO. I think the BSDs are just awesome. I have no reason to use Linux these days. Also, I still enjoy using older Unix variants, too. I just don't do that for production.
Ah, well, that's completely true. Van Neuman, Babbage, and many others were computing long before there was a Computer Science major available at universities. I should have added "degree" or "program" to be more clear, I just kinda thought it was obvious.
As an SGI collector and fan of Unix hardware it pains me to say this, but: get real RISC is shit and so are it's engineers. This guy didn't get enough of being completely wrong in the 1990's he's gotta pile some more bullshit on top. First off, look around you, see any RISC processors that are worth a shit? I'm sure many will say ARM because they don't realize that the compute performance of an ARM chip is utter shit when seen in the light of what CISC has done. Yes, Intel and others have done silly-shit with execution pipelines and other now-dangerous-tricks. However, that still doesn't detract from the big flaw in RISC - the ISA. RISC was supposed to be just fine because everyone would just write everything in C and never get horrified at how idiotic the ISA was underneath. Compilers don't tend to use as many tricks as ASM coders do/can because any tricks they use have to be absolutely rigidly repeatable. A human ASM coder knows when he can use certain techniques and when they are better avoided. So, compilers did get better, and they sorta kinda partially made up for the shitty internal design of their RISC chips. Trouble was, RISC solved a problem that was temporary - lack of space on the silicon. The advances in lithography since the 1990's has made RISC seem pretty damn ridiculous. In fact, chip makers had so much space from the smaller litho, they didn't even know what to do with it! Heaven forbid they hire more engineers or do anything interesting - so they just stamped out more cores on the same silicon. These days, we are drowning in so much geography on the chips that the problems RISC aimed to solve are totally irrelevant. Anyone who cut their teeth making RISC chips is already extremely suspect to me. Though I can see why they'd call for new architectures, they are used to ones that suck balls.
I started down the "burn them with fire" road, until I read that part about the mosquitoes. I hate them worse. Yeah, okay then, have your party little spiders. The enemy of my enemy is my friend (for now... kinda).
No, it's because of two facts. First, Plan9 never really tried to be useful. It's always been a proving ground for Ken Thompson's (and other Plan9 contributors) ideas. Second, Plan9 is billed as some kind of next-gen Unix, but it just doesn't live up to that standard. I've installed Plan9 and used it quite a bit, and there are some interesting ideas. However, the lack of device driver or dedicated hardware platforms for it is the final nail in it's coffin. Unix has over 100 variants and runs on literally hundreds of hardware platforms. When I talk about Unix, I'm not talking about AT&T SysV, I'm talking about a philosophy. Plan9 is cool, but it was never meant to compete or replace Unix, it was meant to be an exploration of new ideas which it does accomplish. I should also mention that Ken's "new ideas" for Plan9 are actually new, as opposed to being "I'm a millennial and I invented this 15 minutes ago after a lifetime of imitating my betters. It must be unique I just know it" kinda new.
No dumbass, they didn't lie about anything. I could tell they were smarter just by listening to them, something a Coward like you doesn't do.
Indian English is a recognized distinct dialect of English. It's hard to understand because the regional linguistics differ greatly from American favorite phonemes. Would have been nice if corporate America realized this before they sent all the call center jobs to India. Then again, companies like Dell have paid a price for their Indian misadventures after having to bring back call center jobs at great cost to themselves after a pitchfork rebellion by their incensed customers.
Agreed. They've already started. Gated communities anyone? The rich are increasingly protecting themselves. Problem is the French tried that. Before the French revolution the rich aristocrats all hired private guards. They were mostly foreigners without any skin in the local political system. The trouble was, that when 3000 angry revolutionaries showed up at the door, the guards said "Fuck this shit!" and left or hunkered down like the idiots at the Bastille did. Eventually the angry populace stormed those jails and palatial guard posts and dragged the occupants out to be hung from a lamp post or stuffed into a guillotine. The revolution was a complicated mess, mostly, and it wasn't perfect (their leadership mostly sucked and they had some collectivism poisoning them quite often). However, after the revolution ended pay went up for damn near everyone but the rich folks. The theory is, they were a bit worried someone would drag their greedy ass out into the street and chop their deserving heads off. Personally, I believe nothing short of a similar event in this country will wake up the elites to the historical fact that no matter how many walls and guards you have, when the people come for you, they are going to wade through that shit like it was made of wet toilet paper. In a nation with huge levels of gun ownership... well... It's pretty clear that could get ugly in a hurry (like the founders intended).
Also, I'm in my 40's. I work with guys in their 70's. They are still smarter, unfortunately.
So, true. I was lucky. In college (1992-1997) I noticed that the older generations (some, not all of my profs) were so much freakin' smarter than my contemporaries. At first I felt it was unfair. How did they get so smart? Then I started asking them. It turns out there was no such thing as Computer Science until the 1980's. They'd all honed their chops in Electrical Engineering programs and basically had to learn computing from the "bits up". So, while I struggled to learn C and Assembler outside of Java and C++ classes, my peers laughed at me (why couldn't I embrace C++ and Java?) and my professors acted like I was struggling with the fundamentals but some respected my effort, too. Later on as my career gained steam, I realized that my fetish with "old stuff" was paying off huge dividends compared to my peers backgrounds of flavor-of-the-month IT fads and trendy scripting languages. It still is. I still use Unix and C on a daily basis. I write ASM at least once a week, too. I've also got a huge library of actual, real, physical books (*GASP*). I find that they still have information I can't get online. That's especially true for certain programming algorithms and EE firmware programming topics. Some of my expensive EE books have solutions to problems that you simply can't find online at all.
Right on, brother! Nice work. Love the OCR software, very nice!
Hehe, it's a steam powered device from before your time. Yes, home phones are an anachronism. Mine costs $16 a month, though. It's worth paying it just to hear people flip out over the fact that I still have one. They also tend to lose their minds that they have to leave a message or just fuck off. People are so used to instantly being able to yank someone chain. They have a conniption fit when they can't do that and I enjoy every second of their discomfort like an alien protoplasm that feeds on hate. I do carry an ancient symbian cell phone for my job, though. They pay for the service.
Wow, Apple fanboy much? Suckin' the big apple, eh? You are a fucking idiot if you think iOS is 100% open source. Why should anyone fight the vendor to service something they paid for? They make it intentionally difficult, speaking from the experience of actually replacing sealed-in batteries. It's cute (and ignorant) that you think Apple is an innocent lamb that doesn't spy. Of course, the rest of the ignorant Apple apologist blather in your post should have presaged that. Guess you've been living in a cave and you missed the zillions of news stories about them being a giant spying corporate asshole. Speaking of seeking great tools, I've already got that nailed (things like compilers and *real* tools that produce real results). So, that's why I didn't need to fork over $1000 and a bunch of personal liberty to Apple for an inferior, overpriced, spying, sealed-in battery, no headphone-jack, opaque OS, Chinese made, corporate ass-phone. If it means I don't have to put up with some asshole's horn-rimed glasses and Apple-latte attitude, then so much the better!
You sound like an H1B faggot who used Google translate just to post this out of your native monkey language. Now go dispose of yourself, quietly, Coward.
Interesting. I'll have to check them out, especially if there are alternative operating systems. Right now I alternate between a Blackberry and an old Sony Walkman phone running Symbian (and no IP stack) Thanks!
Support your state's Right to Repair bill! Part of the reason "everything sucks now" is that we let these fuckers sell us crap that only they can fix.
Unix solved most of the problems associated with an operating system. It's just that most folks don't take the time to learn their history or look at existing solutions. Instead NIH and "I can do it better" syndrome are the rule. I see this constantly on /. and elsewhere. Folks acting like very old technology is brand new, or acting like something that was invented yesterday isn't a blatant copy of previous tech. Even Window is still trying to catch up to technology that's been in various Unix variants for 20+ years. Unix is the way and the light. Specifically, I think the BSD's have the right mindset. As a nice bonus, the non-graphical installation runs off all the Ubuntites. Yay!
Smartphones are devices for consumers. I'm a maker not a taker. I've got no use for a spying, expensive, closed-source, sealed battery, crippled computing device with no keyboard. I'd rather carry a flip phone or "dad" phone or whatever. Hell, I'd rather have people have to call my home phone at the house and get the fucking answering machine and I don't eve know they called until hours later when I *might* feel like calling them back (maybe). Da fuck do I want to give every spammer and griefer instant access to me for? Lastly, FFS, why would I pay $1000 for the privilege of being harassed and spied on?
Wrong. I've visited two modern plants in the last five years. One was a tea packaging facility and the other was a tape drive assembly plant. Not only do I know exactly what kind of automation they used, I also got to talk to several plant engineers about the software side, too. There are still a shitton of people working in manufacturing. It's not some empty robot plant. "Modern" shit didn't just come along and replace everyone. It didn't happen yesterday, it didn't happen 40 or 50 years ago when people were saying the same shit, and it isn't going to happen tomorrow. As I said, just calm the fuck down. This is evolutionary not revolutionary.