of course people who micromanage their people can be out of touch with a product & how it is used...but there is *context* to this comment, re: TFA
you can pick apart phrasing like an English major but that's not some counterpoint or rhetorical 'slam'...TFA and Gates's book present a contradictory narrative.
one time, Obama is 'out of touch' with his generals...then he's a 'micromanager' of his generals
those two cannot exist simultaneously...you litterally must be constantly 'in touch' to do the things that make you a 'micromanager'
but that wasn't even my major point, and you know it...
I found his criticism to be mellodramatic and uneven.
One time Obama is a 'micromanager' and the next he's 'out of touch'
What galls me most is that he criticized the Obama admin. for questioning his generals hard and not accepting their pat answers. Like we're supposed to feel bad when a General in charge of a war gets his feelings hurt?
I *expect* strict oversight of the men making the direct decisions about wars, especially the double-boondoggles of Iraq and Afghanistan that Obama was given.
bullshit/hype exists everywhere humans are communicating about something...
I think you misunderstood what I meant when I said, "To bring this back to Moore's law"..."this" is my comment...not sure what you thought I was saying...
We might stop seeing ridiculous gains in computing power, and might have to start making gains in software efficiency.
I agree in sprit but you perpetuate a false dichotomy based on a misunderstanding of *why* software bloat happens, in the broad industry-wide context.
Just look at Windows. M$ bottlenecked features willfully because it was part of their business plan.
Coders, the people who actually write the software, have always been up to the efficiency challenge. The problem is the biggest money wasn't paying for ninja-like efficiency of executing user instructions.
It was about marketing and ass-backwards profit models forced onto the work of making good code.
I've often observed that in order to do the most desirable work, a coder would have to sacrifice the very thing that made them want to work on the best software in the first place...
In my mind it was an interesting statistical coincedence, *when it was first discussed*
Then the hype took over, and we know what happens when tech and hype meet up...
Out of touch CEO's get hair-brained ideas from non-tech marketing people about what makes a product sell, then the marketing people dictate to the product managers what benchmarks they have to hit...then the new product is developed and any regular/. reader knows the rest.
It's bunk. We need to dispel these kinds of errors in language instead of perpetuating them, because it has tangible effects on the engineers in the lab who actually do the damn work.
Part of what made the Moore's "Law" meme so sticky is how it was used, usually in a simple line graph, by "futurists" who barely can check their own email to pen mellodramatic, overhyped predictions about *when* we would have 'AI'.
AI hype is tied to computer performance, and Moore's "Law" was something air-head journalists could easily source, complete with a nice graph from a tech "expert"
I know my view of AI as a fiction is in the minority, but IMHO we need to grow up, stop with the reductive notion that computing is progressing towards some kind of 'AI' singularity and focus on making things that help people do work or play.
Our industry looses **BILLIONS** of dollars and hundreds of thousands of work-hours chasing a fiction when we could be making more useful, powerful, and imaginitive things that meet actual, real world human needs.
To bring this back to Moore's Law, let's work on better explaining the value of tech to non-techies. Let's give air-headed journalists something to sink their teeth into that will help our industry progress, not play the bullshit/hype game like every other industry.
comment is kind of a trope, but it is a valid question in the case of this article.
'gun control' has been an ongoing debate (flamewar) all across our culture lately...there is nothing newsworthy about **this** one particular ruling that has anything to do with technology or other typical/. topics.
we need to stop...all of us...everyone is in favor of some kind of 'gun control'...as in no one believes, rationally, that Americans should be allowed to own/operate any kind of weaponry without limit.
it's **where we draw the line** that is at issue...we need to start asking that question, and debating it in a proper forum, not a site with a focus like slashdot
obviously it was the mass rollout of telegraph technology that caused the stock market crash and lead to the Great Depression.
everyone knows this.
[/sarcasm]
TFA author is a fucking idiot. Yes an expletive is needed to properly describe his analysis and contextualization of events like the financial crisis and their causes.
Parent has it. It was unscrupulous 'finance' types who think operate under a destructive, predatory philosophy....and the lack of proper *regulation* and *oversight* that we all know is necessary.
Greed is like water, it always finds it's own bottom. **WE** define where that bottom is, by using government to define the playing field.
In the US at least, the people can change this...we can elect leaders who favor competition of ideas not a race to the bottom of a pyramid scheme.
GP is an idiot. Our resources are as abundant as ever. There are enough houses to shelter every homeless person 2x over. Food production is more efficient than ever.
It is **artificial scarcity** that creates the illusion....here in the US where I live and in most modern countries.
Now, China...they *are* having an overpopulation problem, but it is due to their government's ham-fisted policies and authoritarianism. ex: One child policy resulting in a demographic apocalypse (male to female ratio @ 60/40).
here's an idea: make an analog Polaroid instant camera that takes analog photos **AND** allows you the option to post a digital version to the social network of your choice
As to the real reason for Kodak's demise, they waited too long to go digital, and they screwed it up when they did go mainstream digital.
Yes. It was a **management** mistake based on decisions made by stock-price obsessed MBA-type leaders who were absolutely, completely disconnected from their users.
Kodak had a 'cult' favorite in the Polaroid. They discontinued it, citing the 'digital revolution', right exactly at the time when people were backlashing against digital photos and **wanted** and old-school, nostalgic analog product like the Polaroid.
Everything about Kodak's decisions was exactly backwards and wrong, and it was **MANAGEMENT** who is to blame, not some dumb notion of the internet this guy is pimping.
The problem is the rubber sheet is a 2D surface. It can represent two dimensions. It can be two of space (as is normal), one space and one time, etc. Real spacetime is a 4D entity - 3 (elongated) space, 1 time. The reason we use the rubber sheet analogy is because visualizing the distortions in spacetime (a 4D entity) is quite... difficult. Even visualizing a 3D representation is quite hard (pick your mix of space and time dimensions you want to show).
right...when I used to explain this, I introduce the sheet/marble analogy, then describe, as you did above why it's limited.
i then would tell them (students) to imagine an infinite number of sheets surrounding the ball in all directions stretching to the limits of the universe to give them a possible hint as to how it actually behaves
You're absolutely right that he could have done this anonymously (like Deep Throat w/ the Pentagon Papers), and Glenn Greenwald bears part of the responsibility. It's obvious that Honk Kong's huge propaganda posters we saw early in his international escapades were *not* put there by citizens of China. His Russian girlfriend was obviously a cover...did you see the early reporting about their relationship? It was all a sham narrative.
He probably had good intentions, but let his ego guide his choices, which **put him in a place to be blackmailed**
I think we should bring him home to the US. I *do not* consider him a hero, patriot, or 'national conversation starter', but he's not a free man in Russia.
Anyone who felt that they had digital privacy before Snowden's revelations was an idiot. No one here on slashdot felt their data was secure...just browse the 'Your Rights Online' slashdot section back to before the Patriot Act even. Just because idiot news producers were too dumb to report on privacy issues as front page news before this does not in any way justify how this went down.
I genuinely feel bad for him. In the past I could have let my hubris guide me to the same mistakes.
He's a victim of his own ego and hubris, and a victim of blackmail and espionage. We should bring him home where he belongs. I think he's probably suffered enough.
Yeah, but there is credible evidence of large floods, and that is precisely the problem.
yes indeed, there very much *IS* credible evidence in virtually all ancient cultures (even China) that there was some sort of global-level flooding
to me, that's not a problem, but a potential solution.
just look at the trench in the middle of the Atlantic...IIRC the trench is still ejecting material that can be dated via it's magnetic polarity
if hydrologists and geologists found credible evidence that all of these are connected, IMHO, it wouldn't **prove** a single thing about the Bible other than it is one of many religious texts based on real events
how would that prove the Bible true or prove a 'god' exists? it wouldn't...but it would undercut those who believe they can prove a supernatural 'god' exists via (psuedo) science.
that's what kills me every time on this...science cannot prove or disprove something that is by definition (supernatural) beyond science by word of the the idea's own proponents
another interesting allegorical connection I saw recently was the theory that Homer's Odyssey is actually an allegorical history of the true discovery of North & South America
we already know that there was significant pre-Columbian contact across both the South Pacific (the potoatoes don't lie), North Atlantic (Lief Erickson et. al), and via Tradewinds in the central Atlantic (Inca genetics match North Africans), and of course, the Inuit children presented in Europe in ~1000 AD
note that absolutely none of this would prove that a 'god' exists in any way
Wake me up when one of these budding super powers no longer has people shitting in the streets
I was going to type a longer response with links where I mention things that the "fear China" crowd ignores like China has absolutely ruined their environment (have you seen the news reports on the smog?) & human population w/ the 'one child policy'...blah blah blah
I appreciate your enthusiasm, for real, and I used to do intercollegiate debate so from that end I agree it could be interesting...
What gives me pause is that doing these debates just lends credence to the idea that there are two sides to the "creation debate." There is really only one side: SCIENCE.
Anything else should be reserved for religious institutions, religious studies classes, etc.
If Ken Ham or whoever thinks they have scientific proof that the entire earth was flooded in a cataclysm ~3000-4000 bp then lets **publish it in a peer reviewed research journal**
I always want to hear new ideas, but if anyone wants to use the language of science they can't pick and choose.
Also, as others have pointed out, this doesn't really seem like a "debate" rather a dog show where everyone has decided before the event which dog is their favorite, and the playing out of the actual event is more like a pep rally.
When both sides want to talk the same language and genuinely are willing to be proven wrong and change I'll be able to share your excitement.
And probably with the tracking/big data companies to make sure they've got extensive personal information on everybody who ever uses a Coke machine.
yep, and actually in our RFP (which was allegedly a real-world RFP with company names changed that an alum gave us) it wasn't just for people who purchased something...the wireless machines were collecting data from any device that was in proximity
not that this is really a surprise to anyone here, but if Coke can do this on all their machines it would yield an astounding ammount of data
From that article, again, this was REPORTED BY USATODAY IN 2006:
The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY. The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans — most of whom aren't suspected of any crime
Snowden is a dupe at best...he's probably being blackmailed...but assuming the best, any way you look at the situation, he was duped by high-level criminals or foreign governments, or both, into doing this.
He's probably being blackmailed. He's not a free man in Russia. All the reports indicate he's essentially in jail when not being paraded in front of reporters.
Again...this info was reported by USA Today itself...in 2006...Snowden just gave operational details.
The "national conversation" about privacy could have happened w/o Snowden releasing that info. We US citizens could have demanded more transparency w/o Snowden releasing this info...
Because...we already knew it was happening. Snowden told us it was called 'Prism'
Even Senator Ron Wyden was sounding alarms on the Senate floor, before Snowden's document release....this from 2011: Senators Say Patriot Act Is Being Misinterpreted. Remember the PATRIOT ACT people?
One last time, as my first link shows, the USA Today reported on the NSA phone meta-data program with significant details **in 2006**
Slashdot Mirror
of course people who micromanage their people can be out of touch with a product & how it is used...but there is *context* to this comment, re: TFA
you can pick apart phrasing like an English major but that's not some counterpoint or rhetorical 'slam'...TFA and Gates's book present a contradictory narrative.
one time, Obama is 'out of touch' with his generals...then he's a 'micromanager' of his generals
those two cannot exist simultaneously...you litterally must be constantly 'in touch' to do the things that make you a 'micromanager'
but that wasn't even my major point, and you know it...
Gates's book is melodramatic crap...the generals mentioned, especially Petreaus and John Allen were corrupt & not to be trusted and Obama was *right* to mistrust them: http://snowboarding8090.com/rubrika/pioneers/shawn-farmer/
"China Tops Europe in Arcane & Unverifyable Propaganda Statistics From an Authoritarian Communist Country"
Gates is a conservative Republican.
I found his criticism to be mellodramatic and uneven.
One time Obama is a 'micromanager' and the next he's 'out of touch'
What galls me most is that he criticized the Obama admin. for questioning his generals hard and not accepting their pat answers. Like we're supposed to feel bad when a General in charge of a war gets his feelings hurt?
I *expect* strict oversight of the men making the direct decisions about wars, especially the double-boondoggles of Iraq and Afghanistan that Obama was given.
In the case of General Petraus, he damn well needed to be questioned, disrespectfully even, because of this whole mess: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petraeus_scandal
Where was Gates's keen eye there? Did he admit *any* actual mistakes?
bullshit/hype exists everywhere humans are communicating about something...
I think you misunderstood what I meant when I said, "To bring this back to Moore's law"..."this" is my comment...not sure what you thought I was saying...
I'd like to see a link to the original paper you speak of, AC
I agree in sprit but you perpetuate a false dichotomy based on a misunderstanding of *why* software bloat happens, in the broad industry-wide context.
Just look at Windows. M$ bottlenecked features willfully because it was part of their business plan.
Coders, the people who actually write the software, have always been up to the efficiency challenge. The problem is the biggest money wasn't paying for ninja-like efficiency of executing user instructions.
It was about marketing and ass-backwards profit models forced onto the work of making good code.
I've often observed that in order to do the most desirable work, a coder would have to sacrifice the very thing that made them want to work on the best software in the first place...
In my mind it was an interesting statistical coincedence, *when it was first discussed*
Then the hype took over, and we know what happens when tech and hype meet up...
Out of touch CEO's get hair-brained ideas from non-tech marketing people about what makes a product sell, then the marketing people dictate to the product managers what benchmarks they have to hit...then the new product is developed and any regular /. reader knows the rest.
It's bunk. We need to dispel these kinds of errors in language instead of perpetuating them, because it has tangible effects on the engineers in the lab who actually do the damn work.
Part of what made the Moore's "Law" meme so sticky is how it was used, usually in a simple line graph, by "futurists" who barely can check their own email to pen mellodramatic, overhyped predictions about *when* we would have 'AI'.
AI hype is tied to computer performance, and Moore's "Law" was something air-head journalists could easily source, complete with a nice graph from a tech "expert"
I know my view of AI as a fiction is in the minority, but IMHO we need to grow up, stop with the reductive notion that computing is progressing towards some kind of 'AI' singularity and focus on making things that help people do work or play.
Our industry looses **BILLIONS** of dollars and hundreds of thousands of work-hours chasing a fiction when we could be making more useful, powerful, and imaginitive things that meet actual, real world human needs.
To bring this back to Moore's Law, let's work on better explaining the value of tech to non-techies. Let's give air-headed journalists something to sink their teeth into that will help our industry progress, not play the bullshit/hype game like every other industry.
If I said, "China's population problem" minus the "over-" would that clear things up?
Humans are not a problem...ham-fisted authoritarian governments are the problem.
yes, the whole
comment is kind of a trope, but it is a valid question in the case of this article.
'gun control' has been an ongoing debate (flamewar) all across our culture lately...there is nothing newsworthy about **this** one particular ruling that has anything to do with technology or other typical /. topics.
we need to stop...all of us...everyone is in favor of some kind of 'gun control'...as in no one believes, rationally, that Americans should be allowed to own/operate any kind of weaponry without limit.
it's **where we draw the line** that is at issue...we need to start asking that question, and debating it in a proper forum, not a site with a focus like slashdot
I appreciate your detailed knowledge but you're still wrong to put any blame on technology.
Are cell phones to blame for drug deals?
Is email to blame for employee embezzlement?
Are spreadsheets the cause of financial crisis?
of course not...it's human choice, and the planned intentional (by some) lack of proper oversight that we all know is necessary.
you forgot your history!
obviously it was the mass rollout of telegraph technology that caused the stock market crash and lead to the Great Depression.
everyone knows this.
[/sarcasm]
TFA author is a fucking idiot. Yes an expletive is needed to properly describe his analysis and contextualization of events like the financial crisis and their causes.
Parent has it. It was unscrupulous 'finance' types who think operate under a destructive, predatory philosophy....and the lack of proper *regulation* and *oversight* that we all know is necessary.
Greed is like water, it always finds it's own bottom. **WE** define where that bottom is, by using government to define the playing field.
In the US at least, the people can change this...we can elect leaders who favor competition of ideas not a race to the bottom of a pyramid scheme.
GP is an idiot. Our resources are as abundant as ever. There are enough houses to shelter every homeless person 2x over. Food production is more efficient than ever.
It is **artificial scarcity** that creates the illusion....here in the US where I live and in most modern countries.
Now, China...they *are* having an overpopulation problem, but it is due to their government's ham-fisted policies and authoritarianism. ex: One child policy resulting in a demographic apocalypse (male to female ratio @ 60/40).
here's an idea: make an analog Polaroid instant camera that takes analog photos **AND** allows you the option to post a digital version to the social network of your choice
Yes. It was a **management** mistake based on decisions made by stock-price obsessed MBA-type leaders who were absolutely, completely disconnected from their users.
Kodak had a 'cult' favorite in the Polaroid. They discontinued it, citing the 'digital revolution', right exactly at the time when people were backlashing against digital photos and **wanted** and old-school, nostalgic analog product like the Polaroid.
Everything about Kodak's decisions was exactly backwards and wrong, and it was **MANAGEMENT** who is to blame, not some dumb notion of the internet this guy is pimping.
Article author is an idiot.
right...when I used to explain this, I introduce the sheet/marble analogy, then describe, as you did above why it's limited.
i then would tell them (students) to imagine an infinite number of sheets surrounding the ball in all directions stretching to the limits of the universe to give them a possible hint as to how it actually behaves
You're absolutely right that he could have done this anonymously (like Deep Throat w/ the Pentagon Papers), and Glenn Greenwald bears part of the responsibility. It's obvious that Honk Kong's huge propaganda posters we saw early in his international escapades were *not* put there by citizens of China. His Russian girlfriend was obviously a cover...did you see the early reporting about their relationship? It was all a sham narrative.
He probably had good intentions, but let his ego guide his choices, which **put him in a place to be blackmailed**
I think we should bring him home to the US. I *do not* consider him a hero, patriot, or 'national conversation starter', but he's not a free man in Russia.
The Patriot Act text has been publicly available since 2001 (EVERYONE ignores the Patriot Act in this whole mess!!!), and USA Today reported on the NSA metadata program **in 2006** http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm
Anyone who felt that they had digital privacy before Snowden's revelations was an idiot. No one here on slashdot felt their data was secure...just browse the 'Your Rights Online' slashdot section back to before the Patriot Act even. Just because idiot news producers were too dumb to report on privacy issues as front page news before this does not in any way justify how this went down.
I genuinely feel bad for him. In the past I could have let my hubris guide me to the same mistakes.
He's a victim of his own ego and hubris, and a victim of blackmail and espionage. We should bring him home where he belongs. I think he's probably suffered enough.
yes indeed, there very much *IS* credible evidence in virtually all ancient cultures (even China) that there was some sort of global-level flooding
to me, that's not a problem, but a potential solution.
just look at the trench in the middle of the Atlantic...IIRC the trench is still ejecting material that can be dated via it's magnetic polarity
if hydrologists and geologists found credible evidence that all of these are connected, IMHO, it wouldn't **prove** a single thing about the Bible other than it is one of many religious texts based on real events
how would that prove the Bible true or prove a 'god' exists? it wouldn't...but it would undercut those who believe they can prove a supernatural 'god' exists via (psuedo) science.
that's what kills me every time on this...science cannot prove or disprove something that is by definition (supernatural) beyond science by word of the the idea's own proponents
another interesting allegorical connection I saw recently was the theory that Homer's Odyssey is actually an allegorical history of the true discovery of North & South America
interesting stuff: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_the_Odyssey#Atlantic_Ocean_and_other_theories
we already know that there was significant pre-Columbian contact across both the South Pacific (the potoatoes don't lie), North Atlantic (Lief Erickson et. al), and via Tradewinds in the central Atlantic (Inca genetics match North Africans), and of course, the Inuit children presented in Europe in ~1000 AD
note that absolutely none of this would prove that a 'god' exists in any way
I was going to type a longer response with links where I mention things that the "fear China" crowd ignores like China has absolutely ruined their environment (have you seen the news reports on the smog?) & human population w/ the 'one child policy'...blah blah blah
parent says it more succinctly...
I appreciate your enthusiasm, for real, and I used to do intercollegiate debate so from that end I agree it could be interesting...
What gives me pause is that doing these debates just lends credence to the idea that there are two sides to the "creation debate." There is really only one side: SCIENCE.
Anything else should be reserved for religious institutions, religious studies classes, etc.
If Ken Ham or whoever thinks they have scientific proof that the entire earth was flooded in a cataclysm ~3000-4000 bp then lets **publish it in a peer reviewed research journal**
I always want to hear new ideas, but if anyone wants to use the language of science they can't pick and choose.
Also, as others have pointed out, this doesn't really seem like a "debate" rather a dog show where everyone has decided before the event which dog is their favorite, and the playing out of the actual event is more like a pep rally.
When both sides want to talk the same language and genuinely are willing to be proven wrong and change I'll be able to share your excitement.
yep, and actually in our RFP (which was allegedly a real-world RFP with company names changed that an alum gave us) it wasn't just for people who purchased something...the wireless machines were collecting data from any device that was in proximity
not that this is really a surprise to anyone here, but if Coke can do this on all their machines it would yield an astounding ammount of data
It's for wireless enabled purchases at vending machines.
I did an RFP for this in grad school. In our scenario the beverage company was working with AT&T to enable the wireless internet connection.
They'll probably "partner" with other vendors of consumer goods...whatever the marketing people come up with.
who is this "we" you mention...
it's not Slashdot, b/c Slashdot has been talking about this stuff since the Patriot Act and before...
you must be new here...privacy and government spying are one of the biggest topics on slashdot
is enough proof for anyone...did you read it?
that's why we have the Mars Rover.
Ironic, then that it was USA Today who first broke the story about NSA warrantless wiretapping and phone metadata collection ***in 2006***
NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls
From that article, again, this was REPORTED BY USATODAY IN 2006:
Snowden is a dupe at best...he's probably being blackmailed...but assuming the best, any way you look at the situation, he was duped by high-level criminals or foreign governments, or both, into doing this.
He's probably being blackmailed. He's not a free man in Russia. All the reports indicate he's essentially in jail when not being paraded in front of reporters.
Again...this info was reported by USA Today itself...in 2006...Snowden just gave operational details.
The "national conversation" about privacy could have happened w/o Snowden releasing that info. We US citizens could have demanded more transparency w/o Snowden releasing this info...
Because...we already knew it was happening. Snowden told us it was called 'Prism'
Even Senator Ron Wyden was sounding alarms on the Senate floor, before Snowden's document release....this from 2011: Senators Say Patriot Act Is Being Misinterpreted. Remember the PATRIOT ACT people?
One last time, as my first link shows, the USA Today reported on the NSA phone meta-data program with significant details **in 2006**