Sun: Ugly Computing and Declining Quality
on
The Faded Sun
·
· Score: 1, Flamebait
Sun hardware -- like that of other workstation vendors from the early nineties NeXT, HP and SGI -- used to be the absolute balls. Those machines were built like brick shithouses; you could hammer nails with an old Sun keyboard. Now, the flimsy Taiwanese crap they ship is just commodity PC junk marked up to ludicrous prices only a Lockheed Martin would pay.
Let's be honest, Sun is a deeply arrogant company and Solaris has got to be the ugliest, most antiseptic and lifeless computing experience a human being can have forced upon them. It's a chore not to go start raving insane from the cold, clinical dullness of it all.
Sun could use Apple, alright, as Apple at least makes their computers with actual human beings in mind. Sun machines feel like they're built for robot accountants.
There is simply no reason to accept this crap anymore. Like Java itself, Sun has become a bloated, self-important waste of time. Adios amigos! You will not be missed.
It's about time that the whistle was blown on this situation. Ironically, only Sun had the credibility to do so.
Java is a fine language with an great set of ready-to-use out-of-the-box classes . Unfortunately, the VM crisis and minor release incompaabilities render it USELESS for all but the most tightly controlled deployment situations. It is nearly impossible to support commerical apps on Java without torturing yourself and your customers.
What to do? Simple. Apple needs to open and get Cocoa running on Windbloze and Linux and we need to once and for all put a bullet in the head of Java as a desktop development platform.
There are so many corporate fiefdoms built on Java, of course, that this train wreck will go on for years before the final collapse. Make no mistake, however, it will collapse.
Cocoa or.Net. You decide. Java is simply not competitive. It's garbage and it's a dead end.
We Americans have unfortunately lost control of our government. As you are aware, we did not elect the current administration but it successfully seized power on a technicality. At the current time an awesome assault upon our civil liberties and economic security is taking place and is expanding. As you are also aware, this government represents a growing threat to the security of Europe as well.
We implore you, our longtime friends and allies, to help us withstand this assault until we are able to remove this government from power. Many of us are working and organizing diligently to make this happen, but we need your help. We are concerned that the coming elections in 2004 will be compromised again. We request observers from Europe be sent to monitor these elections. We request that you use your power, including veto power, in the United Nations to thwart the agenda of this administration at every turn until we have stripped them of power. We request that you work diligently to get the truth about actual threats to the security of the United States through the wall of corporate media and to her people.
Our fathers and our father's fathers worked together to stop tyranny in Europe. Now the time has come where we must ask for your help.
Sincerely, Concerned Citizens of the United States
Go into a comic shop and you'll invariably see some fifty year-old guy with a bushy mustache beind the counter. He's still stuck on 'Batman' or 'Superman'. He hates all this 'Japanese shit' but stocks it anyway out of necessity.
Truth is, this art form (graphic literature) is fucked eternally in the US by a combination of puritanism, narrow corporate control (DC, Diamond, Marvel) and creative conservatism. Imagine if rock'n'roll had stopped in 1955 and the music industry was still pushing Chuck Berry and Little Richard on kids as "the hot new thing". Hoo boy, how exciting!
Why are people looking overseas for their comics? Because the US industry is a joke.
Just remember folks, the quid pro quo announced two weeks ago between the BSA and the RIAA means that the tech giants are obligated to help the music industry defeat exactly this kind of legislation.
While bills like this are fun to read, they have effectively no chance of becoming law because the chips you buy from Apple and the salsa you buy from Adobe and Time Warner keep the the bars of your cage strong.
You have three choices: 1) Stop funding anti-human corporate monsters. 2) Eject money from politics (good luck). 3) Give up your pathetic, futile strivings for freedom and accept once and for all the yoke of your corporate masters.
I don't mind living on $10,000/year as a Sr. Software Engineer! Only thing is, when I was making $120,000/year I kinda bought a few toys on credit. I know, my bad. Didn't realize my industry would die only 18 months later.
So, I'm just going to have to go bankrupt before taking my new Bangalore-style salary. Oh yeah, my student loan? Sorry. No can pay. Ironically, Bank of America is going to have to eat alot of that. Too bad!
So as you prepare to bend me over, better check your own ass. Did I mention that I vote? All my friends too. We're edumacted, see (thanks again for those student loans BTW).
We also know how to spell "rayce to tha bottum" and we're very, very pissed off.
Hey, you're right bro. Chenge will never come. Because we all know the trend in America is towards more equitable distribution of welath -- oops, oh, dang. I mean, it's not as if globalization talks cause rioting or anything -- er. I mean, i's not as if countries are electing left wing governments because peole have had enough -- er...
Yeah, sleep tight pal, ninety-eight percent of America will gladly suffer any level of degrading misery heaped on them to keep the opulent two percent in Prada.
Don't worry. It will never happen. The bill will never come due. Enjoy. Enjoy.
Glin
Hey, this is economic warfare, right? I'm just an over-priced, lazy American software engineer. I studied at your schools and worked at your companies but no more. Tough break for me.
Except, here's the parting bombshell I'm dropping on your "globalization" party and giddy race to the bottom:
Americans without jobs - or with crappy low-paying service jobs - don't buy cars, computers, cell phone or internet services, satellite televsion systems, PVRs, PDAs, HDTVs, homes or major applicances. You want me to live like a rat and to compete with slave labor in China? What can I do?, You might want to check your market share numbers in slave labor camps, though. And I wouldn't count on those "cheap Indian programmers" picking up the slack, either.
You will never be able to make your junk cheap enough. Your markets will continue to shrink, your company to bleed, your conscience to nag at you as you try and hold it all together and justify your abject sleaziness to yourself and your family as you help destroy the social fabric of a once great nation. Tough break.
Me? Hey, I'm destitute, I can't help ya buddy. I'll be couch-surfing and hanging out at the library 'til the revolution comes to finally burn your sorry "globalized" ass to the ground.
Adios, and enjoy your moment in the sun. Really, enjoy! You've earned it. Bravo!
- Slashdot posts very important story with wholly misleading title and summary. Yes the title and summary are technically accurate, but they don't touch on (avoid?) what's really newsworthy about the event. Many in Slashdot community (more than your estimate of at most ten percent) are obviously mislead, expressing confusion and amazement at magnanimity of RIAA (your employer perchance?).
That is scrwing the pooch. Welcome for what? Up your ass, brother.
Amen brother. This is borderline the most important story to appear on Slashdot in months and the editors completely got shafted and shafted the community running it this way. As if, "oh yeah, the RIAA just threw in the towel on DRM, hmm-hmm-hmm. Funny the MPAA didn't, that's the most interesting part." Bullshit.
I think you're right, the RIAA couldn't have asked for a more "la la la nohing to see here" headline on this bombshell. Look at the amount of traffic in comparison to other stories today.
And I too noticed they changed to the story on the wire.
It's a disgrace all around.
Glin
Don't you think there is bigger news in "BSA to Help RIAA Lobby for Right to Hack" alone (set aside everything else they've been recuited to do for a second)?
Look at the subjects of what people ae posting in response, "good news", "wow", "finally". Slashdot screwed the pooch in approving this particular submission.
Glin
Will you idiots wake the fuck up! This is what the BSA has agreed to do for the RIAA:
1) Endorse hacking of computers! Yes the BSA (Microsoft, Apple, DELL, HP and Intel) will lobby congress to allow the RIAA to hack P2P networks, so long as the RIAA is "careful" about it! 2) BSA will "aggressively pursue digital pirates" on behalf of the RIAA. Now you've got Hollywood AND Silicon Valley working together to rifle through your shit! 3) The BSA will help the RIAA defeat any attempt to elucidate the fair use rights of consumers. That's right Hollywood and Silicon Valley will work together to make sure your rights are never spelled out by congress.
All of this in exchange for letting a law drop that was going to be voted down anyway! The RIAA just fucked Silicon Valley, your fair use rights and computer users everywhere in one swoop! This is GREAT news! Idiots.
This deal is a catastrophe and represents a complete cluster-fucking of America by corporate shills; you will pay dearly for it in lost freedom.
This is the worst job I've ever seen Slashdot's editors do. God damn you for spinning this as a win.
The RIAA got a lot more than the status quo! They enlisted the software and hardware manufacturers as their snoops.
Don't read the New York Times whitewash. Read the AP article (which has been changed because the first draft on the wire was a total PR fiasco) but it does talk about what the BSA is obligated to do for the RIAA now:
"These technology companies, including Microsoft Corp., IBM, Intel Corp. and Dell Computer Corp., also pledged support Tuesday for aggressive enforcement against digital pirates."
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Down loading-Music.html
"Digital Pirates" - aka America
"aggressively pursue digital pirates". This of course was a PR disaster so this story changed 30 minutes ago!
The NY Times article I sent Slashdot has been deleted.
That's it, I'm fsking prinitng everything that shows up the NYTimes with some new outrage. This is/not/ good news, all it means is that Hollywood and Silicon Valley have reached a dirty deal to turn your computer into a fink.
Glin
Yep, thought of this great title for a YRO April Fool's Day spoof. Too lazy to write the actual article, so I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.
Please. Ever seen a video game as violent as 'Scarface'? What would happen if a mainstream video game came out with virtual sex as hot as in '9 1/2 Weeks'? You would see politicians lining up from here to Zimbabwe to condemn it. Stores would fall all over themselves to be the first to refuse to carry it.
Expect video games to continue to be scape-goated on TV, in magazines and in newspapers as their content matures and they begin to encroach more and more upon the domain of Hollywood (aka Sex and Violence'R'Us) and as more of our entertainment dollars go to game publishers rather than movie studios.
Games are threatening Hollywood's control over the cultural discourse and as ever that cannot not be tolerated (at least until control of video game production, promotion and distribution is safely nestled in Hollywood hands).
When Hollywood controls video gaming, then and only then will it be recognized as 'art'. Then and only then will the sex and violence flow like honey and not a word will be raised against it.
Bruce Sterling:
I find it useful to think of Bruce Sterling as a contemporary Mark Twain. His keynotes at various tech and design conferences are always hysterically funny and inspiring. His short stories are also top drawer. I agree that his novels are hard work, though, with perhaps only 'Holy Fire' rating as truly excellent. I'd recommend all Slashdotters with any design/environmental interest at all join his Viridian mailing list.
Gibson:
I always find the weakest part of Gibson's work to be the OTT violence and happy-face Hollywood endings. The writing is so beautiful I can forgive the guy anything, though. All three of the 'Sprawl' trilogy are truly great books. The 'Bridge' trilogy is maybe more exciting to think about (nanotech, virtual pop stars made flesh etc) than to actually read. It's pretty patchy stuff and you often feel like you're being strung along. Wish he still wrote short stories but I haven't heard tell of a new one in a long time.
Sterling/Gibson/Cyberpunk in 2003:
These guys are aging pretty gracefully considering how badly they could have been smeared when cyberpunk flamed out. I think they also set the bar pretty high for the next generation of writers and I'm not sure someone like Neal Stephenson has advanced the state of the art very much.
I'm basically happy these two brilliant, thoughtful, talented guys are still working and trying to help us come to grips with it all.
Slashdot Mirror
Sun hardware -- like that of other workstation vendors from the early nineties NeXT, HP and SGI -- used to be the absolute balls. Those machines were built like brick shithouses; you could hammer nails with an old Sun keyboard. Now, the flimsy Taiwanese crap they ship is just commodity PC junk marked up to ludicrous prices only a Lockheed Martin would pay.
Let's be honest, Sun is a deeply arrogant company and Solaris has got to be the ugliest, most antiseptic and lifeless computing experience a human being can have forced upon them. It's a chore not to go start raving insane from the cold, clinical dullness of it all.
Sun could use Apple, alright, as Apple at least makes their computers with actual human beings in mind. Sun machines feel like they're built for robot accountants.
There is simply no reason to accept this crap anymore. Like Java itself, Sun has become a bloated, self-important waste of time. Adios amigos! You will not be missed.
NeXT!
Glin
It's about time that the whistle was blown on this situation. Ironically, only Sun had the credibility to do so.
.Net. You decide. Java is simply not competitive. It's garbage and it's a dead end.
Java is a fine language with an great set of ready-to-use out-of-the-box classes . Unfortunately, the VM crisis and minor release incompaabilities render it USELESS for all but the most tightly controlled deployment situations. It is nearly impossible to support commerical apps on Java without torturing yourself and your customers.
What to do? Simple. Apple needs to open and get Cocoa running on Windbloze and Linux and we need to once and for all put a bullet in the head of Java as a desktop development platform.
There are so many corporate fiefdoms built on Java, of course, that this train wreck will go on for years before the final collapse. Make no mistake, however, it will collapse.
Cocoa or
Glin
Dear European Friends:
We Americans have unfortunately lost control of our government. As you are aware, we did not elect the current administration but it successfully seized power on a technicality. At the current time an awesome assault upon our civil liberties and economic security is taking place and is expanding. As you are also aware, this government represents a growing threat to the security of Europe as well.
We implore you, our longtime friends and allies, to help us withstand this assault until we are able to remove this government from power. Many of us are working and organizing diligently to make this happen, but we need your help. We are concerned that the coming elections in 2004 will be compromised again. We request observers from Europe be sent to monitor these elections. We request that you use your power, including veto power, in the United Nations to thwart the agenda of this administration at every turn until we have stripped them of power. We request that you work diligently to get the truth about actual threats to the security of the United States through the wall of corporate media and to her people.
Our fathers and our father's fathers worked together to stop tyranny in Europe. Now the time has come where we must ask for your help.
Sincerely,
Concerned Citizens of the United States
Go into a comic shop and you'll invariably see some fifty year-old guy with a bushy mustache beind the counter. He's still stuck on 'Batman' or 'Superman'. He hates all this 'Japanese shit' but stocks it anyway out of necessity.
Truth is, this art form (graphic literature) is fucked eternally in the US by a combination of puritanism, narrow corporate control (DC, Diamond, Marvel) and creative conservatism. Imagine if rock'n'roll had stopped in 1955 and the music industry was still pushing Chuck Berry and Little Richard on kids as "the hot new thing". Hoo boy, how exciting!
Why are people looking overseas for their comics? Because the US industry is a joke.
Glin
Just remember folks, the quid pro quo announced two weeks ago between the BSA and the RIAA means that the tech giants are obligated to help the music industry defeat exactly this kind of legislation.
While bills like this are fun to read, they have effectively no chance of becoming law because the chips you buy from Apple and the salsa you buy from Adobe and Time Warner keep the the bars of your cage strong.
You have three choices:
1) Stop funding anti-human corporate monsters.
2) Eject money from politics (good luck).
3) Give up your pathetic, futile strivings for freedom and accept once and for all the yoke of your corporate masters.
- Glin
Hey fellas don't drink that coffee! There's a fish. In the percolator!
- Glin
I don't mind living on $10,000/year as a Sr. Software Engineer! Only thing is, when I was making $120,000/year I kinda bought a few toys on credit. I know, my bad. Didn't realize my industry would die only 18 months later.
So, I'm just going to have to go bankrupt before taking my new Bangalore-style salary. Oh yeah, my student loan? Sorry. No can pay. Ironically, Bank of America is going to have to eat alot of that. Too bad!
So as you prepare to bend me over, better check your own ass. Did I mention that I vote? All my friends too. We're edumacted, see (thanks again for those student loans BTW).
We also know how to spell "rayce to tha bottum" and we're very, very pissed off.
Bye bye.
Glin
Hey, you're right bro. Chenge will never come. Because we all know the trend in America is towards more equitable distribution of welath -- oops, oh, dang. I mean, it's not as if globalization talks cause rioting or anything -- er. I mean, i's not as if countries are electing left wing governments because peole have had enough -- er... Yeah, sleep tight pal, ninety-eight percent of America will gladly suffer any level of degrading misery heaped on them to keep the opulent two percent in Prada. Don't worry. It will never happen. The bill will never come due. Enjoy. Enjoy. Glin
Hey, this is economic warfare, right? I'm just an over-priced, lazy American software engineer. I studied at your schools and worked at your companies but no more. Tough break for me.
Except, here's the parting bombshell I'm dropping on your "globalization" party and giddy race to the bottom:
Americans without jobs - or with crappy low-paying service jobs - don't buy cars, computers, cell phone or internet services, satellite televsion systems, PVRs, PDAs, HDTVs, homes or major applicances. You want me to live like a rat and to compete with slave labor in China? What can I do?, You might want to check your market share numbers in slave labor camps, though. And I wouldn't count on those "cheap Indian programmers" picking up the slack, either.
You will never be able to make your junk cheap enough. Your markets will continue to shrink, your company to bleed, your conscience to nag at you as you try and hold it all together and justify your abject sleaziness to yourself and your family as you help destroy the social fabric of a once great nation. Tough break.
Me? Hey, I'm destitute, I can't help ya buddy. I'll be couch-surfing and hanging out at the library 'til the revolution comes to finally burn your sorry "globalized" ass to the ground.
Adios, and enjoy your moment in the sun. Really, enjoy! You've earned it. Bravo!
Glin
Let's summarize:
- Slashdot posts very important story with wholly misleading title and summary. Yes the title and summary are technically accurate, but they don't touch on (avoid?) what's really newsworthy about the event. Many in Slashdot community (more than your estimate of at most ten percent) are obviously mislead, expressing confusion and amazement at magnanimity of RIAA (your employer perchance?).
That is scrwing the pooch. Welcome for what? Up your ass, brother.
Glin
Amen brother. This is borderline the most important story to appear on Slashdot in months and the editors completely got shafted and shafted the community running it this way. As if, "oh yeah, the RIAA just threw in the towel on DRM, hmm-hmm-hmm. Funny the MPAA didn't, that's the most interesting part." Bullshit. I think you're right, the RIAA couldn't have asked for a more "la la la nohing to see here" headline on this bombshell. Look at the amount of traffic in comparison to other stories today. And I too noticed they changed to the story on the wire. It's a disgrace all around. Glin
Don't you think there is bigger news in "BSA to Help RIAA Lobby for Right to Hack" alone (set aside everything else they've been recuited to do for a second)? Look at the subjects of what people ae posting in response, "good news", "wow", "finally". Slashdot screwed the pooch in approving this particular submission. Glin
Will you idiots wake the fuck up! This is what the BSA has agreed to do for the RIAA:
1) Endorse hacking of computers! Yes the BSA (Microsoft, Apple, DELL, HP and Intel) will lobby congress to allow the RIAA to hack P2P networks, so long as the RIAA is "careful" about it!
2) BSA will "aggressively pursue digital pirates" on behalf of the RIAA. Now you've got Hollywood AND Silicon Valley working together to rifle through your shit!
3) The BSA will help the RIAA defeat any attempt to elucidate the fair use rights of consumers. That's right Hollywood and Silicon Valley will work together to make sure your rights are never spelled out by congress.
All of this in exchange for letting a law drop that was going to be voted down anyway! The RIAA just fucked Silicon Valley, your fair use rights and computer users everywhere in one swoop! This is GREAT news! Idiots.
This deal is a catastrophe and represents a complete cluster-fucking of America by corporate shills; you will pay dearly for it in lost freedom.
This is the worst job I've ever seen Slashdot's editors do. God damn you for spinning this as a win.
Glin
The RIAA got a lot more than the status quo! They enlisted the software and hardware manufacturers as their snoops.
o wn loading-Music.html
Don't read the New York Times whitewash. Read the AP article (which has been changed because the first draft on the wire was a total PR fiasco) but it does talk about what the BSA is obligated to do for the RIAA now:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-D
Glin
"These technology companies, including Microsoft Corp., IBM, Intel Corp. and Dell Computer Corp., also pledged support Tuesday for aggressive enforcement against digital pirates." http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Down loading-Music.html
"Digital Pirates" - aka America
"aggressively pursue digital pirates". This of course was a PR disaster so this story changed 30 minutes ago! The NY Times article I sent Slashdot has been deleted. That's it, I'm fsking prinitng everything that shows up the NYTimes with some new outrage. This is /not/ good news, all it means is that Hollywood and Silicon Valley have reached a dirty deal to turn your computer into a fink.
Glin
That's it, I'm going back to school... Glin, 37 Years Old and Partyin' Hard!
Yep, thought of this great title for a YRO April Fool's Day spoof. Too lazy to write the actual article, so I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.
Glin
Please. Ever seen a video game as violent as 'Scarface'? What would happen if a mainstream video game came out with virtual sex as hot as in '9 1/2 Weeks'? You would see politicians lining up from here to Zimbabwe to condemn it. Stores would fall all over themselves to be the first to refuse to carry it.
Expect video games to continue to be scape-goated on TV, in magazines and in newspapers as their content matures and they begin to encroach more and more upon the domain of Hollywood (aka Sex and Violence'R'Us) and as more of our entertainment dollars go to game publishers rather than movie studios.
Games are threatening Hollywood's control over the cultural discourse and as ever that cannot not be tolerated (at least until control of video game production, promotion and distribution is safely nestled in Hollywood hands).
When Hollywood controls video gaming, then and only then will it be recognized as 'art'. Then and only then will the sex and violence flow like honey and not a word will be raised against it.
Glin
Bruce Sterling:
I find it useful to think of Bruce Sterling as a contemporary Mark Twain. His keynotes at various tech and design conferences are always hysterically funny and inspiring. His short stories are also top drawer. I agree that his novels are hard work, though, with perhaps only 'Holy Fire' rating as truly excellent. I'd recommend all Slashdotters with any design/environmental interest at all join his Viridian mailing list.
Gibson:
I always find the weakest part of Gibson's work to be the OTT violence and happy-face Hollywood endings. The writing is so beautiful I can forgive the guy anything, though. All three of the 'Sprawl' trilogy are truly great books. The 'Bridge' trilogy is maybe more exciting to think about (nanotech, virtual pop stars made flesh etc) than to actually read. It's pretty patchy stuff and you often feel like you're being strung along. Wish he still wrote short stories but I haven't heard tell of a new one in a long time.
Sterling/Gibson/Cyberpunk in 2003:
These guys are aging pretty gracefully considering how badly they could have been smeared when cyberpunk flamed out. I think they also set the bar pretty high for the next generation of writers and I'm not sure someone like Neal Stephenson has advanced the state of the art very much.
I'm basically happy these two brilliant, thoughtful, talented guys are still working and trying to help us come to grips with it all.
Glin,
Closet Cyberpunk 4ever