You make good points. If you look at all the great SciFi writers of the golden age, they cut their teeth on horrible 'pulp' rags - that the same arguments for plausability and social commentary would similarly fail. Yet these stories fired the imaginations of these budding artists and helped lead to an amazing surge in creativity and the solid establishment of the genre in the mainstream.
All great stories are about characters (humanoid or otherwise), and plot (for example, a Dyson sphere while possible, is not really plausible - yet would make an interesting story for all that if we were to focus on the struggle to build it and sacrifices made; social commentary is an option, not a prerequisite). Plot always has introduction, conflict and resolution. The really great stories carry you along from the first word to the last as if in a basket floating down a river -- calm water gives way to rapids, then a mist shrouded lake - or a water fall!
This is why I've always liked Bradbury - one of my first SciFi books was 'Martian Chronicles' - and for me, as many times as I read it, it is always a page turner. Complex, nuanced, characterization, and neuron firing, scalp tingling stories. If I don't feel something when I read a story - then the writer hasn't done his job. SciFi by its very nature must cast an eye towards the distant horizon where magic waits, and in so doing fire the imagination and wonder of the reader.
...2) Moral justification for the Humans: Unobtainium is necessary to....(fill in the blank), do something to save Earth or its population from massive death and destruction that is within 100 years, and not a reason based solely on man's greed and indifference.
I don't think that was necessary at all. Think about the 'unobtainium' in reference to the Vietnam war (French rubber plantations) and our continuing involvement in the Middle East (oil fields). In Avatar no clear reason was given - but does there need to be aside from economic gain/feeding the production of consumer goods? To me that was a far more realistic view of the situation, and provides the right level of moral ambiguity to the human's exploitation of the resources at the expense of the native flora and fauna.
A deeper storyline would have been suppression of the Na'vi to the point where their human benefactors are forced off world - back to earth, and their struggle to get the average 'joe/jane' on the street to understand what their lifestyle decisions were causing to happen in their name. Their indifference or conversely their willingness to change their consumption patterns would be a stronger message of hope/despair for mankind than the localized 'win' for the Na'vi.
You young whipper snapper with your 8086 and Five MHZ ---
My first computer was a Texas Instruments TI 99/a 16 bit and THREE Mhz with 16 K of ram. Before that I had a programmable HP calculator - technically a computer which was even less capable.
You are right - tech today seems like super computers in comparison. Funny though - everything seems to run slower...
I happen to have been a unix administrator, developer, and most recently an architect. I've used just about every type of computer system you can imagine from the 1970s to the present. I've assembled the parts and built and upgraded many machines over the years.
Today, I reserve Linux for my servers - and prefer OSX (and looking forward to the iPad) for my personal laptop and related personal devices are concerned (I see the iPad as an extension of my Macbook Pro....it doesn't need to duplicate the functionality because I don't need to lug (yet another) fully functional laptop around for my personal stuff (I carry 2 laptops back and forth for my job now as it is) - I just want access to some key information, email, web, and other stuff that I am interested in (ebooks) and sync that with my laptop at home. From that perspective, the iPad is not sub-functional to me.
I would say that all the netbooks and laptops that I've lugged around over the years are over-functional for what I really want for my personal stuff at work, on a business trip or on the bus. I want something as small as a legal pad that I can tote around to meetings or whip out while traveling and entertain myself with, or find information I need. For me, the netbook/laptop is too much for that simple task (and not really portable for all that).
So - before making such broad assumptions, a person should preface them with "as for myself..." or "I believe..." etc. Readers will appreciate your deeper understanding of reality - instead of an overly simplified binary interpretation of the universe, which implies an overly simple mind.
I think it is obvious there is a larger pattern here.
'Content providers' - music companies, movie companies, game companies, TV/entertainment companies, book publishers (really any business involving creating and delivering bits) - were hit hard when the internet allowed people to share the content between themselves. Napster, BitTorrent, et al have given people a taste for free/cheap content, and as a result the genie is out of the bottle.
We are shifting from a centralized market to a decentralized market. The established 'producers' do not want the consumers to also become producers themselves - yet due to their actions (trying to put the genie back into the bottle as it were) - they are making it more and more desirable for the consumers to take matters into their own hands. Be it indie record labels, shoestring DIY movie makers, youtubers, and others, they are all on the leading edge of this wave.
This has caused overall profits in most of these industries to drop, as 'consumers' are now not willing to pay premium prices (e.g. to buy a whole album of songs - of which one or two are worth listening to, buy a hard cover book, when they would rather have an eBook - so they can take their whole library with them) - instead desiring smaller units at a more reasonable prices. As a result many so-called 'industries' are trying to figure out how to monetize the new medium...'software as a service' and subscription services seem like a plausible solution - but these companies have to realize that the quality of the experience has to be worth the cost to the consumer or they will go elsewhere. With technology changing and the capabilities of various software and hardware tools improving to the point where anyone can afford to produce 'professional' quality movies, games, music and other applications, the companies that specialize in those fields will have to either find compelling reasons to have consumers pay for something that can be found for free or very cheap.
We are in the middle of a sea-change. When it is over, the business landscape will not look the same as it did in the last century. For starters there will be more cottage industry since the infrastructure needed to do high quality work - particularly in areas that primarily create/manipulate bits - will be minimal and available to almost anyone. The entertainment industry, publishing, gaming, and software industries will be drastically altered. What does survive will have compelling content/technologies that make people want to pony up the cash to gain access. All the rest will be decentralized, cheap and highly available.
You don't even have to have a dusty (albeit running) machine: download and install a C64 emulator or other emulators for similar machines of that vein (TI99s, Atari 400/800/XL etc...)
I'm in the same boat - I lug two Dell laptops back and forth to work on the bus, and on business trips in a backpack. I tried putting my personal MacBook Pro in and lugging that along too....but it quickly got old. The bag was too heavy, because I was not only carrying the laptop, but also the power cord adapter because my MacBook Pro's battery only lasts about 1.5 hours (it is a couple of years old now).
I switched to a netbook (got an ASUS Linux model for pretty cheap), but while not as heavy as the MacBook, it was thicker - and kind of lumpy/misshapen in the bag, the seemingly postage stamp size screen was next to impossible to read when sitting on my lap and bouncing around on the bus, and I would make frequent typos/clicko-s when trying to type or use the mouse pad. While it had a better battery life (about 3.5 hours) than the MacBook - I still had to lug along the power adapter if I intended to use it significantly during the day.
With the iPad - I'm jazzed because it will replace not only my netbook (for what I was using it for), but also my MP3 player (which also gets lugged along with all the other stuff). Battery life is phenomenal if true, and as a result it would be something I would keep by my side and use the hell out of.
As if that weren't enough, I'll also use the thing to collect all the stuff I want immediate access to on a daily basis - books, images, documents etc... Like having a library in your hands. With powerful search indexing via Spotlight it will be better than a library or stacks of books - because it will go with me wherever I go and allow me to quickly access what I need at any given moment. A true digital asistant - what my old Casio and Palm machines attempted to be, but failed miserably.
On top of that, the entertainment possibilities are way better than what could be had using my netbook: fictional books, music, movies and video games using the unique interface that I can see bringing me back to portable gaming (I was one of the kids who had that Mattel LED football game back in the day, and that was the last time I really spent any significant time with portable games).
For Tweeners like myself, this thing could be the perfect niche device.
... itunes is a completely closed ecosystem. the app store is locked down. their media devices don't use open formats.
I can burn MP3s from my CD collection (on a Linux machine or Windows box) and play them on iTunes anywhere (on my Mac, iPad etc). How is that a closed ecosystem?
I lug around 2 laptops already for my work (Linux and Windows); on those I have all the programming tools and other cruft I need to get the job done.
I bought a netbook running Linux and started lugging it around too-- but that also meant an additional charger and cables etc for my personal stuff (mostly notes, pics, some games etc). I also have a nice MP3 player I lug around in that bag too.
In my travels I have found that the netbook has some severe limitations: it can't be used effectively in transit (the postage stamp size screen is too small to effectively see on the bus when it in motion - I'm old and use reading glasses - so sue me), the keyboard is way too small for my meat hooks, and reading on it is impossible (a la Kindal(sic)) and titles unavailable for the most part (unless I want to only read Project Gutenberg). Battery life, while longer than my laptops, is nowhere near 'all day'.
Enter the iPad. The screen is large - no almost useless tiny keyboard intruding on the space (the keyboard only appears when needed); I can play music, read books (build a library of them for fast reference or pleasure when I have to spend time waiting), and do the things I originally set out using the netbook for. I can sync it with my home machine to upload music, files, calendar etc, and the battery life is way longer than anything else I have access to.
So I am replacing my thicker/heavier netbook, *and* my MP3 player with this thinner/lighter iPad that will do everything those can do, and then some (when you take into account the unique interface, the ibook store, etc etc). I won't be getting the 3G enabled version - I don't use apps where I need to be always connected, and I also anticipate the 3G network coming to it's knees when this enters the wild anyway. While convenient, not necessary for my usage patterns. Overall a WIN-WIN for me.
So - the object lesson here is 'there is not one single best thing for every person'. So what? That doesn't negate its utility to someone else with different requirements. Your statement "...it isn't so much a step backwards as a step nowhere" is unsupportable given the facts.
Fanbois/Antifanbois -- they are both different sides of the same coin.
As long as there is a need and a demand for general purpose computing devices (and there is a large demand outside of consumer electronics), manufacturers will continue to make them.
Additionally, time and time again we've seen the ingenuity of people to get around limitations imposed by certain systems (*cough*iPhone*cough*).
So reality is not as horrible a picture as you are painting for us.
Care to point me in the direction of any women who have managed to make General, in any branch of service? Last I checked, there were none. So women may be in the military, but they either lack the same potential as men -- or environmental factors are holding them back. Which one do you suppose it is?
I've been a Dos/Windows user/owner for over 20 years, every version from Dos 3.X to Windows 7 (including ME - ugh...). I've also used/owned Apple machines from the Apple II to the original Mac and now the newer iMAC, MacBook and MacBook Pro. I also have loaded and used Linux in various flavors since the early 90s shortly after the first distros became available (Slackware, TurboLinux et al to Ubuntu most recently).
First I want to say that all this arguing about what is 'best' is really a personal preference. There is no 'one true OS' in any real quantitative sense. Given the right (right for YOU) combination of OS and hardware any of the operating systems I listed above will be right for you.
That being said, FOR ME - I find the Apple OSX interface to be the most intuitive/pleasurable to use; I also like the integration between the hardware and the OS - more things 'just work' than on other operating systems. That said, the drawback is your hardware is NOT going to be the most bleeding edge gaming rig class system on the planet; but for music, video, authoring, editing of all the above, and other mundane tasks it has the right selection of tools and interfaces that is 'just right' (Goldilocks reference notwithstanding).
Now -- for Hosting server side applications - I find Linux to be far superior to either Apple or Windows. A beowulf cluster of Apple machines is too painful to contemplate from a monetary perspective; all that UI goodness is essentially wasted in a server. Windows is too flakey (even the latest Win7) for production quality installations - and the number of machines required makes it more costly as well - except in some specialized niches where the service being provided is not available under Linux or Mac (exceptional cases only - and I avoid those if at all possible).
Finally -- I do use Windows 7 for gaming. It is certainly better than XP in that regard and more stable. There are more game titles for Windows than the Mac - another key point. However I don't trust Windows with key applications because I've had too many bad experiences, not only with the desktop versions, but also their server versions - more so than with any other OS. As a result I think of Windows as a 'toy' designed by comittee, it doesn't do anything (aside from gaming) very well. For my critical applications - 'mediocre' is not good enough.
So to your point, from my experience, there is no one 'best' OS for all things; they all excel in different areas - and picking the right one for the right reasons is the best policy.
Plus add: Handwriting recognition - a la 'Newton' Longer battery life.
Then I will use the hell out of it. I don't want to carry around a laptop, cell phone, MP3/Movie player, and a paper notepad (for those time I need to scrawl something quick or when typing in a meeting is too distracting - or I want to draw a friggin' picture/diagram! [drawing with a mouse or touch pad on a laptop is epic fail])
You forget their trump card - the Apple Newton's handwriting recognition software; Newton lovers for years have been calling for Apple to release the Newton OS (including the handwriting recognition embedded in it) into the wild to keep their beloved Newtons running on new hardware as the old machines expire. Apple continued to refuse on this issue.
Enter the new tablet. As a result I am hoping and praying that the handwriting recognition on the thing will be a juiced up version of the auto-learning handwriting recognition software from the ancient Newton. Processing power and memory availability would make that work even better than it did ~20 years ago (when even given the limits of available processing power/memory it did an amazing job to learn/decode MOST people's scrawls).
If that were the case, then it could very well serve as a writing instrument that could decode my scribbles. Add Iphone capability (accessed through a bluetooth headset), and I would pay for that - and use the hell out of it.
elrouse0 -- Your description is EXACTLY how IT works now where I work.
Their projects are defined by:
Will not do 'small' projects that do not bring in 'revenue' (even though we are all on the same team). Relies on a pure 'waterfall' lifecycle model - highlighted by 'big design up front', little flexibility to change in mid stream as the business changes, and 'deliverables' that they turn over to the 'production' team and walk away from. Changes require the whole process to be started all over - and no one from the original development team is assigned to do the modification work - so the changes take forever, cost too much, and are largely irrelevant when the window of opportunity they were meant to address is lost when the 'deliverable' is released to the users.
I read the article, and I don't think that is his message. He is saying to remove the 'project' mentality (where you deliver and walk away) and instead peer with the people you are providing services to to really get behind what they *really* need (not what they think they want without knowledge of what is possible with current technology) - and then go about providing that *over the long term*.
Short term thinking leads to: Software as a 'product' with a finite 'deliverable' that is then walked away from (onto the next project). Short term cost 'savings' that really end up costing more in the long run (out sourcing). IT as a revenue generating entity that has to 'make a profit' by acquiring more 'projects' and headcount.
Long term thinking would provide: Software as an iterative 'entity' that is constantly changing to meet the needs of the business. Long term cost savings by investing the right amount *now* to get the correct tools and services into the hands of your employees to make them *most* efficient early rather than late (so they can take advantage of limited windows of opportunity). IT as a distributed part of the organization with deep knowledge of the systems they iteratively manage.
Having been the recipient of IT's 'customer service' for many years - and having seen organizations large and small within the company set up their own ad-hoc development teams under the guise of 'operations' to supply what IT won't, I can identify directly with what the author is saying in the article.
I think they **are** your customer in one respect: customer service.
The phrase, "the customer is always right" is spot on if you understand that you are not just providing a 'deliverable' that you can walk away from - but instead view it as an iterative service that has to change and flex as the needs of your business require over time. You are there to serve the needs of the business - *not* aggrandize your department, and build an empire at its expense.
Anyone who's examined lifecycle models and seen the fallacy of the pure waterfall method (software as 'product') within a company, gets it. The most effective software is a living breathing entity with no definitive obsolescence date; if managed properly, can be useful indefinitely.
Microsoft's business model should not be the model emulated by internal IT development.
What is needed is what 'extreme programming' and 'interative programming' lifecycle models and work processes try to capture: you are shooting a moving target and must continue to adjust your aim to allow your services to remain relevant to the business/company you support is it changes to survive in a competitive environment.
If you fail, it will impact the ability of your company to succeed - and I would go further and say that your failure will not only impact the shareholder but also the customers who depend upon the products and services provided by your company because **they** will bear the burden (less than ideal user experience, more costly products and services etc).
Slashdot Mirror
You make good points. If you look at all the great SciFi writers of the golden age, they cut their teeth on horrible 'pulp' rags - that the same arguments for plausability and social commentary would similarly fail. Yet these stories fired the imaginations of these budding artists and helped lead to an amazing surge in creativity and the solid establishment of the genre in the mainstream.
All great stories are about characters (humanoid or otherwise), and plot (for example, a Dyson sphere while possible, is not really plausible - yet would make an interesting story for all that if we were to focus on the struggle to build it and sacrifices made; social commentary is an option, not a prerequisite). Plot always has introduction, conflict and resolution. The really great stories carry you along from the first word to the last as if in a basket floating down a river -- calm water gives way to rapids, then a mist shrouded lake - or a water fall!
This is why I've always liked Bradbury - one of my first SciFi books was 'Martian Chronicles' - and for me, as many times as I read it, it is always a page turner. Complex, nuanced, characterization, and neuron firing, scalp tingling stories. If I don't feel something when I read a story - then the writer hasn't done his job. SciFi by its very nature must cast an eye towards the distant horizon where magic waits, and in so doing fire the imagination and wonder of the reader.
...2) Moral justification for the Humans: Unobtainium is necessary to....(fill in the blank), do something to save Earth or its population from massive death and destruction that is within 100 years, and not a reason based solely on man's greed and indifference.
I don't think that was necessary at all. Think about the 'unobtainium' in reference to the Vietnam war (French rubber plantations) and our continuing involvement in the Middle East (oil fields). In Avatar no clear reason was given - but does there need to be aside from economic gain/feeding the production of consumer goods? To me that was a far more realistic view of the situation, and provides the right level of moral ambiguity to the human's exploitation of the resources at the expense of the native flora and fauna.
A deeper storyline would have been suppression of the Na'vi to the point where their human benefactors are forced off world - back to earth, and their struggle to get the average 'joe/jane' on the street to understand what their lifestyle decisions were causing to happen in their name. Their indifference or conversely their willingness to change their consumption patterns would be a stronger message of hope/despair for mankind than the localized 'win' for the Na'vi.
You young whipper snapper with your 8086 and Five MHZ ---
My first computer was a Texas Instruments TI 99/a 16 bit and THREE Mhz with 16 K of ram. Before that I had a programmable HP calculator - technically a computer which was even less capable.
You are right - tech today seems like super computers in comparison. Funny though - everything seems to run slower...
Is it just me, or doesn't that look like the interior of a Tie-Fighter?
Scouts Out! ;)
Back Up Your Data.
Duh.
mano.m - you're using a very wide brush there.
I happen to have been a unix administrator, developer, and most recently an architect. I've used just about every type of computer system you can imagine from the 1970s to the present. I've assembled the parts and built and upgraded many machines over the years.
Today, I reserve Linux for my servers - and prefer OSX (and looking forward to the iPad) for my personal laptop and related personal devices are concerned (I see the iPad as an extension of my Macbook Pro....it doesn't need to duplicate the functionality because I don't need to lug (yet another) fully functional laptop around for my personal stuff (I carry 2 laptops back and forth for my job now as it is) - I just want access to some key information, email, web, and other stuff that I am interested in (ebooks) and sync that with my laptop at home. From that perspective, the iPad is not sub-functional to me.
I would say that all the netbooks and laptops that I've lugged around over the years are over-functional for what I really want for my personal stuff at work, on a business trip or on the bus. I want something as small as a legal pad that I can tote around to meetings or whip out while traveling and entertain myself with, or find information I need. For me, the netbook/laptop is too much for that simple task (and not really portable for all that).
So - before making such broad assumptions, a person should preface them with "as for myself..." or "I believe..." etc. Readers will appreciate your deeper understanding of reality - instead of an overly simplified binary interpretation of the universe, which implies an overly simple mind.
I think it is obvious there is a larger pattern here.
'Content providers' - music companies, movie companies, game companies, TV/entertainment companies, book publishers (really any business involving creating and delivering bits) - were hit hard when the internet allowed people to share the content between themselves. Napster, BitTorrent, et al have given people a taste for free/cheap content, and as a result the genie is out of the bottle.
We are shifting from a centralized market to a decentralized market. The established 'producers' do not want the consumers to also become producers themselves - yet due to their actions (trying to put the genie back into the bottle as it were) - they are making it more and more desirable for the consumers to take matters into their own hands. Be it indie record labels, shoestring DIY movie makers, youtubers, and others, they are all on the leading edge of this wave.
This has caused overall profits in most of these industries to drop, as 'consumers' are now not willing to pay premium prices (e.g. to buy a whole album of songs - of which one or two are worth listening to, buy a hard cover book, when they would rather have an eBook - so they can take their whole library with them) - instead desiring smaller units at a more reasonable prices. As a result many so-called 'industries' are trying to figure out how to monetize the new medium...'software as a service' and subscription services seem like a plausible solution - but these companies have to realize that the quality of the experience has to be worth the cost to the consumer or they will go elsewhere. With technology changing and the capabilities of various software and hardware tools improving to the point where anyone can afford to produce 'professional' quality movies, games, music and other applications, the companies that specialize in those fields will have to either find compelling reasons to have consumers pay for something that can be found for free or very cheap.
We are in the middle of a sea-change. When it is over, the business landscape will not look the same as it did in the last century. For starters there will be more cottage industry since the infrastructure needed to do high quality work - particularly in areas that primarily create/manipulate bits - will be minimal and available to almost anyone. The entertainment industry, publishing, gaming, and software industries will be drastically altered. What does survive will have compelling content/technologies that make people want to pony up the cash to gain access. All the rest will be decentralized, cheap and highly available.
You don't even have to have a dusty (albeit running) machine: download and install a C64 emulator or other emulators for similar machines of that vein (TI99s, Atari 400/800/XL etc...)
I'm in the same boat - I lug two Dell laptops back and forth to work on the bus, and on business trips in a backpack. I tried putting my personal MacBook Pro in and lugging that along too....but it quickly got old. The bag was too heavy, because I was not only carrying the laptop, but also the power cord adapter because my MacBook Pro's battery only lasts about 1.5 hours (it is a couple of years old now).
I switched to a netbook (got an ASUS Linux model for pretty cheap), but while not as heavy as the MacBook, it was thicker - and kind of lumpy/misshapen in the bag, the seemingly postage stamp size screen was next to impossible to read when sitting on my lap and bouncing around on the bus, and I would make frequent typos/clicko-s when trying to type or use the mouse pad. While it had a better battery life (about 3.5 hours) than the MacBook - I still had to lug along the power adapter if I intended to use it significantly during the day.
With the iPad - I'm jazzed because it will replace not only my netbook (for what I was using it for), but also my MP3 player (which also gets lugged along with all the other stuff). Battery life is phenomenal if true, and as a result it would be something I would keep by my side and use the hell out of.
As if that weren't enough, I'll also use the thing to collect all the stuff I want immediate access to on a daily basis - books, images, documents etc... Like having a library in your hands. With powerful search indexing via Spotlight it will be better than a library or stacks of books - because it will go with me wherever I go and allow me to quickly access what I need at any given moment. A true digital asistant - what my old Casio and Palm machines attempted to be, but failed miserably.
On top of that, the entertainment possibilities are way better than what could be had using my netbook: fictional books, music, movies and video games using the unique interface that I can see bringing me back to portable gaming (I was one of the kids who had that Mattel LED football game back in the day, and that was the last time I really spent any significant time with portable games).
For Tweeners like myself, this thing could be the perfect niche device.
Because you can hack around the feature makes the problem ok?
There, I fixed that for you.
... itunes is a completely closed ecosystem. the app store is locked down. their media devices don't use open formats.
I can burn MP3s from my CD collection (on a Linux machine or Windows box) and play them on iTunes anywhere (on my Mac, iPad etc). How is that a closed ecosystem?
In response to Shivetya's (parent) post:
I lug around 2 laptops already for my work (Linux and Windows); on those I have all the programming tools and other cruft I need to get the job done.
I bought a netbook running Linux and started lugging it around too-- but that also meant an additional charger and cables etc for my personal stuff (mostly notes, pics, some games etc). I also have a nice MP3 player I lug around in that bag too.
In my travels I have found that the netbook has some severe limitations: it can't be used effectively in transit (the postage stamp size screen is too small to effectively see on the bus when it in motion - I'm old and use reading glasses - so sue me), the keyboard is way too small for my meat hooks, and reading on it is impossible (a la Kindal(sic)) and titles unavailable for the most part (unless I want to only read Project Gutenberg). Battery life, while longer than my laptops, is nowhere near 'all day'.
Enter the iPad. The screen is large - no almost useless tiny keyboard intruding on the space (the keyboard only appears when needed); I can play music, read books (build a library of them for fast reference or pleasure when I have to spend time waiting), and do the things I originally set out using the netbook for. I can sync it with my home machine to upload music, files, calendar etc, and the battery life is way longer than anything else I have access to.
So I am replacing my thicker/heavier netbook, *and* my MP3 player with this thinner/lighter iPad that will do everything those can do, and then some (when you take into account the unique interface, the ibook store, etc etc). I won't be getting the 3G enabled version - I don't use apps where I need to be always connected, and I also anticipate the 3G network coming to it's knees when this enters the wild anyway. While convenient, not necessary for my usage patterns. Overall a WIN-WIN for me.
So - the object lesson here is 'there is not one single best thing for every person'. So what? That doesn't negate its utility to someone else with different requirements. Your statement "...it isn't so much a step backwards as a step nowhere" is unsupportable given the facts.
Fanbois/Antifanbois -- they are both different sides of the same coin.
(Proud Linux, Mac and Windows(gamer) user)
As long as there is a need and a demand for general purpose computing devices (and there is a large demand outside of consumer electronics), manufacturers will continue to make them.
Additionally, time and time again we've seen the ingenuity of people to get around limitations imposed by certain systems (*cough*iPhone*cough*).
So reality is not as horrible a picture as you are painting for us.
The sky is *not* falling.
Currently I believe 39 is the maximum age to enlist...but there may be waivers for certain fields.
Care to point me in the direction of any women who have managed to make General, in any branch of service? Last I checked, there were none. So women may be in the military, but they either lack the same potential as men -- or environmental factors are holding them back. Which one do you suppose it is?
You didn't check hard enough:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/23/woman.general/index.html
http://www.army.mil/women/profiles.html
There are a bunch of women generals (up to 4 star) past and present in the army.
I've been a Dos/Windows user/owner for over 20 years, every version from Dos 3.X to Windows 7 (including ME - ugh...). I've also used/owned Apple machines from the Apple II to the original Mac and now the newer iMAC, MacBook and MacBook Pro. I also have loaded and used Linux in various flavors since the early 90s shortly after the first distros became available (Slackware, TurboLinux et al to Ubuntu most recently).
First I want to say that all this arguing about what is 'best' is really a personal preference. There is no 'one true OS' in any real quantitative sense. Given the right (right for YOU) combination of OS and hardware any of the operating systems I listed above will be right for you.
That being said, FOR ME - I find the Apple OSX interface to be the most intuitive/pleasurable to use; I also like the integration between the hardware and the OS - more things 'just work' than on other operating systems. That said, the drawback is your hardware is NOT going to be the most bleeding edge gaming rig class system on the planet; but for music, video, authoring, editing of all the above, and other mundane tasks it has the right selection of tools and interfaces that is 'just right' (Goldilocks reference notwithstanding).
Now -- for Hosting server side applications - I find Linux to be far superior to either Apple or Windows. A beowulf cluster of Apple machines is too painful to contemplate from a monetary perspective; all that UI goodness is essentially wasted in a server. Windows is too flakey (even the latest Win7) for production quality installations - and the number of machines required makes it more costly as well - except in some specialized niches where the service being provided is not available under Linux or Mac (exceptional cases only - and I avoid those if at all possible).
Finally -- I do use Windows 7 for gaming. It is certainly better than XP in that regard and more stable. There are more game titles for Windows than the Mac - another key point. However I don't trust Windows with key applications because I've had too many bad experiences, not only with the desktop versions, but also their server versions - more so than with any other OS. As a result I think of Windows as a 'toy' designed by comittee, it doesn't do anything (aside from gaming) very well. For my critical applications - 'mediocre' is not good enough.
So to your point, from my experience, there is no one 'best' OS for all things; they all excel in different areas - and picking the right one for the right reasons is the best policy.
Can you easily draw a diagram or picture on a netbook? Can it recognize your handwriting and convert it to text?
Can you take notes in a corporate meeting without interrupting the meeting (or those on the conference call) with the clacking of your keyboard?
Can you make a phone call with your netbook?
Will the battery life of your netbook be comparable (unanswerable at the time of this writing).
These are applications where I think a table could excel.
Low Ranked Craig: Bingo!
Plus add:
Handwriting recognition - a la 'Newton'
Longer battery life.
Then I will use the hell out of it. I don't want to carry around a laptop, cell phone, MP3/Movie player, and a paper notepad (for those time I need to scrawl something quick or when typing in a meeting is too distracting - or I want to draw a friggin' picture/diagram! [drawing with a mouse or touch pad on a laptop is epic fail])
You forget their trump card - the Apple Newton's handwriting recognition software; Newton lovers for years have been calling for Apple to release the Newton OS (including the handwriting recognition embedded in it) into the wild to keep their beloved Newtons running on new hardware as the old machines expire. Apple continued to refuse on this issue.
Enter the new tablet. As a result I am hoping and praying that the handwriting recognition on the thing will be a juiced up version of the auto-learning handwriting recognition software from the ancient Newton. Processing power and memory availability would make that work even better than it did ~20 years ago (when even given the limits of available processing power/memory it did an amazing job to learn/decode MOST people's scrawls).
If that were the case, then it could very well serve as a writing instrument that could decode my scribbles. Add Iphone capability (accessed through a bluetooth headset), and I would pay for that - and use the hell out of it.
elrouse0 -- Your description is EXACTLY how IT works now where I work.
Their projects are defined by:
Will not do 'small' projects that do not bring in 'revenue' (even though we are all on the same team).
Relies on a pure 'waterfall' lifecycle model - highlighted by 'big design up front', little flexibility to change in mid stream as the business changes, and 'deliverables' that they turn over to the 'production' team and walk away from.
Changes require the whole process to be started all over - and no one from the original development team is assigned to do the modification work - so the changes take forever, cost too much, and are largely irrelevant when the window of opportunity they were meant to address is lost when the 'deliverable' is released to the users.
I read the article, and I don't think that is his message. He is saying to remove the 'project' mentality (where you deliver and walk away) and instead peer with the people you are providing services to to really get behind what they *really* need (not what they think they want without knowledge of what is possible with current technology) - and then go about providing that *over the long term*.
Short term thinking leads to:
Software as a 'product' with a finite 'deliverable' that is then walked away from (onto the next project).
Short term cost 'savings' that really end up costing more in the long run (out sourcing).
IT as a revenue generating entity that has to 'make a profit' by acquiring more 'projects' and headcount.
Long term thinking would provide:
Software as an iterative 'entity' that is constantly changing to meet the needs of the business.
Long term cost savings by investing the right amount *now* to get the correct tools and services into the hands of your employees to make them *most* efficient early rather than late (so they can take advantage of limited windows of opportunity).
IT as a distributed part of the organization with deep knowledge of the systems they iteratively manage.
Having been the recipient of IT's 'customer service' for many years - and having seen organizations large and small within the company set up their own ad-hoc development teams under the guise of 'operations' to supply what IT won't, I can identify directly with what the author is saying in the article.
I think they **are** your customer in one respect: customer service.
The phrase, "the customer is always right" is spot on if you understand that you are not just providing a 'deliverable' that you can walk away from - but instead view it as an iterative service that has to change and flex as the needs of your business require over time. You are there to serve the needs of the business - *not* aggrandize your department, and build an empire at its expense.
Anyone who's examined lifecycle models and seen the fallacy of the pure waterfall method (software as 'product') within a company, gets it. The most effective software is a living breathing entity with no definitive obsolescence date; if managed properly, can be useful indefinitely.
Microsoft's business model should not be the model emulated by internal IT development.
What is needed is what 'extreme programming' and 'interative programming' lifecycle models and work processes try to capture: you are shooting a moving target and must continue to adjust your aim to allow your services to remain relevant to the business/company you support is it changes to survive in a competitive environment.
If you fail, it will impact the ability of your company to succeed - and I would go further and say that your failure will not only impact the shareholder but also the customers who depend upon the products and services provided by your company because **they** will bear the burden (less than ideal user experience, more costly products and services etc).
You can have my Emacs when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
Most latency is caused by GPU inadequacy.
That is the difference between the applied and the theoretical.
The exploding hand-grenade does not care whether you believe it or not...close does count.