Online communities are invariably self-sorting, which is a tried and true recipe for groupthink and confirmation bias. In principle, an online community can support a broad, diverse range of views and skillsets. In practice, whatever shared worldview is most dominant among a community's members will, in time, come to define that community and drive out anyone not sufficiently adherent (other than trolls, who can be removed by fiat.)
In other words, the real problem is people expecting "open source" to mean the same as "free software." They don't. They are two different things. "Open source" is a pragmatic approach to making life easier for developers without overly inconveniencing profit-driven institutions; "free software" is a philosophical movement designed to ensure user freedom, even at the expense of corporate interests.
Of course, confusing the two concepts has been one of the key goals of the open source movement, in order to extinguish "free software."
Interacting with those dial-up systems can be and often is automated, but it's still dicey since phone lines can be noisy/busy/not answering, interfaces can change at a moment's notice, and there are occasional prompts for things like password changes. So, you can "automate" it, but you'll still have to monitor it to make sure it's doing the job properly.
The patchwork of Medicare/Medicaid billing systems in the US makes me cry. Yes, the file formats are standardized... but pretty much nothing else is. Dial-up/terminal, SSH, SFTP, HTTPS, there's something for everyone.
I could see restaurants paying to have their listing show up first, or at least higher in the list. This could go for any sort of product/business search.
There's some level of relearning people will put up with when they have to, when the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Even then, it's a dicey prospect.
In the case of Win8, it sounds like the changes made are generally inconvenient for most people familiar with 7 and prior. It's now been made more difficult (even impossible) to do things you used to be able to do. People aren't going to just accept that. Microsoft is supposed to be customer-focused, which means you give your customers what they want. In the case of consumer operating systems, people want stability, predictability, backward compatibility, and slow evolution. Radical changes that force you to relearn everything are very hard to swallow, especially with something like an operating system, which isn't an application in itself, but a platform. You can get away with more rapid changes in an application. Platforms need to be stable and reliable, or you're going to alienate users and frustrate developers.
Google Glass won't be capable of AR because the display is only designed to cover a very small part of your entire field of vision. It can pop up information in one corner of your vision and that's it.
Maybe they'll come out with a version that's more like real glasses, i.e. mostly/fully covering your field of view the way glasses do, but that doesn't seem to be in the offing yet.
Consoles are a form of vendor lock-in, not DRM. DRM is done with the intended purpose of thwarting efforts to copy data or use it in any other way than the hardware/software designers dictate. Sony isn't making the PS4 to prevent you from playing games on the Wii U or Xbox.
I think the real reason MS would make an always-online console is all too mundane: it's easier to code a system that simply refuses to do anything when it's offline, than to write one that handles both "online" and "offline" modes. It simplifies game development, too, because if you (as a developer) want to use the online features, they're always there--you don't have to have a fallback for when they aren't, because the console's making sure that doesn't happen.
That said, making things easier for developers is hardly a good justification for screwing over users by placing unreasonable demands on them. I just don't think this is being done exclusively or even primarily as a DRM tactic, even though it has that as a side "benefit."
The only reason I don't think it's DRM is because I've been under the impression that piracy of 360/PS3 games is difficult and rare, and certainly not the huge problem it's been for PC games. Causing such a huge inconvenience to so many people for a virtually nonexistent problem is just bad business. Having an always-online console for other, "good" reasons may also be bad business, but not as egregiously stupid in terms of what motivated it.
My approach has generally been something like this:
1. If all you want is a straight-up blog, use WordPress. Up and running in no time, plenty of themes out there, and you can have a blog immediately. 2. If you want something fast and (relatively) lightweight for a CMS, and you'll be managing a lot of media files, Joomla may be your best choice. (Note that I don't really care for Joomla, but it's hard to beat for performance.) 3. If you have complex needs that go beyond having a blog and managing media files, look into Drupal and some of its more mature plugins. 4. Get sick of everything above and just go to Django.:-p
(Okay, the last one is a joke.)
I've used all of the above and they have their strengths and weaknesses. I've also written plugins for all of them. Drupal was the most straightforward, although adding filters to WordPress wasn't that bad. The less said about Joomla, the better. That is the stuff of nightmares.
PHP has its problems (which are well-documented pretty much everywhere), but it's popular because it works. Trying to steer people away from something that works strikes me more as zealotry than sound judgment.
W. Edwards Deming said it best: "You get what you measure." He didn't quite mean it in this context, but if employees know what metrics are being tracked to determine their performance, they will, of course, adjust their working behavior to pump up said metrics. The key is developing those metrics that will actually ensure work is getting done, which is never a simple matter of tracking data over a network, or a number of logins to a VPN.
I read Manna a while back, and I think the living hell of humans packed like sardines into drab buildings with nothing to do is closer to how things would really play out. The technologies available to the Australia Project just seemed to spring up out of nowhere, perfectly convenient to the story. It's a bit of a leap to go from a more or less fully-automated society to one that has virtually zero waste and nearly perfect energy accounting, not to mention the medical technologies exhibited. There's also the small matter of the Project hinging on a billion people investing $100 each. Someone call me when a project like that even hits the 10% watermark.
Don't get me wrong, life in the Australia Project sounds pretty awesome, but it also seems much more far-fetched than the world ruled by Manna.
A lot of jobs we take for granted today will be done by robots/computers someday soon. We've already figured out how to automate most manufacturing. We're working on self-driving cars. We already have simple robots like Roombas to deal with chores around the house--I'm sure those will continue to evolve and proliferate. People who design, build, and repair the robots will have jobs--for a while. But what do you do when the robots become capable of repairing themselves or each other, and we've got enough good robot "templates" (including software) that there isn't much to do except plug and play some different components? Even jobs we think of as incapable of being outsourced are at risk. Plumber? A properly-equipped robot could clear your pipes and repair leaks. You might need a human for more complicated jobs, but only until they make a better robot. Same with electricians.
Medical professionals? Healthcare is already so saturated with technology, I think the only reason we'd keep doctors around is because we, as humans, want that human touch--we don't want a robot examining us and ordering tests. But if the healthcare system continues to become overburdened, there's no reason to think we won't give that up, too, if the alternative is waiting 6 months to see a human doctor, when you can get in to see the robotic one tomorrow.
What do we do when 90-95% of all working age people are idle because their jobs have been automated away? Even once that number hits, say, 20%, we are looking at a serious economic crisis in terms of what to do with so many people who can't find work.
We're supposed to believe capitalism will magically solve this problem by creating new markets, new fields, and new jobs. There is no reason to believe this is the case. Capitalism coupled with industrial society and government oversight to produce a robust middle class is a relatively recent phenomenon, one which looks to represent a transitory state of human economic activity. What's next? When (almost) all the jobs are automated away, what kind of economy are we left with?
Monoculture goes hand in hand with standardization. You want things to work the same from system to system.
The only problem is when the dominant platform fails to implement the standard properly. But it's unfair to talk about "monoculture" as a fundamentally bad thing when we're talking about basic infrastructure--which HTML rendering is, in terms of making the Web work.
The bottom line is that people are not going to migrate to a Linux desktop just because it can do more and more things you've been doing on a Windows desktop. It has to do more, it has to do it better, and there has to be marketing to make it clear to people why it's superior. If the argument is, "Linux can do 90% of everything Windows can do, plus some other stuff Windows can't do," unless those novel things Linux can do are things most people need, it doesn't matter.
It's nice to see the Linux desktop world getting larger, but people are delusional if they think Linux is going to gradually take over from Windows because it's so much better. For how most people use their computers, Linux offers no perceptible advantage over Windows, and takes more effort to get up and running, since few personal computers actually come with Linux installed.
I'm not sure what really drives the "Linux must win the desktop!" mentality, unless it's just pure ego or something. Yeah, so Microsoft beat you on marketshare--so what?
They don't have to be at every parking spot. People will still have outlets at home. But there can be parts of every parking lot set aside with charging stations.
Getting the supply right in order to meet demand will admittedly be tricky, and a long-term issue to solve.
Slashdot Mirror
The difference being that the New York Post gets paid to be wrong!
Online communities are invariably self-sorting, which is a tried and true recipe for groupthink and confirmation bias. In principle, an online community can support a broad, diverse range of views and skillsets. In practice, whatever shared worldview is most dominant among a community's members will, in time, come to define that community and drive out anyone not sufficiently adherent (other than trolls, who can be removed by fiat.)
A concise summary, if worded provocatively.
In other words, the real problem is people expecting "open source" to mean the same as "free software." They don't. They are two different things. "Open source" is a pragmatic approach to making life easier for developers without overly inconveniencing profit-driven institutions; "free software" is a philosophical movement designed to ensure user freedom, even at the expense of corporate interests.
Of course, confusing the two concepts has been one of the key goals of the open source movement, in order to extinguish "free software."
Interacting with those dial-up systems can be and often is automated, but it's still dicey since phone lines can be noisy/busy/not answering, interfaces can change at a moment's notice, and there are occasional prompts for things like password changes. So, you can "automate" it, but you'll still have to monitor it to make sure it's doing the job properly.
The patchwork of Medicare/Medicaid billing systems in the US makes me cry. Yes, the file formats are standardized... but pretty much nothing else is. Dial-up/terminal, SSH, SFTP, HTTPS, there's something for everyone.
I could see restaurants paying to have their listing show up first, or at least higher in the list. This could go for any sort of product/business search.
There's some level of relearning people will put up with when they have to, when the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Even then, it's a dicey prospect.
In the case of Win8, it sounds like the changes made are generally inconvenient for most people familiar with 7 and prior. It's now been made more difficult (even impossible) to do things you used to be able to do. People aren't going to just accept that. Microsoft is supposed to be customer-focused, which means you give your customers what they want. In the case of consumer operating systems, people want stability, predictability, backward compatibility, and slow evolution. Radical changes that force you to relearn everything are very hard to swallow, especially with something like an operating system, which isn't an application in itself, but a platform. You can get away with more rapid changes in an application. Platforms need to be stable and reliable, or you're going to alienate users and frustrate developers.
Google Glass won't be capable of AR because the display is only designed to cover a very small part of your entire field of vision. It can pop up information in one corner of your vision and that's it.
Maybe they'll come out with a version that's more like real glasses, i.e. mostly/fully covering your field of view the way glasses do, but that doesn't seem to be in the offing yet.
Consoles are a form of vendor lock-in, not DRM. DRM is done with the intended purpose of thwarting efforts to copy data or use it in any other way than the hardware/software designers dictate. Sony isn't making the PS4 to prevent you from playing games on the Wii U or Xbox.
I think the real reason MS would make an always-online console is all too mundane: it's easier to code a system that simply refuses to do anything when it's offline, than to write one that handles both "online" and "offline" modes. It simplifies game development, too, because if you (as a developer) want to use the online features, they're always there--you don't have to have a fallback for when they aren't, because the console's making sure that doesn't happen.
That said, making things easier for developers is hardly a good justification for screwing over users by placing unreasonable demands on them. I just don't think this is being done exclusively or even primarily as a DRM tactic, even though it has that as a side "benefit."
The only reason I don't think it's DRM is because I've been under the impression that piracy of 360/PS3 games is difficult and rare, and certainly not the huge problem it's been for PC games. Causing such a huge inconvenience to so many people for a virtually nonexistent problem is just bad business. Having an always-online console for other, "good" reasons may also be bad business, but not as egregiously stupid in terms of what motivated it.
My approach has generally been something like this:
1. If all you want is a straight-up blog, use WordPress. Up and running in no time, plenty of themes out there, and you can have a blog immediately. :-p
2. If you want something fast and (relatively) lightweight for a CMS, and you'll be managing a lot of media files, Joomla may be your best choice. (Note that I don't really care for Joomla, but it's hard to beat for performance.)
3. If you have complex needs that go beyond having a blog and managing media files, look into Drupal and some of its more mature plugins.
4. Get sick of everything above and just go to Django.
(Okay, the last one is a joke.)
I've used all of the above and they have their strengths and weaknesses. I've also written plugins for all of them. Drupal was the most straightforward, although adding filters to WordPress wasn't that bad. The less said about Joomla, the better. That is the stuff of nightmares.
PHP has its problems (which are well-documented pretty much everywhere), but it's popular because it works. Trying to steer people away from something that works strikes me more as zealotry than sound judgment.
W. Edwards Deming said it best: "You get what you measure." He didn't quite mean it in this context, but if employees know what metrics are being tracked to determine their performance, they will, of course, adjust their working behavior to pump up said metrics. The key is developing those metrics that will actually ensure work is getting done, which is never a simple matter of tracking data over a network, or a number of logins to a VPN.
Extortion is already illegal, bro.
The US just has much bigger feet.
Indeed, it is much cheaper and easier to keep your dissidents cowed with luxury than to imprison or kill them.
I didn't realize Stealth used the exact same plot device as Short Circuit!
Computers can process more information and react more quickly than human pilots.
No kidding. It's like people think the military doesn't know what "recon" is. I mean, duh.
Police chases can certainly be over a lot more quickly then, eh?
I read Manna a while back, and I think the living hell of humans packed like sardines into drab buildings with nothing to do is closer to how things would really play out. The technologies available to the Australia Project just seemed to spring up out of nowhere, perfectly convenient to the story. It's a bit of a leap to go from a more or less fully-automated society to one that has virtually zero waste and nearly perfect energy accounting, not to mention the medical technologies exhibited. There's also the small matter of the Project hinging on a billion people investing $100 each. Someone call me when a project like that even hits the 10% watermark.
Don't get me wrong, life in the Australia Project sounds pretty awesome, but it also seems much more far-fetched than the world ruled by Manna.
This is the question that nobody wants to answer.
A lot of jobs we take for granted today will be done by robots/computers someday soon. We've already figured out how to automate most manufacturing. We're working on self-driving cars. We already have simple robots like Roombas to deal with chores around the house--I'm sure those will continue to evolve and proliferate. People who design, build, and repair the robots will have jobs--for a while. But what do you do when the robots become capable of repairing themselves or each other, and we've got enough good robot "templates" (including software) that there isn't much to do except plug and play some different components? Even jobs we think of as incapable of being outsourced are at risk. Plumber? A properly-equipped robot could clear your pipes and repair leaks. You might need a human for more complicated jobs, but only until they make a better robot. Same with electricians.
Medical professionals? Healthcare is already so saturated with technology, I think the only reason we'd keep doctors around is because we, as humans, want that human touch--we don't want a robot examining us and ordering tests. But if the healthcare system continues to become overburdened, there's no reason to think we won't give that up, too, if the alternative is waiting 6 months to see a human doctor, when you can get in to see the robotic one tomorrow.
What do we do when 90-95% of all working age people are idle because their jobs have been automated away? Even once that number hits, say, 20%, we are looking at a serious economic crisis in terms of what to do with so many people who can't find work.
We're supposed to believe capitalism will magically solve this problem by creating new markets, new fields, and new jobs. There is no reason to believe this is the case. Capitalism coupled with industrial society and government oversight to produce a robust middle class is a relatively recent phenomenon, one which looks to represent a transitory state of human economic activity. What's next? When (almost) all the jobs are automated away, what kind of economy are we left with?
Choice for the developer, not the end user. The end user is stuck with whatever the developer picked. ;)
Breaking them against wheels until the right bits fall out, I'm sure.
Monoculture goes hand in hand with standardization. You want things to work the same from system to system.
The only problem is when the dominant platform fails to implement the standard properly. But it's unfair to talk about "monoculture" as a fundamentally bad thing when we're talking about basic infrastructure--which HTML rendering is, in terms of making the Web work.
The bottom line is that people are not going to migrate to a Linux desktop just because it can do more and more things you've been doing on a Windows desktop. It has to do more, it has to do it better, and there has to be marketing to make it clear to people why it's superior. If the argument is, "Linux can do 90% of everything Windows can do, plus some other stuff Windows can't do," unless those novel things Linux can do are things most people need, it doesn't matter.
It's nice to see the Linux desktop world getting larger, but people are delusional if they think Linux is going to gradually take over from Windows because it's so much better. For how most people use their computers, Linux offers no perceptible advantage over Windows, and takes more effort to get up and running, since few personal computers actually come with Linux installed.
I'm not sure what really drives the "Linux must win the desktop!" mentality, unless it's just pure ego or something. Yeah, so Microsoft beat you on marketshare--so what?
They don't have to be at every parking spot. People will still have outlets at home. But there can be parts of every parking lot set aside with charging stations.
Getting the supply right in order to meet demand will admittedly be tricky, and a long-term issue to solve.