Speaking of free anything: As the open source example shows, there are plenty of people who just love to work on stuff and provide it for free. Where this seems to work perfectly alright for the tech crowd, lesser beings insist on charging you for all those daily needs like food, electricity, stuff or just a home...
And in case somebody tries to argue that only the paid work finally leads to proper results: Of course there are plenty of examples in the open source world where someone started to work on an idea and abandoned it when it turned out to be quite some effort -- but on the other hand you would find numerous similar decisions made in big companies (and the bigger the more often): After pumping incredible money into a project, the project gets canned. Sometimes even shortly before showing off actual (positive) results.
Just cleaning up the remains of such a canned project and trying to at least save some of the work done over almost 1.5 years...
I suspect over the next hundred years some of the more verbose letter-based written languages will start condensing down to be more like English, which is one of the more compact letter-based languages.
Doesn't that already happen?
First of all, English is the dominant language in worldwide communication (if somebody now wants to remind me of the Chinese dialects, Hindi, and Spanish: I said worldwide communication, not most prominent mother languages). This will automatically affect the other languages. Sometimes the foreign word even takes a slightly different meaning. My favorite example for this is the German word "Kassettenrekorder" which reminds more of ancient, portable cassette recorders than a modern "Tape Deck" (which is what you buy as a component for your Hifi system).
Besides, the marketing people like to mess around with the language which is why we don't see much "Ereignisse" anymore in Germany but rather "Events". Similarly, nobody eats "Getreideflocken" or "Fruhstucksflocken" anymore but "Cerealien" (a 5-syllable monster in German).
However, there's also a flux back. Not only does e.g. English diffuse into other languages, sometimes the other languages manage to merge some of their vocabulary into English. Take "Gesundheit" as the most common example, further ones are "Angst" and "Zeitgeist" which (for whatever reason) made it into AE.
The end might as well be something like this melting pot language spoken in Blade Runner (forgot the name...). Whenever the foreign word is shorter and seems to be more adequate, it will be used and over time possibly replace the original word. (Maybe one reason why you will find the word "Computer" be used equally often to "Rechner" in German. The latter has just 2 syllables.)
Sometimes even "lookalikes" which only seem to be taken from another language are created. The most prominent example for this most likely is the German "Handy" (for cell/mobile phone) which looks like the English adjective, but is completely artificial (of course a cell phone is quite handy, but here "Handy" reflects to the fact that it fits into your hand).
Maybe someone might beef this up with examples from other languages... Must be affecting other languages as well: At least the French seem to be frightened enough by that development that they officially "french-ize" foreign words -- even if the remaining world already adopted these. (And if you thought a Mega-Octet is something weird, wait for your first courriel.)
Yeah, but nobody notices. Wasn't it Bruce Sterling that said sf writers were the court jesters of the literary world: they could prance around and scratch themselves in public and no-one would look twice. Which is a shame cos there's a lot that could be learned. Starting with George Orwell.
What strikes me most is that people even embrace certain developments. Take the ever increasing use of psychopharmaca as an example. You don't feel happy? Take Zoloft. Your kid's a bit on the lively side? We can fix that. From here it's just a small step to a world described e.g. in Ira Levin's "A perfect day" (for the German audience: "Die sanften Ungeheuer"). Or, one step further "Gattaca" and Aldous Huxley's "Brave new world".
Similarly, people are willing to sacrifice their privacy for the sake of (what they think is) safety. How long till we have big brother's ears and eyes in our homes? They're already allowed to tap the phone lines more freely than it used to be. The use of the DMCA to forbid certain publications is also a first step into the direction described by e.g. Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451". Only read, what you're allowed to read. Or -- as in "Fallen Angels" by Niven/Pournelle -- also only use technology which you are allowed to use.
At least, I don't see any imminent signs of the officials changing the language to a level where certain things can't be expressed anymore -- like in the Orwellian example you gave. If I accidentally zap into one of these horrible talk- and court-shows, I get the feeling that a lot of people indeed already are not able to express themselves properly anymore, just because they don't care and think that the universal wildcard "so, y'know, anyway" comes up for everything.
Hmm, there's a thought. If in order to escape draconian DMCA-like laws, you get on a big boat and go out in international waters to perform copyright-dangerous actions, then does that make it Piracy on the High Seas?
You know... That's exactly what I see happening in the near future when there's no safe "data haven" on the continents anymore: Boats entering international territories, hijacking satellites and distributing otherwise illegal content, performing highly illegal actions (such as disassembling an X-Box to be able to install any kind of software, removing "copy protections" from CDs to make them work in your car hifi...) etc. A step further, we may see "data islands" floating on the sea out in the international territories.
Sometimes I wonder what kind of visionaries the early "cyberspace" authors like William Gibson must have been since quite a lot of things (besides AI and brain-to-wire interface, so far:) did come true: We now effectively have Mega-Companies getting bigger and bigger which every merger, every aquisition. They start taking over legislation by gaining massive influence etc. and if a small start-up company comes up with something new and great that company is either immediately assimilated -- or, more likely, sued over patent infringement so that the lawyer costs effectively kill the small company, no matter if they actually did infringe patents or not.
>If Linux is better and less expensive, why is it necessary to force people to use it? Are they too ignorant to figure it out for themselves?
Yes, they are. Don't get me wrong, I don't blame those people. Back in the 80s everyone who bought a computer was more or less a geek so they (mostly) knew what they were buying and why.
Nowadays, the PC has become something like a microwave oven or a VCR. Almost everybody owns one. And just like your mother will keep on asking on how to use the VCR these people have usually no clue what's going on in the PC -- and, frankly, they just don't care. Why shouldn't they. It's just another tool they use in their everyday lives. Just like the microwave.
So these people use what they get sold. If they know a lot of graphics people, they might be talked into an Apple. If they just walk into the next electronics store they get a PC -- with Windows preinstalled. So they use it and get used to it.
Not, because it's easier to use or -- God forbid -- to install. Those people don't upgrade their systems themselves. They ask the nearest computer whiz (maybe their children) to do it for them. Or they just buy the next generation PC which then comes with the currently hyped Windows version.
In both scenarios, the average Joe User just does not pay for his version of Windows (well, he does, but since PCs aren't advertised with and without Windows to show him the "Microsoft Tax", he doesn't recognize that extra money he spends). Either it comes with the PC or the aforementioned computer whiz shares his copy.
So, yes, the average Joe User indeed needs to be forced to try out alternatives (especially, after they came a couple of times to you whining how often their machine crashes since they installed this or that gimmick, how they again caught the latest virus etc.) cause he usually isn't even aware of their existence.
Indeed they are -- which is exactly my point. How often do we read of data losses caused by everyday electrostatic discharge? Doesn't seem to be a big issue, even today where everybody is carrying USB thumbdrives and CompactFlash cards around.
So why should there be a problem with a memory based on some plastic which originally was used to protect ESDs from electrostatic discharges? It's not like they put the bare die in your hands...
> I don't understand why this seems to happen every time.
You can't? That happens if people with expensive suits but little to no knowledge about what they are actually doing make decisions they better leave to people who know better.
Of course, that would mean that they'd need to hire expensive consultants which generally is a no-no, The product has to be cheap, and time-to-market has to be fast -- of course, revenue has to be as high as possible. There is no money for experts.
So we grab a bunch of cheap wannabe-programmers (or just the guys who accidentally made eye contact with the boss first) who just slam together a set of libraries they find on the net. "We need encryption... Oh, I'll just XOR the stuff with my birthday, nobody will figure it out."
Always remember: Dilbert is not funny. Dilbert is the sad truth. There are far too many PHBs out there.
>I have a feeling that the makers of these cameras will start to spin how the computer community is to blame for hacking every consumer product [...]
Well, as long as people prefer "infotainment" over real news there's nothing which stops the makers from spreading that fairy tale. Wouldn't be the first which people start believing just because they heard it often enough... Like "record sales are way down because of piracy", "the internet is full of perverts and child molestors" etc.
> the aliens that find voyager only have CD players? How will they play the record that strapped to the craft?
You want to just hope that they find no way to play that record...
Imagine you haul in a drifting space probe, manage to learn the overly weird alien language and find yourself confronted with the message "I CAN GET NOOOO SATISFACTIOOOON."
Actually, I wouldn't be too surprised if any alien race takes that as a perfect excuse to blow up Earth...
Re:some interesting applications
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Weight loss implants. Eat all the chocolate you like, and then use it to start your car.
With weather like this I'd also go for a built-in air condition...
I can already see the modified Subway slogan: "Eat fresh -- stay cool."
> We need more H1-Bs so that we can train them here.
Slight misconception, what a H1B is used for...
Companies don't go through the hassle of sponsoring a H1B to get trainees. Any B-type visa / visa waiver would be good for that as long as they don't get payed more than a moderate daily expense and leave after 60 days.
At the company I work for, they only apply for H1B if they spot a promising foreign PhD who might fit into and benefit to the company research profile.
Slashdot Mirror
I need a J/K Master/Sl... erm, I mean, a jump/kill...
Dammit, just give me a CD4095.
And in case somebody tries to argue that only the paid work finally leads to proper results: Of course there are plenty of examples in the open source world where someone started to work on an idea and abandoned it when it turned out to be quite some effort -- but on the other hand you would find numerous similar decisions made in big companies (and the bigger the more often): After pumping incredible money into a project, the project gets canned. Sometimes even shortly before showing off actual (positive) results.
Just cleaning up the remains of such a canned project and trying to at least save some of the work done over almost 1.5 years...
Doesn't that already happen?
First of all, English is the dominant language in worldwide communication (if somebody now wants to remind me of the Chinese dialects, Hindi, and Spanish: I said worldwide communication, not most prominent mother languages). This will automatically affect the other languages. Sometimes the foreign word even takes a slightly different meaning. My favorite example for this is the German word "Kassettenrekorder" which reminds more of ancient, portable cassette recorders than a modern "Tape Deck" (which is what you buy as a component for your Hifi system).
Besides, the marketing people like to mess around with the language which is why we don't see much "Ereignisse" anymore in Germany but rather "Events". Similarly, nobody eats "Getreideflocken" or "Fruhstucksflocken" anymore but "Cerealien" (a 5-syllable monster in German).
However, there's also a flux back. Not only does e.g. English diffuse into other languages, sometimes the other languages manage to merge some of their vocabulary into English. Take "Gesundheit" as the most common example, further ones are "Angst" and "Zeitgeist" which (for whatever reason) made it into AE.
The end might as well be something like this melting pot language spoken in Blade Runner (forgot the name...). Whenever the foreign word is shorter and seems to be more adequate, it will be used and over time possibly replace the original word. (Maybe one reason why you will find the word "Computer" be used equally often to "Rechner" in German. The latter has just 2 syllables.)
Sometimes even "lookalikes" which only seem to be taken from another language are created. The most prominent example for this most likely is the German "Handy" (for cell/mobile phone) which looks like the English adjective, but is completely artificial (of course a cell phone is quite handy, but here "Handy" reflects to the fact that it fits into your hand).
Maybe someone might beef this up with examples from other languages... Must be affecting other languages as well: At least the French seem to be frightened enough by that development that they officially "french-ize" foreign words -- even if the remaining world already adopted these. (And if you thought a Mega-Octet is something weird, wait for your first courriel.)
What strikes me most is that people even embrace certain developments. Take the ever increasing use of psychopharmaca as an example. You don't feel happy? Take Zoloft. Your kid's a bit on the lively side? We can fix that. From here it's just a small step to a world described e.g. in Ira Levin's "A perfect day" (for the German audience: "Die sanften Ungeheuer"). Or, one step further "Gattaca" and Aldous Huxley's "Brave new world".
Similarly, people are willing to sacrifice their privacy for the sake of (what they think is) safety. How long till we have big brother's ears and eyes in our homes? They're already allowed to tap the phone lines more freely than it used to be. The use of the DMCA to forbid certain publications is also a first step into the direction described by e.g. Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451". Only read, what you're allowed to read. Or -- as in "Fallen Angels" by Niven/Pournelle -- also only use technology which you are allowed to use.
At least, I don't see any imminent signs of the officials changing the language to a level where certain things can't be expressed anymore -- like in the Orwellian example you gave. If I accidentally zap into one of these horrible talk- and court-shows, I get the feeling that a lot of people indeed already are not able to express themselves properly anymore, just because they don't care and think that the universal wildcard "so, y'know, anyway" comes up for everything.
You know... That's exactly what I see happening in the near future when there's no safe "data haven" on the continents anymore: Boats entering international territories, hijacking satellites and distributing otherwise illegal content, performing highly illegal actions (such as disassembling an X-Box to be able to install any kind of software, removing "copy protections" from CDs to make them work in your car hifi...) etc. A step further, we may see "data islands" floating on the sea out in the international territories.
Sometimes I wonder what kind of visionaries the early "cyberspace" authors like William Gibson must have been since quite a lot of things (besides AI and brain-to-wire interface, so far :) did come true: We now effectively have Mega-Companies getting bigger and bigger which every merger, every aquisition. They start taking over legislation by gaining massive influence etc. and if a small start-up company comes up with something new and great that company is either immediately assimilated -- or, more likely, sued over patent infringement so that the lawyer costs effectively kill the small company, no matter if they actually did infringe patents or not.
Yes, they are. Don't get me wrong, I don't blame those people. Back in the 80s everyone who bought a computer was more or less a geek so they (mostly) knew what they were buying and why.
Nowadays, the PC has become something like a microwave oven or a VCR. Almost everybody owns one. And just like your mother will keep on asking on how to use the VCR these people have usually no clue what's going on in the PC -- and, frankly, they just don't care. Why shouldn't they. It's just another tool they use in their everyday lives. Just like the microwave.
So these people use what they get sold. If they know a lot of graphics people, they might be talked into an Apple. If they just walk into the next electronics store they get a PC -- with Windows preinstalled. So they use it and get used to it.
Not, because it's easier to use or -- God forbid -- to install. Those people don't upgrade their systems themselves. They ask the nearest computer whiz (maybe their children) to do it for them. Or they just buy the next generation PC which then comes with the currently hyped Windows version.
In both scenarios, the average Joe User just does not pay for his version of Windows (well, he does, but since PCs aren't advertised with and without Windows to show him the "Microsoft Tax", he doesn't recognize that extra money he spends). Either it comes with the PC or the aforementioned computer whiz shares his copy.
So, yes, the average Joe User indeed needs to be forced to try out alternatives (especially, after they came a couple of times to you whining how often their machine crashes since they installed this or that gimmick, how they again caught the latest virus etc.) cause he usually isn't even aware of their existence.
So why should there be a problem with a memory based on some plastic which originally was used to protect ESDs from electrostatic discharges? It's not like they put the bare die in your hands...
You can't? That happens if people with expensive suits but little to no knowledge about what they are actually doing make decisions they better leave to people who know better.
Of course, that would mean that they'd need to hire expensive consultants which generally is a no-no, The product has to be cheap, and time-to-market has to be fast -- of course, revenue has to be as high as possible. There is no money for experts.
So we grab a bunch of cheap wannabe-programmers (or just the guys who accidentally made eye contact with the boss first) who just slam together a set of libraries they find on the net. "We need encryption... Oh, I'll just XOR the stuff with my birthday, nobody will figure it out."
Always remember: Dilbert is not funny. Dilbert is the sad truth. There are far too many PHBs out there.
Well, as long as people prefer "infotainment" over real news there's nothing which stops the makers from spreading that fairy tale. Wouldn't be the first which people start believing just because they heard it often enough ... Like "record sales are way down because of piracy", "the internet is full of perverts and child molestors" etc.
Do you have the same concern with PROMs (there's the original fuse design...), EPROMs, EEPROMs and FlashROMs?
Agreed... But I'd also like to hear the X-wing fighter pilots talk using SSB radio; that was already redubbed in later versions of the OV.
Maybe it's time to transfer those LDs to something more handy.
You want to just hope that they find no way to play that record...
Imagine you haul in a drifting space probe, manage to learn the overly weird alien language and find yourself confronted with the message "I CAN GET NOOOO SATISFACTIOOOON."
Actually, I wouldn't be too surprised if any alien race takes that as a perfect excuse to blow up Earth...
With weather like this I'd also go for a built-in air condition...
I can already see the modified Subway slogan: "Eat fresh -- stay cool."
Slight misconception, what a H1B is used for...
Companies don't go through the hassle of sponsoring a H1B to get trainees. Any B-type visa / visa waiver would be good for that as long as they don't get payed more than a moderate daily expense and leave after 60 days.
At the company I work for, they only apply for H1B if they spot a promising foreign PhD who might fit into and benefit to the company research profile.