Exactly. For content consumption, small and mobile devices are very convenient.
Who exactly spends all of their time simply "consuming" on these devices? It's virtually impossible to spend more than a day online without feeling the urge to add to the conversation, and all iDink devices and touchscreen interfaces do is get in the way of that (2-way) conversation with the outside world.
As to the consumption itself, as far as I can see, everything is clunkier on touch device. Everything. Designers are having to make buttons and icons cartoon sized in order to accomidate simple viewing on these "computers".
I simply cannot accept the proposition that people are -- willingly -- going to accept a future of either creation or consuption on these restricted devices. Even if the whole industry collectively decides to abandon PCs, in a decade or so the current infants playing with iDinks will manage to "rediscover tactile touch based text input devices once called 'keyboards' " as a faster, better method of interfacing with their computers.
Eventually, some of them will even rediscover the command line as well.
When you talk to managers, you need to talk business. Throw every reason you think important into the trashcan. Then build your case from the ground up as a business case. Show that it saves the company money or increases productivity. Basically, make the case that your proposal == more $$$.
Essentially, you must dance the corporate Dance of the Seven Veils, in order to entice managers in the only language they are able to speak.
The NSA is an organisation of bureaucratic code monkeys. It employs more mathematicians than security staff. The NSA does not do black bag operations.
An organisation like the CIA, yes, would be expected to perform such activities. But the CIA would have a lot more discretion/sense in how it went about such things.
If the NSA does actually start running "black bag" operations, I am confident they will do as poor a job of keeping it secret as they have with the rest of their Austin Powers arsenal of projects.
Apps are a cesspit of cheap wares, flashy icons, and dubious peddling of every description. The app stores most resemble the cheap ads section of tabloid newspapers, and may as well have LET THE BUYER BEWARE and similar slogans etched in 50 foot high letters over the entrance.
There is no quality control for apps, no guarantees, no trust, no reliability, and in the vast majority of cases, no useful purpose. If this is the future of the software industry, then the software industry has no future.
If I wanted to go back to the dark days of late 1990's freeware, I would have asked.
We're practically there already. Give it another ten years and you will have a generation of programmers whose only conception of a computer is a gated iDevice, and a general public who were never able to see the difference anyway.
It's only a matter of time before ISPs introduce rate deals for those using specific devices/apps, with hard coded restrictions on what can actually be connected to. The result will be an increase in ratesa and fees for everyone who wants a general present day standard connection. At that point, the internet as we know it will no longer exist.
It is not the Supreme Court's job to go over each and every single piece if legislation or judgements that people don't like. If you allow that, you end up with a court like the Irish Supreme court, which gives every newly minted millionare in Dublin his day in court over even the most petty of business decisions. The court becomes useless, the law becomes a joke, and ultimately society suffers as the highest court in the land becomes little more than a formalised decision body for the local Golf clubs.
The person adding the metatag rotting in a federal prison?
On what charge? The US does not have an official secrets act, and these gag-orders have already been found to be unconstitutional.
The NSA is not some soviet goon squad -- as much as they'd like people to believe otherwise. They are a bloated bureaucracy equipped with legal teams, bluster, and bluff. A large part of the organization consists of mathematicians, the largest part probably clerical staff.
The recent South Park episode on the NSA probably gives about as accurate a portrayal of the NSA apparatus as anything: A mundane, somewhat disinterested, yet absurdly diligent organization engaged in a vast but meaningless task. They're not going to shoot or imprison anyone (The NSA is not the CIA).
But that such a group of men should become so feared is the most absurd development of all.
They would force you to keep the "all-clear" signal with guns pointed at your head?
Totally overblown. The NSA doesn't rely on force. It relies on passive agressive legal intimidation. These are two completely seperate things.
If America loses its freedom to a group of people who simply threaten to take people to court.... well there won't be much hope for what the country has become.
If the NSA-created holes really are "certainly" attributable to identity theft cases, then SHOW ME THE PROOF.
Well since the NSA started its movement the free Internet we knew and loved has changed utterly, so I'd say some kind of identity theft has taken place.
Until everyone figures out that due to maintenance cutbacks your gun has rusted tight due to years of neglect and decay, and that you no longer possess the skills to competently load the gun, having replaced the loading procedure with an MBA designed "just in time" ammo delivery system designed to minimise the total number of idle bullets in stock, and in any case you no longer possess bullets due to even more cutbacks and the recent outsourcing of the last factory in your country that actually makes them.
But don't worry, you still have enough credibility left to bluff.... oh, wait.
The Soviets did not help us keep our paranoia in check. They were the cause of our paranoia, and that paranoia caused numerous incidents that were both more illegal and less ethical then anything the NSA is accused of.
I'm sorry but (the stereotype of) American paranoia and mass hysteria pre-dates the Soviet Union and even communism itself. The numerous religious movements, panics, and rushes throughout American history lay testament to a nation perpetually wired to the moon -- in both a positive and negative sense.
If you look at a chart of revenue and spending in constant dollars, you'll see that after the 1998 tax cuts, revenue increased until the dot.com bust in 2000. Revenue was down until the 2001 & 2003 Bush tax cuts, after which it increased until the housing bubble burst in 2007/08. Tha major tax cuts in the era you're talking about weren't followed by revenue decreases in the years right after they took effect.
Translation: The government cut taxes and relied on the capital gains windfalls from speculative bubbles to fund itself. This went about as well as you would expect.
In areas where there is competition, people at least have alternatives (even if they aren't ideal).
In a competitive race to the bottom, all alternatives are equally unacceptable. Competition alone can not and will not magically make things better or even make them tolerable. There is little difference between a monopolists poor service and the poor services of an entire industry.
Slashdot Mirror
Who exactly spends all of their time simply "consuming" on these devices? It's virtually impossible to spend more than a day online without feeling the urge to add to the conversation, and all iDink devices and touchscreen interfaces do is get in the way of that (2-way) conversation with the outside world.
As to the consumption itself, as far as I can see, everything is clunkier on touch device. Everything. Designers are having to make buttons and icons cartoon sized in order to accomidate simple viewing on these "computers".
I simply cannot accept the proposition that people are -- willingly -- going to accept a future of either creation or consuption on these restricted devices. Even if the whole industry collectively decides to abandon PCs, in a decade or so the current infants playing with iDinks will manage to "rediscover tactile touch based text input devices once called 'keyboards' " as a faster, better method of interfacing with their computers.
Eventually, some of them will even rediscover the command line as well.
Essentially, you must dance the corporate Dance of the Seven Veils, in order to entice managers in the only language they are able to speak.
How will you know when they've proved themselves?
....and there are people who will hire them.
This is absurd.
The NSA is an organisation of bureaucratic code monkeys. It employs more mathematicians than security staff. The NSA does not do black bag operations.
An organisation like the CIA, yes, would be expected to perform such activities. But the CIA would have a lot more discretion/sense in how it went about such things.
If the NSA does actually start running "black bag" operations, I am confident they will do as poor a job of keeping it secret as they have with the rest of their Austin Powers arsenal of projects.
Don't forget to buy new iPads for all your employees as well so that they can get more work done!
Actually it's even easier
def factornumber(n):
return [ n,1 ];
(And now I can't want to see how someone out pedantics-me in continuing this petty-up-man-ship thread.)
Apps are a cesspit of cheap wares, flashy icons, and dubious peddling of every description. The app stores most resemble the cheap ads section of tabloid newspapers, and may as well have LET THE BUYER BEWARE and similar slogans etched in 50 foot high letters over the entrance.
There is no quality control for apps, no guarantees, no trust, no reliability, and in the vast majority of cases, no useful purpose. If this is the future of the software industry, then the software industry has no future.
If I wanted to go back to the dark days of late 1990's freeware, I would have asked.
We're practically there already. Give it another ten years and you will have a generation of programmers whose only conception of a computer is a gated iDevice, and a general public who were never able to see the difference anyway.
It's only a matter of time before ISPs introduce rate deals for those using specific devices/apps, with hard coded restrictions on what can actually be connected to. The result will be an increase in ratesa and fees for everyone who wants a general present day standard connection. At that point, the internet as we know it will no longer exist.
It is not the Supreme Court's job to go over each and every single piece if legislation or judgements that people don't like. If you allow that, you end up with a court like the Irish Supreme court, which gives every newly minted millionare in Dublin his day in court over even the most petty of business decisions. The court becomes useless, the law becomes a joke, and ultimately society suffers as the highest court in the land becomes little more than a formalised decision body for the local Golf clubs.
On what charge? The US does not have an official secrets act, and these gag-orders have already been found to be unconstitutional.
The NSA is not some soviet goon squad -- as much as they'd like people to believe otherwise. They are a bloated bureaucracy equipped with legal teams, bluster, and bluff. A large part of the organization consists of mathematicians, the largest part probably clerical staff.
The recent South Park episode on the NSA probably gives about as accurate a portrayal of the NSA apparatus as anything: A mundane, somewhat disinterested, yet absurdly diligent organization engaged in a vast but meaningless task. They're not going to shoot or imprison anyone (The NSA is not the CIA).
But that such a group of men should become so feared is the most absurd development of all.
Totally overblown. The NSA doesn't rely on force. It relies on passive agressive legal intimidation. These are two completely seperate things.
If America loses its freedom to a group of people who simply threaten to take people to court.... well there won't be much hope for what the country has become.
No matter. Adobe will find a way to bring the system to its knees.
Well since the NSA started its movement the free Internet we knew and loved has changed utterly, so I'd say some kind of identity theft has taken place.
Until everyone figures out that due to maintenance cutbacks your gun has rusted tight due to years of neglect and decay, and that you no longer possess the skills to competently load the gun, having replaced the loading procedure with an MBA designed "just in time" ammo delivery system designed to minimise the total number of idle bullets in stock, and in any case you no longer possess bullets due to even more cutbacks and the recent outsourcing of the last factory in your country that actually makes them.
But don't worry, you still have enough credibility left to bluff .... oh, wait.
The more I get older, the more I realise that the majority of adults are essentially still children.
I'm sorry but (the stereotype of) American paranoia and mass hysteria pre-dates the Soviet Union and even communism itself. The numerous religious movements, panics, and rushes throughout American history lay testament to a nation perpetually wired to the moon -- in both a positive and negative sense.
Translation: The government cut taxes and relied on the capital gains windfalls from speculative bubbles to fund itself. This went about as well as you would expect.
In a competitive race to the bottom, all alternatives are equally unacceptable. Competition alone can not and will not magically make things better or even make them tolerable. There is little difference between a monopolists poor service and the poor services of an entire industry.
Aaaand that's it; I'm moving to Mint.
My working job generates hundreds of megabytes of papers, data, simulation outputs and code.
My weekends are wasted on minecraft videos.
If you're a banker or other criminal type with inside connections to the survellance complex, the up-sides clock into the trillions.
It is only a matter of time before the men in charge of the NSA and GCHQ start getting invited to City dinners, if they aren't there already.
GCHQ is probably choc-a-block with paedophiles and perverts of every description. What better place to work than a consequence free voyeurs paradise.
This reeks of desperation. Whitehall must really be on the backfoot.
Health care? We're talking about the beef industry and Ayn Rand. You need to realign your dissention targeting sensors.