essentially if these people could extrapolate trends to the future accurately they would not be wasting their time writing sci-fi books.
Right! People who can can really predict future trends--like the development of satellite-based communications, for example--wouldn't waste their time writing science fiction.
One of the problems with the type of extrapolation which the SF writers are talking about is that they can't or don't account for the plateau, it's been mentioned in the thread already but trends simply cannot continue increasing to the point where they reach singularity in the real world, some limit always kicks in to form a plateau. We simply can't see what it is at the moment.
In many cases, physical limits intervene. Exponential increase in speed of travel does not imply that we'll find a way to break the light speed barrier (but we might). But the singularity being spoken of here is not a physical singularity, but a singularity of extrapolation--a kind of discontinuity or state transition beyond which simple extrapolation is impossible, because what lies on the other side is qualitatively different from what came before. And those are actually rather common in the real world.
AI is moving slowly because researchers in the 60's realized that if they did their job too well, their very jobs would be done by the machine.
You assign them too much foresight. A lot of them are academics, who are more interested in discovery than practical matters like keeping their jobs (besides, some of them have tenure). And most people would be willing to trade fame and fortune today for possibly having to look for a new job in 10 years or so.
It is typical of spoiled first-worlders to talk as if no other people exist, other than spoiled first-worlders, and to think that incremental improvements on their quality of life are great cultural revolutiona.
Actually, what I find most remarkable is how rapidly these technological advancements have penetrated into the second and third worlds. In many ways, I think the impact of these technologies is greater outside the first world, and tends in at least some cases work to reduce the economic gulf between 2nd and 3rd world countries and first world ones. For example, as threatening as outsourcing is to first world countries, it offers opportunities to people in second and third world countries to participate in areas of economic endeavor that were once closed to them.
The internet did not cause a "massive transformation of human culture". It has made hardly any difference at all to human culture.
Some of the unexpected changes:
1) The free press no longer belongs to "the man who can afford one." Everybody has the equivalent of their own printing press. Individual bloggers, unaffiliated with major news organizations, are now a significant influence on political races.
2) Distribution of music has been transformed, and the control of traditional studios of media distribution is eroding.
3) Virtually everybody worldwide has access to research capabilities that were previously available only to the wealthy and those who had access to a major library are now available worldwide.
4) Government control of information distribution has become enormously more difficult. Interdiction of taboo political or cultural information (e.g. pornography) is much weaker.
5) There is now a market available to the average citizen worldwide in almost any product you can identify, new or used.
Computers have changed hardly at all in the last thirty years, even. The sort of software running on your desktop at a kernel level is not exactly revolutionary, it is just the same sort of thing as 30 years ago.
However, applications and interfaces have changed enormously. Almost everybody now has access to music, photo, typesetting, and video editing facilities that were available only to professionals 30 years ago.
It is sad that the most revolutionary and transforming effects could be acheived with the simple technologies we have already developed, like anti-malarial drugs, vitamin supplements, fertilisers, and so on, than can possibly be acheived by any future development that is remotely likely.
Yes, if only we could make more rational, more humanistic use of the resources we already have, the world would be transformed. But practically speaking, this is as much fantasy as orcs and wizards. While the technology of doing more with computers is rapidly advancing, the "social technology" of achieving in practice the sort of "revolutionary and transforming effects" that you envision seems to have stalled decades ago.
The "singularity" is one of the favorite wet dreams of the "transhumanists", a group of spoiled adults who seemingly find it difficult to tell reality and science fiction apart.
Indeed, this can be difficult even for scientists who read the physics literature. Much of what was regarded as science fiction in the 50's is fact today, including some things that were generally considered to be fantasy at one time, like beam weapons. Physicists are carrying out serious experiments on quantum teleportation, and methods of transmitting information (random information, but still information) faster than light.
Now there are multiple lines of serious investigation, any one of which that could lead to massive transformation not merely of human culture (such as happened so recently with the internet, and was predicted by hardly anybody), but also of humanity itself:
-AI -Genetic modification of human beings -Direct man/machine interfaces -Nanotechnology
Perhaps any one of these will not pan out. AI progress has moved fairly slowly of late. On the other hand, neurobiology has been booming along, and there seems little doubt that it will eventually be possible to simulate brain function. I can understand why writers are finding it difficult to extrapolate far into the future; it is simply hard to imagine that all of these will stall out.
One thing I can say, though, is that fiction doesn't have to be true. Hence the name! Basing what science fiction authors can or cannot do in terms of what is likely to happen in the future, is absurd.
However, the article is referring to a particular kind of science fiction (sometimes called "hard" SF) which is based upon realistically extrapolating current technology and trends into the future.
The problem is that reasonable extrapolation along a number of pathways leads to a future that is so alien that it is difficult to imagine, and even more difficult to think of anything to write about that would be entertaining to modern readers. The problem, is that humanity as we know it may not exist for much longer.
However, both Vinge and Stross have found literary ways around the singularity. Sort of the science fiction equivalent of "Left Behind." That is, even if the singularity occurs, it might not take everybody.
If you can make a discernably better DVD player than the next guy, you might be able to sell for more. Of course, once people realise this, you'll have to move on again, but that's reality.
In reality, unfortunately, it just doesn't work this way. Companies know that in the minds of consumers, a VCR is a VCR. That's what commoditization does: the item becomes generic. It becomes virtually impossible to convince consumers that the new and improved model justifies a substantially higher price. And given that risk, who is going to invest in the development effort? It would be much smarter to invest in something that could more plausibly demand a premium price. So features that could easily have been added to VCRs, such as on-screen searchable program guides, "season passes" and the capacity to schedule dozens of show for recording appear instead on PVRs and DVD recorders, where the manufacturer can say, "It's not a VCR, it's something new and better!" and charge a price 5 to 20 times what consumers are willing to pay for a generic VCR.
...is that the technology gets frozen. Nobody wants to invest in developing better players when they have to compete with $40 el cheapo models. We saw this happen to VCRs. In this day of cheap digital electronics, VCR timers can still remember maybe 8 events, with a user interface that has barely advanced in 20 years. And better VCRs are not even on the shelves at mass-market dealers. Now, the same thing is happening to DVD players. It's hard to find a quality DVD player at Best Buy; instead, the shelves are lined with VCR/DVD combos (a stupid idea, but it is an excuse to charge a higher price). Paradoxically, as the price drops at the bottom end, the price for quality units tends to rise, because they become more of a specialty item (a lot of people are willing to pay twice as much for quality or features, but 10 times as much?).
I honestly don't understand why it would be that much more expensive than a regular laptop. The only things different are a hinge that flips around and an overlay which goes on the screen. The flip-around hinge is really just a redesign, that should be a trivial cost
On the other hand, Apple doesn't have such a good history on hinges. Maybe they need to be spending a bit more.
How could they not know that this was going to fail so completely? The article did not state whether or not they had done any test flights before the public demonstration. If they did, and it worked, than maybe it was just the temp/humidity as stated. It was interesting to read:
Very probably, they didn't really expect it to work the first time (although I'm sure they had hopes). But hey, it's a university, so there's no real reason to hide the failures behind closed doors, and good educational reasons to do it in public. After all, failing and going on is a legitimate part of the development process.
I don't recall Apple being "widely derided" for being proprietary hardware, because almost everything everyone used back then was proprietary. The only "open standard" hardware was S-100, which was wildly unsuccessful except in a few industrial niches where "standards" are more important than not sucking (IMO, of course), and the microcomputer market was completely dominated by proprietary hardware (Apple, Commodore, Radio Shack, etc.). IMO, it was simply too early for the industry to evolve hardware standards, because nobody knew what worked and what didn't, so you needed competing technologies to duke it out for a few years.
You are right that the Apple II was, by far, a superior design to all of the other computers available at the time. Wozniak's was an incredibly brilliant designer, with an amazing economy of design. But there were in fact many other microcomputers available at the time using industry standard S-100 bus and CP/M operating system, which had become the standard for businesses and serious hobbyists. When the Apple II was first introduces, its departure form these standard interfaces was mentioned, and criticized, in virtually every review. There was even a S-100 compatible PC that was roughly price-competitive with the Apple II--the Exidy Sorcerer. When I was pricing my first PC, I initially wanted to get an S-100 system, and looked very seriously at the Exidy system. But I ended up choosing the Apple II because it was the only moderately priced system of its era with the capability of doing high-resolution bit-mapped graphics--and in color, no less (due to another of Wozniak's brilliant hacks). Everything else close to its price range offered only character-mapped graphics.
Microsoft got to work. They had a very hard time because PC hardware at the time really sucked.
No, the issue wasn't the hardware, it was a completely different approach to a windowing interface. Microsoft's original version of Windows had a very different user interface model. Instead of using stackable windows, as Apple had chosen to do, it put documents into different "panes", much as some web sites do today. Microsoft convinced Apple that they were committed to this approach, so Apple saw little direct competition with the Mac GUI.
I don't think Bill Gates has such amazing abilities to predict the future that he knew exactly which trivial features to license to screw over Apple.
It's not a matter of predicting the future, but rather one of having better lawyers. Microsoft clearly went over the Mac GUI with a fine-tooth comb, and identified the elements without prior art. Those were precisely the elements that Microsoft licensed. Apple wasn't concerned with Microsoft having a GUI, they just didn't want them to have one like Apple's. Gates managed to convince Apple that Microsoft was going to take windowing interfaces in a completely different direction. When Microsoft pulled a turn around, Apple was understandably incensed at being fooled, and sued but they really had already given away the family jewels; they didn't have a legal leg left to stand on. Apple protested that their stuff was only licensed for the original "panes" style of windowing interface, but they had neglected to write that into the license.
At one time, Apple had the best hardware, the best OS, and all the big hit programs came out on the Mac first. IIRC even Excel came out on the Mac first
I doubt if that was because of the superior hardware. Gates got a lot in return: Apple killed their superior BASIC, and they gave Microsoft a license for certain "minor" features of the Mac interface to use in Windows, which at that time used a "panes" approach that was not directly competitive with the Mac's overlapping Windows. Unfortunately, Apple discovered that Windows' panes were part of a bait-and-switch--Microsoft turned around and released a version of Windows that was a blatant copy of the Mac GUI. When Apple tried to sue, they discovered how completely Gates had outmaneuvered Jobs--those minor features that they had licensed were precisely the ones that were original to Apple, and the license set no restrictions on what Microsoft could do with them in future versions of Windows.
The Apple IIGS in 1986 ran a full-color MacOS-equivalent (and superior, in some ways) called GS/OS very well, and it was essentially an underclocked Amiga. (The Apple IIGS also had very large ROMs; whether the Macintosh would've made the same impression it did had been released two years later I can't say.) Since it was totally compatible with Apple IIe (etc.) programs, it could have been the kind of "parlay" the article's author went on about, but it sank under Apple's neglect and unfathomable obsession with the the Macintosh.
Yes, in retrospect, Apple should probably have focused on implementing its GUI on the IIgs. They could have transitioned to the 68000 a bit later with a 65816 emulator, much as they did when they went to the PowerPC. But hindsight is easy; I doubt if even Apple realized initially that it would be possible to implement a Mac-like GUI on the 65816 (and in color, no less, when the Mac was still B&W); it was their experience in designing the Mac that taught them how. But by that point, they were already committed to the Mac platform.
The irony is that the Apple ][ was successful largely because it was a completely open hardware platform, so it was adapted to hundreds of applications that nobody every expected.
Actually, when the Apple II came out, it was widely derided for having a proprietary hardware standard, instead of using the industry-standard open S-100 bus.
...is somehow "novel." Paper does this all the time.
Uh, yeah. The black text on white background was intended to emulate the appearance of paper. The novel aspects of the GUI were not the use of interface elements that nobody had ever seen before--it was the use of familiar elements like black text on white, file folders, wastepaper baskets, etc. etc. in the context of a computer interface.
Here is a situation, I need a new desktop computer. I have a nice laptop already and I have 2 nice 17" LCD displays.
Sounds like you are in the same position as somebody who already has a set of tires and complains that Ford doesn't sell any cars without tires. The solution is the same: sell those old tires of yours on Ebay and use the proceeds to help you buy a car with tires.
This 'digital blackmail/digital terrorism' leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
Blackmail involves the withholding of information in return for a fee. If providing information in return for a fee is blackmail, then we'll have to jail all the programmers and scientists.
Except that C.S. Lewis's fantasy efforts were infinitely more boring. I couldn't get through even the first chapter of That Hideous Strength.
I don't think I ever go through that series either, but I really liked his Narnia books. Still, they weren't in the league with Tolkien (who despite their friendship was reportedly not a fan of Lewis's Narnia series)
C S Lewis was a close friend of Tolkien. He was hardly an unbiased critic!
I think "unbiased critic" is an oxymoron. Probably more important than his personal friendship with Tolkien was the fact that C S Lewis clearly shared the view that fantasy could be serious literature. To what extent Lewis's appreciation of Tolkien's worked stemmed from his personal friendship and to what extent that friendship developed out of his admiration of Tolkien's work is a difficult question. Very likely it went both ways.
I understand that it may be difficult for us NOW to understand what the critics were saying in 1954 but you have to remember that writings were influenced by the conservative nature of the times.
I think the modern literary establishment is just as conservative, and has just as much difficulty recognizing brilliant work that does not fit into a standard literary mold. Consider some of the expressions of outrage when Stephen King won the National Book Foundation Award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
Tolkien's work was a fantasy for adults, written in a serious mode normally reserved for traditional mythology. Hardly surprising that many critics didn't know how to deal with it. Yet even in Tolkien's time, some people, such as WH Auden and CS Lewis recognized the work's value.
I don't agree. It sends the wrong message: that consumers should be able to distinguish between legitimate and phish emails. I got 90%, but I wouldn't have responded to any of the links. My rule is simple--I don't provide any private information to any site to which I am linked by an email (or to any stranger who calls me on the phone, for that matter) no matter what it says. If it convinces me that I need to respond, then I'll use my browser to go directly to a site that I know to be authentic.
Slashdot Mirror
essentially if these people could extrapolate trends to the future accurately they would not be wasting their time writing sci-fi books.
Right! People who can can really predict future trends--like the development of satellite-based communications, for example--wouldn't waste their time writing science fiction.
Oh, wait....
One of the problems with the type of extrapolation which the SF writers are talking about is that they can't or don't account for the plateau, it's been mentioned in the thread already but trends simply cannot continue increasing to the point where they reach singularity in the real world, some limit always kicks in to form a plateau. We simply can't see what it is at the moment.
In many cases, physical limits intervene. Exponential increase in speed of travel does not imply that we'll find a way to break the light speed barrier (but we might). But the singularity being spoken of here is not a physical singularity, but a singularity of extrapolation--a kind of discontinuity or state transition beyond which simple extrapolation is impossible, because what lies on the other side is qualitatively different from what came before. And those are actually rather common in the real world.
AI is moving slowly because researchers in the 60's realized that if they did their job too well, their very jobs would be done by the machine.
You assign them too much foresight. A lot of them are academics, who are more interested in discovery than practical matters like keeping their jobs (besides, some of them have tenure). And most people would be willing to trade fame and fortune today for possibly having to look for a new job in 10 years or so.
It is typical of spoiled first-worlders to talk as if no other people exist, other than spoiled first-worlders, and to think that incremental improvements on their quality of life are great cultural revolutiona.
Actually, what I find most remarkable is how rapidly these technological advancements have penetrated into the second and third worlds. In many ways, I think the impact of these technologies is greater outside the first world, and tends in at least some cases work to reduce the economic gulf between 2nd and 3rd world countries and first world ones. For example, as threatening as outsourcing is to first world countries, it offers opportunities to people in second and third world countries to participate in areas of economic endeavor that were once closed to them.
The internet did not cause a "massive transformation of human culture". It has made hardly any difference at all to human culture.
Some of the unexpected changes:
1) The free press no longer belongs to "the man who can afford one." Everybody has the equivalent of their own printing press. Individual bloggers, unaffiliated with major news organizations, are now a significant influence on political races.
2) Distribution of music has been transformed, and the control of traditional studios of media distribution is eroding.
3) Virtually everybody worldwide has access to research capabilities that were previously available only to the wealthy and those who had access to a major library are now available worldwide.
4) Government control of information distribution has become enormously more difficult. Interdiction of taboo political or cultural information (e.g. pornography) is much weaker.
5) There is now a market available to the average citizen worldwide in almost any product you can identify, new or used.
Computers have changed hardly at all in the last thirty years, even. The sort of software running on your desktop at a kernel level is not exactly revolutionary, it is just the same sort of thing as 30 years ago.
However, applications and interfaces have changed enormously. Almost everybody now has access to music, photo, typesetting, and video editing facilities that were available only to professionals 30 years ago.
It is sad that the most revolutionary and transforming effects could be acheived with the simple technologies we have already developed, like anti-malarial drugs, vitamin supplements, fertilisers, and so on, than can possibly be acheived by any future development that is remotely likely.
Yes, if only we could make more rational, more humanistic use of the resources we already have, the world would be transformed. But practically speaking, this is as much fantasy as orcs and wizards. While the technology of doing more with computers is rapidly advancing, the "social technology" of achieving in practice the sort of "revolutionary and transforming effects" that you envision seems to have stalled decades ago.
The "singularity" is one of the favorite wet dreams of the "transhumanists", a group of spoiled adults who seemingly find it difficult to tell reality and science fiction apart.
Indeed, this can be difficult even for scientists who read the physics literature. Much of what was regarded as science fiction in the 50's is fact today, including some things that were generally considered to be fantasy at one time, like beam weapons. Physicists are carrying out serious experiments on quantum teleportation, and methods of transmitting information (random information, but still information) faster than light.
Now there are multiple lines of serious investigation, any one of which that could lead to massive transformation not merely of human culture (such as happened so recently with the internet, and was predicted by hardly anybody), but also of humanity itself:
-AI
-Genetic modification of human beings
-Direct man/machine interfaces
-Nanotechnology
Perhaps any one of these will not pan out. AI progress has moved fairly slowly of late. On the other hand, neurobiology has been booming along, and there seems little doubt that it will eventually be possible to simulate brain function. I can understand why writers are finding it difficult to extrapolate far into the future; it is simply hard to imagine that all of these will stall out.
However, the article is referring to a particular kind of science fiction (sometimes called "hard" SF) which is based upon realistically extrapolating current technology and trends into the future.
The problem is that reasonable extrapolation along a number of pathways leads to a future that is so alien that it is difficult to imagine, and even more difficult to think of anything to write about that would be entertaining to modern readers. The problem, is that humanity as we know it may not exist for much longer.
However, both Vinge and Stross have found literary ways around the singularity. Sort of the science fiction equivalent of "Left Behind." That is, even if the singularity occurs, it might not take everybody.
If you can make a discernably better DVD player than the next guy, you might be able to sell for more. Of course, once people realise this, you'll have to move on again, but that's reality.
In reality, unfortunately, it just doesn't work this way. Companies know that in the minds of consumers, a VCR is a VCR. That's what commoditization does: the item becomes generic. It becomes virtually impossible to convince consumers that the new and improved model justifies a substantially higher price. And given that risk, who is going to invest in the development effort? It would be much smarter to invest in something that could more plausibly demand a premium price. So features that could easily have been added to VCRs, such as on-screen searchable program guides, "season passes" and the capacity to schedule dozens of show for recording appear instead on PVRs and DVD recorders, where the manufacturer can say, "It's not a VCR, it's something new and better!" and charge a price 5 to 20 times what consumers are willing to pay for a generic VCR.
...is that the technology gets frozen. Nobody wants to invest in developing better players when they have to compete with $40 el cheapo models. We saw this happen to VCRs. In this day of cheap digital electronics, VCR timers can still remember maybe 8 events, with a user interface that has barely advanced in 20 years. And better VCRs are not even on the shelves at mass-market dealers. Now, the same thing is happening to DVD players. It's hard to find a quality DVD player at Best Buy; instead, the shelves are lined with VCR/DVD combos (a stupid idea, but it is an excuse to charge a higher price). Paradoxically, as the price drops at the bottom end, the price for quality units tends to rise, because they become more of a specialty item (a lot of people are willing to pay twice as much for quality or features, but 10 times as much?).
I honestly don't understand why it would be that much more expensive than a regular laptop. The only things different are a hinge that flips around and an overlay which goes on the screen. The flip-around hinge is really just a redesign, that should be a trivial cost
On the other hand, Apple doesn't have such a good history on hinges. Maybe they need to be spending a bit more.
How could they not know that this was going to fail so completely? The article did not state whether or not they had done any test flights before the public demonstration. If they did, and it worked, than maybe it was just the temp/humidity as stated. It was interesting to read:
Very probably, they didn't really expect it to work the first time (although I'm sure they had hopes). But hey, it's a university, so there's no real reason to hide the failures behind closed doors, and good educational reasons to do it in public. After all, failing and going on is a legitimate part of the development process.
I don't recall Apple being "widely derided" for being proprietary hardware, because almost everything everyone used back then was proprietary. The only "open standard" hardware was S-100, which was wildly unsuccessful except in a few industrial niches where "standards" are more important than not sucking (IMO, of course), and the microcomputer market was completely dominated by proprietary hardware (Apple, Commodore, Radio Shack, etc.). IMO, it was simply too early for the industry to evolve hardware standards, because nobody knew what worked and what didn't, so you needed competing technologies to duke it out for a few years.
You are right that the Apple II was, by far, a superior design to all of the other computers available at the time. Wozniak's was an incredibly brilliant designer, with an amazing economy of design. But there were in fact many other microcomputers available at the time using industry standard S-100 bus and CP/M operating system, which had become the standard for businesses and serious hobbyists. When the Apple II was first introduces, its departure form these standard interfaces was mentioned, and criticized, in virtually every review. There was even a S-100 compatible PC that was roughly price-competitive with the Apple II--the Exidy Sorcerer. When I was pricing my first PC, I initially wanted to get an S-100 system, and looked very seriously at the Exidy system. But I ended up choosing the Apple II because it was the only moderately priced system of its era with the capability of doing high-resolution bit-mapped graphics--and in color, no less (due to another of Wozniak's brilliant hacks). Everything else close to its price range offered only character-mapped graphics.
There's no evidence, and your theory requires Microsoft to be brilliant and Machiavellian....
Yes, I suppose that's kind of far-fetched, isn't it?
Microsoft got to work. They had a very hard time because PC hardware at the time really sucked.
No, the issue wasn't the hardware, it was a completely different approach to a windowing interface. Microsoft's original version of Windows had a very different user interface model. Instead of using stackable windows, as Apple had chosen to do, it put documents into different "panes", much as some web sites do today. Microsoft convinced Apple that they were committed to this approach, so Apple saw little direct competition with the Mac GUI.
I don't think Bill Gates has such amazing abilities to predict the future that he knew exactly which trivial features to license to screw over Apple.
It's not a matter of predicting the future, but rather one of having better lawyers. Microsoft clearly went over the Mac GUI with a fine-tooth comb, and identified the elements without prior art. Those were precisely the elements that Microsoft licensed. Apple wasn't concerned with Microsoft having a GUI, they just didn't want them to have one like Apple's. Gates managed to convince Apple that Microsoft was going to take windowing interfaces in a completely different direction. When Microsoft pulled a turn around, Apple was understandably incensed at being fooled, and sued but they really had already given away the family jewels; they didn't have a legal leg left to stand on. Apple protested that their stuff was only licensed for the original "panes" style of windowing interface, but they had neglected to write that into the license.
At one time, Apple had the best hardware, the best OS, and all the big hit programs came out on the Mac first. IIRC even Excel came out on the Mac first
I doubt if that was because of the superior hardware. Gates got a lot in return: Apple killed their superior BASIC, and they gave Microsoft a license for certain "minor" features of the Mac interface to use in Windows, which at that time used a "panes" approach that was not directly competitive with the Mac's overlapping Windows. Unfortunately, Apple discovered that Windows' panes were part of a bait-and-switch--Microsoft turned around and released a version of Windows that was a blatant copy of the Mac GUI. When Apple tried to sue, they discovered how completely Gates had outmaneuvered Jobs--those minor features that they had licensed were precisely the ones that were original to Apple, and the license set no restrictions on what Microsoft could do with them in future versions of Windows.
The Apple IIGS in 1986 ran a full-color MacOS-equivalent (and superior, in some ways) called GS/OS very well, and it was essentially an underclocked Amiga. (The Apple IIGS also had very large ROMs; whether the Macintosh would've made the same impression it did had been released two years later I can't say.) Since it was totally compatible with Apple IIe (etc.) programs, it could have been the kind of "parlay" the article's author went on about, but it sank under Apple's neglect and unfathomable obsession with the the Macintosh.
Yes, in retrospect, Apple should probably have focused on implementing its GUI on the IIgs. They could have transitioned to the 68000 a bit later with a 65816 emulator, much as they did when they went to the PowerPC. But hindsight is easy; I doubt if even Apple realized initially that it would be possible to implement a Mac-like GUI on the 65816 (and in color, no less, when the Mac was still B&W); it was their experience in designing the Mac that taught them how. But by that point, they were already committed to the Mac platform.
The irony is that the Apple ][ was successful largely because it was a completely open hardware platform, so it was adapted to hundreds of applications that nobody every expected.
Actually, when the Apple II came out, it was widely derided for having a proprietary hardware standard, instead of using the industry-standard open S-100 bus.
...is somehow "novel." Paper does this all the time.
Uh, yeah. The black text on white background was intended to emulate the appearance of paper. The novel aspects of the GUI were not the use of interface elements that nobody had ever seen before--it was the use of familiar elements like black text on white, file folders, wastepaper baskets, etc. etc. in the context of a computer interface.
Here is a situation, I need a new desktop computer. I have a nice laptop already and I have 2 nice 17" LCD displays .
Sounds like you are in the same position as somebody who already has a set of tires and complains that Ford doesn't sell any cars without tires. The solution is the same: sell those old tires of yours on Ebay and use the proceeds to help you buy a car with tires.
This 'digital blackmail/digital terrorism' leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
Blackmail involves the withholding of information in return for a fee. If providing information in return for a fee is blackmail, then we'll have to jail all the programmers and scientists.
And what happens when your capture card in that PC dies?
Maybe you'd better buy two. Or three....
Except that C.S. Lewis's fantasy efforts were infinitely more boring. I couldn't get through even the first chapter of That Hideous Strength.
I don't think I ever go through that series either, but I really liked his Narnia books. Still, they weren't in the league with Tolkien (who despite their friendship was reportedly not a fan of Lewis's Narnia series)
C S Lewis was a close friend of Tolkien. He was hardly an unbiased critic!
I think "unbiased critic" is an oxymoron. Probably more important than his personal friendship with Tolkien was the fact that C S Lewis clearly shared the view that fantasy could be serious literature. To what extent Lewis's appreciation of Tolkien's worked stemmed from his personal friendship and to what extent that friendship developed out of his admiration of Tolkien's work is a difficult question. Very likely it went both ways.
I think the modern literary establishment is just as conservative, and has just as much difficulty recognizing brilliant work that does not fit into a standard literary mold. Consider some of the expressions of outrage when Stephen King won the National Book Foundation Award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Tolkien's work was a fantasy for adults, written in a serious mode normally reserved for traditional mythology. Hardly surprising that many critics didn't know how to deal with it. Yet even in Tolkien's time, some people, such as WH Auden and CS Lewis recognized the work's value.
I don't agree. It sends the wrong message: that consumers should be able to distinguish between legitimate and phish emails. I got 90%, but I wouldn't have responded to any of the links. My rule is simple--I don't provide any private information to any site to which I am linked by an email (or to any stranger who calls me on the phone, for that matter) no matter what it says. If it convinces me that I need to respond, then I'll use my browser to go directly to a site that I know to be authentic.