And why teaching functional languages is an advantage? I actually see it as an academia's disconnect with real life. They could have been very well teaching liberal arts.
Does Google have a tool to backup Gmail data? Asking seriously, would like to use one. (I am aware that there are third-party tools and you can also download everything to your mail client yourself).
45 cent light bulb? You probably live in America. Europe (and then Russia) banned 45 cent light bulbs. We're now using energy-efficient ones that cost about 10 USD on average. Buying incandescent bulbs is a challenge.
Creating advanced tools (even equal to us in all regards) will never eliminate "who will want to clean the toilets" question. There were societies that used slave labour (which approximates "self-sustaining intelligent machines") to avoid menial jobs, yet they still had the same motivational problems.
You are totally removing humans from the equation, whereas the topic is precisely about them. Even if self-sustaining population of machines can be created, that changes nothing for "who will want to clean toilets" question. There will be a need to either interact with those machines or do other "unpleasant" tasks which they cannot (yet) handle. That job might not look that unpleasant by today's standards, similarly how nowadays jobs don't look that bad from 2000 BC perspective, but it will be considered "dirty" in the future and people will not voluntarily do that.
And who will want to repair machines that repair the machines that clean toilets?
You don't get the point - we cannot avoid undesirable jobs. No matter how far we push the technical progress, there will be occupations that people will shun.
I agree with this logic, although this does not change my original statement about sympathy:) I generally prefer freedom to security, and while I would have upgraded myself (I'm not posting this from IE6:)), I would not bash anyone for refusing to do so, as long as there's some rationale behind that and not just a negligence. "Don't fix what isn't broken" can be a valid policy depending on the likelihood of being attacked.
If they bought software for a single purpose (or a set of purposes) and that purpose hasn't changed since years ago, why should they be forced to upgrade?
If the software is potentially connected to the Internet, then it represents a security risk which becomes greater the longer people have to learn about it its bugs. If it is not maintained, the case is even stronger.
People should have an up-to-date, high quality browser for Internet use. People should not have two browsers, because they will confuse them.
You maintain or replace your car. The same is true for internet-capable software: the Internet is continually evolving and you need to respond to that.
Comparison with cars is a valid one, although maintaining it is much easier than upgrading the software; moreover, you can fully enjoy current road network with a 1960 car.
I don't buy the rest of arguments. "People should have an up-to-date browser"... why? By that reasoning, you should forbid the existence of elinks and friends. I'm pretty satisfied with my current web experience (which, for me, hasn't changed much during the last decade) why should I be forced to upgrade if I don't have a clear need for that?
(NOTE: I understand developer's point of view and desire for uniformity. But I'm arguing from consumer point of view).
Disparity between people cannot be eliminated (without making us clones of each other) and is essential for the progress. What makes the system unstable in the long run is positive feedback created by the way inheritance works in our society (and nature) . We start with inequal population and with each iteration (generation) the gap widens, which ultimately results in catastrophic "rebalance" happening from time to time.
While we cannot make everyone start "from scratch" (e.g. we cannot prevent people from inheriting certain biological traits like good looks, physical strength, cleverness), we may try to change our inheritance laws so it is harder to form castes. Not sure how exactly though.
I will have sympathy for them. That software upgrade mill is tiring. If they bought software for a single purpose (or a set of purposes) and that purpose hasn't changed since years ago, why should they be forced to upgrade? As long as they have appropriate hardware, they should be fine with running the same software.
As a developer, I understand the push for new stuff. At the same time, I think that we (software development industry) are too fond of interconnecting things to cut costs in the short term (e.g. during development) or on our side (e.g. during maintenance) at the expense of our clients, so it's no wonder that they fight back. We are selling them apartments in the tenement marketed as a standalone house.
It might force one or two games companies to improve other parts of the games instead like gameplay.
That is more a problem with gamers, not games. As we get older, less things fascinate us. Take any video game of the XX century and compare with a modern game side by side - you'll see how crude and rude that was, yet people tend to rememeber old games fondly for gameplay. But if you start looking for actually good gameplay ideas in games of the past, you'll find that a) most of them have been reimplemented since then, and improved upon b) there was less variety in gameplay back then than it is today. It is astonishing that games fascinated more (comparatively) people in 1980s and 1990s than they are today - probably related to the fact that computers were still new.
So what. If I spend at least 8 hours daily in front of a (desktop) computer with an abundant screen space (two large monitors), why should I read tweets on my mobile device(s)? When I'm commuting, I don't have much time for that either.
Thanks - that's an interesting opinion. I tried to think like you and to treat snow as a crazy stuff - I think I succeeded for a short moment, but it's hard:) For me, there's no Christmas/New Year if there's no snow. Having spent the most of my life in the rich, four-season climate, I guess I would be pretty bored if the same weather stuck for longer than 3 months. In a way, it's like polar night.
I grew up in Russia in the foresty plains where earthquakes are as common as -30'C in San Francisco and I find it hard to understand how one can have a laid back attitude to life while knowing about the impeding "Big One" or similar catastrophic event that will destroy everything tangible they own and possibly kill them in the process.
Also, I don't understand the joy of having a cold ocean (8'C all year round thanks to upwelling) that you cannot swim in. Having to wear jacket in May because of the cold breeze from the said ocean is not a good summer experience either:) Also, I prefer to have snow in winter instead of rain.
I do not deny that there are people who enjoy California, just wondering how can the above not matter to them.
Okay, so the vendors will provide a developer license to people who want their own keys recognized by the BIOS - should not be costly, about $100/year. Happy now?
Open source was never about "clean code". Remember, Linux (the kernel) was regarded as an "obsolete design" by academia from the start. It was a quick hack that people liked and started to develop, there was no grand plan behind it (except for "copying" Unix, which itself had no coherent design).
Open source in its purest form is a patchwork of solutions that make sense locally, but may badly fit each other (or be redundant) in the big picture view - and this is natural. The wider world as we know it heavily relies upon redundancy and diversity.
Now, regarding your suggestion that money might have destroyed the originally technically sound open source approach. Dare I say, money is more likely to improve the situation than worsen it. Money is the ultimate metric by which we can measure whether some approach has practical merits. Without the monetary feedback, we are likely to be trapped in the infinite loop of designing "the right things" which will never be "right" in the real world. Things may get messy at times when we are stuck in the local minima of existing solutions, but in the long run I believe that money will sort it out... because better technology allows - ceteris paribus - to make more money:)
You can have a GP computer which will be locked from installing a third-party OS, at least for all practical reasons. Obsession with security is so high these days that this "only run trusted stuff" approach seems to be welcomed even by geeks - who are happy to build their own cage.
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And why teaching functional languages is an advantage? I actually see it as an academia's disconnect with real life. They could have been very well teaching liberal arts.
CS student that cannot program in C/C++ probably cannot efficiently use other languages as well.
Real humans read hex.
Does Google have a tool to backup Gmail data? Asking seriously, would like to use one. (I am aware that there are third-party tools and you can also download everything to your mail client yourself).
Try Russia. They substitute Yandex for everything Google.
You have picked a wrong site for such a comment. We are computer geeks. I, for one, don't mind turning more "dumb" things into "smart" ones.
45 cent light bulb? You probably live in America. Europe (and then Russia) banned 45 cent light bulbs. We're now using energy-efficient ones that cost about 10 USD on average. Buying incandescent bulbs is a challenge.
Creating advanced tools (even equal to us in all regards) will never eliminate "who will want to clean the toilets" question. There were societies that used slave labour (which approximates "self-sustaining intelligent machines") to avoid menial jobs, yet they still had the same motivational problems.
You are totally removing humans from the equation, whereas the topic is precisely about them. Even if self-sustaining population of machines can be created, that changes nothing for "who will want to clean toilets" question. There will be a need to either interact with those machines or do other "unpleasant" tasks which they cannot (yet) handle. That job might not look that unpleasant by today's standards, similarly how nowadays jobs don't look that bad from 2000 BC perspective, but it will be considered "dirty" in the future and people will not voluntarily do that.
And who will want to repair machines that repair the machines that clean toilets?
You don't get the point - we cannot avoid undesirable jobs. No matter how far we push the technical progress, there will be occupations that people will shun.
I agree with this logic, although this does not change my original statement about sympathy :) I generally prefer freedom to security, and while I would have upgraded myself (I'm not posting this from IE6 :)), I would not bash anyone for refusing to do so, as long as there's some rationale behind that and not just a negligence. "Don't fix what isn't broken" can be a valid policy depending on the likelihood of being attacked.
If they bought software for a single purpose (or a set of purposes) and that purpose hasn't changed since years ago, why should they be forced to upgrade?
If the software is potentially connected to the Internet, then it represents a security risk which becomes greater the longer people have to learn about it its bugs. If it is not maintained, the case is even stronger.
People should have an up-to-date, high quality browser for Internet use. People should not have two browsers, because they will confuse them.
You maintain or replace your car. The same is true for internet-capable software: the Internet is continually evolving and you need to respond to that.
Comparison with cars is a valid one, although maintaining it is much easier than upgrading the software; moreover, you can fully enjoy current road network with a 1960 car.
I don't buy the rest of arguments. "People should have an up-to-date browser"... why? By that reasoning, you should forbid the existence of elinks and friends. I'm pretty satisfied with my current web experience (which, for me, hasn't changed much during the last decade) why should I be forced to upgrade if I don't have a clear need for that? (NOTE: I understand developer's point of view and desire for uniformity. But I'm arguing from consumer point of view).
Disparity between people cannot be eliminated (without making us clones of each other) and is essential for the progress. What makes the system unstable in the long run is positive feedback created by the way inheritance works in our society (and nature) . We start with inequal population and with each iteration (generation) the gap widens, which ultimately results in catastrophic "rebalance" happening from time to time.
While we cannot make everyone start "from scratch" (e.g. we cannot prevent people from inheriting certain biological traits like good looks, physical strength, cleverness), we may try to change our inheritance laws so it is harder to form castes. Not sure how exactly though.
"Who actually wants to haul garbage for a living? Or clean toilets?"
Machines would do without problem.
Who will want to repair those machines?
If machines to clean toilets appear, then the new shit job will be servicing those machines.
I will have sympathy for them. That software upgrade mill is tiring. If they bought software for a single purpose (or a set of purposes) and that purpose hasn't changed since years ago, why should they be forced to upgrade? As long as they have appropriate hardware, they should be fine with running the same software.
As a developer, I understand the push for new stuff. At the same time, I think that we (software development industry) are too fond of interconnecting things to cut costs in the short term (e.g. during development) or on our side (e.g. during maintenance) at the expense of our clients, so it's no wonder that they fight back. We are selling them apartments in the tenement marketed as a standalone house.
Have you tried any of Humble Bundles? Take a look at these games: Trine, Limbo, Braid, Dustforce, Rochard - there are more.
It might force one or two games companies to improve other parts of the games instead like gameplay.
That is more a problem with gamers, not games. As we get older, less things fascinate us. Take any video game of the XX century and compare with a modern game side by side - you'll see how crude and rude that was, yet people tend to rememeber old games fondly for gameplay. But if you start looking for actually good gameplay ideas in games of the past, you'll find that a) most of them have been reimplemented since then, and improved upon b) there was less variety in gameplay back then than it is today. It is astonishing that games fascinated more (comparatively) people in 1980s and 1990s than they are today - probably related to the fact that computers were still new.
Clones are a lesser concern. Games... will the PC version be done by Razor1911 or Skidrow from now on?
So what. If I spend at least 8 hours daily in front of a (desktop) computer with an abundant screen space (two large monitors), why should I read tweets on my mobile device(s)? When I'm commuting, I don't have much time for that either.
Thanks - that's an interesting opinion. I tried to think like you and to treat snow as a crazy stuff - I think I succeeded for a short moment, but it's hard :) For me, there's no Christmas/New Year if there's no snow. Having spent the most of my life in the rich, four-season climate, I guess I would be pretty bored if the same weather stuck for longer than 3 months. In a way, it's like polar night.
I grew up in Russia in the foresty plains where earthquakes are as common as -30'C in San Francisco and I find it hard to understand how one can have a laid back attitude to life while knowing about the impeding "Big One" or similar catastrophic event that will destroy everything tangible they own and possibly kill them in the process.
:) Also, I prefer to have snow in winter instead of rain.
Also, I don't understand the joy of having a cold ocean (8'C all year round thanks to upwelling) that you cannot swim in. Having to wear jacket in May because of the cold breeze from the said ocean is not a good summer experience either
I do not deny that there are people who enjoy California, just wondering how can the above not matter to them.
Okay, so the vendors will provide a developer license to people who want their own keys recognized by the BIOS - should not be costly, about $100/year. Happy now?
Open source was never about "clean code". Remember, Linux (the kernel) was regarded as an "obsolete design" by academia from the start. It was a quick hack that people liked and started to develop, there was no grand plan behind it (except for "copying" Unix, which itself had no coherent design).
:)
Open source in its purest form is a patchwork of solutions that make sense locally, but may badly fit each other (or be redundant) in the big picture view - and this is natural. The wider world as we know it heavily relies upon redundancy and diversity.
Now, regarding your suggestion that money might have destroyed the originally technically sound open source approach. Dare I say, money is more likely to improve the situation than worsen it. Money is the ultimate metric by which we can measure whether some approach has practical merits. Without the monetary feedback, we are likely to be trapped in the infinite loop of designing "the right things" which will never be "right" in the real world. Things may get messy at times when we are stuck in the local minima of existing solutions, but in the long run I believe that money will sort it out... because better technology allows - ceteris paribus - to make more money
You can have a GP computer which will be locked from installing a third-party OS, at least for all practical reasons. Obsession with security is so high these days that this "only run trusted stuff" approach seems to be welcomed even by geeks - who are happy to build their own cage.