Why is it that when this subject comes up, people by default assume that "man must survive as a species?". The dinosaurs didn't and I think it made earth a better place to live:). Maybe if we (humans) go extinct, life will flourish like never before on planet earth. I suppose it is some sort of survival instinct to think that "we must survive!", but we're such a small piece of the universe that I think no one will notice if we just disappear:)
I actually think offices cost less in the long term. I was in an office for half of my career, and in a cube for the other half. My office was at least 25% smaller than my cube, but since it is an office, it doesn't really feel small, it actually feels more comfortable. So with careful planning, I think you can pack more offices (without windows of course) than cubes given the same square footage. Also, I'm pretty sure that a company will save a lot of employee-work-hours ( = dollars! ) just due to the fact that there's more noise isolation and less distractions. Some people say cubes encourage 'brainstorming' or 'collaboration', which I think is total bs. You can always go to someone else's office, take a few of colleagues with you, shut the door, and collaborate all you want without distracting anybody. Finally, you can deny it all you want but everyone takes care of personal business at work. A simple phone call to your doctor which would take a few minutes of your time from your office becomes a 'task': find an empty conference room, (maybe you need to reserve it too), go to the conference room, etc etc, effectively costing more for your company.
I'll make a wild guess that, not many people will care about this problem for a loooong while, until a disasterous space accident is caused by space debris. And then there'll be ridiculous attempts to alleviate the problem, such as a 'kyoto protocol' of space debris, which won't be ratified by guess who.
Who's with me?
Say what you want about the French, but think I their vision is right on:
(from the article...) 'Today the new geography of knowledge and cultures is being drawn. Tomorrow, that which is not available online runs the risk of being invisible to the world.'
Already, a lot of 'news' and 'information' in the world are manipulated by huge media organizations. You hear, listen, believe what CNN, NBC and BBC tell you, because that's what is available to you. As I think you'll all agree, with the WWW growing to an enourmous size, search engines become a critical source of information and it is scary to me that one entity in the world can fully control the index to information.
Slashdot Mirror
Why is it that when this subject comes up, people by default assume that "man must survive as a species?". The dinosaurs didn't and I think it made earth a better place to live :). Maybe if we (humans) go extinct, life will flourish like never before on planet earth. I suppose it is some sort of survival instinct to think that "we must survive!", but we're such a small piece of the universe that I think no one will notice if we just disappear :)
... and why this is "news for nerds, stuff that matters" is beyond me. Slashdot, news for ners, stuff that matters AND Google Google Google
I can imagine the ads:
'Intel ViiV will let you talk twice as much with twice as many friends!'
I actually think offices cost less in the long term. I was in an office for half of my career, and in a cube for the other half. My office was at least 25% smaller than my cube, but since it is an office, it doesn't really feel small, it actually feels more comfortable. So with careful planning, I think you can pack more offices (without windows of course) than cubes given the same square footage. Also, I'm pretty sure that a company will save a lot of employee-work-hours ( = dollars! ) just due to the fact that there's more noise isolation and less distractions. Some people say cubes encourage 'brainstorming' or 'collaboration', which I think is total bs. You can always go to someone else's office, take a few of colleagues with you, shut the door, and collaborate all you want without distracting anybody. Finally, you can deny it all you want but everyone takes care of personal business at work. A simple phone call to your doctor which would take a few minutes of your time from your office becomes a 'task': find an empty conference room, (maybe you need to reserve it too), go to the conference room, etc etc, effectively costing more for your company.
I'll make a wild guess that, not many people will care about this problem for a loooong while, until a disasterous space accident is caused by space debris. And then there'll be ridiculous attempts to alleviate the problem, such as a 'kyoto protocol' of space debris, which won't be ratified by guess who. Who's with me?
Say what you want about the French, but think I their vision is right on: (from the article...) 'Today the new geography of knowledge and cultures is being drawn. Tomorrow, that which is not available online runs the risk of being invisible to the world.' Already, a lot of 'news' and 'information' in the world are manipulated by huge media organizations. You hear, listen, believe what CNN, NBC and BBC tell you, because that's what is available to you. As I think you'll all agree, with the WWW growing to an enourmous size, search engines become a critical source of information and it is scary to me that one entity in the world can fully control the index to information.