You used to need a mathematics degree and be a top flight academic to be a programmer, back in the beginning. Now, high school kids can enter the programming world, and get jobs."
In many ways, I think programming these days is a lot like graphic design in the late '80s, early '90s. Graphic designers were freaked out when commoners got Macs and started putting their LaserWriters to use building fliers, magazines, and so on.
But the designers soon realized that no set of digital tools could replicate the trained eye, the native skill of a good designer. The same is true of programming. Look at the tools out there that supposedly automate web site development. They're a joke - they hamstring you and don't let you do anything out of the box at all.
For the same reason the average Microsoft Publisher-using John Q. Public isn't going to usurp a trained designer who uses Illustrator and knows how to squeeze the most out of it, no connect-the-dots programming tool will force skilled programmers out of their jobs.
No matter how far the technology advances, you have to be able to think a certain way in order to effectively program a computer. Sure, every Tom, Dick and Harry will someday be able to program their home to detect intruders, fire up the oven, and monitor the baby, but by then professional programmers will be busy making software that tells nanites how to scrub out a cancer patient's body.
According to dictionary.com, meaning number three on the list - "A sudden or momentous change in a situation: the revolution in computer technology. "
Meaning number two is: "The overthrow of one government and its replacement with another."
Katz seems to be merging meanings two and three. In his mind there is perhaps this change in the situation that will of its own accord overthrow the traditional structures of government throughout the world.
At least, it seems that way at first read. But somehow when I read Katz's posts, I always get the feeling that he's talking about some kind of soft and fuzzy Velvet Revolution on a global scale, an affair that will change everything but in a peaceful, happy, sing in a great big circle kind of way.
The problem with this line of thinking is that revolutions of both the political and the merely situational varieties are never without turmoil, pain, and suffering. Just watch The Patriot to get an idea of how painful the American Revolution was (that was a joke, folks).
But seriously, this expectation that somehow the rise of the Internet and associated technologies is somehow a "leaderless revolution" fundamentally misses the point.
The rise of the Internet is a technological change that has in turn spawned cultural and political changes. There is no political revolution inherent in the Internet.
Katz is trying to tell us that somehow, whereas the automobile was merely a revolution in technology, the Internet is a Revolution in the political sense of the word. The car completely changed almost every aspect of culture in the Western world, yet nobody ever described its development in terms akin to Socialist revolution, the way Katz describes the 'Net.
The Internet is a technology that has greatly altered the status quo, and it's still really in its early stages in terms of its impact on society. But let's not start waving banners and lets not mistake it for what it is: a tool that can be used for good, bad, or just plain mundane uses.
Whether I have been to one or not is irrelevant. It's whether most users do. Most users do not get their apps from warez sites, particularly business users wary of getting sued. They may copy, and use the same license on several machines, but warez is for hackers and gamers, not for Joan Q. Public.
I agree with you that it's nice to be able to get all of Yahoo's features in one place, but I disagree on a couple of other points:
1) Yahoo's features aren't well-integrated. Try using chat, email, and clubs at the same time without having to do multiple logins.
2) Yahoo's features aren't best of breed. You get all the functionalities, but none of them are the best in their category. I think here the comparison to MS Office is apt - with Office you get everything bundled together, but to many people WordPerfect is a better WP app, 1-2-3 was a better spreadsheet, FileMaker is a better database, etc.
Microsoft can write bloated code and include more features in an app like Office than anyone will ever use, because they have a deathgrip of the office app market.
Yahoo and other portals have tried to follow suit, doing all things for all potential users, and in the process spending lavisly to acquire niche competitors.
But Yahoo doesn't have a lock on Web users the way Microsoft does with Office for desktop users. You can't just click a link to use Word Perfect rather than Word. But you certainly can leave Yahoo to use another site.
Sites that stay focused on what they do well tend to survive. It's the UNIX mantra - small, sharp tools that get the job done. I was a religious eGroups user until they got swallowed by Yahoo. Now the interface sucks and I'll probably start looking for a replacement.
Portals by definition are not lean and mean. You might even say that they are counter to the spirit of the Web. Things are *supposed* to be distributed, and users of the Web understand this better than all the industry pundits. They also have shown again and again that brand loyalty on the Web doesn't amount to squat.
You're right about avionics - in the year 2001. But in 1950, the avionics gap wasn't anywhere near what it is now. Also, most kills at the time were still gun kills, which are implemented almost exclusively through the skill of the pilot himself.
Hey, nifty info! Thanks for the URL. Good intel is hard to obtain - I imagine the Sabre pilots were always pleased to hear when the MiGs were coming.:-)
At the risk of sounding reasonable, we all know that Linux has vulnerabilities. We certainly all know NT has vulnerabilities.
Sysads are responsible (or should be) for the security of their systems. But all sysads aren't created equal. I'm reminded of this statistic:
In spite of the fact that the American F-86 Sabre and the Russian MiG-15 were roughly comparable aircraft, during the Korean War, the Sabres racked up a 10 to 1 kill ratio.
Why? Because the American pilots were better trained and more aggressive than their North Korean and Chinese opponents.
Perhaps because they pretty much have to learn more about how their systems work, Linux admins are in effect better trained, and a bit more aggressive about security than most NT admins.
I think activities online are pretty much the same as they are offline:
Hactivism is when you illegally deface or otherwise impede with a computer system as a means of protest. Just like during the '60s/'70s, there are some people who are doing it out of righteous indignation, and others who are just excited about blowing things up.
Cyberterrorism is when you do the same thing, but you're not a college kid.
If you think about it, there are many ways to enjoy a game world. Picture AD&D in this light:
1) Pencil and paper (you'd be better served with RQ imho, but that's another matter)
2) On your computer, using one of the many AD&D branded video games
3) On your home theater, by watching the... well, let's face it, atrocious D&D movie.
Greg Stafford's Glorantha has persevered over the years, even when Avalon Hill drove a stake through it's heart in the late 80s/early 90s. Now finally more products are being released for Glorantha, but a core of dedicated fans have kept it going, just like Star Trek fans kept the franchise going in the dark years between the demise of the first show and the movies.
Really imaginative, well-created worlds have lives of their own. Witness the return of LotR to public consciousness. Finally, *three* live-action movies are being made about a world that was created a half-century ago. In the interim, Iron Crown Enterprises did some great work with their Middle Earth role-playing suppliments. I'm thinking a video game isn't too far-fetched an idea.
The Internet has certainly helped to keep these worlds alive. I would never have imagined that so many people are still into Glorantha (some to a distressing degree), but there are many sources of info about it online.
Indeed.. I used to try and think up reasons why the players in my very Eurocentric medieval campaign might somehow wind up encountering Isis out in the middle of some blasted desert.
One of the great things about that era was that internal consistency wasn't such a big deal. Remember Arduin? Totally imbalanced game, but fun as hell, until the Thunder Bunnies showed up, then it was all over..;-)
I used to build plastic models when I was a kid. Lots and lots and lots of them. I would spend countless hours reading the latest techniques in FineScale Modeller, wondering if I'd ever get good enough at it to win a diorama contest.
Then in 7th grade, I heard some strange discussions in the school library. "Asmodeus could kick any Gold Dragon's ass!" I was intreagued, and before long I was playing Basic D&D, then AD&D (I vividly remember when the first hardbound Dieties and Demigods appeared.. droool). Then I moved on to Aftermath!, RuneQuest, and countless others. Over the years I burned countless thousands of hours running pencil and paper RPGs. Finally my gaming tapered off as college came to a close.
Now, ten years after college, I'm gaming again, but only once every three months, with the same guys I gamed with in high school and college. It's fun, and we thoroughly enjoy our games of RuneQuest and Call of Cthulhu, but to be honest, it's really primarily an excuse for us to get together and have fun.
When I get older still, and I've got lots of free time on my hands, I may get back into plastic models. But like most things that are really fun, building models takes time, which is something I don't have much of these days.
Like plastic modelling, pencil and paper games are dying out slowly, as a result of competition from the overwhelmingly visual, instant-gratification flavor of computer and console games that can be played alone, in short bursts or for long periods of time.
I'm looking forward to Neverwinter Nights. Maybe it will truly spark a new revolution.
Ah, very true. It IS about etiquette. However, my feeling is that sometimes technology dictates etiquette, to the point that old social mores fall by the wayside not through a conscious decision that they are useless, but because people aren't paying attention to what they're doing.
It's not that someone having a loud conversation on their cell phone in a restaurant next to me is trying to be rude, it's that they may not even be aware that they're being rude.
If people are cognizant of how their use of ubiquitous communication affects others, I'm fine with that. However, I'm just not convinced that most people are actually making a conscious choice most of the time. ("Oh, my cell is ringing, do I answer it? Oh, wait, I'm in this environment where others might not appreciate my phone call. Better not answer it.")
So, while you're aware of etiquette, most people in my opinion, aren't prepared to make that challenging decision about whether cell phone use is appropriate in a given situation. I mean, movie theaters have to put messages on screen telling patrons to turn off their cell phones.
Fundamentally, my point is this: Let the user rule the technology, not vice-versa. I think we could both agree on that.
Though the medium has changed, don't you think that there are at least a few places on the 'Net where things have become better?
If I want to share information about overclocking, Linux, configuring Apache, or any one of a thousand related topics, the sheer volume of the 2001 Internet makes my search for information that much easier. With the rise in mass Internet culture comes a concurrent rise in the ranks of Geeks.
I can go to Salon and discuss any number of non-Geek related issues, and in many cases the caliber of discussion beats the pants off any Usenet discussions I was privy to in 1994.
Think of it this way - the rise of the CD made audiophiles everywhere panic. Now vinyl is back, there are small, high-quality record manufacturers selling vinyl to afficionados.
Once Budweiser reigned supreme in the aisles of American liquor stores. Hell, maybe it still does - but microbrews are everywhere, and some of them are damned good.
Sure, 99% of American television is total crap, but there are some bright spots (History channel, Discovery, A & E, etc.) that would never have come into existence without the expansion of all the other crap TV.
The Internet is a market, in many ways like any other. Supply will meet demand, as long as the Net remains decentralized, new ideas will flourish. The masses can have their crap, but discerning users can still have quality.
Your take on my thesis is almost right. I'd actually say it more like this: "At what point does ubiquitous communications stop enhancing peoples lives and start enslaving them?"
I've actually been trying to figure out why it is that I get so bothered by cell phone conversations in public spaces, and I think I've figured it out. For me at least, the biggest thing is that whomever you're communicating with via cell phone instantly becomes the most important person in your consciousness, eclipsing whomever is near you in meatspace. The cell phone becomes the default first priority means of communication, even above face to face. How many times have you seen someone sitting at dinner with a partner and talking to someone else on a cellphone?
It's not that I wanted you to be focusing on me in particular, of course. In fact, most of the time when I walk around downtown, I'm not specifically looking to have any form of predetermined contact with anyone else. But I like being open to the possibility of having a conversation with someone, or interacting with someone in a way that is non-planned, non-efficient. When I look around and see people walking along the sidewalk talking on their cell phones, they seem to be in their own little bubbles, isolating themselves from the world they're moving through. That's entirely their perogative, and again, I certainly don't want that option taken away from anyone. But use of technology is always a choice, though I'm not sure most people understand that when they elect to be in constant communication with the world electronically.
I spend most of my time in an office every day, trying to be as efficient as possible, juggling many tasks, and there's something liberating about being able to go out into the "real world" of random meatspace.
Something about ubiquitous communication makes me feel that there is no escape. When I'm with a group of people, odds are one of them has a cell phone. It's usually impossible to just say "I'm out of reach - I'll be out all night somewhere and you won't be able to contact me," because one of my friends will have a cell phone. Anyone who knows this will be able to reach me. My ability to maintain my freedom from ubiquitous communication has just been eradicated.
In any case, Moofie, you don't seem like the kind of person who would let a cell phone get between you and those around you in meatspace. I suppose I just don't think most people are that aware.
I am on the Web all day, I use email whenever I'm at a computer, but I like being able to walk away from it. Sooner or later I'll have to get a cell phone, because businesspeople no longer accept "I don't have a cell" as an excuse for not being reachable during commuting hours or on vacations. As usual, technology marches on, and society changes as technology is adopted.
I just wanted to point out the direction these great technologies are taking us. The benefits are clear and numerous, but there are some pitfalls. If we recognize them, maybe we won't continue our ongoing slide further and further away from actual in-person communication, with all its nuance, challenges, and subtleties.
Of course ubiquitous access won't make people any more or less rude, or more wise or unwise.
I don't mean to imply that somehow people shouldn't be *allowed* to use ubiquitous connectivity. The thrust of my question was that more and more your right to communicate at any time and place interferes with my right to NOT communicate at any time and place.
Let's face it - one-way conversations in the background are disconcerting. They're distracting. When someone's cell phone rings in the middle of me eating my dinner at a restaruant, their communications device is impinging on my dining experience. People are also far likelier in my experience to shout on cell phones than they are in casual conversation in meatspace.
Personally I get freaked out when I see people in front of me, to my left and to my right, and behind me, driving while engaged in a discussion on their cell phone. One hand on the cell phone and the other on the wheel to me indicates a fundamental lack of respect for the fact that they should be in full control of an automobile, because people who don't pay attention tend to cause deadly accidents. I've seen more than enough close calls with cell phone drivers to realize that most of the time they don't even know how many times they've created dangerous situations for other drivers.
I don't care if you play Everquest Online Gold SE in your car (if someone else is driving), but it's not about individual technology advances. It's really about the collective effect of all these technologies being put to use in a society where nobody seems to value face to face communication and actually just being in the same physical space with someone and communicating like human beings, with our own, somewhat passe, built-in communications tools.
Do we *really* need to be that wired (wirelessed?) all the time? Do we really need to talk to people on our cell phones in restaurants while other people are trying to carry on actual face-to-face communications? Do we need to access Slashdot while hiking Mt. Shasta? Have we become so fragmented and scizophrenic that we can't be without instant access to *everything*? Are we that needy?
Remember those times that the Serbs blocked roads with little old ladies, all bunched together screaming profanity at the NATO troops?
Absolutely. This kind of thing, while it sounds funny, is really difficult to deal with. I mean, if you have a mission and you have to get through that road, you obviously can't use lethal force, but you obviously still need to get through.
The "force continuum" is a concept which stipulates that the more options you have in applying force to meet an adversary, the more measured your response will be, and the less threat there will be of overwhelming violence and death.
It might sound silly to some that the Marines are testing out foaming agents, masers, and any number of other nonlethal agents, but if only one of those solutions proves to be viable, the research will have paid off.
Here's an example of why this is important. I was deployed with the 10th MTN Division during operation Restore Hope in Somalia. Our mission was to secure food distribution sites, protect local villages from outside bandits, and help the locals rebuild their own legal and enforcement structure. We were almost always vastly outnumbered by the civilian population.
There were many times when I really would have appreciated a nonlethal option other than hand-to-hand combat. The reality of the situation is that when you're faced with a very hostile crowd and you have only three methods of dealing with that crowd (bullets, the bayonet, or hand-to-hand), there's really only one option that leaves you any chance of surviving.
The flip side of that is that while you may be able to protect your own life by shooting that guy brandishing his AK-74, your long-term odds of escaping alive are seriously compromised. Angry crowds just don't like it when you start killing people.
However, if you can incapacitate someone, you're making the point that you will defend yourself, and the consequences of threatening you will be felt. In essense your response is a means of communication - you are telling people that you respect their lives but that you are in command of the situation.
As soon as the shooting stops, you loose control of the situation, which is the worst position for any combat leader.
Having the option to escalate the situation slowly doesn't always mean that you'll choose a graduated response. Note that recently Special Response police units have really changed their tactics in response to Columbine.
I'm sure that there are some people in DARPA who are at least as interested in developing cool new technologies as covering their asses.
Absolutely true. I didn't mean to impugn the project managers at all. I actually reported directly to a project manager at the ISO, and he was astute at political infighting, but his overwhelming passion was the technology behind his project.
No doubt about it - there are some very smart, very clearheaded people running projects at DARPA.
I also agree with your analysis as to why they'd be delving into Open Source. Many of these program managers are military folks who came in through the military-industrial-govt merry-go-round, but many of them are also essentially hackers who pay attention to things like.. well.. Slashdot.
Actually, the FEMA project had more to do with using space imaging and other technology to locate areas of potential natural disasters and help people in those areas plan to avoid undue effects (ex: effect of Northridge quake in SoCal vs. effect of recent India quake).
I used to work as a technical consultant at DARPA. No, I'm not trying to say I was some kind of wizard, I was a lowly Technical Analyst assigned to a project in the ISO (Information Systems Office).
DARPA is interested not in current technology, or even next-generation technology. Their mandate is to fund and evaluate what they call "high-risk, high-payoff" projects. They fully expect that most of their projects will fail to achieve their goals. However, they also realize that even those projects that fail will stimulate advances in other, sometimes unforseen areas. Of course, those projects that succeed become the wonder-technologies of tomorrow.
Another thing to keep in mind is that DARPA is a government agency, and as such has a mandate to diseminate their findings as far as possible within the federal government. I actually worked on a liason project with FEMA, where we were trying to help kick-start FEMA's web-based emergency-mitigation effort.
The secondary effect of this mandate to spread the wealth is that it's key for an agency's survival that they be known as the originators of the wealth. That is, when DARPA comes up with something, they sure as hell make sure that every other agency knows it came from DARPA. That way when the budget axe comes along, DARPA isn't first on the chopping block.
So DARPA's desire to fund this project probably has a lot more to do with going beyond what's already been done, and taking the credit for it, than it has to do with acknowledging what's already out there.
Re:pictures are the key - but even then...
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Sounds like an interesting read - I'll do that!
Re:Related - Connecticuit Yankee in K.A.'s Court
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Mark Twain addressed this very hypothetical issue a while ago in a book you may have heard of.
Basically, someone with solid basic knowledge of mechanical (NOT digital) concepts would probably be much more important in "rebooting" society.
Someone with an abacus, some ropes and pulleys, and the skills to use them could go far in such an environment.
Re:pictures are the key - but even then...
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Interesting. Sagan is smart, no doubt. But is that really his area of domain expertise?
Not casting stones, just curious. I mean, if I'm a really really smart physicist, does that mean I'm also naturally good at understanding visual communication? It could be that Sagan was in the loop on the latest cognitive studies and so on, but then again maybe he wasn't?
Slashdot Mirror
In many ways, I think programming these days is a lot like graphic design in the late '80s, early '90s. Graphic designers were freaked out when commoners got Macs and started putting their LaserWriters to use building fliers, magazines, and so on.
But the designers soon realized that no set of digital tools could replicate the trained eye, the native skill of a good designer. The same is true of programming. Look at the tools out there that supposedly automate web site development. They're a joke - they hamstring you and don't let you do anything out of the box at all.
For the same reason the average Microsoft Publisher-using John Q. Public isn't going to usurp a trained designer who uses Illustrator and knows how to squeeze the most out of it, no connect-the-dots programming tool will force skilled programmers out of their jobs.
No matter how far the technology advances, you have to be able to think a certain way in order to effectively program a computer. Sure, every Tom, Dick and Harry will someday be able to program their home to detect intruders, fire up the oven, and monitor the baby, but by then professional programmers will be busy making software that tells nanites how to scrub out a cancer patient's body.
Meaning number two is: "The overthrow of one government and its replacement with another."
Katz seems to be merging meanings two and three. In his mind there is perhaps this change in the situation that will of its own accord overthrow the traditional structures of government throughout the world.
At least, it seems that way at first read. But somehow when I read Katz's posts, I always get the feeling that he's talking about some kind of soft and fuzzy Velvet Revolution on a global scale, an affair that will change everything but in a peaceful, happy, sing in a great big circle kind of way.
The problem with this line of thinking is that revolutions of both the political and the merely situational varieties are never without turmoil, pain, and suffering. Just watch The Patriot to get an idea of how painful the American Revolution was (that was a joke, folks).
But seriously, this expectation that somehow the rise of the Internet and associated technologies is somehow a "leaderless revolution" fundamentally misses the point.
The rise of the Internet is a technological change that has in turn spawned cultural and political changes. There is no political revolution inherent in the Internet.
Katz is trying to tell us that somehow, whereas the automobile was merely a revolution in technology, the Internet is a Revolution in the political sense of the word. The car completely changed almost every aspect of culture in the Western world, yet nobody ever described its development in terms akin to Socialist revolution, the way Katz describes the 'Net.
The Internet is a technology that has greatly altered the status quo, and it's still really in its early stages in terms of its impact on society. But let's not start waving banners and lets not mistake it for what it is: a tool that can be used for good, bad, or just plain mundane uses.
Whether I have been to one or not is irrelevant. It's whether most users do. Most users do not get their apps from warez sites, particularly business users wary of getting sued. They may copy, and use the same license on several machines, but warez is for hackers and gamers, not for Joan Q. Public.
1) Yahoo's features aren't well-integrated. Try using chat, email, and clubs at the same time without having to do multiple logins.
2) Yahoo's features aren't best of breed. You get all the functionalities, but none of them are the best in their category. I think here the comparison to MS Office is apt - with Office you get everything bundled together, but to many people WordPerfect is a better WP app, 1-2-3 was a better spreadsheet, FileMaker is a better database, etc.
Yahoo and other portals have tried to follow suit, doing all things for all potential users, and in the process spending lavisly to acquire niche competitors.
But Yahoo doesn't have a lock on Web users the way Microsoft does with Office for desktop users. You can't just click a link to use Word Perfect rather than Word. But you certainly can leave Yahoo to use another site.
Sites that stay focused on what they do well tend to survive. It's the UNIX mantra - small, sharp tools that get the job done. I was a religious eGroups user until they got swallowed by Yahoo. Now the interface sucks and I'll probably start looking for a replacement.
Portals by definition are not lean and mean. You might even say that they are counter to the spirit of the Web. Things are *supposed* to be distributed, and users of the Web understand this better than all the industry pundits. They also have shown again and again that brand loyalty on the Web doesn't amount to squat.
You're right about avionics - in the year 2001. But in 1950, the avionics gap wasn't anywhere near what it is now. Also, most kills at the time were still gun kills, which are implemented almost exclusively through the skill of the pilot himself.
Hey, nifty info! Thanks for the URL. Good intel is hard to obtain - I imagine the Sabre pilots were always pleased to hear when the MiGs were coming. :-)
Sysads are responsible (or should be) for the security of their systems. But all sysads aren't created equal. I'm reminded of this statistic:
In spite of the fact that the American F-86 Sabre and the Russian MiG-15 were roughly comparable aircraft, during the Korean War, the Sabres racked up a 10 to 1 kill ratio.
Why? Because the American pilots were better trained and more aggressive than their North Korean and Chinese opponents.
Perhaps because they pretty much have to learn more about how their systems work, Linux admins are in effect better trained, and a bit more aggressive about security than most NT admins.
Hactivism is when you illegally deface or otherwise impede with a computer system as a means of protest. Just like during the '60s/'70s, there are some people who are doing it out of righteous indignation, and others who are just excited about blowing things up.
Cyberterrorism is when you do the same thing, but you're not a college kid.
Covert Action is when the government does it.
1) Pencil and paper (you'd be better served with RQ imho, but that's another matter)
2) On your computer, using one of the many AD&D branded video games
3) On your home theater, by watching the... well, let's face it, atrocious D&D movie.
Greg Stafford's Glorantha has persevered over the years, even when Avalon Hill drove a stake through it's heart in the late 80s/early 90s. Now finally more products are being released for Glorantha, but a core of dedicated fans have kept it going, just like Star Trek fans kept the franchise going in the dark years between the demise of the first show and the movies.
Really imaginative, well-created worlds have lives of their own. Witness the return of LotR to public consciousness. Finally, *three* live-action movies are being made about a world that was created a half-century ago. In the interim, Iron Crown Enterprises did some great work with their Middle Earth role-playing suppliments. I'm thinking a video game isn't too far-fetched an idea.
The Internet has certainly helped to keep these worlds alive. I would never have imagined that so many people are still into Glorantha (some to a distressing degree), but there are many sources of info about it online.
One of the great things about that era was that internal consistency wasn't such a big deal. Remember Arduin? Totally imbalanced game, but fun as hell, until the Thunder Bunnies showed up, then it was all over.. ;-)
Then in 7th grade, I heard some strange discussions in the school library. "Asmodeus could kick any Gold Dragon's ass!" I was intreagued, and before long I was playing Basic D&D, then AD&D (I vividly remember when the first hardbound Dieties and Demigods appeared.. droool). Then I moved on to Aftermath!, RuneQuest, and countless others. Over the years I burned countless thousands of hours running pencil and paper RPGs. Finally my gaming tapered off as college came to a close.
Now, ten years after college, I'm gaming again, but only once every three months, with the same guys I gamed with in high school and college. It's fun, and we thoroughly enjoy our games of RuneQuest and Call of Cthulhu, but to be honest, it's really primarily an excuse for us to get together and have fun.
When I get older still, and I've got lots of free time on my hands, I may get back into plastic models. But like most things that are really fun, building models takes time, which is something I don't have much of these days.
Like plastic modelling, pencil and paper games are dying out slowly, as a result of competition from the overwhelmingly visual, instant-gratification flavor of computer and console games that can be played alone, in short bursts or for long periods of time.
I'm looking forward to Neverwinter Nights. Maybe it will truly spark a new revolution.
It's not that someone having a loud conversation on their cell phone in a restaurant next to me is trying to be rude, it's that they may not even be aware that they're being rude.
If people are cognizant of how their use of ubiquitous communication affects others, I'm fine with that. However, I'm just not convinced that most people are actually making a conscious choice most of the time. ("Oh, my cell is ringing, do I answer it? Oh, wait, I'm in this environment where others might not appreciate my phone call. Better not answer it.")
So, while you're aware of etiquette, most people in my opinion, aren't prepared to make that challenging decision about whether cell phone use is appropriate in a given situation. I mean, movie theaters have to put messages on screen telling patrons to turn off their cell phones.
Fundamentally, my point is this: Let the user rule the technology, not vice-versa. I think we could both agree on that.
If I want to share information about overclocking, Linux, configuring Apache, or any one of a thousand related topics, the sheer volume of the 2001 Internet makes my search for information that much easier. With the rise in mass Internet culture comes a concurrent rise in the ranks of Geeks.
I can go to Salon and discuss any number of non-Geek related issues, and in many cases the caliber of discussion beats the pants off any Usenet discussions I was privy to in 1994.
Think of it this way - the rise of the CD made audiophiles everywhere panic. Now vinyl is back, there are small, high-quality record manufacturers selling vinyl to afficionados.
Once Budweiser reigned supreme in the aisles of American liquor stores. Hell, maybe it still does - but microbrews are everywhere, and some of them are damned good.
Sure, 99% of American television is total crap, but there are some bright spots (History channel, Discovery, A & E, etc.) that would never have come into existence without the expansion of all the other crap TV.
The Internet is a market, in many ways like any other. Supply will meet demand, as long as the Net remains decentralized, new ideas will flourish. The masses can have their crap, but discerning users can still have quality.
Your take on my thesis is almost right. I'd actually say it more like this: "At what point does ubiquitous communications stop enhancing peoples lives and start enslaving them?"
I've actually been trying to figure out why it is that I get so bothered by cell phone conversations in public spaces, and I think I've figured it out. For me at least, the biggest thing is that whomever you're communicating with via cell phone instantly becomes the most important person in your consciousness, eclipsing whomever is near you in meatspace. The cell phone becomes the default first priority means of communication, even above face to face. How many times have you seen someone sitting at dinner with a partner and talking to someone else on a cellphone?
It's not that I wanted you to be focusing on me in particular, of course. In fact, most of the time when I walk around downtown, I'm not specifically looking to have any form of predetermined contact with anyone else. But I like being open to the possibility of having a conversation with someone, or interacting with someone in a way that is non-planned, non-efficient. When I look around and see people walking along the sidewalk talking on their cell phones, they seem to be in their own little bubbles, isolating themselves from the world they're moving through. That's entirely their perogative, and again, I certainly don't want that option taken away from anyone. But use of technology is always a choice, though I'm not sure most people understand that when they elect to be in constant communication with the world electronically.
I spend most of my time in an office every day, trying to be as efficient as possible, juggling many tasks, and there's something liberating about being able to go out into the "real world" of random meatspace.
Something about ubiquitous communication makes me feel that there is no escape. When I'm with a group of people, odds are one of them has a cell phone. It's usually impossible to just say "I'm out of reach - I'll be out all night somewhere and you won't be able to contact me," because one of my friends will have a cell phone. Anyone who knows this will be able to reach me. My ability to maintain my freedom from ubiquitous communication has just been eradicated.
In any case, Moofie, you don't seem like the kind of person who would let a cell phone get between you and those around you in meatspace. I suppose I just don't think most people are that aware.
I am on the Web all day, I use email whenever I'm at a computer, but I like being able to walk away from it. Sooner or later I'll have to get a cell phone, because businesspeople no longer accept "I don't have a cell" as an excuse for not being reachable during commuting hours or on vacations. As usual, technology marches on, and society changes as technology is adopted.
I just wanted to point out the direction these great technologies are taking us. The benefits are clear and numerous, but there are some pitfalls. If we recognize them, maybe we won't continue our ongoing slide further and further away from actual in-person communication, with all its nuance, challenges, and subtleties.
I don't mean to imply that somehow people shouldn't be *allowed* to use ubiquitous connectivity. The thrust of my question was that more and more your right to communicate at any time and place interferes with my right to NOT communicate at any time and place.
Let's face it - one-way conversations in the background are disconcerting. They're distracting. When someone's cell phone rings in the middle of me eating my dinner at a restaruant, their communications device is impinging on my dining experience. People are also far likelier in my experience to shout on cell phones than they are in casual conversation in meatspace.
Personally I get freaked out when I see people in front of me, to my left and to my right, and behind me, driving while engaged in a discussion on their cell phone. One hand on the cell phone and the other on the wheel to me indicates a fundamental lack of respect for the fact that they should be in full control of an automobile, because people who don't pay attention tend to cause deadly accidents. I've seen more than enough close calls with cell phone drivers to realize that most of the time they don't even know how many times they've created dangerous situations for other drivers.
I don't care if you play Everquest Online Gold SE in your car (if someone else is driving), but it's not about individual technology advances. It's really about the collective effect of all these technologies being put to use in a society where nobody seems to value face to face communication and actually just being in the same physical space with someone and communicating like human beings, with our own, somewhat passe, built-in communications tools.
Absolutely. This kind of thing, while it sounds funny, is really difficult to deal with. I mean, if you have a mission and you have to get through that road, you obviously can't use lethal force, but you obviously still need to get through.
It might sound silly to some that the Marines are testing out foaming agents, masers, and any number of other nonlethal agents, but if only one of those solutions proves to be viable, the research will have paid off.
Here's an example of why this is important. I was deployed with the 10th MTN Division during operation Restore Hope in Somalia. Our mission was to secure food distribution sites, protect local villages from outside bandits, and help the locals rebuild their own legal and enforcement structure. We were almost always vastly outnumbered by the civilian population.
There were many times when I really would have appreciated a nonlethal option other than hand-to-hand combat. The reality of the situation is that when you're faced with a very hostile crowd and you have only three methods of dealing with that crowd (bullets, the bayonet, or hand-to-hand), there's really only one option that leaves you any chance of surviving.
The flip side of that is that while you may be able to protect your own life by shooting that guy brandishing his AK-74, your long-term odds of escaping alive are seriously compromised. Angry crowds just don't like it when you start killing people.
However, if you can incapacitate someone, you're making the point that you will defend yourself, and the consequences of threatening you will be felt. In essense your response is a means of communication - you are telling people that you respect their lives but that you are in command of the situation.
As soon as the shooting stops, you loose control of the situation, which is the worst position for any combat leader.
Having the option to escalate the situation slowly doesn't always mean that you'll choose a graduated response. Note that recently Special Response police units have really changed their tactics in response to Columbine.
See this article in The Atlantic
The bottom line is that the more options soldiers have, the less likely things will get out of control, which means less loss of life.
Absolutely true. I didn't mean to impugn the project managers at all. I actually reported directly to a project manager at the ISO, and he was astute at political infighting, but his overwhelming passion was the technology behind his project.
No doubt about it - there are some very smart, very clearheaded people running projects at DARPA.
I also agree with your analysis as to why they'd be delving into Open Source. Many of these program managers are military folks who came in through the military-industrial-govt merry-go-round, but many of them are also essentially hackers who pay attention to things like.. well.. Slashdot.
Dunno if they ever pursued the project further.
DARPA is interested not in current technology, or even next-generation technology. Their mandate is to fund and evaluate what they call "high-risk, high-payoff" projects. They fully expect that most of their projects will fail to achieve their goals. However, they also realize that even those projects that fail will stimulate advances in other, sometimes unforseen areas. Of course, those projects that succeed become the wonder-technologies of tomorrow.
Another thing to keep in mind is that DARPA is a government agency, and as such has a mandate to diseminate their findings as far as possible within the federal government. I actually worked on a liason project with FEMA, where we were trying to help kick-start FEMA's web-based emergency-mitigation effort.
The secondary effect of this mandate to spread the wealth is that it's key for an agency's survival that they be known as the originators of the wealth. That is, when DARPA comes up with something, they sure as hell make sure that every other agency knows it came from DARPA. That way when the budget axe comes along, DARPA isn't first on the chopping block.
So DARPA's desire to fund this project probably has a lot more to do with going beyond what's already been done, and taking the credit for it, than it has to do with acknowledging what's already out there.
Sounds like an interesting read - I'll do that!
Basically, someone with solid basic knowledge of mechanical (NOT digital) concepts would probably be much more important in "rebooting" society.
Someone with an abacus, some ropes and pulleys, and the skills to use them could go far in such an environment.
Not casting stones, just curious. I mean, if I'm a really really smart physicist, does that mean I'm also naturally good at understanding visual communication? It could be that Sagan was in the loop on the latest cognitive studies and so on, but then again maybe he wasn't?