... is not the banning of e-vote. Believing itself above the system, Quebec completely misses the notion of democracy, as much as aristocrats continue to cling to dwindling legacies in the 21st century.
Yes, but do they have to bombard the media with announcements? To crave fame is to prefer dying notorious than forgotten. This is in fact the typical buildup for the product development chasm. Initial optimism, media attention, post-buzz disillusion, fast-track managers leave for next new things, engineers start tackling the technical difficulties, and hopefully market reality.
The real problem with breakthroughs is attention span. Since managers and companies must prove themselves on annual/quarterly accounting statements, they usually do not support the actual engineering activity after the buzz dies off, and a lot of breakthroughs quickly become uprooted, the technical expertise scattered with new personnel assignment. The choices are three: 1) forget project continuity. Someone else will rediscover the wonders of optical computing even if the current team is disbanded. 2) Keep the project funded under different names. This helps build status quo, but draws the ire of other potential projects. It also hurts the credibility of the final outcome. 3) Pound the need to continue the project into the minds of managers. Remind them from time to time that something dramatic is being created here under their eyes. If they cut loose right now, they will miss the disruptive technology that would change the industry.
Of course, no one persuades the management without some good news, and the good news may either be dismissed with a yawn or be described up the chain with too much enthusiasm. Yawns are dead ends to projects, but enthusiasm brings bias. Psychologically, once people start advocating an idea they adopted, they feel the need to justify the idea rigorously - more so than the creator of the idea himself/herself. Often the engineers who developed the system find the media spin too pompous, too painful to endure. Managers don't care. It looks good on the group. It looks good at his/her own annual performance review. It keeps the money rolling in.
Once you show initial success, you have to continue as the 'star' in the industry. Sometimes it is not that different from military recruiting: miss the quota, demotion; achieve the quota, the top brass set the quota higher. The rat race continues as long as the managers can milk it to their career advantage, and moments of success are as uncomfortable as failures. Unless you have friends in high places, how else can you make something great and avoid career suicide without pumping out regular 'breakthroughs'?
Hence the necessary evil. Advanced. Improved. Evolved. Revolutionary. Extreme. These phrases are not for the public. Technology development is an uphill battle, and surviving the battle requires tenacity first and not consumer interest. Chances are, consumers are even less informed than stakeholders.
I prefer to think that all the technologies that passed the ten-year frame must endure similar hardship.
I disagree. There is a chicken and egg problem to economic development. Bringing laptops to third world countries will benefit them in the short-run, but it is completely dependent on the low-cost nature of the gift. Whether the children become new hopes to the poverty in these countries remains to be seen in another ten years, but the OLPC benevolence may not last ten years.
China is also a growing third-world country, and I have never heard of anyone wanting to supply China with those $100 laptops. By producing the laptops themselves, the Chinese can probably offer even cheaper products, whether by counterfeiting or other forms of business espionage - the market is thus fully capable of supplying the children with machines that they need to learn computer skills, plus the discretion to purchase the most cost-effective computer, not just the ones donated by the humanitarians of the west. In fact, Chinese customers are often more picky than typical Americans who are easily satisfied with the Dells and HPs, since a computer is no small investment with respect to their income, and there is more incentive to make the investment count most. This in turn provides incentives for engineering excellence and production improvements, factors critical to both short-term and long-term developments.
The true growth in economy thus comes from the heavy competition, not from the idealists who believe in the inalienable rights of owning a computer, or even a diploma. It's the people of a nation that determine their own future, and the charity of the west sometimes does more harm by sapping the incentives of improvement.
I'm glad India chose not to order a million laptops from OLPC. India, with such a vibrant IT tech base, ought to be able to supply the need internally. Self-confidence is the first sign of strength.
Law of diminishing returns. When video games had poor graphics, we loved them as they were. Nowadays video games have superb graphics, and we pick on the details: the eyes don't look right, the lighting effect was all wrong, and those gawful monster AIs, blah blah. I'm all for better graphics and video effects, but sometimes less is more.
Reminds me of the colorful interactive screens at WalMart gas pumps that keep blasting me with the great deals of the day when all I want is to tank up. I have to suppress the urge to graffiti the bright LCD screens, short-circuit the happy shopper music, slam the gas nozzle through the self-help clean-engine additive dispensers, douse the credit card application signs with liquid fire, etc. Nope, I can't do that since I may want to return for the cleap gas, and thus... *sigh*
Web surfers also have shorter attention spam, as demonstrated by the length of YouTube videos. How people believe they can make money out of me-too applications is mind-boggling.
...I learned from D&D: snakes, dragons, lizards, basilisks, nagas, whatchamacallit. On the other hand D&D also employs orcs, undeads, lycanthropes, arachnoids, beholders, illithids, giants, demons and devils, etc. So my new theory is that evolution is the result of competing for the love of succubi.
For every one billion dollar solution, there is a five dollar way to counter it. The weak link is not even in database - although collecting biometric data from 300 million people will be a real pain. Forging data is like stealing passwords, and once stolen, users are even less likely to set a 'secure password' or change the biometric signatures. So much for the brave new world.
TFA mentions a 'typical news website'. Exactly what is a typical news website? Are we talking NYTimes and WashingtonPost that covers a broad spectrum, or a smorgasbord news bulletin like/. and Digg?
It's politics as usual. An acquaintance who is half Iranian said once: if you ever want to transport anything in and out of Iran, you talk to the Kurds. If you ever want to transfer any funds in and out of Middle East, you talk to the Kurds. Do we see the government specifically target the Kurds in the route of trading? Heaven forbid. They are the oppressed ethnic group, and anything they do are justified.
The name filtering is about as useful as airport screening - it shows the government is doing something with your tax money, but ultimately achieves nyet.
Since we're talking history, China probably has the longest history in testing systems, starting as early as 6th Century Tang Dynasty. There's a seriously ingrained belief that high achievement on test leads to successful positions in court, and for mroe than a thousand years it was true. Education was thus over-emphasized, to the detriment of many other venues for success in the society, which further reinforces the importance of surviving these tests. Cram schools are the norm in any Chinese community, even in US.
When the average level of cramming rises, the system cannot but raise the test standards to separate the qualified from the dredge. At a certain point the rat race becomes absurd - test designers produce pointless questions that reward route memorization and repeated practice. Test takers find more efficient ways to win the race.
Bribery was the norm as early as Tang Dynasty, and students who pass the royal exams by tradition sent 'gifts' to the test administrators. Guangxi was also prevalent - a referral's introduction to the exam committee before the test helps, since the probability increases that a test is graded more carefully. But nothing is easier than cheating. Checking for cheating was the norm in almost every government testing facility in history - certain dynasties went as far as allowing no outer garments when testing. When you present a lucrative opportunity in a feudal world, people respond to the incentive.
So fast forward a thousand years. The mentality that good grades lead to good life doesn't change. Having a college diploma, no matter how useless, is better than the hardworking guy next door without a degree. With the boom in China and the foreign investors looking for highly skilled knowledge workers, this will only exacerbate the cheating phenomenon.
Slashdot Mirror
... is not the banning of e-vote. Believing itself above the system, Quebec completely misses the notion of democracy, as much as aristocrats continue to cling to dwindling legacies in the 21st century.
Yes, but do they have to bombard the media with announcements? To crave fame is to prefer dying notorious than forgotten. This is in fact the typical buildup for the product development chasm. Initial optimism, media attention, post-buzz disillusion, fast-track managers leave for next new things, engineers start tackling the technical difficulties, and hopefully market reality. The real problem with breakthroughs is attention span. Since managers and companies must prove themselves on annual/quarterly accounting statements, they usually do not support the actual engineering activity after the buzz dies off, and a lot of breakthroughs quickly become uprooted, the technical expertise scattered with new personnel assignment. The choices are three: 1) forget project continuity. Someone else will rediscover the wonders of optical computing even if the current team is disbanded. 2) Keep the project funded under different names. This helps build status quo, but draws the ire of other potential projects. It also hurts the credibility of the final outcome. 3) Pound the need to continue the project into the minds of managers. Remind them from time to time that something dramatic is being created here under their eyes. If they cut loose right now, they will miss the disruptive technology that would change the industry. Of course, no one persuades the management without some good news, and the good news may either be dismissed with a yawn or be described up the chain with too much enthusiasm. Yawns are dead ends to projects, but enthusiasm brings bias. Psychologically, once people start advocating an idea they adopted, they feel the need to justify the idea rigorously - more so than the creator of the idea himself/herself. Often the engineers who developed the system find the media spin too pompous, too painful to endure. Managers don't care. It looks good on the group. It looks good at his/her own annual performance review. It keeps the money rolling in. Once you show initial success, you have to continue as the 'star' in the industry. Sometimes it is not that different from military recruiting: miss the quota, demotion; achieve the quota, the top brass set the quota higher. The rat race continues as long as the managers can milk it to their career advantage, and moments of success are as uncomfortable as failures. Unless you have friends in high places, how else can you make something great and avoid career suicide without pumping out regular 'breakthroughs'? Hence the necessary evil. Advanced. Improved. Evolved. Revolutionary. Extreme. These phrases are not for the public. Technology development is an uphill battle, and surviving the battle requires tenacity first and not consumer interest. Chances are, consumers are even less informed than stakeholders. I prefer to think that all the technologies that passed the ten-year frame must endure similar hardship.
Does the lost revenue warrant the massive introduction of the new machines? Supply and demand, y'know...
I disagree. There is a chicken and egg problem to economic development. Bringing laptops to third world countries will benefit them in the short-run, but it is completely dependent on the low-cost nature of the gift. Whether the children become new hopes to the poverty in these countries remains to be seen in another ten years, but the OLPC benevolence may not last ten years.
China is also a growing third-world country, and I have never heard of anyone wanting to supply China with those $100 laptops. By producing the laptops themselves, the Chinese can probably offer even cheaper products, whether by counterfeiting or other forms of business espionage - the market is thus fully capable of supplying the children with machines that they need to learn computer skills, plus the discretion to purchase the most cost-effective computer, not just the ones donated by the humanitarians of the west. In fact, Chinese customers are often more picky than typical Americans who are easily satisfied with the Dells and HPs, since a computer is no small investment with respect to their income, and there is more incentive to make the investment count most. This in turn provides incentives for engineering excellence and production improvements, factors critical to both short-term and long-term developments.
The true growth in economy thus comes from the heavy competition, not from the idealists who believe in the inalienable rights of owning a computer, or even a diploma. It's the people of a nation that determine their own future, and the charity of the west sometimes does more harm by sapping the incentives of improvement.
I'm glad India chose not to order a million laptops from OLPC. India, with such a vibrant IT tech base, ought to be able to supply the need internally. Self-confidence is the first sign of strength.
Law of diminishing returns. When video games had poor graphics, we loved them as they were. Nowadays video games have superb graphics, and we pick on the details: the eyes don't look right, the lighting effect was all wrong, and those gawful monster AIs, blah blah. I'm all for better graphics and video effects, but sometimes less is more.
Reminds me of the colorful interactive screens at WalMart gas pumps that keep blasting me with the great deals of the day when all I want is to tank up. I have to suppress the urge to graffiti the bright LCD screens, short-circuit the happy shopper music, slam the gas nozzle through the self-help clean-engine additive dispensers, douse the credit card application signs with liquid fire, etc. Nope, I can't do that since I may want to return for the cleap gas, and thus... *sigh*
Web surfers also have shorter attention spam, as demonstrated by the length of YouTube videos. How people believe they can make money out of me-too applications is mind-boggling.
...I learned from D&D: snakes, dragons, lizards, basilisks, nagas, whatchamacallit. On the other hand D&D also employs orcs, undeads, lycanthropes, arachnoids, beholders, illithids, giants, demons and devils, etc. So my new theory is that evolution is the result of competing for the love of succubi.
For every one billion dollar solution, there is a five dollar way to counter it. The weak link is not even in database - although collecting biometric data from 300 million people will be a real pain. Forging data is like stealing passwords, and once stolen, users are even less likely to set a 'secure password' or change the biometric signatures. So much for the brave new world.
TFA mentions a 'typical news website'. Exactly what is a typical news website? Are we talking NYTimes and WashingtonPost that covers a broad spectrum, or a smorgasbord news bulletin like /. and Digg?
It's politics as usual. An acquaintance who is half Iranian said once: if you ever want to transport anything in and out of Iran, you talk to the Kurds. If you ever want to transfer any funds in and out of Middle East, you talk to the Kurds. Do we see the government specifically target the Kurds in the route of trading? Heaven forbid. They are the oppressed ethnic group, and anything they do are justified. The name filtering is about as useful as airport screening - it shows the government is doing something with your tax money, but ultimately achieves nyet.
Since we're talking history, China probably has the longest history in testing systems, starting as early as 6th Century Tang Dynasty. There's a seriously ingrained belief that high achievement on test leads to successful positions in court, and for mroe than a thousand years it was true. Education was thus over-emphasized, to the detriment of many other venues for success in the society, which further reinforces the importance of surviving these tests. Cram schools are the norm in any Chinese community, even in US.
When the average level of cramming rises, the system cannot but raise the test standards to separate the qualified from the dredge. At a certain point the rat race becomes absurd - test designers produce pointless questions that reward route memorization and repeated practice. Test takers find more efficient ways to win the race.
Bribery was the norm as early as Tang Dynasty, and students who pass the royal exams by tradition sent 'gifts' to the test administrators. Guangxi was also prevalent - a referral's introduction to the exam committee before the test helps, since the probability increases that a test is graded more carefully. But nothing is easier than cheating. Checking for cheating was the norm in almost every government testing facility in history - certain dynasties went as far as allowing no outer garments when testing. When you present a lucrative opportunity in a feudal world, people respond to the incentive.
So fast forward a thousand years. The mentality that good grades lead to good life doesn't change. Having a college diploma, no matter how useless, is better than the hardworking guy next door without a degree. With the boom in China and the foreign investors looking for highly skilled knowledge workers, this will only exacerbate the cheating phenomenon.
Cum grano salis.