The nature of client server splitting of an application has always been a fine balance between the cost of processing power and the cost of bandwidth. When processing power got cheap, we lost te serial terminal and got the 'personal computer' . Now fibre optic is cheap and the GHz spectrum is open, we have the personal mobile device or a cloud connected browser in a desktop.
Today's web browser equipped with Javascript IS a very smart terminal indeed.
-- "I guess a rattlesnake ain't risponsible fer bein' a rattlesnake, but ah puts mah heel on um jess the same if'n I catches him around mah chillun".
"The Natural Philosopher" wrote
| The nature of client server splitting of an application has always been | a fine balance between the cost of processing power and the cost of | bandwidth. | When processing power got cheap, we lost te serial terminal and got the | 'personal computer' . Now fibre optic is cheap and the GHz spectrum is | open, we have the personal mobile device or a cloud connected browser in | a desktop.
| Today's web browser equipped with Javascript IS a very smart terminal | indeed. |
That has little to do with it. Companies like Microsoft and Adobe saw a chance to change their business from selling cars to renting taxis. They saw how Apple gets away with extorting money "coming and going", by gouging customers for devices, and by gouging developers for kickbacks.
In short, they saw that there's a lot more money available if they can retrain the public that computing itself is a paid service. The fast bandwidth finally made that possible. But actually, that self-proclaimed genius Bill Gates was trying to do it over 20 years ago, when he tried to put ads on the Windows desktop with Active Desktop.
Most of these products are not even running online or in a browser. Things like Adobe CS and Office 365 are still bloated products installed locally. It makes no sense to run them from a server. But giving them the appearance of running from a server, and building them as malware that can be disabled if you don't pay the rent, allows them to send rent bills to people. Aside from webmail, little is actually online. They're pulling this off just by running around yelling, "Cloud! Cloud!". They're retraining public perception. And if they can retrain tech insiders like yourself then I guess they're doing a good job. :)
I beg your pardon? We are not talking about microsoft.
Software as a services has always been a better idea from the maintenance viewpoint, and the snoflake generation are too stupid to own anything, so rented access to services is ideal for them.
-- Karl Marx said religion is the opium of the people. But Marxism is the crack cocaine.
We're talking about Microsoft, we're talking about Apple, we're talking about any tech giant that's enslaving the masses.
Although I agree with what you say about the snowflake generation, the problem is that the big boys want to make this the only choice. Everyone gets the services, everyone gets the surveillance, everyone gets frog-marched into their glorious vision of the Future.
It really is time for the new generation to read the classics like Nineteen Eighty-Four, Brave New World, etc.
-- /~\ Charlie Gibbs | Microsoft is a dictatorship. \ / | Apple is a cult. X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | Linux is anarchy. / \ if you read it the right way. | Pick your poison.
They do not want - they do it. They educate the younger and dictate what happens to all of us. They also look after how much share people like us have and if the share goes up, they take care to get down. It is turning into f**ing communists regime and the younger do not even think. I admire actually the people doing it, because they have been doing it for hundreds of years. Now they are getting to the point of perfection that will indeed enslave everyone.
Reading? - they do not learn this at school - they can not understand complex sentences, they can not articulate thoughts and they do not know what is logic or rational thinking if you wish. (of course there are always exceptions and people who still take care of proper education, but wait for another 20y. if nothing changes it will be over) We are moving towards a middle age situation where the landlords are the big corporations. Sometimes I think it is good that there is China and Russia to have some kind of balance on the other side :/
... and for good measure add in William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy (Neuromancer, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive) and Neal Stephenson's "Snowcrash".
These were all written between 1982 and 1992, all predicting portable computers, mobile phones and the Internet as they now are, though immersive 3D graphics and tactile interfaces are still lagging well behind those books, but scammers, remote phishing exploits and system penetration are pretty much as predicted.
-- Martin | martin at Gregorie | gregorie dot org
Or, if you want to go back in time, there's "The Machine Stops", written by E.M. Forster in 1909. The main character uses a communication device that looks a lot like an iPad.
"The Feeling of Power", written by Isaac Asimov in 1958, perfectly predicted the atrophy of basic arithmetic skills.
The one thing these authors couldn't have predicted was the incredible fall in the price of electronics - which made these dystopias not only possible, but arguably inevitable.
-- /~\ Charlie Gibbs | Microsoft is a dictatorship. \ / | Apple is a cult. X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | Linux is anarchy. / \ if you read it the right way. | Pick your poison.
I remember reading that many decades ago, but didn't remember who wrote it: the only stuff of his I remember are "Room With A View" and "A Passage to India".
... 'a breakthrough on the square root font' indeed!
Just found a copy and reread it, and one thing Asimov didn't even remotely forsee when he wrote that in the late 1950s was the low cost and high speed with which solid state electronics could be churned out.
The point that really stood out on rereading it was the comment that it takes much longer to build the computers that control the spaceships and missiles than the build the hulls and engines - exactly the opposite of the current day when its faster and cheaper to build a car that uses digital electronics to link its throttle pedal to the engine or to control its gearbox than to fit a mechanical throttle linkage or use a mechanical automatic gearbox. All of which is odd since the store assumes that everybody would have a digital calculator in his pocket, which implies that they'd be quick and cheap to make - yet the story was written at least ten years before the first pocket calculators were around.
The HP-35, IIRC the first scientific/engineering pocket calculator to be available, appeared in 1972. I still have a working HP-21, its successor, that I bought in 1976.
-- Martin | martin at Gregorie | gregorie dot org
The one thing they couldn't have predicted, was the fall in price of automobiles, that made these dystopian futures where no one could ride a horse, not only possible, but arguably inevitable.
C'mon now, the world moves on. If Western "post truth/there are no facts only propaganda and false news designed to control your choices" leads to the collapse of Western society, I am sure we can all look forward to a 1000 years of serfdom in the new Islamic caliphate...
Remember Darwin is not about "survival of the fittest": It is about non survival of those so dysfunctional that they met death before having a productive shag.
You have to be *really* stupid for that. And yes, the modern generation are, just about.
-- ?It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.? ? Voltaire, The Age of Louis XIV
And I have a linux app. :-)
--
?The fundamental cause of the trouble in the modern world today is that
the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."
- Bertrand Russell
Its not faster or cheaper at all, the exact opposite!
The reason for fly-by-wire throttle and electronic gearbox control is driving dynamics, fuel economy and emissions control.
There is a lot of very expensive software in ECUs to get this right, and it turns out even more expensive software to get it not right (if you include fines and lawsuits).
---druck
Yes, they did!
If they hadn't chosen to buy them, the business pushing them would have gone bust and their shitty products would no longer exist.
Do try to keep up.
-- Martin | martin at Gregorie | gregorie dot org
"Martin Gregorie" wrote
| > Did "consumers" choose these things? | > | Yes, they did! | | If they hadn't chosen to buy them, the business pushing them would have | gone bust and their shitty products would no longer exist. |
You missed my point entirely. I'm guessing there are aspects of your life where you've been duped due to ignorance. It's not realistic to think that everyone should be expert on everything. That's why marketing works. It doesn't excuse scammers. (Don't worry. I won't tell anyone you paid $200 for your Lululemon glorified pantyhose. :)
At some point of time I came to the conclusion that Enlightment is the key. It is not required to be an expert in everything, but to have a basic consious understand is doable by 90%. If even 60% would play you have a win. Unfortunately I know many clever people, who are not intelligent enough to understand how important it is to not buy and consume specific products. So in my opinion it is also the problem that the consumers do bad in this game. It even got worse with the younger who, as I said before, are not thought logic at school and are damaged by parents, school and internet nowdays. I see parents the biggest issue here, because they should be those 60% that give consious example to the kids. Unfortunately the reality is quite opposite. It is hard to be one of the 10-20% and have authority infront of the children if "everybody" is doing the opposite.
On Fri, 11 Sep 2020 00:51:34 -0000 (UTC), Martin Gregorie declaimed the following:
Well... At that point in time, the consumer exposure to "solid state electronics" was the transistorized AM radio -- a radio powered by dry cell batteries and small enough to carry around! {And 20-25 years later, they've grown into these big bricks you have to lug around on your shoulder
-- Wulfraed Dennis Lee Bieber AF6VN wlfraed@ix.netcom.com http://wlfraed.microdiversity.freeddns.org/
On Fri, 11 Sep 2020 06:04:49 +0100, The Natural Philosopher declaimed the following:
Bah, Humbug...
My phone has a Android app that reproduces the HP Prime! Including the "exam mode" feature lock-out capability.
Have a HP-41CX with bar-code wand, mag-stripe reader/writer, and I/R printer interface. Also HP-48SX and HP-50g (the latter had too many layout changes for easy use -- the 48 is a natural advance from the 28 and 41).
My first was an HP-25, and the third was the HP-28 -- I don't recall if the latter is in storage or self-destructed; the 25 died when I couldn't get new battery packs (it was the only one I owned that could be used at work, as it lost its mind when powered down... Working in a black program is a pain.)
-- Wulfraed Dennis Lee Bieber AF6VN wlfraed@ix.netcom.com http://wlfraed.microdiversity.freeddns.org/
state
Sure - discrete transistors. They worked, and allowed small radio so be built because, just as a radio built arounf valves only needed 5 or so, some being multi-function, so an equivalent transistor radio only needed
7, so was a lot smaller but little, if any, cheaper. But this didn't really translate into computers. The first one I used, an Ellott 503 in 1967, used ferrite core memory and discrete transistor logic, occupied 4 or five double wardrobe sized cabinets, and must have been very expensive to assemble (39 bit words, so lots of transistors in each register that all had to be soldered onto circuit boards).My point? That when he wrote that story, Asimov evidently had no idea that integrated circuits were coming down the tubes or that they would not only shrink physical size, but would make circuitry vastly easier and faster to design and assemble. His comment in 'The Feeling of Power' about building the computers to run spaceships being the production bottleneck proves that.
-- Martin | martin at Gregorie | gregorie dot org
I discovered how to repair the HP-21 battery packs: split them open and replace the pair of AA size NiCd batteries. The inner case is just glued to the textured removable base of the battery compartment and easily enough removed with a sharp knife.
My latest effort, now that AA NiCds no longer exist, was more complex. This time I fitted a pair of Perspex tubes as battery holders that each take an AAA Sanyo Eneloop. These give longer runtimes between charges and are still recharged by the original mains charger.
-- Martin | martin at Gregorie | gregorie dot org
Were the replacement cells NiMH chemistry? For some applications, (Wahl series 4000 shavers, for example) a NiMH cell of the same physical size can replace the original NiCD cell, (as mentioned) the original charger still (at least the old high-current type) works, and the NiMH provides about 3X the shaves per charge compared to the original NiCD.
HTH
-- Robert Riches spamtrap42@jacob21819.net (Yes, that is one of my email addresses.)
"Deloptes" wrote
| Unfortunately I know many clever people, who are not intelligent enough to | understand how important it is to not buy and consume specific products. | So in my opinion it is also the problem that the consumers do bad in this | game. It even got worse with the younger who, as I said before, are not | thought logic at school and are damaged by parents, school and internet | nowdays.
I've noticed that. Maybe it's partly my getting older, but time and time again I see Millennials and Gen-Zers who actually don't seem to be capable of thinking. They make pronouncements based on arbitrary belief, then if I question the validity of their statement, they switch the context. It becomes clear that they're operating with a seemingly sophisticated, yet entriely unexamined, worldview.
I suppose they also haven't had much chance to defend themselves from problems like Facebook. They've never known the experience of their social life not being owned by a for-profit company.
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