There is a long history of similar tech, a very cool article can be found here:
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech...
I never understood why this research was dropped given what it could mean for servers and computation.
The rest of the "heroic failures" articles in IEEE are worth a read as well.
I think for most people, it just means "the tech folks that keep our computers and networks running".
How "The Cloud" (tm) was supposed to accomplish that, I have no idea. Sure, many businesses used outsourced services, no longer running their own internal e-mail services, for example. This probably makes sense in small to medium sized businesses, in which technology is not their prime focus.
But beyond some generic services you no longer have to (mostly) manage yourself, you still need an internal team responsible for your own network, who can help solve problems on-demand, and look after the long-term welfare of your data. There's really no way to outsource ALL of that, because there aren't going to be one-size-fits-all solutions. Every company will typically have their own unique operating challenges beyond the common stuff that most companies use a network for. And just because it's "all in the cloud' doesn't mean you still don't need people to manage it all.
It was a very silly prediction for anyone who's ever worked in tech and has seen even part of what the IT folks have to do. My guess is that this looked feasible to Cringley because he lives in a permanent "work from home" bubble, never actually relying on an IT team or working in a collaborative office environment, and only listening to the hype of tech companies who are selling such services.
At least he owned up to the fact that he was wrong.
There is going to be a growing reversal. The big corps have really well and truly blown trust, those fuckers have become real psycho control freaks, insecure penny pinching greed obessesed arseholes who refuse to pay any taxes and seek to crush all other opposition for total dominace and control, not even fucking hyperbole, the reality.
This well drive a trend to avoid them and reach back to more local IT services, people you can talk to, people you can sue, people you have some control over, RATHER THAN THE OPPOSITE, it has become insane, the big tech corps controlling the customers rather than the other way around.
It will become more and more distasteful to deal with them, the damage is done and so more about localised IT services and support of open source software and hardware. Commodity stuff, anyone can assemble because that was safer, more reliable and you controlled it, rather than them trying to control you.
They are actively trying to lock out entire countries from them establishing and maintaining total control, as in M$ et al being part of the push to shutdown China tech growth (c'mon fellas, the tiny limpers are right in there in the halls of power, not just the contractor but the BOSS, they are right in there working hard to shutdown China so that M$ can maintain dominance, rather than China taking them out with FOSS hardware and software).
https://www.businessinsider.co...
"In its response, Amazon alleged that Parler violated its contract by refusing to remove more than 100 examples of violent content, including death threats against prominent Democrats, Republicans tech executives "
Why make it simple when you can make it overly complicated?
And just like that, Not-Cs became left wingers. This is the paradox of tolerance in real time. Obviously tech giants shouldn't control speech but obviously a tolerant society can't tolerate political violence.
Will the geniuses here at slashdot put a negative spin on this?
No, I've been pulling for a Cabinet-level science/tech position for years.
It is literally censorship. But (generally) doesn't violated the First Amendment. And probably doesn't violate any basic human rights.
It is fair if you believe it is OK for this kind of censorship to exist. But It's not a good argument to say essentially: It is good because it is legal.
Nor would anybody be saying that, if the tech companies were all banding together to disappear, say, BLM or Anitifa. The same people shrugging their shoulders would be up in arms.
It is that it speech feels entitled to speak from a specific selection of platforms, those providing the widest possible reach and audience.
Yes. And the reason for that is that those specific platforms have a (near) monopoly. Not on the technology that enables social media, but on the ability to actually reach that wide audience. They have a monopoly on eyeballs. If you want to inform or engage the general public - especially people who might be interested in what you have to say but haven't heard of you yet - you'll most likely need the large "tech" companies; starting your own platform or joining a niche one isn't going to cut it. And if you're barred from those platforms as a politician, you will be at a serious disadvantage compared to opponents with access.
The worry, not just from Republicans but from people like Merkel, EU commissioners, and now Doctorow and the EFF, is that those "reasonable constraints" are set by those companies, and that at some point they will become unreasonable. That's why they are now saying that perhaps the government shouldn't only put limits on what people can say in public, but also limits on what the large social media platforms can block. Looking at the bigger picture, this is a free speech issue, not just an issue of the right to refuse service.
Yes, big tech is to big, and for reasons that are much more important than Parler getting shut down. But this should not be approached as a free speech problem. It should be approached as an anti-trust problem. Laws need to be passed to require the government to look at big mergers with skepticism and give them the power to prevent them without going to court. No two large, healthy corporations should be allowed to merge. Once a company reaches a certain size, it should have to provide clear justification for an acquisition. Most of Facebooks acquisitions should have been illegal.
If we try to resolve this as a free speech issue, weâ(TM)re trying to fix the symptoms instead of the disease.
They probably want the same level of control, but "pointed at their enemies instead".
You can't choose a party that is actually against those things in the US as there's literally only two viable parties.
There's only non-political solutions left like funding the EFF and hoping for the best, or trying to out-tech silicon valley and protect free speech by "tech force".
Fascism indeed needs to be combated, but you're being used by the big tech to achieve their own goals, not yours.
Anything that don't have enough money and manpower to use some sort of super advanced AI that can detect fascists will be snuffed, including this very website.
Secondly, many of the "fascist hunters" are insane fanatics that keep pushing and broadening the definition so hard you will end being labeled one sooner or later for drinking milk or making the OK symbol, and if those people are the ones operating the "fascist destroying machines", you will be caught in its gears.
And finally, i don't think just banning people is a good way to solve the issue. You need to see what the fascists are using to convince regular
And when "Tech Unions" are responsible for millions of deaths, we'll rightfully treat them the same.
I don't understand how dimwits like yourself don't understand the gravity of the situation, and think that lightly tamping down on fascism (as compared to WW II, e.g.) somehow means everyone's freedom is at stake. NOT tamping down fascism is what puts everyone's freedom at stake.
First they came for the fascists and I did not speak up, because fascism is fucking terrible and rightfully needs to be put down.
Then they came for the socialists and I was like, hold up a minute. They're not inciting violent riots to overthrow the government in which numerous people die. They're proposing laws which don't go anywhere.
Get a grip dude.
You would be OK with all stores refusing to sell food to "facists" at a point they just starve to death?
Sure, simply because "that" group, is easily justified to attack right now.
Those defending this will eventually wake up when "that" group becomes those demanding "Tech Unions", as if Google or Amazon would even have a single reason to allow those conversations to start dominating their platforms.
Wait until government steps in and gently recommends to start squashing all discussions around "UBI". We can't have that kind of talk around here. Not when the rich might have to pay for it.
The electronic are ony in there by accident.
Because they can't make razor thin literal mirrors that bling-blink without electronics yet.
It's not like anyone who buys Apple could tell the difference.
They are just buying it to look "tech". It's a cargo cult.
magnets will fade in the amount of force they can hold over time.
Realistically speaking, magnets don't wear out.
A permanent magnet, if kept and used in optimum working conditions, will keep its magnetism for years and years. For example, it is estimated that a neodymium magnet loses approximately 5% of its magnetism every 100 years. https://www.first4magnets.com/...
Interpolating that information means that after 20 years your magnet will still deliver 99% of the original holding force. That's probably longer than the designed lifespan of the computer or charger.
Left me wondering, what the hell, am I the one over reacting with privacy concerns?
Same here. In other non-tech circles, I have been seeing these reactions below whenever WhatsApp and Signal is mentioned, I now feel it is hopeless to educate people about data privacy.
- "All apps steals all your data anyway"
- "Don't expect privacy if you use a smartphone"
- "They are going to know everything I do anyway"
- "Signal has been cracked already"
- "How can you trust Signal won't turn around and be sold to someone else later?"
- "Signal was made by the same guy that made WhatsApp, so it is just the same"
etc, etc.
Worse, people saying the above did so smugly, they feel (and don't hesitate to tell you that) you are stupid if you consider switching to Signal from WhatsApp. It is amazing to see people defend Facebook on the topic of data privacy!
Are you saying parler did not pay its bills? Of course any company that does not pay its bills gets booted; it's standard business and nobody would be alarmed.
Are you saying parler committed a crime? Name the specific crime and cite the relative US code and the specifics of the violation. If the company itself did something criminal I doubt anybody would be concerned that it got the chop.
Are you saying the Owners/Operators of parler committed a crime? Name the specific crime and cite the relative US code and the specifics of the violation. If you've got the goods on the CEO doing something criminal you might have an argument, but then again many companies have had criminal execs and lived-on with new leadership.
Are you saying some fraction of parler's users committed a crime? Oh, now we're into section230 matters and parler is theoretically no more guilty than Twitter, Facebook, and Amazon Web Services itself (who obviously would already be just as guilty of transporting the bytes involved in such crimes).
See, the problem here seems to be that this involves Trump - and for about half of this country, any discussion of that man over the past 4 years has meant that all standards, and rules of debate and discussion go right out the window and they can no longer apply reason to the conversation. Twitter and Facebook have for years contained far more calls for violence and illegal activity including live streaming of acts of terrorism, murder, arson, rape, government overthrows etc. and have been defended by many of the very same people now celebrating this move against a company they associate with Trump. One can discuss any situation, it seems, and have a rational debate but when Trump is involved, suddenly all consistency rules and standards are discarded and usually with some form of "but in this case, the action is obviously justified". Find a way to dial-down the emotions, get the specifics of Trump and parler out of your head, and think through what has happened here.
You need to face the fact that under the current section230 rules that shield companies like twitter facebook and even AWS itself, parler is also shielded. Twitter and facebook have had far more "bad apples" doing bad things and to this day still host people like the leader of Iran, who keeps calling for the Jews to be wiped out and Americans to be murdered. It's very telling that you, like big tech, do not apply your arguments to those companies and seek to deploy cancel culture against them. The entire big tech monster all jumped together, possibly in an anti-trust violating way, to to treat that one particular company differently, and not because it did anything itself that was different from what those other similar services have done for many years, but because employees of Amazon got angry about it acting as a section230-covered transporter of stuff those Amazon employees did not like. By these changing on-the-fly rules, any company that has any users or customers that might do something wrong in the eyes of the mob can be instantly destroyed and that vulnerability, on display now in bright neon letters, exists because of a choice to rely upon Amazon to provide infrastructure. There's simply no way for any company to know in advance what might trigger this execution, so AWS is now proven to be unstable and unreliable and untrustworthy. It converted itself from a no-brainer "known" to a dangerous "unknown" overnight and it may never again regain that level of trust.
Any business with customers/users that uses Amazon for its infrastructure could on any day of the year fire up a web browser and find that some users or customers have done something the internet hates - and within hours could find that Amazon destroys it. This is what has become clear, and NO amount of "but in THIS partisan political situation it's justified" papers over the fact that AWS will never again be trusted by half of the country. They'll use it for now, but they'll never trust it. I've been in tech for many years and I have been amazed at the progress we have all made at getting the world to go digital; early on many non-tech people were very wary of this bright new electronic world-of-the-future, replacing paper with online documents etc. The general public, and the business world, have all become comfortable with the world we engineers, nerds, and geeks built. This AWS action has had a much deeper impact for many people than you seem to appreciate. Like the dog that's been adopted into a family, then become a trusted and eventually loved member of the family, but then suddenly mauls one of the children. The family might keep the dog, but it will never TRUST it again. The clean and shiny plastic glass and chrome world of high-tech no longer is safe for half of the country. Go ahead and assume the whole world loves what AWS did - perhaps you are in a bubble of group-think where every means is wonderful if it serves the interest of attacking Trump and anybody who supported him. People who have lives that are not centered on Trump are perceiving the actions of big tech very differently; it looks dangerous, arbitrary, partisan, vindictive and worse - it looked like a friendly black lab, but now it looks like a rabid pit bull.
This begins to sound a lot like the science fiction novel The Adolescence of P1 from 1977. Reading the novel now can be a hoot because the tech then seems so limited now for what was happening. But sometimes one gets an eerie feeling that author Thomas J. Ryan might have been on to something.
The gent who wakes up and finds himself a success hasn't been asleep.
