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Comment But I have a routine . . . (Score 1) 388

Everyone gets used to doing things a certain way, and gets irritated when things are improved.

An example among data-entry types is being able to use keyboard shortcuts vs having to use a mouse, It slows them down to have to use a mouse.

Another is the Microsoft Ribbon, where people had the old menu system totally memorized, and suddenly couldn't find anything because it had been "improved" and "re-arranged for you convenience". Instead of making it an option that you could toggle, it was a mandatory upgrade.

This is totally irritating, especially when the new version has improvements that are geared to the enterprise, or software profit margins. I have talked to too many people who would routinely tell me this. This is a minor point of contention.

I still have an old computer that works just fine thank you, and run an old word-processor without a lot of this extra fluff. Heck, George R. Martin uses an old dos word processor because it is more convenient for him.

In this context, I am reminded of the old video about choices in spaghetti sauce. turns out, that in the world of spaghetti sauce, there is no one perfect spaghetti sauce, despite decades of advertising to the contrary. The truth is that there are many perfect spaghetti sauces (chunky, vegetable, extra spicy, etc) and you get more sales by catering to the individual tastes of people. Which is why we now have multiple varieties of sauces, etc on the shelves these days.

You can watch the full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Large companies like MIcrosoft are still in pursuit of "the perfect software" or "the perfect user interface" when they should give users options and choices when it comes to user interfaces and performance behavior. There is no one best interface, etc. just like there is not one best spaghetti sauce. While there should be an update for security reasons, etc. what does that have to do with the sort of an interface a person likes?

Similarly, there can be genuine product improvements when you do things a certain way, but also it is merely the pursuit of the cool and novel vs actual improvement. I upgrade systems because I need a certain functionality, and sometimes it is a royal pain when I cannot

I am a constant crank about software as a service. Especially if I can do what I need and keep a system running well for many many years, so that it is cheaper than paying a yearly fee.

Submission + - How the new season of "Halt and Catch Fire" recreated 1986 (fastcompany.com)

Submitted by harrymcc
harrymcc writes: The third season of AMC's "Halt and Catch Fire," a drama about the tech industry in the 1980s, debuted this week. The new episodes are set in San Francisco and Silicon Valley in 1986, and are rich with carefully-researched plot points, dialog, and sets full of vintage technology (including a startup equipped with real Commodore 64s and a recreated IBM mainframe). I visited the soundstage in Atlanta where the producers have recreated Northern California in the 80s, and spoke with the show's creators and stars about the loving attention they devote to getting things right.

Comment The mind as a multidimensional object (Score 1) 386

by Alien54 (#52043599) Attached to: Study Suggests Free Will Is An Illusion
The mind naturally has many systems and sub-components. This makes the mind is a complex multidimensional system, and it is easy to detect automatic decision making mechanisms.

The fact of automated response systems does not disprove freewill, no more than the fact of automated computer mechanisms (and bots, etc) disproves the existence of users on the internet (and elsewhere)

Of course, some day, the internet will be filled with AI Bots spamming each other for the fun and profit, and it will be bots and turtles all the way down. An actual user will become a rare thing indeed.

Submission + - A tale of industrial espionage (cw.com.tw)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: First, the links -

http://english.cw.com.tw/artic...

http://www.eetimes.com/documen...

http://www.extremetech.com/ext...

This tale of an industrial turncoat ought to be a lesson to all high-tech captains

An employee of TSMC defected to Samsung is the focus of this tale of industrial espionage

TSMC has paid dearly due to their inaction and is losing clients, including Apple, Qualcomm and Nvidia, to Samsung, as a result

TSMC's blind trust on its former employee, and the resultant loss of business should become a case study for all industrial captains, especially those running high-tech companies

Here's a very brief quote

Many people were puzzled why the normally decisive TSMC had suddenly gone soft. In fact, in May 2010, the vice president of TSMC's human resources division at the time, Tu Long-chin, sent an e-mail to Liang saying he had seen reports that Liang was already employed by Samsung. That, Tu warned, would constitute a violation of the non-compete clause and lead to the forfeiture of his shares, which would be handed over to the TSMC Education and Culture Foundation.

Liang immediately replied, writing: "I have never, am not now and will never in the future do anything to let down the company."

A month later Tu and Richard Thurston, then general counsel and vice president of TSMC's legal division, held a meeting with Liang at which he promised that he "will not join Samsung now or in the future." The next day, he even sent a letter to Thurston, with whom he had been close, saying that he was thinking of resigning his position at Sungkyunkwan University.

During that time, Liang even wrote a letter to Morris Chang, insisting on his innocence and saying that he had TSMC blood in his system.

Ultimately, TSMC executives decided to believe their old comrade who had fought alongside them for more than a decade and pay him the more than NT$100 million his 738,000 withheld shares were worth in three installments.

But on July 13, 2011, just two months after collecting the final installment of the stock payout, Liang formally became the chief technology officer of Samsung Electronics' System LSI division. When the news spread, it came as a slap in the face to those who trusted him

To do justice to the story, you just gotta read it yourself

Submission + - Scientific Study Finds There Are Too Many Scientific Studies

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Chris Matyszczyk reports at Cnet that a new scientific study concludes that there are too many scientific studies and that scientists simply can't keep track of all the studies in their field. The paper, titled "Attention Decay in Science," looked at all publications (articles and reviews) written in English till the end of 2010 included in the database of the Thomson Reuters (TR) Web of Science. For each publication they extracted its year of publication, the subject category of the journal in which it is published and the corresponding citations to that publication. The 'decay' the researchers investigated is how quickly a piece of research is discarded (PDF) measured by establishing the initial publication, the peak in its popularity and, ultimately, its disappearance from citations in subsequent publications. "Nowadays papers are forgotten more quickly. Attention, measured by the number and lifetime of citations, is the main currency of the scientific community, and along with other forms of recognition forms the basis for promotions and the reputation of scientists," says the study. "Typically, the citation rate of a paper increases up to a few years after its publication, reaches a peak and then decreases rapidly. This decay can be described by an exponential or a power law behavior, as in ultradiffusive processes, with exponential fitting better than power law for the majority of cases (PDF). The decay is also becoming faster over the years, signaling that nowadays papers are forgotten more quickly."

The Bank of England's chief economist, Andy Haldane, recently spoke of the fear that the modern social media age is curtailing our attention spans, highlighting Twitter as the best example of this, but explaining it as a broader issue, not to do with just one piece of software. 'We are clearly in the midst of an information revolution, with close to 99% of the entire stock of information ever created having been generated this century," says Haldane. "Just as with Facebook, YouTube or any other means of publication, how can you make this organic process stop?" writes Matyszczyk. "If publication has become too easy, there will be more and more of it."

Submission + - The Church of TED

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Megan Hustad writes in the NYT that while it’s not exactly fair to say that the TED conference series and web video function like an organized church, understanding the parallel structures is useful for conversations about faith, how susceptible we humans remain to the cadences of missionary zeal, and how the TED style with its promise of progress, is as manipulative as the orthodoxies it is intended to upset. According to Hustad, a great TED talk is reminiscent of a tent revival sermon, a gathering of the curious and the hungry. "A persistent human problem is introduced, one that, as the speaker gently explains, has deeper roots and wider implications than most listeners are prepared to admit," says Hustad. "Once everyone has been confronted with this evidence of entropy, contemplated life’s fragility and the elusiveness of inner peace, a decision is called for: Will you remain complacent, or change?" TED talks routinely present problems of huge scale and scope — we imprison too many people; the rain forest is dying; look at all this garbage; we’re unhappy; we have Big Data and aren’t sure what to do with it — then wrap up tidily and tinily. Do this. Stop doing that. Buy an app that will help you do this other thing. "I never imagined that the Baptists I knew in my youth would come to seem mellow, almost slackers by comparison," concludes Hustad. "Of course they promoted Jesus as a once-and-done, plug-and-play solver of problems — another questionable approach."

Submission + - Tor Project aims to eclipse U.S. government funding (dailydot.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Developed by the U.S. Navy and the recipient of millions of dollars of government grants, the Tor Project is now aiming to ween itself off dependence of U.S. government funds "including setting a goal of 50 percent non-U.S. government funding by 2016." The initiative comes after months of discussion over what some vocal critics deemed a contradiction in funding and purpose.

Submission + - I Don't Love Spock: Matthew Continetti v. Captain James T. Kirk (thefederalist.com)

Submitted by Limekiller42
Limekiller42 writes: Over at The Washington Free Beacon, Matthew Continetti wrote about his apathetic reaction to the death of Lenard Nimoy. He stated that he didn't love Spock because, among other things, that "Not only do Spock’s peacenik inclinations routinely land the Enterprise and the Federation into trouble, his “logic” and “level head” mask an arrogant emotional basket case." This resulted in a sharp response from one Captain James T. Kirk that was posted over at The Federalist website.

Submission + - Fujitsu Tech Can Track Heavily Blurred People In Security Videos (itworld.com) 1

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: Fujitsu has developed image-processing technology that can be used to track people in security camera footage, even when the images are heavily blurred to protect their privacy. The company says that detecting the movements of people in this way could be useful for retail design, reducing pedestrian congestion in crowded urban areas or improving evacuation routes for emergencies. An indoor test of the system was able to track the paths of 80 percent of test subjects, according to the company.

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Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith. - Paul Tillich, German theologian and historian

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