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Communications

The Balkanization of Chatting 242

JThaddeus writes "Slashdot's own (or former) CmdrTaco has a posting on the Washington Post's website where he discusses how chat apps have overtaken SMS. Yeah, they are cheap. There's no telecom fee per message or for some number of messages per month. However 'The problem of course is that these systems are annoyingly incompatible with each other. My phone can buzz with chat notifications from 3 different apps at any moment. My desktop has even more scattered across browser tabs and standalone apps.' Ditto, nor do I want to hassle learning some app or trying to understand its who's-listening settings. I'll stick to email and to occasional SMS."

Comment Re:What year is this? (Score 1) 559

Work smarter, not harder. That's the way it has been going for thousands of years of civilization and social advancement. We still need low-skilled work, but those will be fewer and lower paying the more people compete for those jobs. And skilled jobs will grow and wages will increase as employers compete for those skills. The intelligence and education required to stay in the middle class will continue to increase.

There will be incentive to create tools and technology to use those lower-skilled, less expensive workers just as there are today. You don't need a comp sci degree to work on an automotive computer system to repair cars. The same gear-heads (I use that term affectionately) that worked on cars in the '70s do so today. Tools will make today's high-tech jobs require less skill to do more advanced work.

Who would have thought in 1970 that, 40 years later, functional literacy would require understanding of how to use computers? Or that we would all carry those computers in our pockets. In 40 years, who knows what "functional literacy" will look like? Everyone able to program a computer? Probably, but "programming" won't look much like it does today. The only thing that matters in the end is how fast an individual can learn and adapt to a changing world.

Blackberry

BlackBerry Looking To Quench 'Insatiable Demand' For New Smartphones 173

DavidGilbert99 writes "BlackBerry is on something of a roll. It finally delivered its BlackBerry 10 platform along with the first smartphone to run the OS, the Z10 in January. This weekend saw the launch of the Q10 and there is an 'insatiable demand' for this smartphone with its physical keyboard, says BlackBerry's UK head Rob Orr."

Comment Re:We need better web tech PERIOD. (Score 1) 302

I find it rather abhorrent that the "Web Development" has become a mish-mash of technologies: HTTP, HTML, JS, CSS and extensions: DOM, AJAX.

Has become? Back in the day HTML was a mish-mash of tags and (eventually) DOM models that were abhorrent and incompatible across browsers.

As soon as you standardize one thing, then the big boys are on to the next big thing. You still have a myriad ways to generate web content, all of which should shield the developer from most of the madness. Standards are good for taking a snapshot of the state of the art at a point in time, allowing developers to say "I support this version" and browsers to guarantee they will render standardized versions correctly. I expect every browser on the market today to correctly render all standardized versions of HTML.

Comment Re:BSD license (Score 1) 630

That's not entirely in the public domain. I release stuff under many licenses, as well as putting them in the public domain. I usually have a very clear idea of what I choose to do and why I do it. And my views have certainly evolved in the past 14 years since that statement was initially attached to that website. Besides, people have made (and continue to make) fair use of code and images published on that site.

Comment Re:The Public Domain (Score 1) 630

Do I want to go back to those days? Absolutely. Having that music in the public domain is part of cultural wealth of the United States. The copyright of performances of white artists playing music put in the public domain by black musicians and songwriters did not remove that music from the public domain. We are all wealthier together for the gift those artists gave us. Disney does the same thing with Mother Goose, Bros Grimm, HCA, etc. Those works are all still in the public domain. You are free to copy them and adapt the original stories.

Were there inequities? Sure. But I would argue that the we are paying a much heavier cost today. Besides, the music industry has found new and improved ways to rape and pillage the artists they purport to represent. The poor and uneducated will always be at a disadvantage. No one can argue that the IP regime we have today is a just system. Might still makes right. Whoever can afford the most lawyers wins.

We now have a place to easily and instantly publish ideas which provides permanent proof of what is in the public domain. Let's use it.

Comment Re:BSD license (Score 1) 630

Because if the code is public domain, then you can modify it in any conceivable way and the original author(s) lose all ability to control not only use (which is the point of selecting the BSD license) but content, such as statements that "this code is public domain."

Who cares?!? Copying the code and removing the statement "this code is in the public domain" does not remove the code from the public domain.

Comment Re:The Public Domain (Score 1) 630

Not at all. The number of copyrighted works would plummet to acceptable levels (with the value of ideas being added to the public domain returning to normal, healthy levels), rather than the copyright pandemic we are currently experiencing. The only thing deserving of copyright protection are those things that the creator deems valuable enough to seek copyright protection. And then we could do interesting things like exponentially scale the cost of registration based on the duration the author wishes to maintain their monopoly on the work.

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