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Operating Systems

Ask Slashdot: What are the Costs of Switching Between Windows, MacOS, and Chrome? 66

UI changes, lost productivity, untransferrable knowledge... Long-time Slashdot reader theodp notes the folly of switching to an unfamiliar new environment to be "more productive"... Champions of the switch often insist workers will be able to hit the ground running and get the same or even more work done from the get-go in the new unfamiliar environment because it's 'more productive', a conclusion often shaped by conventional wisdom or their 'gut' feeling. Decision makers may also mistake their own 'light-user experience' for universal experience and believe all platforms are fungible.

And while it's one thing for a business to delay their delivery dates and increase costs of by introducing a switch in computing environments that's of unquantified and possibly dubious value, how about when a switch in computing environments is made that affects schoolchildren's ability to learn for a period of time?

While a MacBook Neo is indeed cute, what might be the possible consequences of a decision to move 25,000 students off Windows and onto MacBook Neos...? Or even the impact on a single kid who moves from a MacBook school to a Windows or Chrome school (or whose home computing environment isn't aligned with their school). Or students whose teachers decide learning in their classrooms should now additionally require an understanding of the Minecraft computing platform/UI (used in over 40,000 school systems.). Learning Management Systems and now various AI Edtech tools used by schoolkids are also subject to change.

"Even if students and schools eventually benefit from a new platform, one wonders how much learning is lost during the switch," theodp asks, "and what the financial and educational ROI and payback period look like." Are there bigger problems than we realize? Share your own thoughts and experiences in the comments.

What are the costs of switching between Windows, MacOS, and Chrome?

Comment Re: Meaningless statements? (Score 1) 219

That may or may not be a defect. Human eyes are also not seeing in all directions at once, unlike Tesla's cameras.

And it has nothing to do with the CEO's lie that cameras cannot be safer than humans, when it is the automation that makes automated cars safer. Mount a lidar to your roof. Are you now a safer driver? No. It is the automation which is safer, not the lidar alone.

Comment Re:Meaningless statements? (Score 1) 219

You skipped this quote in your hurry to apologize for the liar. Are you a politician?

"If the goal were to just approximately match human performance or to build an assist product ..."

"approximately match" also means "no better than". Even if you take it to mean "only marginally better than" it's still a lie. If cameras are only as good as human eyes, they still don't get drunk, distracted, or drowsy.

Comment Re: Meaningless statements? (Score 1) 219

Selection bias my left eye. There are enough drunk, distracted, and drowsy human drivers to kill thousands of people every year, and they are statistically significant; there are no drunk, distracted, or drowsy automated drivers, and that zero is also statistically significant. So is the difference, and it is entirely due to automation, not cameras vs lidar. And getting back to my original post, that is why I call that CEO a liar, and you have not addressed that.

Comment Re:Meaningless statements? (Score 1) 219

No. That is not what he said. He said cameras-only driverless cars cannot be better than humans.

That is a lie, and that's what I called him out for. Research be damned; cameras already have better resolution than the human eye, but that's not where the safety comes from. It comes from being automated, and not getting distracted, drunk, or drowsy. If you won't believe that without research papers, then you're a damned fool.

Comment Re:Meaningless statements? (Score 2) 219

You didn't read what I wrote. The claim is that camera-only automated cars can never be safer than human cars. That's wrong, because the safety comes from automation itself being a better driver than a human, even if it only has cameras. Other sensors may or may not add safety. The do not guarantee additional safety.

An automated car can also be worse than a human driver, even with a dozen sensors. But it won't be because of the sensors.

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