The European Tribune is a forum for thoughtful dialogue of European and international issues. You are invited to post comments and your own articles.
Please REGISTER to post.
Must Follow Standards freezes the Cybernetic Sector into existing functionality. In some cases, e.g., ASCII that's an undeniable good ... for a while. ASCII has a range of coding to support teleprinters. Who the heck uses teleprinters these days? But there they sit, hogging space that these days could be used for other, more important, purposes. It's possible to state ASCII is obsolete; it was designed for 8 bit systems in a 64 bit world.
In the late 70s 80 megabyte mass storage devices were the size of a small end table costing $80,000. Today I can purchase 180 terabytes for ~$7,500. For sheer raw computing power my desktop development system obliterates the IBM 360/70 I worked on 'back in the day.' The Raspberry Pi at $35 a pop, is more capable than any microcomputer available in, say, 1985.
The technological change over the past 40 years continues today. Much of it is not reaching the consumer market because of existing "standards," e.g., WinTel. And the fact 95% of the people on the software side know bugger-all about hardware, its design, architectural trade-offs between hardware and software, and hardware/software integration. Putting it simply, computer systems available in 2013 are squarely based on the limitations of 1975 hardware using paradigms and heuristics developed in 1956.
MicroSoft developed Windows 8 in an attempt to force a move to 2013 technology. BUT it was an "update" that didn't threaten their market dominance. Apple forced a change with the various "i" devices but only under the control of a narcissistic control freak: Steve Jobs, who was deeply interested in freeing people to consume anything ... he permitted. Want to do your own thing? Tough shit.
Like everything, Standards have a Good side, a Downside, and a range in between. They are 'an' answer to some things, 'the' answer to some things, 'meh' to some things, and a real hindrance to other things.
She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre
by IdiotSavant - Jun 16 9 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Jun 15 12 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Jun 10 15 comments
by Bernard - Jun 6 23 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Jun 6 4 comments
by Oui - Jun 8 103 comments
by gmoke - Jun 1 2 comments
by IdiotSavant - Jun 241 comment
by Oui - Jun 232 comments
by Oui - Jun 23
by gmoke - Jun 22
by Oui - Jun 20
by Oui - Jun 1914 comments
by asdf - Jun 183 comments
by Oui - Jun 184 comments
by IdiotSavant - Jun 169 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Jun 1512 comments
by Oui - Jun 1310 comments
by Oui - Jun 1240 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Jun 1015 comments
by Oui - Jun 94 comments
by Oui - Jun 8103 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Jun 64 comments
by Bernard - Jun 623 comments
by Oui - Jun 6
by Oui - Jun 524 comments
by Oui - Jun 516 comments