Thread: Some thoughts on current technology trends

  1. #1
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    Some thoughts on current technology trends

    To put the words Is and True back in IT...

    Big Data

    Lots of books on big data. I mean, lots! Don't buy 'em. Don't care about them. Don't care about big data in any way. You can safely avoid knowing about it. We all use big data in some way, but the chances you are ever involved in developing or engineering at a big data provider is more or less the same as you becoming an astronaut. Now, not to say that big data is as complex as becoming an astronaut. It's not. But the chances of you becoming an astronaut are probably the same as you ending up needing to study big data. Everyone uses big data, very few actually work on it.

    Bid Data is also about exploding your head with very meaningful graphs. Here's how useful a graph of big data is.

    NoSQL
    First they take our freedom. Then they take our liberties. Someone took my wife and my wife took my kids. Now they are taking SQL away from me. I can't take it anymore.

    Databases used to be simple things. Not anymore. Data is the same mind you. We just figured out different ways of storing and retrieving it. NoSQL makes the storage and retrieval of relational data as difficult as is for a relational database to store and extract Non Relational Data. Hurray for not solving a problem!

    Notice I said Non Relational Data, not NoSQL data. Because, quite frankly, it takes a fool to give a foolish name to a technology that is about how data is structured, not about a language used to retrieve data. And I'm no fool.

    Near Field Communications
    Your cellphone is an amazing thing. It is why I want to steal it from you and use it to NFC my household bills, NFC my way to Wallmart, and NFC my girl friend (who doesn't know I'm a criminal) a nice dinner and an hotel room.

    NFC is about waving your cellphone (well you don't need to wave it, but I bet everyone will do the wave thing), very close to some device and perform some kind of data transfer between the two devices. It can turn your cellphone into a credit card. A more expensive credit card that also does other cool things, which is thief land. NFC is really bluetooth but with a different name. Sure bluettoth lacks the security features of NFC. But that's really just bluetooth on a different protocol. Which Bluetooth did and decided to name it, again stupidly, Bluetooth Smart.

    Somehow the idea of centralizing my life in a single device is just going to make my heart explode with worry. I'm not very much into the Smart bandwagon. And it takes a very smart person to admit it.

    Civilian Drones
    They differ from military drones in that they can't kill you unless one crashes into your windshield while you are driving at 180 km/h. (That's fast, you american imperials).

    Now, this is a big deal. Drones, small and stupid flying robots, are supposed to help us in ways that weren't possible before. There are even advancements in herd algorithms in order to better control a swarm of drones who could, for instance manage a corn field.

    There's a drone in the film Looper. Just a single and relatively large one. It seemed to do a pretty decent job spraying a corn field. Why would I want a swarm if I can just have a big one? The answer is, drones are small. Like Pluto, you cant call a big thing a drone. It has to be small. If it is bigger it is a robot. In the movie Looper that is a robot. Not a drone.

    So drones are small robots. They can't carry canisters and presently the only thing they seem to do is video recording. Like google glasses... alright.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

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    Citizen of Awesometown the_jackass's Avatar
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    This is all part of a satanickal government conspiracy. Better avoid these evil technologies at all costs.
    "Highbrow philosophical truth: Everybody is an ape in monkeytown" --Oscar Wilde

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    Unregistered User Yarin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mario F. View Post
    That's fast, you american imperials
    Americans don't use imperial units.

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    Unregistered User Yarin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mario F. View Post
    The answer is, drones are small. Like Pluto, you cant call a big thing a drone. It has to be small. If it is bigger it is a robot. In the movie Looper that is a robot. Not a drone.
    I've never heard of this distinction before. A "drone" is any sized UAV.

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    I would query describing the points Mario listed as being technology trends. They are only indirectly linked to evolution of technology which is what I think of when I use the wording "technology trends". They are some patterns concerning use of technology - often driven by marketing departments of technology companies.
    Right 98% of the time, and don't care about the other 3%.

    If I seem grumpy or unhelpful in reply to you, or tell you you need to demonstrate more effort before you can expect help, it is likely you deserve it. Suck it up, Buttercup, and read this, this, and this before posting again.

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    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Yarin View Post
    I've never heard of this distinction before. A "drone" is any sized UAV.
    Well, the distinction doesn't exist, of course. I made it up. I'm just illustrating the fact that civilian drones, for their size, are pretty much useless except as toys. And we've had toys like that for a while.

    edit 1:
    ... and as for imperial units, it's not that far from the truth and just sounds better than to to call you customary americans.

    edit 2:
    Hmmm... that does sound better.
    Last edited by Mario F.; 12-12-2014 at 09:20 AM.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

  7. #7
    C++まいる!Cをこわせ!
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    If you're going to talk about current technology trends, then... well, mobile is driving me crazy. Not because it's so good. Not because it's the future. Not because everyone's talking about. But because I hate it and just sometimes want to take my pathetic tablet and chuck it somewhere hard. Because, plainly, this "mobile" trend just sucks. Before this stupid mobile trend came, we had Windows 7. Then we got Windows Garbage*. Now we're getting Windows Stuck-In-Between**. Then there's all this wearable garabage. And gods know what other garbage we're going to have to withstand because society finally realizes that we don't want this garbage. We want computers in our pockets, not some half-assed garbage that can neither be phones nor computers. It ticks me off.

    Sigh. Then there's this NFC trend. Oh, NFC is so good, oh it's godlike, of it's super cool, oh it's the future! Yeah right. Like I'm going to unpocket my phone (which I don't have one of, btw), unlock it, open the NFC app, navigate the UI, swipe it and enter my PIN instead of just taking my card, inserting it, entering PIN. Done. Did I ever mention that only the high-end phones have it? Yeah, that makes things even easier. Don't get me started on the whole mobile payment garbage. So you can't use NFC? OK. Let's just make it even slower by scanning a QR code. Oh, I love the idea of merging all stuff into a common device, be it a mobile or something else. I'd love to put all cards into one device and the keys and whatever else I always carry around in my pocket. It's a great idea. But as always, because of people who can't design programs, user interfaces or just plainly don't get what consumers want, or because or security issues, I don't see it happening for at least another 10 years. If even then.

    Grrr.
    OK. End rant.

    *) That's my unofficial name for Windows 8.X. No, Windows 8.1 + update X didn't fix any of Windows Garbage's problems.
    **) That's my unofficial name for Windows 9, err, sorry, Windows 10.
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

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    Registered User MutantJohn's Avatar
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    Can someone explain this big data thing to me? Is it because technology has gotten to the point where algorithms that once worked for datasets no longer work because there's just so much stuff? I blame you, cloud-based technology trends!

    Btw, does anyone know how to build a server-side Java threadpool that accepts tasks given to it by a combo of HTML and PHP? That's some current technology we should really be working on, imo.

  9. #9
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    Google big data. Can't be that hard.

    It's a useful technology, btw. Just like anything in that first post. Just over-hyped considering their actual and practical uses. Interestingly enough Big Data is not new. At all. But because of the internet appetite for thoughtless dissemination, it's made a current, novel and extremely important technology that you should know about even if you don't want to... Wait! You mean you don't know about big data? Ahah! And you call yourself a programmer? Tsk.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

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    Registered User MutantJohn's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mario F. View Post
    Google big data. Can't be that hard.

    It's a useful technology, btw. Just like anything in that first post. Just over-hyped considering their actual and practical uses. Interestingly enough Big Data is not new. At all. But because of the internet appetite for thoughtless dissemination, it's made a current, novel and extremely important technology that you should know about even if you don't want to... Wait! You mean you don't know about big data? Ahah! And you call yourself a programmer? Tsk.
    T_T

    You actually make a decent point. Most employed physicists are working in data science. But that seems different. That's just like deriving info from data which is pretty much what all scientists do anyway but I guess physicists are sought after in that regard.

  11. #11
    (?<!re)tired Mario F.'s Avatar
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    My criticism of NoSQL is a bit different, despite Big Data and NoSQL being related. Here I question the lack of a formal solution to the problem of data organization, storage and retrieval. NoSQL is as limited as SQL is. It's the answer to a single solution (or a few related solutions, to be more precise) of data organization structures.

    However in our world, we will keep experiencing an increase in data clusters composed of an amalgamation of relational, tree, document, and key-value pairs. It's just how we are evolving our databases. Like Einstein looking for a unified theory, we need a unified query language (UQL, seems a decent name) that can deal with data in a series of different arrangements. Easier said than done, I would agree. But that doesn't make NoSQL the next best thing in data organization and retrieval, because it's anything but, despite being touted that way. It's the solution to a single problem, much like SQL. And with the powerful concept of relational data being still an important philosophy today (as it will be tomorrow) we just can't ignore SQL in favor of NoSQL, as much as we can no longer ignore NoSQL.
    Last edited by Mario F.; 12-12-2014 at 03:50 PM.
    Originally Posted by brewbuck:
    Reimplementing a large system in another language to get a 25% performance boost is nonsense. It would be cheaper to just get a computer which is 25% faster.

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    Registered User Alpo's Avatar
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    I made a little robot out of some solar panels and old pager parts, and some wire (it looks like a beetle about the size of my hand). So far it's corn harvesting abilities are about 1/10 (it can scoot up to a corn stock if the sun is just right).

    What I'm saying is it's only a matter of time before PagerScooterRobot_1.0 is developed into a corn harvesting terminator. Watch out you pathetic humans (All the corn is belong to ME)!

    Quote Originally Posted by Elysia
    If you're going to talk about current technology trends, then... well, mobile is driving me crazy. Not because it's so good. Not because it's the future. Not because everyone's talking about. But because I hate it and just sometimes want to take my pathetic tablet and chuck it somewhere hard. Because, plainly, this "mobile" trend just sucks. Before this stupid mobile trend came, we had Windows 7. Then we got Windows Garbage*. Now we're getting Windows Stuck-In-Between**.
    I was going to write a rebuttal on why Window's 8.1 is the greatest, using Microsoft Word, but then I hit the pseudo start button and was taken to another planet where the rules of reality function differently .
    WndProc = (2[b] || !(2[b])) ? SufferNobly : TakeArms;

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    Unregistered User Yarin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Elysia View Post
    *) That's my unofficial name for Windows 8.X. No, Windows 8.1 + update X didn't fix any of Windows Garbage's problems.
    **) That's my unofficial name for Windows 9, err, sorry, Windows 10.
    Face it Elysia, the day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck, will be the day they make a vacuumcleaner.

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    C++まいる!Cをこわせ!
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    Quote Originally Posted by Yarin View Post
    Face it Elysia, the day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck, will be the day they make a vacuumcleaner.
    Well... they did make a good produce... once upon a time. It was called Windows 7. It was good for its time.
    Otherwise... I am inclined to agree. All new programs from Microsoft seems to be heading towards the recycle bin trend.
    Quote Originally Posted by Adak View Post
    io.h certainly IS included in some modern compilers. It is no longer part of the standard for C, but it is nevertheless, included in the very latest Pelles C versions.
    Quote Originally Posted by Salem View Post
    You mean it's included as a crutch to help ancient programmers limp along without them having to relearn too much.

    Outside of your DOS world, your header file is meaningless.

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    Registered User Alpo's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Yarin View Post
    Face it Elysia, the day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck, will be the day they make a vacuumcleaner.
    What are you talking about? The Metro interface is the greatest invention since fire. It was programmed by the greatest minds of all the centuries combined, with one goal in mind... To answer the fundamental question of life itself:

    "How do I run a Windows OS using only my elbow and a gigantic new age touch screen display?"
    WndProc = (2[b] || !(2[b])) ? SufferNobly : TakeArms;

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