>"Weep for the poor C++ developers forced to shoehorn modern software into a computer that isn’t yet as powerful as a battery-powered consumer device most people have upgraded three times already."
You might be surprised by what kind of functionality can be squeezed out of "weak" CPU when programmers know how to work on hardware with limited resources.
Is it possible that there is a mistake on the page and they mean 450 Watts?
The "1 ATR SHORT" version lists 2 modules and takes 300 Watts, so 450 Watts would line up perfectly for the "1 ATR LONG" which takes 3 modules. 4.5 kW doesn't make a lot of sense here.
I remember there was once great company that had supplied first rate scientific equipment, great printers and other things. Now we have a healthy racket business.
And who cares if it is true? So far programming is one of very few professions when person can set themselves for life in a relatively short period of time. When / if it is gone there will be something else. I have few friends who'd switched to be a handyman. They are doing great from what I see.
> So far programming is one of very few professions when person can set themselves for life in a relatively short period of time.
If you specifically optimize for it. Most people don't - they specialize and expect to be in their line of work for decades.
> When / if it is gone there will be something else.
There will be something else for young people who are just starting. If you're 20 years into a career and then your line of work disappears overnight, of course you can switch to something else - and enjoy your entry-level salary while competing for jobs with people who are 20+ years younger than you and have no meaningful costs or obligations yet.
Also, on what you're optimizing for. If, like many, you're looking for a job that makes sense, for instance (e.g. working to develop technologies or research that you think can change the world for the better), you're probably never going to strike that particular gold.
I sometime hire web developers to do frontend for my clients. 90% of the time when I talk to them all I can hear is - can we use / rewrite with X/Y/Z/etc framework. Needless to say that I tell them to take a hike right away. I usually ask how would you implement this and that workflow using plain JS (using some specific libs is ok).
Damaging property is a crime. Plenty of universities withdraw degrees for vandals, kick them out, and sometimes prosecute them. Claiming “free speech” has never allowed “break laws without repercussions.”
As I get older, I find it hard to maintain suspension of disbelief when reading SF. Too many of the tropes have grown old and stale. I also find it hard to maintain interest, since too many stories are describing a time beyond when I can reasonably believe I'll be alive.
It's also clear that predictions of the future in SF stories are no more connected to reality than are outright fantasy stories. So why not just read fantasy if you want escapism? The takeover of SF by fantasy should have been predictable.
I prefer fantasy, over scifi, because, in my opinion, with fantasy, the story is about characters in a fantastic world, while, in science fiction, the story is about a fantastic world, with characters in it.
I do have trouble liking newer stuff, though, and end up rereading a lot of “classic” lit. I feel as if authors aren’t well-edited, anymore, and that can have devastating consequences on the quality of their work. I hope that AI editors may help, there.
One of the things about these mags, is that they were a forge for great style. People learned to develop succinct, effective stories, and the editors for the publications could be brutal.
One thing I've noticed is that sometimes modern authors are too married to their big ideas, and neglect the rest of the story. The example I like to point to this is Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice. She has fantastic ideas, really interesting stuff. But the plot is awful. There's just no interesting story there, and the ideas aren't enough to carry the book so it winds up being a bore to read. And I don't find that to be the only case of such a thing.
> One thing I've noticed is that sometimes modern authors are too married to their big ideas, and neglect the rest of the story.
IMO that's very far from a new phenomena. Even Tolkien, for all the accolades he got, gets carried away describing absolutely irrelevant stuff that barely anyone cares about (controversial opinion, shoot me, but I know many others love his universe and agree with that take at the same time).
To me falling in love with your fantasy / scifi universe is a huge writer sin. It seriously detracts from the quality of the writing and I've noticed this in authors young and old, and super popular and praised ones too.
Same goes for Asimov btw... he tries so hard to present you a narrative and/or do some world-building that some (if not most) of this characters end up being extremely simplistic plot devices. They don't feel like living breathing humans at all.
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