The author of this article is out of touch with modern engineering. It's nice to wax about the old days when things had simple linkages that were easy to debug, but I'll take my incredibly responsive anti-lock brakes, intelligent traction control, variable valve timing and electronic control of niceties before I go back to the bad old days.
I also have serious doubts that Toyota actually has any real problems with their software. I'm betting 90% of the issues are human error with a side of new-fangled-gadget blame.
That's exactly the mentality that keeps 'users' stupid.
Apple is basically saying: "users are stupid, let's protect them from thinking." Imagine if we said that about our kids: "Our kids don't know how to handle the real world. Let's protect them from having to deal with it." (never mind that most parents do in fact go through this phase).
The reality is that users are just kids who haven't learned how to use computers. Two factors make this hard: most computer software is generally poorly designed (speaking in terms of the number of poorly designed products vs the number of well-designed products), and most software is not designed to teach users how to use it.
Apple is busy buying fish for starving people. The company that teaches users how to fish is the company that will win big.
That's not about keeping users stupid, it's about not making them worry about stuff they should not worry about.
The user may be the world's best neurosurgeon, does that mean that they have to learn about filesystems?
most computer software is generally poorly designed
You are right about this one. But the thing is that Apple does exactly that: offering well designed software.
It's not about buying fish, it's about hiding unneeded complexity. How do you drive the car: press the gas and it goes, press the brakes and it stops. Turn the wheel to the right and it turns to the right. You need zero knowledge about what's going under the hood.
Now take the iPad: tap an app and it launches, press the home button and it stops. Swipe to the right, swipe to the left…
"The user may be the world's best neurosurgeon, does that mean that they have to learn about filesystems?"
There's a bit of a divide as to what 'personal' computers are being used for. The original mainstream use was to create/edit files using programs. The modern use is to interact with other people via the internet. So no, the neurosurgeon doesn't have to learn about filesystems because filesystems are mostly becoming irrelevant.
I don't think software should be designed to educate people about the trappings of decades of computer cruft. I think software should be designed so that using the software teaches the user how to use the software. Apple's method (re: iPhone/iPad) seems to be to design software that doesn't invite learning, and at the additional cost of limiting functionality.
Apple's method (re: iPhone/iPad) seems to be to design software that doesn't invite learning
Could you clarify this, perhaps by comparison to something else? Everything in my experience strongly supports the notion that Apple's general approach leads to much greater levels of competency and independence than anything else out there right now.
Turn the wheel and it goes where you want it to. But if you want to go to Google Voice, you'll have to take a long detour few people know of. You see, the road to Google Voice hasn't been optimized for your comfort. Or Apple's profit.
Most open source developers work on platforms that don't suffer from the same level of malware abuse. There isn't pain to make someone care enough to write one.
Besides, AV is addressing the symptoms and not the actual problem: The MS operating system is completely broken from a security model. It won't improve until it's scrapped and redesigned. There is no patch for all those decades of broken and boneheaded.
> AV is addressing the symptoms and not the actual problem
This is where you've lost me. Show me a piece of invincible software.
Even stuff like Java with its top-notch security model and with its managed code has been vulnerable to various zero-day exploits. Even virtualization environments.
I have a Windows workstation that's been running for 2 years, with no resident AV running and with the standard firewall. I do have a good AV, but I'm doing a scan every 3 months or so.
Never caught anything, mostly because I'm a technical user that knows how to stay out of trouble.
Give me a normal end-user using any of those non-MS platforms you mentioned and I'll show you how I can break his computer. Quite simple really ... "This game needs administrative rights to install. Please enter your password:"
Not to mention that the desktop managers running on Linux have serious security flaws that haven't been fixed just because the platform itself is obscure enough for crackers not to bother with it.
The financial markets have always been rigged. Men don't go into business without some assurance they'll come out on top. The more money that is involved, the easier it is to convince the watchmen that your edge is a requirement for good markets.
There are more potential connections between my cat and your dog than there are atoms in the universe. It's meaningless; just exponentiate something big enough and you get over the atom count :-)
You don't drop below your resting metabolic rate, you drop below the level you need to maintain PLUS the weightlifting activity you're preforming. Large shortfalls in calories are counter productive unless it's in a short burst.
Also, make sure you're getting enough dietary fat. Many make the change to a low carb diet by just dropping carbs from their low fat diet. You need to up your fat intake because what you were taking in for EFAs previously are now going to be cannibalized for energy instead.
The Irish have also had a long time to adapt to that diet. They're much less carb sensitive than others. Hence the difference between people from cultures who've eaten a traditionally low-carb diet vs those eating a high-carb diet. Native Americans suffer greatly, but those who traditionally farmed (Asians who eat rice for example) are healthy.
I always feel like I'm building my castles on quicksand.