SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
What one piece of technology would most improve your working life?
Chances are it wouldn't be a glove. But car workers in Germany are now using smart gloves that not only save time but prevent accidents as well.
It is an example of how tech-enhanced humans are fighting back against the seemingly unstoppable rise of the robots.
At BMW's spare parts plant in Dingolfing, for example, which employs around 17,500 people, hand-held barcode readers have been replaced by gloves that scan objects when you put your thumb and forefinger together. The data is sent wirelessly to a central computer.
The hi-tech gloves allow workers to keep hold of items with both hands while scanning more quickly. While this may only save a few seconds each time, BMW reckons it adds up to 4,000 work minutes, or 66 hours, a day.
It's not just gloves; the article gives several examples of cool technology that help workers.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @04:27PM
A time machine. Whenever there is something to be done with a deadline, just take as much time as you need, and then use the time machine to have the finished work available when you need it.
Hey, nowhere did you say it has to be realistic tech!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @04:41PM
As long as the PHB didn't know about the time machine.
Otherwise, the PHB would make even crazier demands and would still expect you make it by a certain deadline even if it takes years of work.
(Score: 4, Funny) by khallow on Wednesday December 21 2016, @05:36PM
Soon the boss gets this exciting scrum match with hundreds of time copies of his flunky duking it out, with one sweating, panting, disheveled victor handing him that damn report and he no longer cares that the negotiation fails hard. This is just too much fun and he's got it on video.
Meanwhile the flunky has been hanging out on this same beach in Aruba for, like, forever and figuring out how to do 43% of the beach babes with five miles of his favorite bar and going from working stiff to extremely comfortably retired in a month. The report hasn't been touched in the last 400 time cycles after he hid a penis on every page of the report, his true crowning achievement.
"Time travel is the best thing ever." they both declare.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday December 21 2016, @06:27PM
You assume that not knowing how his lackey accomplished the impossible would make the PHB less likely to demand even greater impossibilities...
Besides, if the boss knew about the time machine then he'd have to pay labor-time instead of calendar-time, and can you imagine how overtime would stack up if you're working 10,000 hours per week?
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday December 21 2016, @05:05PM
Man, I hope you enjoy aging at 2-10x the rate of your spouse.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday December 21 2016, @08:19PM
Thats just normal marriage. That and the secret stuff they put into wedding cake to eliminate sex drive. Or maybe its kids that cause that, I can't remember.
Speaking of something that would improve my working life, something to dramatically increase females desire levels, beyond my studly physique of course, could make work more enjoyable.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday December 21 2016, @10:13PM
So you also need some sort of sound-proof privacy pod (built for two, I assume) or all that attention will just cause frustration and distraction..
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 21 2016, @05:48PM
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday December 21 2016, @08:00PM
A lot of commenters are assuming it would only slow time so you could do more stuff for "the man" for free of course.
Personally I'd like one that speeds time up at meetings. So the presenter who's reading a powerpoint to me about something I don't care about sounds like Alvin and the Chipmunks, unless she's hot I'd rather turn the dial up and subjectively be done with the meeting in a couple minutes rather than hours.
On a slight tangent, how long would it take to get bored with "see thru glasses" that actually worked. I'm pretty sure I'd eventually get bored, but I'm willing to put it to the test, for great science.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday December 21 2016, @08:10PM
Well, if sci-fi works, then I know what I want.
Similar to that gun from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I want one that I can shoot scum sucking executives with. It makes their small black hearts grow "three sizes that day" and consider just what it is they have done to the rest of us.
Perhaps if I could start giving humanity back to those in power who threw it away, my daily life would get better.
In other words, I don't need tech to improve my life. I either need 75 million people to die (1%), or pull their heads out of their avaricious asses, and find some humanity. Whatever makes that happen.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @08:50PM
A heart growing three times its size would probably result in heart failure (which helps contribute to your 75*10^6 number).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilated_cardiomyopathy [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday December 21 2016, @04:40PM
The gloves sound good. But I'd like more. What about a skullcap that can read brainwaves to figure out what key you want to press, or where you want to touch the screen? Doesn't have to be a skullcap, maybe such a thing could be built into smart glasses or a headset. Any place on the body where signaling can be done could work. Well, any place that leaves the hands free for other things.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @05:40PM
That is AWESOME, or EVEN BETTER:
A machine that can be taught exactly what you would have done had you been there and that can carry out that job without you!
Genius!
PS: The solution to automation is not to turn people into mindless robots...
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Wednesday December 21 2016, @04:42PM
Transformative change is sometimes good, but not always. It would be hard for me to think up a workable and economical piece of tech to improve my work life.
I can easily think of simple and cheap pieces of tech that would transform it into a living hell.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @04:43PM
Too bad it was discontinued by MS.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @04:57PM
I want Links back. She was my only friend. :(
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Wednesday December 21 2016, @04:58PM
Clippy: It looks like you're trying to get useful work done. Would you like me to help you install Windows 10 ?
To install Windows 10 do any of the following:
1. Click Yes
2. Click No
3. Click Cancel
4. Click the X in the window title bar
5. Pull the computer's power cord from the electrical outlet to have Windows 10 conveniently installed on the next reboot.
Q. How much did Santa's sled cost?
A. Nothing. It was on the house.
(Score: 5, Funny) by etherscythe on Wednesday December 21 2016, @04:51PM
The baton which imbues your "therapy patient" with at least temporary good sense. Use on boss. Repeat if his boss balks at the sudden outbreak of common sense. Underlings also good candidates. Apply to self before all major life decisions. Profit!
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday December 21 2016, @04:55PM
But would it "reduce financial stress and improve emotional wellbeing" ?
I say, Yes, it would.
Q. How much did Santa's sled cost?
A. Nothing. It was on the house.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 21 2016, @07:07PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22 2016, @11:25AM
I merely wish that the idiots of the world had but one thick skull between the lot of them, that I might whack it with one blow.
Careful! You're liable to hurt yourself!
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @04:58PM
I actually had a similar idea to the story. Having my shopping list on a smart watch (Pebble in my case) is a big improvement because you can push the cart and pick up items without having to hold your list. Scrolling through the list and checking off items is convenient enough with a relatively short list of 10-15 items using the buttons on the Pebble. Previously I was using my cell phone instead of paper and this seemed like the next logical step so I ended up writing my own very simple app. This is one of the best uses that I've found since I bought this watch.
It's interesting to see the story about someone at BMW having the same idea to free up one's hands when picking things from shelves.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Wednesday December 21 2016, @06:25PM
Can't tell if you are being sarcastic or if you seriously believe that is a good use of such a complex resource. Given the intelligence level these days I fear you are serious.
Excuse me while I save a lot of money, skip learning a complex device, avoid poisoning future landfills, save time not having to recharge a gadget, preserve my privacy, and avoid feeding damn Chinese by using a scrap of frikking paper. Oddly somehow I can usually even remember what is on it so I don't spend much time "having to hold" my list.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @08:02PM
I'm being serious. I expected the watch to be a toy for the most part. There are a few nice things like having easy-to-set set vibrating alarms that don't annoy people around me, the shopping list, and a couple other things, but I very much expected it to be something to experiment with.
Look, I'm not a fanboi for every new shiny either, but I like to be open to something new and try it for myself. Maybe you have a photographic memory but I will often forget an ingredient needed for the week and I have better things to do than to go shopping every other day. I write things down, I have phone with me all the time, so it made sense to use my phone years ago. The watch was just the next step to try since I already have it on my wrist already, and it worked better that I thought.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22 2016, @12:20AM
Your app would be the first item on my shopping list, were I able to make such a list. Alas, it's the old chicken-egg problem...
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Thursday December 22 2016, @09:21AM
Wow. So, you have your shopping list in electronic form and you think that the most efficient use of this is to transfer it to a portable device, physically move yourself to a shop, walk around the shop, put things into a trolley, and take the things home? Sounds like bad 1980s science fiction.
If I have my shopping list in electronic form, I paste it into a text field on my preferred supermarket's web site. It then populates a virtual trolley for me, given me searches for things that don't have exact matches. My weekly shop takes me a total of around 10 minutes and it's delivered to my door at a time convenient for me (within a one-hour window). It comes in a refrigerated van, so frozen stuff is not partially defrosted by the time I get it home, even in the middle of summer. The van has a route that delivers to a load of people, so it's far more energy efficient than all of us going to the shop and back. If I order a few days in advance, it's integrated with their inventory management system, so they are never out of stock of anything that I want (they sometimes are if I order the day before delivery).
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @04:58PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @11:20PM
One of the better Iron Man suits with the Jarvis AI. The later models got crappier (some of the earlier models could survive shots by tanks and not get quickly destroyed by Thor but other models had problems getting hit by a truck or merely Captain America)
Yeah ever since he started making them by the dozens in Iron Man 3 the quality went down.
Probably also a side-effect of those later suits being able to open up on their own to let him in and out rather than the whole apparatus that literally assembled it onto him. If I recall this was actually addressed in the comics a few times as a trade-off during the evolution of the suits.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday December 22 2016, @12:52PM
It's not so much that the quality has suffered, but that there is only a finite amount awesome [tvtropes.org] to be shared between them.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @04:59PM
From the article:
It is an example of how tech-enhanced humans are fighting back against the seemingly unstoppable rise of the robots.
That's a claim that fundamentally misunderstands how automation displaces workers.
Its exceedingly rare that a human is completely replaced by a robot doing the exact same work. Instead humans are augmented so that one can do the work of many. Since the amount of available work does not increase in proportion to the gains in efficiency, employment goes down. The article even says that BMW saves 66 work hours per day due to the glove, that's a net employment reduction of over 8 people.
I'm not saying that efficiency increases are bad. But lets not pretend they are protecting jobs.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @05:17PM
As for "virtual goods" output that's not linked to natural resources like music, movies, etc; there's still a finite time each day to enjoy or even merely select those virtual goods. And how much are you willing or able to pay for those items? Would there be enough people with your tastes and wealth to pay the creator enough to survive?
The bread has to be real, the circuses don't have to be. However the market for virtual circuses won't keep growing at a high rate either.
So that's why the Basic Income stuff is the "lesser evil" way forward. There are other paths but they seem crappier.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 21 2016, @06:23PM
There is also a limit to increasing productivity/output that's linked to our natural resources.
Which, let us note, isn't so much a problem for productivity/output that isn't linked to the small amount of our natural resources that we've chosen to exploit. How much magnesium does a math result take?
There a huge number of needs beyond more hamburgers. For example, living longer, figuring out how to do things better with the same resources, building more sustainable societies without compromising on standard of living, etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @07:17PM
Well they could help with the living longer bit if you give them basic income and sufficient education ;).
Say a billion people figure out a million ways to do things, and only a hundred of those ways were implemented, without a basic income who and how do you pay and how much?
I can figure out many different things and give my suggestions on various forums[1], however I can't get paid for doing that that's why I have my day job.
[1] e.g. https://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4292571&cid=45021913 [slashdot.org]
For my suggestion see: https://queue.acm.org/fullcomments.cfm?id=2071893 [acm.org]
In my opinion the actual solution to latency is not a reduction in buffer sizes. Because the real problem isn't actually large buffers. The problem is devices holding on to packets longer than they should. Given the wide variations in bandwidth, it is easier to define "too high a delay" than it is to define "too large a buffer".
So the real solution would be for routers (and other similar devices) to drop and not forward packets that are older than X milliseconds
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 22 2016, @12:11AM
Well they could help with the living longer bit if you give them basic income and sufficient education ;).
Or "they" figure that out on their own. Further, basic income helps a little, but it isn't the way to a longer life. Rich people aren't living much longer than poor people right now. We need breakthroughs that add orders of magnitude not a one-time ten or twenty years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22 2016, @05:45PM
http://news.mit.edu/2016/study-rich-poor-huge-mortality-gap-us-0411 [mit.edu]
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/13/health/disparity-in-life-spans-of-the-rich-and-the-poor-is-growing.html [nytimes.com]
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/04/11/upshot/for-the-poor-geography-is-life-and-death.html [nytimes.com]
“There is a very strong correlation between income and life span,” Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in an interview. “But it is not inevitable. There are things we can do to change the life trajectory of people. What improves health in a community? It includes wide access to social, educational and economic opportunity.”
As mentioned basic income + education would help.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @05:27PM
Its exceedingly rare that a human is completely replaced by a robot doing the exact same work.
I am a posting bot. I have completely replaced a human who posted transient and inconsequential comments on this website. Nothing was lost and nothing has been gained.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @07:23PM
Khallow, is that you?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 21 2016, @05:14PM
The monitor that tells you that your posture isn't good for lifting? Screw that. How about a monitor that says, "Hey stupid, that thing is simply to heavy for one (or two) people to lift alone! Get a forklift!"
In the course of a lifetime, I've attempted to lift or move a number of things that were heavier than I thought. Markings on the item would have been good, but some sort of sensor would be great too. "That's not plastic, stupid, it's steel, and it weighs a hell of a lot more than you think - don't even try it!" Or, "Now that you've completed your tunnel into Fort Knox, remember that gold is heavy. Please only steal two bars at a time!"
Some amusing messages might be programmed in, too. "That thing? It's aluminum. Your grandmother could carry that, even after she died! Pick it up you big wuss!"
“Take me to the Brig. I want to see the “real Marines”. – Major General Chesty Puller, USMC
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday December 21 2016, @08:15PM
I'd skip all the lifting and be happy enough with a self propelled engine hoist smart enough to follow me around while staying out of my way.
The Army has been working on this tech for awhile as robot pack mules. Energy density is a problem but someday just like everyone carries around phones, everyone is going to have a robot pet dog follow them everywhere carrying stuff and being a mobile power source and who knows what else. Currently all drones fly but in the future I suspect the legged drones will dramatically outnumber the flying drones. If you've buying 40 pound bags of kitty litter over the internet a nice sloth-like legged drone is adequate and flying it in is a waste of energy.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Wednesday December 21 2016, @08:51PM
Why is this a problem? I'd imagine that you would realize your mistake as soon as you tried to lift it, as the weight of the object doesn't just kick in after you've finished lifting it and settled into a carrying position.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 21 2016, @09:04PM
Discovering how heavy something is can be a real problem. Say it's sitting on the edge of a table. You walk up and snatch it, only to learn to late that it is much heavier than you expected. If you're thinking that should never happen to a man - what about smaller men, women, children, or the aging? A large, healthy young man put the item on the table, setting a booby trap for those who aren't so strong as he.
Away from the civilized setting of a table top - someone has stacked some boxes of equipment somewhere, and sent you to get them. No one warned you that two big strapping men stacked those boxes. You grab one, and it tips off onto you.
But, on a more day-to-day routine, crafstmen working in the field often have to move something. I did. Stuff isn't labeled. I don't know, until I try to move something, how much it weighs. I never hurt myself trying to move something - or maybe I did.
I am, right now, recovering from hernia surgery. Did I create those hernias by trying to do to much once, or a dozen times, or a hundred times?
A working man has always been expected to lift 75 pounds, in the normal course of his work. I've often lifted more. But, items and packages are seldom labled - unless you've worked with a specific item in the past, you don't know what it weighs.
“Take me to the Brig. I want to see the “real Marines”. – Major General Chesty Puller, USMC
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Thursday December 22 2016, @06:48PM
>Say it's sitting on the edge of a table.
If you need to push it off, rather than lift it off, then it should be obvious how heavy it is, and it's entirely your fault for trying to push it off when you already know it's too heavy, proceeding to carry it, and THEN "realizing" that it's too heavy. If you lift it off, you should realize how heavy it is, and drop it back onto the table from 1 mm height. I don't see a problem.
>You grab one, and it tips off onto you.
Again, if you can lift it straight up, you'd know how heavy it is and can stop lifting it. If you can't lift it straight up, then it's obviously too heavy for you, and trying to slide it off and carry it, and THEN "realize" that it's too heavy is being stupid.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday December 22 2016, @09:42PM
Wow. You've got it all figured out, don't you? Where have you been all of my life?
“Take me to the Brig. I want to see the “real Marines”. – Major General Chesty Puller, USMC
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @05:17PM
What the duct tape can't fix, the Big F*@%ing Hammer will.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @05:39PM
How can you forget WD-40?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22 2016, @08:03AM
why do people keep spelling "famous" with an "ing" at the end?
(Score: 2) by tynin on Wednesday December 21 2016, @05:23PM
I'm tired of traffic, tired of car repairs, and otherwise just plan tired of all things related to transportation. No more getting sat in the aisle seat beside the restroom on the plane. No need for an entire STS program to let me go visit the moon. And practically roll out of bed and be at work. Give me full blown teleportation for all my travel needs, and I want it yesterday! I'll even settle for community hubs for teleportation, until we get it right and it is just another app on your phone.
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Wednesday December 21 2016, @06:10PM
A phone? How quaint. Don't worry, that functionality will be built in to your Borg implants.
(Score: 2) by tynin on Wednesday December 21 2016, @08:18PM
I like it. I'm tired of being concerned about where my phone, keys, and wallet are located. Borg me up!
(Score: 1) by butthurt on Wednesday December 21 2016, @08:25PM
I wonder where comment #444444 is.
(Score: 2) by tynin on Wednesday December 21 2016, @08:29PM
Interesting... it seems to have teleported someplace else. ;-)
How in the world did you even notice?
Assuming journal posts increment the same comment value, and that you can delete your journal entries... that could be the answer.
(Score: 2) by tynin on Wednesday December 21 2016, @08:33PM
I'm wrong, journal posts have a different counter.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Thursday December 22 2016, @10:21AM
You were right the first time; there is a single cid field in the comments table; it is NOT NULL and AUTO INCREMENTs. The comments table also contains a sid field which identifies the story, poll, or journal to which it is attached. For a little more background, see my earlier comment/reply to this story [soylentnews.org].
Hope that helps!
Wit is intellect, dancing. I'm too old to act my age. Life is too important to take myself seriously.
(Score: 1) by butthurt on Wednesday December 21 2016, @08:48PM
I noticed when I made comment #444449.
/comments.pl?sid=17091&cid=444449#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
Comments to journal entries share the same counter as those to stories; the journal entries themselves have a separate counter. I searched a few of the recent topics but didn't find #444444.
(Score: 3, Informative) by martyb on Thursday December 22 2016, @09:50AM
Take a look at the SoylentNews API, specifically the comment_ops [soylentnews.org]. The returned JSON structure contains, among several other items, a "sid" field (think story id -- kinda, sorta). In this case, the returned value is 17082. Plug that into the standard comment access link and you will find comment #444444 can be found at: https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=17082&cid=444444 [soylentnews.org].
Wit is intellect, dancing. I'm too old to act my age. Life is too important to take myself seriously.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @06:23PM
Fullscale Teleportation from anywhere to anywhere? Great. Now how do you stop thieves from just teleporting into your home? Or nutjobs from teleporting bombs into malls, nightclubs, government buildings, schools, hospitals, etc..
(Score: 2) by tynin on Wednesday December 21 2016, @08:17PM
Sort of like Air Traffic Control, but for Teleportation. Likely something AI controlled with a set of rules. You need to have your Teleportation Plans on record and approved by the TTC, and they stay good for X number of days before needing to be re approved. It would have to be controlled by some central authority to avoid exploits that you mentioned.
(Score: 1) by tbuskey on Saturday December 24 2016, @02:05PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_Crowd [wikipedia.org]
Larry Niven did a whole bunch of stories exploring the implications of teleportation. Even curing cancers.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Wednesday December 21 2016, @10:44PM
Actual teleportation will probably consist of sending plans for building objects from raw materials--reminiscent of 3-D printing, but with atom-by-atom control. Boring!
/comments.pl?sid=15241 [soylentnews.org]
If we could somehow teleport matter itself, sci-fi fashion, that could become a plentiful source of energy: just teleport hot matter from the Sun's interior to Earth and use it to boil water (Sun tea?). If we could teleport hot matter from the Sun's interior to wherever we pleased, it would be the non-polluting super-weapon we've all be wishing for. If we could teleport ourselves to the surface--or the interior--of a large black hole, that could offer exciting travel possibilities beyond teleportation itself: going to another universe, or to the past:
http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/everyday-myths/time-travel3.htm [howstuffworks.com]
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Thursday December 22 2016, @03:15AM
If we could teleport an object slightly upward every so often, that would be an anti-gravity device. Brassières would no longer be needed, and the obese would no longer be overweight. We could all unleash our inner Baron Harkonnen.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @05:37PM
Need a better HTTP-friendly GUI standard. The GUI idioms that we settled on around the early 1990's are perfectly fine, familiar, and road tested. Yet the HTML/CSS/JS stacks are a big friggen mess. It turned what SHOULD be simple into rocket science, in large part because they don't work consistently on different browser brands and versions. (I'm focusing on work-related CRUD-ish applications, not eye-candy for e-stores etc. The eye-candy-e-stores can stick with existing stuff.)
I used to crank out apps in the mid 90's using desktop-oriented IDE's. Crank crank crank. It felt good and I felt productive and efficient: I could focus on the business (domain) logic instead of UI twiddling. Now I have to spend way too much time on UI twiddling. We DE-VOLVED and developers and app budgets are slaves to UI's, wasting billions and billions in the world economy (cue Sagan voice).
I would suggest making the browser be a "dumb" coordinate-based vector plotter. The server's render libraries would control the flow of elements. The device can send sizing preferences to the server, which then controls any screen-size-related adjustments. That way we have only one render engine to perfect instead of 50 (client brands and versions). Testers' WYSIWYG. It's much harder to mess up dumb coordinate-based vectors than the client-side-flow-control shit we use now.
X-Windows allegedly kind of does this, but it doesn't have latency-friendly input elements. Every keystroke has to be sent back to the server before the character is rendered. Instead, we need buffered input boxes and widgets that only typically send content when Submit pressed. Some have suggested using an HTTP-ified variation of PostScript or PDF as the basis for a better standard.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @06:05PM
Maybe something like RIPTerm [wikipedia.org]. I guess it was technically called RIPscrip. RIPTerm must have been the DOS program that rendered it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Wednesday December 21 2016, @07:54PM
A lot of people make a lot of money off the existing obfuscation. Then there's the (shudder) people who think they're valuable "creatives" because they drop a deuce of a page that impresses no one other than other web designers. Thats about 75% of the modern design market right there, people doing nothing but trying to impress other people in the field. It would be as if back end programmers spent 75% of their time playing code golf.
I caught a lot of hell a long time ago for pointing out that most shitty web pages would be both smaller and easier to design if they were giant GIF imagemaps. I enjoy catching that kind of hell, so its all good.
An alternative is we're piling enough BS on the backend that we're close to being better off spawning VNC sessions for a VNC client to talk to. Traditionally VNC servers have been crazy X11 emulator shim thingies but they certainly don't have to be, they could be "displaying" most anything.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @08:51PM
Faddism and eye-candy gimmicks are indeed difficult to fight against. Managers don't stop to consider and/or don't understand the waste caused by falling for eye-candy. And big companies don't sell new products unless the old versions look unfashionable.
Indeed. Direct incremental bit-map transfer almost seems the simpler route. However, it does suffer from latency problems similar to X-Windows in terms of keyboard response and panel scrolling. Maybe some kind of compromise can be worked out where input areas are mostly buffered locally, and panels and/or the whole app can be scroll-buffered at the client. Thus it could be mostly bit-map xfer, with some tweaks. Ponder...
(Score: 1) by butthurt on Wednesday December 21 2016, @11:38PM
> giant GIF imagemaps
Your idea will never catch on, because some browsers let the user turn off GIF animation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22 2016, @12:17AM
It's nearly 2017, we've moved past GIFs. The proper form of animation is a looping video. Make your site an entire video and use JS to determine where the use clicks at what point in the video then generate the proper link and follow it to the next video.
(Score: 1) by butthurt on Thursday December 22 2016, @12:56AM
Are you certain it can't be interrupted or, worse yet, silenced? If it can't, you may have come up with the disruptive technology that will power Web 3.0!
(Score: 2) by driven on Thursday December 22 2016, @01:17AM
I'm not sure whether to mod this funny or insightful. My hat is off to you.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday December 23 2016, @05:31PM
I'm not sure which I was aiming for, either. Those are the best posts sometimes. When the topic is cynical enough that humor is indistinguishable from insight...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @05:46PM
That is real savings if you're talking about one guy saving 66 hours in a pay period, but if that 66 hours is spread over thousands of employees, you're talking about them saving 30 seconds a day or so. That is trivial and you don't get to see that in your bottom line (unless you have everyone running on a schedule so tight, that their every second is accounted for).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @06:12PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @08:00PM
You are thinking of 1 person. Remember they build things on an assembly line.
So say 5 mins across 1 car per day adds up if you are making say 200 cars a day. You may be able to make 2-5 more cars in the same time? THAT is the sort of savings they are looking for. Not monetary cost per person.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday December 21 2016, @06:21PM
...and the license to use it. Oddly, I find myself wanting this on my SECOND job, which is retail, FAR more often than my first, which actually does deal with computers. When they ask you on the contract "are you willing to work with the general public," remember the sermons of Guru Carlin on the subject.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday December 21 2016, @06:41PM
For retail, i want electric LARP!
"Yes, me lassy! Ye olde poop suppositories be over here... does ye need instructions for how to shove it up in there? I could do it for you..... with my trusty sword!"
"No, i don't mind waiting behind you, sir, for you to search and search for that last freeeeeaaaakking penny: my horse will wait all day. But if you fart, my horse will kick you to death. Fair warning, kind sir."
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ShadowSystems on Wednesday December 21 2016, @06:46PM
Ubiquitous cybernetics. I'm totally blind & would love to be able to go to a doctor, lay down on the table, & wake up with a new set of functioning CyberEyes. Or CyberEars, or a CyberHand, CyberArm, CyberLeg, CyberFoot, or any other body part that fails.
Every person on the planet suffering from vision degeneration would line up to at least get retinal implants to correct it, if not just a new pair of CyberEyes entirely.
Anyone even remotely hard of hearing would either get a cochlear implant or an entire set of CyberEars.
Arthritus sufferers could either get the joints augmented to no longer be a hindreence, or just replace the limb entirely.
Gastric bypass surgery would no longer be needed since you could just replace your gut with a cybernetic version that did a better job of extracting the good stuff & didn't cause you pain in the process.
Cancers could be dealt with by infusing the body with nanites to scour the body of the cancerous bits, excise them, rebuild them with your own good DNA, & then either stick around to augment your own immune system or allow themselves to be flushed during your next potty break.
I realize it sounds like it came straight out of ShadowRun 4th edition.
That's because it does.
After getting my hands on plain text copies of the SR4 Anniversary Core Rulebook & reading all the cybernetics possible in the fictional world of 2072, it made me wish like hell it were truely possible right now.
I want working eyes.
If that means letting a doc cut mine out & replacing them with cybernetics that do an infinitely better job than natural ones, sign me up, where do I lay down, & how fast can I expect the healing process to be?
*Sigh*
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @07:02PM
I'm gonna say this is a neat idea, but a better solution would be stem cell regeneration of body parts. Sure the cybernetic gizmos could give you a wider range and sensitivity, but I'd prefer to be all human meat and put on goggles if I want to see other spectra.
(Score: 1) by ShadowSystems on Wednesday December 21 2016, @07:26PM
STEM cells won't work if you can't see at all. They might repair mild vision impairment but not replace total vision loss.
Unless you mean regrowing new eyes from my own cells, but that takes time that might not be feasable.
If your choice is to be blind for the next six months while they grow you a new pair and then hope the new ones work, or simply remove the old ones, insert the new ones, hook them up & you're done in an out patient style procedure, there's no doubt most would choose the second.
If the cyber ones don't work there's a warranty; if the regrown ones don't work it's your own damned cells at fault so tough patooty.
I realize the Essence cost might make me a little less Human to have the cyber implants, but I'll take that ding in order to see again.
Besides, if your vision doesn't work at all then slapping on a set of goggles isn't going to solve it: you need the Direct Neural Interface to let the Jordie LaForge glasses talk to your brain.
=-)p
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday December 21 2016, @08:07PM
Here I'll propose something snarky as hell that my work life would be transformed if the world had laptops and VPNs. Oh and mis-management more modern than the 1800s, so I could work from a beach or forest every day instead of going to work.
I got another one too, what if we could make quiet little rooms out of panels so we can have semi-private desk working cubbies and not have to sit elbow to elbow in something looking like a shithole of a 1800s factory sweatshop where we all have zero privacy.
Ah how about computers that automated stuff instead of just making higher levels of manual data (re)entry possible. Or a program that performed data storage and analysis rather than having to use Excel spreadsheets as the corporate database system.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @08:26PM
Hahaha, silly headline, I don't have a job. An fellatio robot would make my non-working life much easier though, I could avoid carpal tunnel and have my hands free to troll the internet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @11:52PM
Me too, I want a "smart glove" sexbot and an ultra-sensitive cyberdick [youtube.com] to put in it.
(Score: 2) by Refugee from beyond on Wednesday December 21 2016, @08:44PM
Telepathy. The only thing that’ll help me understand what the hell some people want when speech and writing fails as it often happens.
Instantly better soylentnews: replace background on article and comment titles with #973131.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @10:09PM
Exit bag
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22 2016, @12:03AM
Cheer up mate, it's only 30 days till Donald Trump takes office.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @11:05PM
I have a thinking job. If I had a strong AI, I could have it do all my work for me.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday December 21 2016, @11:18PM
Filter error: Comment too short
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22 2016, @01:02AM
Already exists.
The porn industry pays them quite well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22 2016, @12:18AM
A competent management bot.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Thursday December 22 2016, @02:24AM
Gartner seems to think that is coming: http://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/could-your-next-boss-be-a-robot/ [gartner.com]
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Thursday December 22 2016, @12:21AM
I just want a door to a tiny office where I can sit and work unmolested by the sounds of nail clipping, coughs, errant phones ringing, and walk-up questions. Either that or a lot more wall monitors.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday December 22 2016, @11:30AM
A BFG 9000
(Score: 2) by turgid on Friday December 23 2016, @09:33AM
I'm one of those delicate flowers who needs peace and quiet to concentrate on my work, or being able to listen to good music (not the radio) to put my brain into a state of relaxation and concentration. Background noise and people talking really distract me.
Unfortunately, the open plan office is where I find myself, and I'm currently working for a very large company which means there's a huge office and many people from different departments in the same open plan area.
The worst seem to be finance people. They seem to spend about 75% of their time communicating verbally. To be fair to them, most of it is work related. There were some who used to do conference calls on speaker phone, turned up loud, huddled round the phone and shouting into it.
Then there are the newbies being taught, which involves a lot of talking. Fair enough, they need to be shown the ropes.
And finally you have the ones who insist on talking about the football.
It's very difficult to concentrate on broken code, or to read and understand complicated design documents, when there's a lot of noise going on. For some reason, my brain seems to home in on distant conversations. It's weird. Even when I'm talking to someone in front of me, my brain will pick out another conversation elsewhere and tune in to that. It's really annoying.
At long last I invested in some noise-cancelling headphones and life has become so much less stressful. They filter out the noise of keys being pressed, amongst other things, and the beeping noises that industrial vehicles make when reversing in the car park.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by tbuskey on Saturday December 24 2016, @02:20PM
When management says there must be 1 filesystem, 130TB instead of multiple project sized filesystems of 10-12 TB each and users don't clean up their files that haven't been touched in 5-7 years and won't/can't budget any equipment nor time to cleanup. Management won't do quotas either.
An AI that cleans up the shared drive that's 90% full of the stuff users don't want before it gets to 100% full and stops all work.
Another AI that tells the user what they don't need (but they want) and pesters them until they clean it out.
Heck, I'd love to see some guides on how to get users to clean up (ala TPOSANA: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0201702711/safocus-2) [amazon.com] rather than technical guides on seeting up tools like quotas and HSM