March 6, 2013 — FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
If you are still testing the performance of your computer in 2013, Dacris Benchmarks is now available for free, with a freeware EULA.
So if you are getting a PC in 2013, Dacris Benchmarks is your tool of choice for evaluating essential performance metrics.
Download, share, and enjoy!
Alfred, a serious career programmer in Upper Internet, sees his life fall apart gradually in the year 2102. Will he end up a lowly Shaman Warrior? Will he reconcile with his wife, Marla?
How will he get his life back on track?
Or maybe you’re just interested in how technology changes society in the future.
Find out in the first release of the novel series “RAIN”.
Order today (PDF eBook)!
Email contact at dacris.com if you’d like to request a free copy.
It was raining again. Alfred walked out of the Eternal Equinox in disgust, little realizing that he had left his coat in his car. They were charging $150.00 for a beer, double what he had paid the week before. After six (or more) beers and no success, Alfred’s frustration finally spilled over in the form of complete outrage at something seemingly so trivial – the price of beer. He yelled: “Oh God! Why do you hate me so much?! WHY!? I can’t get lucky? Not even once? There’s NO WAY I’m paying $150.00 for a beer!” Alfred had quite a bit of money left, over $20 million in fact. He had saved it up by working long hours on clandestine projects for even more clandestine clients. His latest incarnation – the history simulator (or “Looking Glass” as he preferred to call it) was an ambitious attempt to re-create world history, in the most minute detail, in the form of a computer simulation that would display all of the variables in real time and allow the “visitor”
(who would be able to enter this virtual world by using a consciousness-portal) to observe and alter history by “possessing” the mind of an unsuspecting subject. Now, this being virtual, there were no real ethical concerns like the grandfather paradox. (Or were there?) Of course, there was always the question of what would happen when Alfred managed to successfully reproduce history with 100% (perfect) accuracy. Alfred was not about to let his client get his hands on the full unadulterated version of his “Looking Glass” project. In a peculiar way, Alfred had a conscience (yes, morals) and suspected that the project could be used for unimaginable evil.
It was the first annual directors’ meeting. Alfred was invited to come, for the first time in his career. He was very excited to see what the directors were doing, knowing full well that this was the innermost circle of elite in Upper Internet.
The building was a few miles outside Las Vegas, in a secret military base called M2.
The guest list was filled with important people in politics and business.
John Buffett, Warren Buffett’s great grandson, was there, along with the recently announced inventor of the telepathy implant, Michael Mitchell.
The first annual meeting was always an important event. Alfred was told there would be some “special guests” arriving.
Voice on Microphone: “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the first annual directors’ meeting for AD 2102. Our first guest speaker tonight will be none other than Michael Mitchell. If you haven’t had the honour …”
The introduction went on for 4 minutes. During this time, Alfred kept thinking about his project and how he was going to explain, at the board meeting next week, that his history simulator was set back by 6 months. Obviously, “my dog ate it” was not going to work.
“And now, without further adieu, I give you Michael Mitchell!”
The crowd began to applaud loudly. As he looked around, Alfred began to feel a strange sensation, as if everyone was not quite natural. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but the applause did not quite sound natural. It seemed too fast, and too well entrained.
“Thank you, thank you.” began Mitchell. “It’s truly an honour and a privilege to be among you tonight.”
“As you all know, the telepathy implant is the kind of invention that enables us to move forward into the 22nd century.”
“Our contact with the Lyrans could not have been possible without this implant, as you all know.”
“This will soon enable us to decipher the meaning of every extraterrestrial language, and translate between any two languages, by applying the latest holographic translation software supplied to us kindly by Google.”
“But this is a vision that will still take a few years to implement. We, at Telepathica, are working on other projects as well, and we’d like to share one of these with you tonight.”
“To do this, I will invite on stage Jack Carpenter, research coordinator at Telepathica, who is probably very excited to show you what his team has been working on.”
A novel about social media, programming, psychology, and the future, is coming.
It is in the works now. Expected release date (for pre-ordering): September 15, 2012.
Preview:
”
It was raining again. Alfred walked out of the bar in disgust, little realizing that he had left his coat in his car.
They were charging $150.00 for a beer, double what he had paid the week before. After six (or more) beers and no success,
Alfred’s frustration finally spilled over in the form of complete outrage at something seemingly so trivial – the price of beer.
He yelled: “Oh God! Why do you hate me so much?! WHY!? I can’t get lucky? Not even once? There’s NO WAY I’m paying $150.00 for a beer!”
Alfred had quite a bit of money left, over $20 million in fact. He had saved it up by working long hours on clandestine projects for even more clandestine clients.
His latest incarnation – the history simulator (or “Looking Glass” as he preferred to call it) was an ambitious attempt to re-create world history,
in the most minute detail, in the form of a computer simulation that would display all of the variables in real time and allow the “visitor”
(who would be able to enter this virtual world by using a consciousness-portal) to observe and alter history by “possessing” the mind of an
unsuspecting subject. Of course, this being virtual, there were no real ethical concerns like the grandfather paradox. (Or were there?)
Of course, there was always the question of what would happen when Alfred managed to successfully reproduce history with 100% (perfect) accuracy.
Alfred was, of course, not about to let his client get his hands on the full unadulterated version of his “Looking Glass” project.
In a peculiar way, Alfred had a conscience (yes, morals) and suspected that the project could be used for unimaginable evil. But perhaps he was just selfish. Or demonic.
Either way, as Alfred came to grips with the cold rain hitting his ugly balding head, he realized that he had wasted all of his time and money, again.
He began to run, slowly at first, then frantically, through the rain. Screaming, at the top of his lungs, something unintelligible, he ran and ran, and ran.
Back home, Alfred collapsed onto the couch. The world began to spin. The phone began to beep. Beep-beep. Beep-beep. Beep-beep. …
“
The ordering system is down at the moment. We are aware of this issue and we are working to fix it. If you’d like to place an order, please send an email to contact@dacris.com and someone will assist you.
We expect to have the new system up & running in a few weeks.
APRIL 20, 2012 – Richmond Hill, ON — Dacris Software Inc. today announced the formation of an exploratory committee to research the real potential of starting a solar panel manufacturing business in North America. The full details of this project, codenamed “Omega”, remain to be determined. The viability of this project, if viability is confirmed, will be announced on June 5, 2012.
Dacris Software Inc. is a privately-owned software company founded in 1999 and incorporated in 2003. Dacris Benchmarks, a hardware benchmarking tool used by IT purchasing departments worldwide, has been its flagship product since 1999. Starting in 2011, Dacris Software Inc. began shifting its focus to a broader vision involving the application of software to the optimization of manufacturing and business processes.
Project “Omega” is the first real exploration of a new line of business (LOB) for Dacris Software since the company’s formation in 1999. While the project is still highly preliminary, the project constitutes the first public admission by the company of a widening scope and vision.
This vision is a 20-year vision, and is based on broader social dynamics and emerging trends that include three main objectives:
- A reduction of the role of environmentally destructive energy technologies in the future (nuclear being top priority)
- An increase in high-tech manufacturing capacity in the West (North America and Europe) as it relates to clean energy technologies (solar power, electric transportation, etc.) collectively known as “new electrics”
- An increase in automation and efficiency, through the use of software and robotics, in manufacturing and retail businesses
Existing customers of Dacris Software Inc. will be entirely unaffected by this expanded vision. Dacris Software Inc. will continue to provide the same level of support and consulting services to its IT customers as it has in previous years.
Although there have been no announcements regarding updates for Dacris Benchmarks since version 8.1 was released in 2010, the product will continue to be supported and updates will continue to be released as computer hardware improves.
Dacris Software remains committed to maintaining a leading role in the high tech community of the 21st century.
I am happy to announce the launch of my new baby (blog) Truth in Silver.
Truth in Silver will be focused on identifying investment strategies and trends for an increasingly dark and uncertain future.
I believe I now have sufficient knowledge to help others in their journey to discover the truth and invest in sound money.
So, without further adieu, I give you Truth in Silver.
Also, I am aware of the duplicate content I have created. I will be deleting duplicate posts on dacris.com and redirecting to truthinsilver.com over the coming weeks.
See you at www.truthinsilver.com!
I’m trying to look to the future and see what the job of the future might be like, in light of the post-industrial era now emerging.
For that, we first need to look at the job of the past.
What were some of the attributes of the industrial job?
Popular positions and sectors: retail (consumption), services (security guards, tellers, etc.), manufacturing, construction.
The other sector is the no-productive-value sector, which employs military troops and anyone in financial services, marketing, sales, and legal. These jobs will be downsized severely in the coming post-industrial economy.
What will be the attributes of the post-industrial job? They would naturally have to be the opposite of the industrial era job.
The post-industrial job will be much more creative. You will have a brand for yourself. Your brand will be what you sell to an “employer.” I should make a note here and clarify that your employer will be your customer, so you will need to be a business, a micro-business probably. This again underscores the need for generalized knowledge in a wide variety of area – business, law, economics, marketing, and of course whatever your area of expertise or talent may be.
Your brand will be an identifier for your brain. Since it’s your brain, and nobody else can own it, your brain is a valuable asset if it contains valuable information.
A lot more attention will be given to merit, and being active in the community, which also brings up the idea of open-source and Civilization 2.0.
Basically, your driving motivation in life in the post-industrial era will not be to earn as much money as you can and acquire as many material goods (whether needed or not) as possible. It will be to make a statement. It will be to contribute to the community of knowledge and creative expression that will encompass all post-industrial Civilization 2.0 societies.
The post-industrial job will be segmented into two areas (sectors, if you will):
R & D will encompass things like how to build more sustainable cities, how to design the most ___ something. It’s started with the software community, where people are actively competing for demonstrating the most amazing software that they can build. It’s happening all the time. The main focus of the development will be on sustainability and automation. Remember these key words because these will be the main economic drivers.
Sustainability will focus on reuse, recycling, and reduction of waste. Automation will focus on eliminating the industrial-era jobs still remaining.
Automation will prove to be economically beneficial to humanity no matter what the initial investment cost may be, because ultimately, even if we don’t accomplish it fully 200 years from now, when we do it will save an eternity of human labour. Think about that. That has huge implications. Your automation logic will never decay; it will never die. It will live forever. Therefore, automation will increasingly show itself to be economically viable no matter what the application, whether it be automating provisioning outlets (now retail stores), the transportation infrastructure, cleaning, restaurants, education, or anything else.
The more we automate, the less we’ll have to work (duh!). Traditional industrial-era jobs will disappear at an exponentially increasing pace. And that’s a great thing, because we can all focus on building our brands – building our collective idea-space, where all we do is think, create, design, imagine, and share.
Clearly, in the R & D space, brains will be important. Researchers, developers, scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and so on will be increasingly more in demand. Relentless self-education and self-re-education will be required in order to enter and remain in this space. Sure, not all of us will be researchers; some will still have to supervise the machines, and there will still be some traditional industrial-era jobs for a while, but the trend is clearly in this direction.
In the R & D space, things will generally progress from idea to nothing happening to nothing happening to nothing happening for a frustratingly long time to sudden breakthrough. This is how the whole field operates. Therefore, if you plan to build a business in the R & D space, you need to have patience and flexibility. But of course, if your brand is good, your customers will probably forgive any delays you may be experiencing in the latest cutting-edge development because they too will know that it’s only a matter of time before it will emerge.
In Entertainment, there’s no doubt that demand will continue to rise. The more free time people have, the more they will want to indulge in entertainment activities, whether they be real or virtual. People who have creative ideas or well-honed talents like being able to play or compose music, being able to write good fiction, being good at graphic design, and so on, will be very successful in the post-industrial era. However, there will be an increased need to market yourself successfully. Therefore, these people will have to be very good at marketing. Again, you can see that the pattern of generalized knowledge applies here as well.
Creative people with good business and marketing skills will flourish in the post-industrial era. The key will be building a brand for yourself and being patient and flexible, willing to work with your customers to not only deliver what they want but also to charge a reasonable price (each customer will be different). You will need to give something away for free at all times, to attract potential customers. You will also need to accept donations, to capture the altruistic types. You will need to network and get involved in your community to exchange ideas with experts and potential partners / customers.
You will also need to do kick-start crowd-sourced funding, to get money for your next venture when VC funding runs dry. You will also need to sell your premium products to the premium customers (those who are willing to pay the most). But most importantly, you’ll need to be willing to fire unproductive customers – customers who are eating too much of your time and paying too little. That will be part of the price discovery mechanism. Again, you will have to take on many roles: director, accountant, lawyer, businessman, investor, marketing manager, and of course the most important one: creative guru.
One thing is clear – the old jobs based on repetitive tasks, limited training, and replaceability are no longer for humans. They are for machines. They are for computers. Over time, computers will take on the role of just about any job that currently requires limited training and implies replaceability. Therefore, these jobs will depreciate quickly. They’ll go from $20,000 a year to $12,000 a year to $6,000 a year, to $200 a year, to $5 a year.
Nowadays I occasionally will joke about how I don’t need employees because “in the time it takes me to hire and train one, I will have built an automated tool that does the same thing with greater predictability, better (faster) performance, and less total cost.”
This is only possible because I trained myself in the domain of computer programming for many years, and because I have learned how to efficiently write programs that can actually automate real-world tasks in the form of machine-understandable specifications. In a sense, I can train my PC better than I can train a human. All I have to do is define the problem more formally and adjust my expectations a bit. I have no problem with that. But again, I will never be able to replace the expert or creative job categories.
In the short run (20 – 50 years), there will be a bit of turbulence as the economy adjusts to this new reality. In the long run (100+ years), while I probably won’t be around (hey, there’s a small chance I could become immortal or cyborg soon), the long-term Zeitgeist Movement / Venus Project vision which I call Civilization 2.0 will emerge regardless of what the Illuminati or the Wall Street gang tries to do about it. No one can stop a trend. Whatever institutions or individuals stand in the way, they will be dealt with accordingly by the people in an entirely non-violent way.
There is a general cycle that goes between full employment and depression. It usually has a period of 80 years. It is marked by a period where fear dominates and a period where courage (and risk taking) dominates.
In the fear dominated period, people seek safety. They flee into jobs, housing, bonds, insurance, and anything that guarantees some degree of perceived safety at any cost.
In the risk taking period, people gradually migrate toward risk taking and entrepreneurship. Small businesses thrive, jobs are created, and real wealth is created in society.
We are now nearing the peak of the fear dominated period.
1970 – 2010: The Fear Period
During the fear period, people become isolated from their neighbours. Nothing exemplifies the fear period more than the movie Limitless, which shows what fear mentality leads to. Limitless is a commentary on just how fearful our entire society has become.
Everyone works their 9 to 5 because they fear that pretty soon they won’t even have one. People are now afraid of letting their kids walk alone to school! There has been a growth in insurances, lawyers, legislation, government involvement, and protection racket of all kinds, all because people are for some reason desperately demanding safety, no matter how ridiculous the cost may be.
The cost is now so ridiculous that society as a whole has lost its soul. We no longer smile at each other or say “Hi.” We’re all too busy paying off the mortgage, protecting our children from an increasingly dangerous world, and holding on to every last penny we can save.
1930 – 1970: The Risk Period
Things weren’t always so. People in the 1960s were quite comfortable with letting their children walk to school alone. People were a lot more communicative with each other, and were a lot more laissez-faire about life in general.
If you grew up in the 1940s or 1950s, you can probably recall how un-protective your parents were, and how much they encouraged you to solve problems for yourself. There were no insurances, no lawyers, no legislations, and government involvement was more reduced.
The general social mentality and environment of the 50s, for example, was one of greater willingness to take risks. Of course, one must also remember that there were big threats at the time too. The war racket has always existed. People were told to fear the communists and their nuclear weapons.
But overall, the culture was one of less protection and more personal responsibility. A lot of small businesses got started in that time period and a lot of quality jobs were created because risk and responsibility were rewarded more than protection and isolation.
There were a lot fewer lawyers, a lot fewer lawsuits, and a lot less red tape for small business owners. There were fewer monopolies, and CEOs actually earned fair wages.
Then vs. Now: What it All Means
What I’m trying to say is that we need to (and will, eventually) have a shift back to risk taking and responsibility (freedom) as the core values of society. It’s only a matter of time. This is because it’s a natural cycle and right now the upside of continuing down this path of fear and protection is approaching zero. Pretty soon people will just get fed up with fear, like I have, and stop caring about all the bad news because hey, how much worse can it get?
The fear based society leads to the following symptoms, now endemic:
All of this is because too many members of society now live in a disconnected way, believing that everything is an immediate danger to their security, and so shielding themselves completely from all responsibility and risk. They believe that if they can only protect what little they have left, everything will be OK and things will get moving again at some point. But that’s not true. Things will only get worse.
Solution: Take More Risks
Here’s what a shift to risk taking (more people willing to be entrepreneurs) would do:
Now, granted, such a shift would also lead to a sacrifice of safety. At this point, however, it’s a choice between no safety at all (the disappearing jobs and the government soon to be in default offer no safety) and no safety at all. There’s no choice. Whether you work to maintain the status quo or you take the risk to venture into the unknown, the outcome is the same: less and less safety. However, one has limited upside (soon to be zero) and one has unlimited upside. When pushed into this corner, what do you choose? Risk taking is the logical choice.
Society will begin its transition back into risk taking pretty soon. You will see the first risk takers be persecuted, sent to jail at times, ridiculed, called “nutjobs”, and so on. Doesn’t matter. There will be more and more.
As Roosevelt said, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”
That was the beginning of a new risk era.
June 2, 2012
0
Windows 8, Windows RT, Microsoft Extinction Event
Microsoft began its Windows business in the 1980s by selling the software (the operating system) that IBM’s hardware badly needed. This was the kernel of business that would eventually become Microsoft. As the PC (IBM PC at first) began its proliferation, growing in popularity exponentially, Microsoft began its growth as a software company. Sure, there was the enterprise segment which Microsoft tried to win over multiple times throughout its lifetime, but it was almost always dominated by UNIX variants. Both users and developers tolerated Microsoft’s environment as time went on, with Windows XP being the most successful app environment in terms of longevity.
In 2001, Microsoft bet the company on .NET. Let me remind you that this is now 2012, 11 years later. Windows Vista was the first OS to integrate .NET. The migration path for developers was clear: embrace .NET. Windows 7 wonderfully integrated the new .NET Framework 3.5, and now .NET developers could finally expect to build real desktop applications on Windows. Of course, there was also the legacy C++ (Win32) environment that had to be supported, which 99% of Windows apps still rely on, but that was obviously not a problem for anyone at Microsoft. Clearly, .NET would be far more successful as an API than Win32 ever was.
The year was 2011, and ARM processors began to worry Microsoft. There was only one time in the past when other architectures (besides x86) posed any real threat to Microsoft and this was in the early days of Windows NT, in the mid 1990s. But this time, the threat came from a plethora of non-PC devices called “smart phones” or “tablets” or “netbooks”. Not only are these devices extraordinarily cheap, cutting into Microsoft’s margin on sales of its OS, but they are also growing at a much faster rate than Microsoft’s flagship platform, the PC, on which its Windows empire was built. In 2012, you can get yourself a top-notch 2007 workstation in the form of a tiny ultra-thin laptop, and the price of the OS (Windows) represents at least half (50%) of the price of the device itself.
Things have changed, indeed, and Microsoft’s OS monopoly is now threatened by changing consumer expectations, and a changing hardware environment that no longer resembles the slow, homogeneous pace of change of the 1980 – 2005 era dominated by the desktop PC form factor.
It can be argued that Microsoft can expand into the enterprise sector to survive, but this sector requires a stable API and a secure OS. It requires the scalability and flexibility provided by open source software like Linux. It will be tough for Microsoft to penetrate very deep into enterprise, and this is exemplified by its inability to even gain a foothold in the cloud computing sector. Microsoft was never a successful hosting company, and I doubt they ever will be.
I urge the reader to take a look at this article: “Microsoft’s Extinction Event” written by Mike James over at i-programmer.info. New anti-Windows RT articles are appearing every day, and I agree in principle that Windows RT is a horrible step backwards for Microsoft, and a step away from its .NET strategy. It’s a classic case of “couldn’t leave well enough alone.” I have been calling for the end of Microsoft since April, 2009.
I have no doubt that Microsoft will survive for at least one more decade, but it will be in a greatly diminished form in terms of profits and market cap. The latest move with Windows RT and Windows 8 will cost them even more. It will cost them reputation, heavily. Instead of simply optimizing the performance of their already successful Windows 7 OS, they decided to diverge once again, trying to grab onto ARM market share at the expense of their traditional PC market share. The result will be catastrophic, as their PC clients will simply refuse to buy the new OS.
I really wonder how OEMs will handle Windows 8. Will Microsoft once again force OEMs to push an inferior OS like they did with Vista? It should be interesting to see how things evolve, but I suspect the strong demand for Windows 7 will, if MS is reasonable at all, cause a recall of Windows 8 for at least 2 more years. WinRT and .NET 4.5 are not small changes, and there are many things wrong with the way they are being deployed in Windows 8, such as the limited backward compatibility with .NET 4.0 or 3.5, that should raise eyebrows. They represent an unneeded “kick them while they’re down” moment for Microsoft’s developer community, and I for one will not stand for this.
Knowing that Microsoft is a company in decline whose market share will diminish over time is important for any developer, but especially for those who have grown up with Microsoft technologies and have never experienced much of anything else. As a developer, I have been diversifying into Node.js and other open source server-side technologies. On the client side, I’m pinning my bets on HTML 5 and JavaScript as being the dominant unifying force for the next few decades. SQLite will be a growing trend as well. I have a 20 year technology vision since 2010. I have 12 years of experience now, going back to when I worked with Win32 API and C++. These technologies will not die. COBOL never died. Neither will .NET, yet. But it is now seriously time to divest, away from Microsoft.
One last thing to think about, because it is 2012, is how Microsoft will support its older .NET frameworks or its older Windows versions, including all the variants of Windows Server that have been released just since 2006. How will they support Windows Azure and Windows RT and Windows Phone and Bing, all of which never existed prior to 2009? Think about what all of this means for a company whose bottom line will decline. Going out with a bang, perhaps? Only time will tell, but I’m hedging my bets, and so should you. Learn Linux, intimately.