2 ms·

I really dread the future of computing where every application is a website, and the supercomputer sitting under my desk becomes useless whenever the internet g

I really dread the future of computing where every application is a website, and the supercomputer sitting under my desk becomes useless whenever the internet goes down. This is an enormous retrograde step. There's no reason for everything to be running on someone elses computer. Gigaflops are so cheap that I have more of them in my pocket than could be found in the worlds fastest supercomputers only a few years ago.

badsectoracula 7y ago
Your future is just the regular bleak one, my dark future is the one where there is no supercomputer under the desk but instead a glorified web terminal that is meant to run the web apps for the next 2-3 years until support ends (regardless of computing power) and the terminal doesn't get any more updates so it cannot run most of the newer stuff (think iPad/Chromebook, except larger). Obviously nothing works without active internet connection and local storage is only used for caching - all your data, programs and (of course) licenses for said programs and media are saved on the cloud. Everyone can make their own software as long as it exists on said cloud (ie. a computer owned and controlled by someone else), they are able to access any of "their" files from anywhere - be it their home, work, their friend/parent's places, the terminals at the cafe, their mobiles or whatever and work from anywhere they'd want. Parents love that the terminals of their kids filter out anything that could be considered inappropriate and the more knowledgeable of them customize these filters for their and their friends' kids. Some may have at the back of their mind that some of that could be abused and have a vague idea of how that could be done, but as it doesn't affect their day-by-day lives they do not pay much attention to it. Big computers still exist but they are prohibitively expensive for personal use by the vast majority of people.
dyingkneepad 7y ago
While I don't necessarily disagree with your point, in the future my crystal ball shows your desk will not have a supercomputer below it. Most people have fully converted to doing everything through their smartphones. It's been years since my wife had to do anything on a computer outside her work... Besides, those "website applications" generally rely heavily on Javascript, so they are in fact running in your computer (just in a very very inefficient way!). Besides, one can also argue that phones are the supercomputer anyway...

badsectoracula 7y ago

Your future is just the regular bleak one, my dark future is the one where there is no supercomputer under the desk but instead a glorified web terminal that is meant to run the web apps for the next 2-3 years until support ends (regardless of computing power) and the terminal doesn't get any more updates so it cannot run most of the newer stuff (think iPad/Chromebook, except larger). Obviously nothing works without active internet connection and local storage is only used for caching - all your data, programs and (of course) licenses for said programs and media are saved on the cloud. Everyone can make their own software as long as it exists on said cloud (ie. a computer owned and controlled by someone else), they are able to access any of "their" files from anywhere - be it their home, work, their friend/parent's places, the terminals at the cafe, their mobiles or whatever and work from anywhere they'd want. Parents love that the terminals of their kids filter out anything that could be considered inappropriate and the more knowledgeable of them customize these filters for their and their friends' kids. Some may have at the back of their mind that some of that could be abused and have a vague idea of how that could be done, but as it doesn't affect their day-by-day lives they do not pay much attention to it. Big computers still exist but they are prohibitively expensive for personal use by the vast majority of people.

dyingkneepad 7y ago

While I don't necessarily disagree with your point, in the future my crystal ball shows your desk will not have a supercomputer below it. Most people have fully converted to doing everything through their smartphones. It's been years since my wife had to do anything on a computer outside her work... Besides, those "website applications" generally rely heavily on Javascript, so they are in fact running in your computer (just in a very very inefficient way!). Besides, one can also argue that phones are the supercomputer anyway...