Shouldn't users really be the ones to decide who gets to show their listings? Maybe they want their listings shown on PM as well as CL. Or maybe they don't.
I'd like to be able to buy a laptop-sized retina display, without the Macbook. Something that I could hook up to any other computer. Now that would be useful.
What I see are your words, not mine. Yet they are attributed to me.
If this is an "argument" as you suggest, then you are doing a poor job at making your case.
There is a difference between 1. "research" and developing "novel" ideas and 2. executing well on large projects. It's possible to accomplish 2. without invoking 1., and vice versa.
There is no contradiction.
When a programmer complains there's nothing in "apt" to solve his problem, I'm never impressed. Nor am I ever surprised. Convenience makes some programmers very lazy.
Because you consider a problem to be "hard" and because someone else has proferred a solution that previously was not obvious to you does not lead me to the conclusion that map-reduce is something new (nor the result of ground-breaking research). It leads me to the conclusion that it is helpful to you. Those are to me two different things.
Sorry, but applying an old concept to a new problem (actually just new buzzwords... it's only the size of the problem that's new) does not make a "novel" solution. Moreover, it's an obvious solution. But I guess that depends on who is doing the programming.
I would love to see how programmers with large clusters at their disposal were approaching large datasets before the moment they realized splitting the task into smaller pieces was what they should do.
The thing is that "MapReduce" is a concept that was in practice, e.g. by LISP programmers, long, long before Google rediscovered it.
Much like Google's many acquisitions that the public perceives as resulting from "Google R&D", things like map-reduce are also viewed as coming from "unparalleled Google capabilities".
Let's get real. Google is a big company that employs thousands upon thousands of overqualified Java and C++ programmers. They are a fat cat. Not necessarily a cunning and agile one.
With the amount of cash they have on hand, indeed they should be producing some interesting research.
But I have a hard time seeing things like map-reduce as state-of-the-art R&D.
That many programmers, who have standards that consistently hover around varying levels of mediocrity, are satisfied with Google's design choices does not necessarily make what they do "state of the art". It just makes it the most popular. (Popularity is of course very important, perhaps all-important, in this business, but has little to do with research and pushing the envelope.)
I call hypocrisy here. I've seen this guy on a news program and he was almost jumping out of his seat about "inanimate" gadgets.
"Why would someone take time out of his day to..." write an email about a product that hasn't even been released?
Why would someone spend his _career_ writing about gadgets that haven't even been released yet?
C'mon Pogue, get serious.
My guess is people are are worked up about lots of things that have nothing to do with gadgets. But then they read some guy whose sole job it is to write about gadgets, who actually gets paid to do that, and it's a little too much to bear. Remember that people are being coaxed into buying these gadgets year after year, continually upgrading devices that should continue to work for many years, with the manufacturers raking in enormous amounts of income... while the average user is probably not. And who is helping the companies do this coaxing: David Pogue.
You fail to see the human element in this. I guess that's not something they teach at your b-school.
There is nothing inherently wrong in filing patent applications and building portfolios.
But there is something wrong with how these companies are using those portfolios. They are not using their IP to protect an R&D investment, product development, manufacturing processes, etc. They are using IP (most of which is of dubious validity) to threaten each other with (most likely) baseless suits that are (thanks to patent attorney fees) very expensive to deal with.
Those are human decisions.
If you want to develop technologies and create products, and you are making substantial investment, you do need protection from competitors. IP can provide that.
But that's not how the IT industry views IP. To them, it's some sort of game. Other industries do not have such a severe problem with abuse of the patent system. What is it with IT? Where is the emotional maturity?
To drive home this point, consider that these two companies were once partners, before Apple chose to start using Intel processors. Yet they need to go to court at tremendous (wasteful) cost just to start negotiations?
Lawyers must love these guys. Because they can be coaxed into suing each other with the utmost of ease.