Comment by DrJokepu | Hacker News Reader

Comment by DrJokepu | Hacker News Reader

* Still no fusion power.

* Microsoft sells large parts of itself in order to be able to focus on its core competencies (just like IBM did)

* Someone will make an actually usable e-book reader.

* During the second half of the decade, the Chinese bubble will burst. This will be a quite heavy shock. A lot of people will lose a lot of money. A younger/more populist group of politicians will assume power in China.

* Brazil will become a real powerhouse.

* Hugo Chavez & his friends will be removed from power in Venezuela.

* Still no Duke Nukem Forever.

* 'Minimal Techno' will finally die / go out of fashion.

* Lady Gaga will be the new Madonna.

* Functional programming / dynamic languages will go out of fashion. People still using them will be judged as incompetent programmers by the people who moved on to the new fashionable programming paradigm(s). At the same time, huge corporations will embrace functional programming / dynamic languages and third world universities will start focusing on them in their courses.

* Google will experience change in management. From there, it will be downhill for them (at least for the rest of the decade).

* Surprisingly enough, Apple will still stay relevant even though Steve Jobs will have to leave his position due to health problems or something else.

That's what I could come up with off the top of my head. Feel free to disagree / rant / do name calling, this is not a serious thread anyway.

> During the second half of the decade, the Chinese bubble will burst.

I agree. As a result, Chinese-American co-dependency crumbles like a bitter divorce, the world falls into war, inclusive of even the most pacifist, post-military states. On the upside, a post-apocalyptic nuclear winter moves anthropogenic global warming to the back burner and spawns a generation of Mad Max-style entrepreneurs among the ten-million or so human survivors. Surviving software engineers relish the opportunity to rebuild lost infrastructure "the right way this time"---including a transactional, secure, well-formed, rule-based, semantic world-wide-web---while the less-gifted turn to secondary issues like clean water, shelter, food, energy, medicine, and transportation.

Internecine fighting erupts amongst the software clans over whether certain symbols are separating or terminating and whether or not the name of the god of modification is spelled with two letters or five. The dehumanized masses turn on the dithering software clans and their IT crowd supporters, demanding to have their souls restored from failed exchange, facebook, gmail, and twitter servers. A small nomadic clan clad in denim and mock turtlenecks seeks the legendary Cupertino Stone in the wasteland of New Gorgoroth (mostly between the 85 and the 280), but finds only the unpublished "Objectivist-C Manifesto" and shiny discs inscribed "Dylan DR1".

Also, either Megan Fox or Jessica Biel is nominated for best supporting actress.

  * Someone will make an actually usable e-book reader.

What are the drawbacks with the kindle? (I have been considering buying one, recently.)

I seriously think that while the kindle is pretty good, it's like the mp3 players before the iPod or smartphones before the iPhone. It's an electronic version of an existing business model but doesn't really exploit the possibilities of such a device. I expect to see someone coming up with a reader that provides a reading experience like dead tree books do while combining it with a convenient Spotify-like flat fee / unlimited use service, like a digital library.

I'm very passionate about reading books and I'd fork out 10-20 dollars a month (maybe even $30) without hesitation for a service that allowed me to conveniently read pretty much any book whenever and wherever I want without having to go to the bookstore / library or having to wait days for Amazon to deliver it while not feeling being ripped off because of having to pay as much for an e-book as for a dead tree one. Here's your startup idea.

Thanks for the clarification.

The display isn't bright enough.

DRM.

a Nook

I'll take the bet on Duke Nukem Forever coming out. Or at least some first person shooter using the Duke Nukem IP. Let's say 300 yuan, payable by Paypal on January 1st, 2020 or earlier if the game comes out?

I'll have to agree with you. Duke Nukem Forever will come out as a downloadable contend for like 10€.

What will be the new fashionable programming paradigm(s)?

Who knows? It probably exists already but it is pretty much under the radar right now. People dismiss it as 'complete rubbish' at the moment if they have heard about it at all.

Heh, Prolog?

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