I don't think this is totally true. The selling point of the cloud it's not only what you mentioned, maybe yes at the beginning.
Today, is more important the time to market. You can use existing services to build your application, there are customers that don't have access to a pool of data scientist to run their own ML training for example. These would rather benefit from high level services that help them to deliver functionalities just by using APIs.
> it becomes far more cost-effective and performance to just manage your own hardware and infrastructure.
This is very wrong too. First of all managing hardware is not just buying a server and placing it in your room. There are plenty of other business functions needed to run an effective datacenter. Procurement, hardware eng, sys admin, security (net, app, etc) and the list goes on.
You can do that if you reach a critical mass or if you are able to attract the right talents for that.
Big enterprise customers will settle for a suboptimal usage of their resources with limited capabilities to expand further or settle for one size fits all. You need a DB? We bought 15mil on Oracle licenses sorry about that, your no SQL needs or your vector search would be better make it work there.
As I said earlier, eventually this affects the time to market. Which is a far more important measure than cost for business. Especially thanks to the agility. If it doesn't work they tear it down, you don't need to keep paying for it.
somewhat similar to the demonization of communism that the west pushed for decades?
Apparently there are many people that are more incline to just smile and nod rather than arguing. Probably the geographical location of these is not really important. They're equally distributed across the globe
Yes I'm taking about that, you're the only one that understands it apparently.
The thing is that my comment couldn't be anyhow related to today's situation (I've used the past tense) since communist doesn't exist anymore (not the way it used to) and most of the country that implemented it widely abandoned it (probably the only exception is perhaps North Korea)
I don't understand why people get so emotional when you mention the word communism
It was a simple comparison point on the previous comment that, by my standard was also wildly off base (given that he said dumb to a whole country basically)
the fact is that the west seems to be so attached (weirdly) to communism despite even those who implemented it already abandoned.
What an idiotic question. In my case, the sensitivities are familiar. My ancestors in Ukraine were starved to death by communists during the Holodomor. Is that something you're familiar with?
The West is "weirdly" attached to communism for many reasons, the foremost being that the past 50 years has been spent trying to clean up the mess left by communist regimes.
Do you ever stop and wonder what Russia could have been like had the Bolsheviks not terrorized it? Does it scare you to face just how badly your ideology has globally failed, and will be forever remembered as a point of shame in the grand story of human development?
I'm glad you mentioned that! Plenty of Wikipedia users much more knowledgable on the topic than you or I had a lengthy discussion on whether it makes sense to try and make such comparisons.
> somewhat similar to the demonization of communism that the west pushed for decades?
I'm not sure what you mean with 'the west', but in Western Europe communist political parties were allowed just like any others.
When I went to high school in the 80's it was even kind of fashionable to have communist sympathies. This was before the fall of the iron curtain though, once it went down it became clear how terrible communism had really been.
that doesn't make it less demonized. Unless you forgot the media campaigns on it and the plenty of wars that started in the attempt to stop the spread of communism.
No, because the government doesn't need to demonize communism to make it sound dumb. Hell if anything, the contrarian nature of Americans caused many to entertain the idea after witnessing the demonization, which makes it basically the opposite of China's situation.
it doesn't matter if I've experienced it or not. My comment it's not a praise to communism, perhaps just read it again (and read the context from which it started too)
As somebody who intimately saw on my closest ones and everybody else various horrible things that communism does to society and every single individual in it, and how the legacy of it can't be shed easily even after decades and multiple generations, you don't need to demonize communism a slightest bit .
Just point out well known facts, in balanced manner, and that's more than enough.
After a lifetime of being on the boot end of capitalism, I don't think communist systems are special in being full of horrors. I don't think the particular system humans use to justify those horrors is the issue.
You don't think... well experiencing both systems would give you much better opinions to compare rather than just thinking about it. Unfortunately I had, and my opinions are clear.
You can see it yourself if you look closely enough, go to let's say Vienna, and then go to Bratislava or further east. Even after 34 years. I don't mean financial aspect of difference, I mean everything else that makes healthy society thriving.
In capitalism, you always have freedom of thinking, traveling, freedom to not have a job for example. You can bash it as much as you prefer, and its leaders. Your parents won't be put in gulag or uranium mines for 10 years because of that. My friend, you frankly have no idea what you write about...
This kind of whataboutery is an ignorant and insulting to people who’ve actually had to live through the horrors of communism, which are on a different order of magnitude to the horrors of capitalism, bad as they might be.
I have yet to see a single example of a horror done under any modern human system that wasn't done under every system before and next to it. If I'm ignorant, it's a failure to persuade on the part of people who have a special hatred of communism.
Sure, tell that to the relatives of the 4 million Ukrainians who died during Stalin's farming reforms, to the 2 million Chinese who died during the Cultural Revolution, or to the 2 million Cambodian victims under Pol Pot.
I could rattle off a list with similar numbers for capitalism (or proportional numbers for older systems), too. This does not persuade anyone who isn't already in the choir that your pet gripe is special.
Humans do horrible stuff to each other in the name of ideology. Systems are just one of the ways they rationalize it.
The "demonization" of communism is wholly deserved. Every communist country, ever has been am impoverished, totalitarian, shithole. The most successful "communist" countries are those that have given up on economic communism (China, Vietnam), though they'd be even more successful if they gave up on political communism too.
The track record of communism is so insanely bad that it is literally the second worst ideology of the 20th century, beat only by facism which caused the instant self-immolation of every country to ever try it (while inflicting terrible harm on their neighbors).
maybe because the monarchs were quite ugly. If you're an artist you are more interested in beauty than money (and I don't mean necessarily physical appearance)
Maybe watch the video. Artists have to eat, and they relied on patronage and commissions. The church and the nobles were the only ones with the free cash and the motivation to fund artists and their creations for much of the Christian age in Europe, regardless of their looks.
But also: something changed in the 16th century: do you contend that the monarchs suddenly got uglier to the point that artists didn't want to paint them anymore?
> do you contend that the monarchs suddenly got uglier
If you focus on the Habsburgs then arguably yes, it did got very bad in that regard. They still managed to find willing painters (even if they possible had to pay them a bit more to soften some of the most visible flaws).
> do you contend that the monarchs suddenly got uglier
Yes, because for centuries they were having children with their relatives.
If you studied basic biology you would know that by doing that the gene pool become too small and many physical problems arise (and appearance is only one of them).
Incest, according to many sources, was the cause of collapse of the Egyptian empire. The latest pharaoh had all sort of problems (and mental problem was one of then too)
Other contributory factors include the rise of the mercantile middle class, and a push back against religions and royalty as they typically controlled the wealth and kept people in servitude in various ways.
Something not mentioned was this period was also the little ice age [1], when Maunder[2] and Dalton[3] first started observing the sun, noticing a decline in sunspots over the usual 11 year solar cycle[4], a year without summer[5] due to a volcanic explosion that threw so much ash into the atmosphere, it partially obscured the sun, causing crops and wild plants to die back around the world causing massive famines and death in some parts of the less developed world.
The extent of the artic ice reach was so great inuits could walk across the ice and then kayak across the north sea to Scotland[6]. Cod stocks require 7 DegC waters moved south in the North Sea making fishing harder and with todays higher sea temperatures, forcing fish north, which brings to mind was this a factor for Brexit?
The rise of the Mercantile middle class was due to the traders sailing off discovering the world, bringing back exotic crops, picking up new methods to grow crops and improve yields, they helped to stave off hunger and famine when royalty and religion were failing the general population by not providing any solution.
The Catholic church was losing power, as noted with the Avignon papacy when the Catholic church was based in Avignon in France not Vatican city like today[7],
The French Revolution, again the peasants were not being looked after due to the poor conditions and so starved and hungry, they revolted killing the French King.
Thats why there were lots of snow and ice depictions, just like frost fairs on the river Thames [8], arguably one of the first offshore tax havens to exist, mainly because the river when it froze provided an area in which to trade which was unregulated by the laws of the land.
A unique trading situation caused by ice.
And so this situation was exploited like a hack to make money.
So did the monarchs get uglier?
Keeping the wealth inside the wider family and peers of similar or same stature, has always caused genetical mutations and reduced genetic variation, inbreeding if you will, but there was much more to paint than just a few wealthy individuals helped along by the printing press.
Try quantifying the effect they had on society at undermining authority and the cohesion of society. Opinion polls didnt exist back then.
Harsh environmental conditions where its generally colder, like a mini ice age, is going to up root people, force migration, lower crop yields, more hunger, more violence, more lawlessness.
Its one of the reasons why the Stradivarius violins were sought after, the colder climate resulted in less tree growth, tighter tree rings and it altered the sound of musical instruments of the day[1]
There were also alot of extreme weather events during this little ice age.
IF you read this book https://www.google.com/search?q=little+ice+age+brian+fagan
in it, Fagan asserts there was an earthquake down in Avignon which people took to be a sign of god, which forced the catholic church to relocate with its tail between its legs. I dont know how true that is, there is nothing online I can find, perhaps an example of an entity managing its online reputation.
In that book, he also asserts an innuit paddled up one of the rivers of one of the city's in Scotland, he claims to have got this data from reading old newspapers of the time.
Just like he got information on crop yields from old monasteries, country estate owners and others who kept records, any record made back in that time. I got the impression it took him a long time to compile the data, to arrive at the narrative he espouses.
Its an interesting read, and you'll see how weather can destabilise any country very quickly, especially with todays level of communication and stuff going viral around the world, but also how these events build and build over time, changing culture. Even today the French dont take 'non' for an answer, when you see farmers blockading the ports and Eurotunnel, or rioting on the streets over the pension age.
If you dont know the history, you wont realise the significance of the events you watch unfolding on the news today.
So my point is, the artistry is a depiction of the time, its meta data, especially if you know some of the winter scene pictures were painted in June or Sept!
European history is such a rabbit hole, the more you read the more interesting things you find to learn more later.
> The Catholic church was losing power
I've been reading exactly about that... and it's mind blowing that the divide between Catholics and Protestants was what initiated the Eighty Years' War[1] (as mentioned in the video). That War was followed by an even bigger one later, the Thirty Years' War[2] (from 1618 to 1648), the biggest conflict in Europe up until that time (it was huge, parts of today Germany lost 50% of their population). That war started with the infamous Defenestration of Prague [3] in which the representatives of Ferdinand (a Habsburg) the new, fervently catholic King of Bohemia (which was a stronghold of Protestantism), were thrown out of the window of the Prague castle (that's how they used to show their strong discontent diplomatically back then)!
I was recently in Prague and made a point to visit that window :D. Quite amazing to think the places where such events took place are still there and anyone can visit it.
Anyway, after the 30 Years' War, the Habsburgs (which controlled a huge chunk of Europe, from Spain to Flanders, Bohemia to Hungary), lost a lot of power, with France and their ally, Sweden, becoming the dominant powers (can you imagine that the Swedes sieged Prague in 1648!??)... which in turn led to many wars later, including wars between Sweden, the Lithuanian Empire, and the Russian Empire which I find fascinating... all of them had big victories at some point, (e.g. Swedes kicked Russian's asses in 1700 in the Battle of Narva[4] -see also this amazing video by HistoryMarche [5] - but got completely destroyed by the Russians in Poltava [6], current-day Ukraine) but at the end of the wars in 1795 [7], Lithuania and its union buddy Poland basically ceased to exist as an independent entity (after hundreds of years of existence, extending from Kyiv to Villnius, Minsk and as far into Russia as Smolensk!), the Swedes losing almost all of their possessions in mainland Europe (like Estonia) and also Finland to the Russians, and France becoming the main power in Western Europe just in time for Napoleon to rise.
> which in turn led to many wars later, including wars between Sweden, the Lithuanian Empire, and the Russian Empire which I find fascinating
Yes more recently Nato's creep towards Russia and the Ukraine war.
Recent examples being the coup to seize the Bosphorus Bridge in 2016[1], a stealth attack to control the waterways to Russia's Black Sea Naval ports located in Crimea.
Fast forward to today and you can see why with the Ukraine War.
However wars should never been seen in a totally negative light, because they force rapid regeneration of infrastructure and cultural change. Ukraine was a very very poor country by European standards, still quite peasant like in the rural locations, so some would argue that wars today are more todo with bringing areas of the planet up to date, despite the rhetoric put out by the media.
I understand Monsanto have been trying to get into Ukraine since the early 00's because the soil there is particularly suited to GM crops, so that has benefits for increasing the food available on the global markets. Obviously there are disputes over what is the best way to achieve change and some countries are highly resistant to GM crops due to the chemical load on the land including wildlife and human health.
So if history doesn't repeat, it certainly rhymes.
> However wars should never been seen in a totally negative light
Ya of course! War is great, it pushed also industrial output and plenty of investments in researches. Plus it gets rid of the weak too! (This paragraph is sarcastic, I've to write it because many probably won't understand)
You should have a word or two with the families of those that lost their relatives in the plenty wars that lacerated this planet recently
or maybe finance yourself a trip to Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria to see how well established these countries are.
> some would argue that wars today are more todo with bringing areas of the planet up to date
Nobody argues that you're the only one. Also because it's clearly a false statement and a total misinterpretation of the war.
Have you ever had a look at other wars or you're taking Ukraine as example only because is the only one that you know about?
Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Congo, Libya. They're just a small list of countries that have been victim of wars recently. None of them is an example of how to rebuild things (or bringing them "up to date", also because they don't benefit the plenty billions of dollars that the US is sending to Ukraine.
but if your theory is really correct, why don't you move to Afghanistan and enjoy the western style of living that was brought there thanks to 20 years of war?
If you're an artist you are more interested in beauty than money (and I don't mean necessarily physical appearance)
This simply isn't true. Am an artist, and I care a lot about having food and a roof over my head.
And in general, artists of yesteryear were either already rich - rich enough so they had the leisure time to make art and the money to afford the supplies - or you were painting because a person with more riches than you have paid you to paint (and you probably weren't poor to begin with).
Folks weren't really painting monarchs out of love for the monarch, they did it because monarchs and other rich folks paid, sometimes handsomely. And you were paid to paint them in the best light possible while still knowing it was them: The Habsburgs had portraits that were likely much prettier than their actual likenesses - comparable to photoshop and other touch-ups today.
And just to drive this in: Painters of yesteryear often had ready-made backgrounds and bodies waiting for a head/likeness and other details. Nothing says "I care more about beauty than money" like prefab portrait blanks, I guess.
Yep. I think a better comparison in our modern world would be the film studio. Painting was something you were taught in a rigid controlled environment and the materials and knowledge how to use them wasn't something you had the freedom to just easily use on a whim however you like. You were taught an entire language and way of thinking by your master, most likely from a young age.
Our modern reality makes it truly hard to imagine how these people thought because we are so used to photographs and images being cheaply reproducible and widely available on screens. A painting used to be something that was located somewhere and you had to travel to get to see it. If you owned a painting, you had this unique privilege of being able to show it to people in your own context. Works of art were incredibly powerful status objects, capable of sending the right messages about your pedigree, about your wealth and power.
What you describe with the prefabs I think gradually came along later, as painting became a more common trade and even the middle-classes started being able to afford to have them made as objects of status.
> And in general, artists of yesteryear were either already rich
Very much a false statement, I can make a never ending list of artists that were born, lived and died as poor man. Van Gogh is one of them (just to make an example)
> or you were painting because a person with more riches than you have paid you to paint
there were plenty of painters that didn't focus on doing portrait of rich people or, for that matter, they weren't painting humans at all.
I don't understand your point, probably you never actually enjoyed art or entered a museum to make this empty arguments.
Or maybe, more likely, you're like many HN commentators that like to write a long empty message for the sake of arguing because you like doing that rather than understanding the comment.
unless you've data that demonstrate what you just said, is simply not true. Just because you have a few anecdotal evidence doesn't prove anything.
This actually reminds me on what I've read about a period in French monarchy (I'm a bit foggy on the specifics of the time and place and people involved) where the French aristocracy developed a fascination with the "simple life" and would play dress-up to recreate the perceived "ease" of the life of the peasantry (because they were of course entirely detached from the burden carried by their subjects). This wasn't fueled by some sort of Calvinist attempt to appear humble but rather the belief that those peasants were all having a lot more fun so by trying to dress like them and play pretend you could have fun like they do.
Yeah, no kidding. I have a hard time believing that the way corporate board seats are filled has anything to do with maximizing the performance of a company. It seems like it’s just an entrenched, unspoken agreement among the executive class to keep their pockets filled with walking around money—or private-jetting money in their case.
I believe a wrong decision can break, but the right decision rarely "make". A simply "adequate" decision followed by brilliant execution is what really "makes". In that sense, they should be compensating the people who execute the decisions more, not the ones who call the shot.
I also believe that a lot of the "importance" of a board member comes from their social network. "Let me call the CEO of AWS and figure out what we can do"- kind of thing.
Opposed to engineers who usually face consequences on bad decisions, these rich people rarely have any meaningful accountability. So tossing a coin is fine.
Programming gets "easier" because there's more to do. You need a scalable way to write software quicker because there are many more use cases that 20 years ago nobody though of.
You don't want spend anymore 6 month to write your UI interface for example, something that probably was ok to do 20 years ago.
It doesn't get easier, you just have more abstraction that helps to quickly build applications.
If it gets easier, it's easier for young folks too
Today, is more important the time to market. You can use existing services to build your application, there are customers that don't have access to a pool of data scientist to run their own ML training for example. These would rather benefit from high level services that help them to deliver functionalities just by using APIs.
> it becomes far more cost-effective and performance to just manage your own hardware and infrastructure.
This is very wrong too. First of all managing hardware is not just buying a server and placing it in your room. There are plenty of other business functions needed to run an effective datacenter. Procurement, hardware eng, sys admin, security (net, app, etc) and the list goes on.
You can do that if you reach a critical mass or if you are able to attract the right talents for that.
Big enterprise customers will settle for a suboptimal usage of their resources with limited capabilities to expand further or settle for one size fits all. You need a DB? We bought 15mil on Oracle licenses sorry about that, your no SQL needs or your vector search would be better make it work there.
As I said earlier, eventually this affects the time to market. Which is a far more important measure than cost for business. Especially thanks to the agility. If it doesn't work they tear it down, you don't need to keep paying for it.