A very neat reboot experience from vintage operating systems can be found here. You should give it a try.

John D. Cook points out there's a major divide between the way scientists and programmers view the software they write.

Scientists see their software as a kind of exoskeleton, an extension of themselves. Think Dr. Octopus. The software may do heavy lifting, but the scientists remain actively involved in its use. The software is a tool, not a self-contained product.

Programmers see their software as something they will hand over to someone else, more like building a robot than an exoskeleton. Programmers believe it’s their job to encapsulate intelligence in software. If users have to depend on programmers after the software is written, the programmers didn’t finish their job.

One point of tension is defining when a project is done. To a scientist, the software is done when they get what they want out of it, such as a table of numbers for a paper. Professional programmers give more thought to reproducibility, maintainability, and correctness. Scientists think programmers are anal retentive. Programmers think scientists are cowboys.

Programmers need to understand that sometimes a program really only needs to run once, on one set of input, with expert supervision. Scientists need to understand that prototype code may need a complete rewrite before it can be used in production.

The real tension comes when a piece of research software is suddenly expected to be ready for production. The scientist will say “the code has already been written” and can’t imagine it would take much work, if any, to prepare the software for its new responsibilities. They don’t understand how hard it is for an engineer to turn an exoskeleton into a self-sufficient robot.

I love the work of Maynard Keenan. I hope for a live sometime soon...

Tadhg Kelly writes:

Sony has become my go-to example of how not to behave if you are the kingpin. Of all the major platforms PlayStation is the most branding- and marketing-led, and yet it is the least well regarded. Developers, journalists and many fans like some of the games on the PS3, but Sony PlayStation the entity? Not so much.

Sony's big mistake was to develop the most recognisable game platform in the world and then decide to strip mine it for profit. It acted as though its position was unassailable, that authenticity and branding were the same thing, and so it could do as it pleased. In so doing it sacrificed execution in software, hardware and even its fabled design standards, and so lost trust.

Trust is an essential part of succeeding in the viral economy because relying on advertising in prime time is not that effective any more. Given that the future is going to be about more platforms rather than less, and you may one day end up running your own, you would do well to take heed of Sony's slowly unfurling demise.

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Gatekeepers sit in a position where the customers need them more than they need the customers, and the incumbent advantage that that brings is very profitable even if the execution is merely competent. Gatekeepers don't especially care about maintaining a relationship with their customers as long as they pay. Trust is only a requirement to the extent of legal obligations and anything beyond that is generally more of a branding statement than a genuine part of the company and its products.

In non-toll industries there are really only two business models: Make a commodity or build a relationship. If you go into any electronics store, for example, you will see banks of identical cheap laptops. They are commodities, all much the same, and the companies that make them operate on thin margins. They too are not especially interested in the relationship with their customers beyond a cursory nod to whatever the competition is doing because they rely on prominence at retail. You only ever see about half a dozen PC manufacturers in any branch of the UK chain PC World, for example, because those are the manufacturers that have partnerships with PC World to get prominence on the shelves.

[...]

The difference between the relationship company and the commodity company is that customers care, and even evangelise, on the company's behalf.