It's an AI-complete problem.
Human level AI, surely? Otherwise human authors couldn't do it. (Unless you are all secretly weakly-godlike).
]]>Yes, that's what the investors and the owners really want people to believe. But somewhere, you might not know them, come across then nor meet them, there's somebody doing a bunch of really dull, boring, traditional management and reporting crap. ESPECIALLY if you have investors.
Sure, you don't design whole products and then build them and sell them, Steve Blank thankfully has helped kill that model. But the topics to work on in sprints don't spontaneously appear, something, somewhere has a vision and direction and has their balls on the line when it comes to making bad decisions about the overall business direction.
It might not be as anal as the MS structure, or as single vision as Apple or Facebook - but if you don't think it's there you're being seriously conned.
]]>There's a lot of talk, with ideas like the Sprint, about getting feedback from the customers but just who is the customer. Who can say, "this is crap"?
It doesn't absolutely have to be somebody such as thee and me. In some senses, when Charlie was working at the programming coalface, the customer who had control was the banking industry. If they didn't sign off on what he was working on, it could not be used. Other companies, I suspect it might be the venture capitalists who have funded the company. I could name one or two where the paying customers don't get a look in. Yes, there are problems finding out what people want, but I have seen signs of a programmer-led rush for the shiny, with poor judgement of whether it works, or how it affects the overall system.
]]>That's what AI-complete means - human level intelligence and consciousness ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI-complete )
It's a term that's been around a lot longer than all this singularity weakly-godlike entity nonsense ;-)
Strong AI is another one that was around long before the singularity stuff. The way I originally encountered it in the 80's was among cognitive philosophy folk who were separated into Weak AI (computers can exhibit intelligent behaviour - but not true human level consciousness) and Strong AI (computers can exhibit human levels of intelligence and consciousness).
For most people in the AI field that's still the way it's used.
]]>I hired my own professional developmental & copy editors, graphic designers & photographers, video & music professionals (book trailer), web designers, PR consultants, and drew upon skilled volunteers for proofreaders. My publisher is providing quality control from years of bookstore ownership experience and giving me guidance with printing requirements, online formats & selling, and promotion. Everything else is up to me to make happen.
It's expensive and I'm constantly aware of my level of privilege to even be able to do this. I'm also aware of the level of privilege to have had the time to write the novel in the first place. We joke about my position in the center of a small economy, but I'm extremely proud of being able to pay my team what they are worth. It makes my dayjob (SysAdmin on call 24x7) worthwhile.
I would like to be writing more than I am while staying in the production loop, but the creative freedom to 'keep it local' is more than making up for it. The grey area between self publishing and indie publishing seems to be about recreating all of the steps of quality as the initial blog post lists. I want my readers to have the best experience of the text and not be distracted by mistakes or low quality speed bumps. Who knows if it is going to go beyond my network, but the joy in the scheduled book release party is shared by a community. That's pretty fantastic.
]]>Actually I'd challenge this "statement of fact". A discussion of another thread perhaps, but I am remminded of an editorial in Analog at the turn of the century. From memory the question pose by the editor was:
"Would would have seen the most change in their day to day life: a person born in 1925 living to 2000; or somebody born in 1850 living to 1925?"
To that I'd add the case of somebody born in 1775 living to 1850.
Those of us born in the back end of the 20th century may have a slightly biased view and would be unaware of or ignoring some massive innovation and change that happening in the 18th & 19th centuries.
]]>I think my grandfather saw about as much change as anyone. He was born in 1885 on a rural farm. One room house. Water from the spring. You chopped wood for cooking and heat. That was the year the phone was invented. He was active till he was 92 in 1977 and died at 97 in 1982. More than a decade after they landed on the moon. Life certainly changed for him.
]]>Regarding the recent thread diversion toward rate of change. You could make the argument that it's subjective. We consider recent changes the important kind because they are in the foreground, and thus loom larger. The question assumes change is a single quantity. There are different kinds, and in different places. Certainly any given modern span of time in most of the developed world has seen a lot of new technologies, but someone born in France in the 1700s or Germany in 1600 would have considered a lot of changes to be happening.
But I think the modern era really has seen changes in the rate of change, things that are objective, not subjective. Probably an S curve like was discussed in a previous thread. It bootstraps. Jet travel means economic development means more patents, means teleport booths, means more economic development...
]]>I can get a book out, once it has been to beta readers, in a week or two. That includes formatting the ebook, formatting the print book, designing the cover and loading to Amazon's KDP. I do my own proofreading (and before you scoff, check out my samples). If I felt unable to tackle these tasks, I could hire others to do them quickly for a reasonable fee.
Publishers, I have gradually realized, aren't much good at their job. Being used to the monopoly of distribution they enjoyed until very recently, they have become slack and inefficient. They are only just waking up to the possibilities of digital, and blame Amazon for missed opportunities and their own deficiencies.
How fortunate they are that plenty of writers still believe they need them.
Lexi Revellian
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