Rural Kansas is dying

Post by walrus01 » Tue, May 01, 2018, 1:08 AM UTC

abakker wrote: post #56

DanAndersen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah -- my actual area of research/work is VR, hopefully for practical use cases, and it's hard to see anything in current VR tech that would help for remote working. For those who do remote teams, having something like Slack helps more, where casual channels for chatting can serve as the virtual water cooler. I wonder if there's any potential in building VR-based telepresence tools specifically for those doing graph…

A personal theory of mine is that one reason telecommuting is hard is that is really screen-real-estate bound. I've been remote for 5 years, full time, and in that time I have come to rely on an iPad Pro, 2 laptops and 2 30 inch 4k monitors, all on all the time. I'm on the phone maybe 4 hours a day, sometimes up to 8. (I don't work in coding, FWIW). I have so many documents, projects, collaboration windows, schedules…

Post by vwcx » Tue, May 01, 2018, 1:13 AM UTC

mcone wrote: post #12

The Ogallala aquifer is only mentioned once in passing, but that's the real reason rural Kansas is dying. With the aquifer being completely depleted in some areas, conventional farming of the usual cash crops won't be an option for much longer. See http://www.kansascity.com/news/state/kansas/article28640722....

Post by stevenwoo » Tue, May 01, 2018, 1:16 AM UTC

ryanx435 wrote: post #35

kevin_b_er wrote: post #23

It is cruel, but as long as they continue to vote Republican, they'll see themselves stomped to bits. The reason Donn Teske can't get much out of the Republicans in the legislature is that he's no money to offer them. There's little left for the large businesses to steal from except their land and they'll get that through automation and debt. There's few public services to privatize into the hands of Republicans' spo…

I think you have drunk too much of the anti-republican and anti corporate koolaide. They are not the entirety of the problem and it's weird that you think they are. A counter example is Texas: majority Republican and a very strong and growing economy.

Post by WalterBright » Tue, May 01, 2018, 1:24 AM UTC

doesnt_know wrote: post #66

WalterBright wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a counterpoint, the D programming community could not exist without the internet and telecommuting. It's spread out all over the world, and we only meet once a year at Dconf. I remember "telecommuting" in the 1980s with a fax machine (international phone at a buck a minute was impractical) and mailing floppy disks (weeks of delays for international).

That's not really a specific counter point is it? The backing foundation is a non-profit that is backed by individuals, presumably they need a day job (not remote?) in order to be able to keep the organization running.

Post by blahedo » Tue, May 01, 2018, 1:38 AM UTC

state_less wrote: post #39

chrischen wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative to virtual density is real density (à la big cities like Tokyo, New York). In my opinion remote technology has not been able to come close with the bandwidth increases of real proximity yet. The promise of VR, telepresence, is still unable to match the benefits of real presence.

I suppose the benefits depends on the knowledge work. A mathematician might benefit from the quiet solace of the country side, the human bandwidth being of marginal benefit, and instead focus on the problem. When they're ready, they transmit the proof, where it will be studied, reviewed and disseminated (if correct). If you're not considering the information you receive too heavily, then you'd probably want more sync…