Mono-Culture -vs- Strength

There was the potato famine of Ireland, there was the Wintel consortium. Both examples of mono-culture where the majority share holder of a segment (food and tech) is owned by a single player. Sound good, easy to get used to, lots of benefits and, for a while stable. Also very fragile and prone to sudden collapse.

The Irish had it's potato blight. The Wintel consortium has fought off virus and malware (see a pattern?) to a draw only to be quickly overtaken by a new evolutionary animal (mobile / tablets). No external asteroid needed, it's just a mono-culture, it's going to happen.

You see the same desire in the mobile OS market share today. Android was all the market share, iOS fans want the market share for them, and Window, well Windows would like to be in the game.

But the truth is that the complete market is stronger with a mix of OS's in the market. Each with their own strength and weakness. This a plus for everyone. Each being the favorite in different sub-sections of the market with also being an alternate if a gap opens up or if another OS missteps. It's a strength, not a weakness.

The same for the development of software. I'm a native engineer at heart (Java:Android, Objective-C:iOS, etc.), but while these have their strengths, there sub-markets where other development tools are stronger. A mono-culture of tools is bound to collapse in time.

Personal engineering styles, development processes, design, religion, communities, etc. are all the same. There is no one player that should dominate or should dominate.

Diversity is strength.

Comments

Still Life

Life is never still, at least I don't think you would want it to be. That's why so many of us (i.e., retired care free people) travel. Keep seeing new things and places. Well the Hurricane so far inland was a new thing and one I would have rather forgone but life is what happens. Life keeps moving. Except a still life is forever and captures a slice of time frozen in a painting. This is from a wooden bowl of pears onboard our ship during dinner one nice. Again, just thought it looked nice. Enjoy.

A Trip Abroad

Just back from our trip abroad as Asheville continues to recover from the hurricane. This trip has been planned for a long time and we almost didn't make it because our dog sitting business will be closed for a while. But make it we did and now we are back. We love Amsterdam. What a fun place to visit. So many things to too and do there. The weather was not the best but it did not have an impact on our visit. Just bundle up. Got some quick painting in while on the boat (i.e., Viking) as we moved from port to port. This painting is of a garden at a heritage site of windmills. I thought it looked nice. Nice time on the trip to de-stress from what was happing back home. We were fine back home but not everything is well with many others.

A Process

Once in a while I take photos of a work in progress. This is for me as well as others as the work moves from stage to stage. And it is done in stages with defined processes for each step. On this walkway overpass up in Spruce Pine, I've done both an ink / marker and an Ink / Wash on the same piece. This is the finished watercolor of the work. To start the process I did an ink drawing of it and then took a tracing from that. It's the tracing where I did another ink drawing but this time on watercolor paper. Tracings of a work is done with standard tracing paper. I get mine from CheapJoes.com and use the 8x10 size as that covers most of my needs. The tracing is done with a 0.3 ink pen (Winsor & Newton Fineliner). Once I have the tracing I can then use it for other paper or to do another work of the same subject. The tracing is just a start as I still need to get it transferred onto other paper. For that you need a very bright light...

A Person, Artist, Software Engineer, Geologist.

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