The fact that this story is dominated by the merits of a headphone jack tells me Apple is adrift with regard to phones. If they were to announce that they were getting rid of the idiotic hardware button and go to the soft buttons Android has, (plus the finger print readers or biometric recognition, etc), that would be interesting. The iPhone is just being carried by apps now. Not that apps aren't important, they are, they are the only reason I have an iPhone, but the thing is an anachronism.
There's another huge benefit to automation that I have not seen mentioned within the posts for this topic: Automation minimizes litigation risk. I saw a situation where accounting screwed up an employee's paycheck. She worked a few hours of OT she was not authorized to work. Accounting screwed up her time sheet and didn't pay her for the OT because they didn't catch it. (This was a part time employee who never worked 8 hours / day, but worked consecutive days which also constitutes OT.) The total amount of OT not paid was $120. The employee found the error, then turned it in to the labor department. That $120 mistake turned into $4,000 because of fines. I kid you not. Guess what impact this has on prospective employers - Slow to hire, quick to fire. Zero tolerance for any mistakes. Add to that all of the other labor laws, and you have accumulate a number of disincentives to hire anyone.
Ridiculous labor laws increase the incentive to use robotics. Litigation risk is probably more significant than the dollar amount of a minimum wage.
I find the Windows Phone's default swipe keyboard to be the best I have used. I find it marginally better than both HTC's swipe keyboard and also Google's keyboard.
Totally agree. I don't understand why they don't add the feature to the Surface devices, too. I use the full keyboard in a conventional fashion, but I have become so used to swiping short notes that I find it to be faster than typing.
No doubt a future episode of American Greed will be featuring Theranos. Ms. Holmes is an interesting character as all such individuals are at some level. What I would like to know is how she convinced a rather stellar list of individuals to become involved with her company.
Oddly enough I actually like the way they drive in China better than in the US. It's certainly true that Chinese traffic laws are more policy hints than laws, or so it seems, but Chinese drivers make maximum use of the roadway and gaps in traffic. For the most part, traffic keeps moving, but at slower speeds. In the US, people follow the laws so traffic flows faster. The problem with this is that when accidents do happen, they are usually at higher speeds and therefore a lot worse. I don't know how anyone could possibly drive in Beijing while being distracted by a phone. All the taxis I rode in were driven by people who had to be focused on the traffic around them. No way they could navigate it otherwise. For all of these reasons a self driving car that can navigate Chinese streets tells me the technology is advancing.
Chinese driving habits make crossing a street as a pedestrian a rather memorable experience. Good practice for getting used to self driving cars that slow down but don't stop when you are in front of them.
Because they require more service than an electric car, as the article mentioned. I don't buy the argument that electrics are too different from ICE cars Most car sales people don't know much about a full featured ICE car, either. Their primary objective is to sell you something on the lot, because it has a carrying cost. Better still, lease it to you or "help" you finance it and get you to buy an extended warranty. But the big money comes when you service it.
You can make an argument that having a lot of inventory is one advantage to the dealer system. But for the most part, I think car dealers are worthless and the process of buying a car is truly insulting, even with high end cars. My next car will be a Tesla or Uber or Lyft or some combination of the above. I'm done with ICE cars and the jokers who sell them.
The problem here is that there's a low-grade civil war brewing in Crimea after Russia's invasion. Wake me up when/if the US has a similar problem. Zzzzzz....
I would not be too complacent about this. Clearly we are going to reasonably wonder "could it happen here?" and what would it mean. A valid concern, but the much greater issue as I see it is that it appears Putin has a new and serious challenge on his hands. How many more problems can Russia manage before something snaps? A breakdown in Russia could be a very big problem, especially if it is chaotic.
My God Man! What you are describing sounds like a free market or something.
This is AMERICA!
Speaking of free market, how much longer until people don't need to own a car anymore? This is one of the promises of automation, but before that comes to fruition there will services such as Uber and Lyft that take the marginal car buying customer; people who live in cities. I would get rid of my car in an instant if I could. It's an expensive object and is parked most of the time. I share the opinion that dealerships are essentially worthless and provide the worst retail experience of all. But they will go the way of CDs. There will be a few dealers left selling specialty cars, but big dealers that exist today will be gone and no one will miss them.
I always wondered how the door handles would work after an ice storm or freezing rain. I've dealt with my share of frozen car door locks, but at least I could get the handle to move. I think the touch screen console was a big mistake. You need to be able to manage things like climate settings, radio stations, etc. by touch. Forcing the drive to look at a screen for mundane things was a bad idea. I don't own a Tesla, partly because they are so new and I don't like the design elements I mentioned. But I have driven one. There are very few other cars that are as much fun to drive.
Wasn't there, don't know he people involved, so who knows what the situation was. What I don't like is the fact that Ahmed Mohamed didn't accomplish anything worth of presidential attention, yet he was invited to the White House. There are children who do far more interesting things. Let's not forget David Hahn. I think it can be said Hahn set the bar quite high for teenage science projects.
You must not be in California, where the labor laws are so stacked in favor of employees it is absurd. For example, if there is a wage and hour dispute, and employee can file a complaint with the DLSE. The first meeting is a settlement hearing, not one in which the facts are presented and discussed. IOW, the employer is guilty by default. If no settlement is reached, the employee can decide whether to go to a judgement hearing, or just sue. If the employee doesn't have a case, he or she will sue, paying their lawyer on a contingency basis. Because it costs so much to defend in court, employers are usually forced to settle for a 5 figure number. The employee doesn't incur much risk since we do not have "loser pays" in our legal system. I'm not saying that is always bad, but it does have an impact. Notice also that the NLRB just ruled franchise parents can be considered to be in the "dual employer" role. That means plaintiffs attorneys have deeper pockets to go after, so there will be a lot more of this litigation.
The cold result of this is that it becomes much more difficult for people with limited work skills or employment history to get a job. For an employer, it simply is not worth the risk. Of course the laws were put in place to protect employees against unscrupulous employers, but the reality is that the people who need jobs the most are the least likely to get them now. This is an unmentioned reason why we have a growing underclass of unemployed people. Ellen Pao has become one of these individuals since she is now known to be litigious and therefore an unacceptable risk. She might get a job at a non-profit, though, since non-profit directors have special immunities.
All Amazon is going to have in a few years is Type A assholes who are willing to kill themselves and they'll have no creatives, no inventors and nobody who actually is innovating. They'll have people who happily work 100 hour weeks to reduce the delay after clicking "Buy Now" and nobody coming up with the next Kindle.
Just noticing my own consumption patterns. I find myself buying far less from Amazon than I used to. I go the public library for most books now, keeping just a few in my Kindle app for reading while traveling or reference. I stream music now instead of buying it. I reverse showroom - Go to Best Buy, look at a few products, then read the reviews on Amazon to determine which one to buy since BB will match.
Amazon's big advantage in the early days was their ability to sell new products to consumers without sales tax. Bezos leveraged this to build mindshare and brand, but now he doesn't really have that huge advantage over other retailers. Sooner or later Amazon will be average internet retailer - Lots of products for sale with low margins. That may be one reason they push their people so hard, the profit margins they have now are not sustainable. Could even turn into another Sears.
It's possible that phone apps are the punch cards of the future. Most apps require a network connection. What if there is a better way to launch and manage them via Cortana and they run on a cloud system, turning your phone into smart terminal? Then you won't care what OS a phone running as long as it can render the information you want. Maybe Microsoft is now thinking "The Network Is The Computer" as Sun did years ago. The approach might work, it might not, but that would be a reason to get Cortana on as many platforms as possible.
, if Obama had done even half of what he promised to clean up the government, he could have asked for a Cuban-style health care system
Cuban-style health care system? I know an American who lives in Cuba. His wife (Cuban) had a spot on her tongue and was worried it might be cancer. The Cuban health care system could not schedule an exam for her for two months, so her husband flew her to the US to be looked at the next day. Turned out a dental fixture was irritating her tongue. Whenever the people I know have a problem they think requires immediate attention, they fly to the US. This doesn't happen very often, but at least they have a choice. In the meantime Cuba rents^H^H^H^Hsends its doctors to other countries to bring in money for the regime. No thanks.
Is this really a surprise? During the housing bubble years, unqualified in reality buyers got financing anyway and bought more then they could afford. Rents were dropping or flat because no one wanted to rent. Single family residences were favored over multi-family construction, apartments were being converted to condos or being torn down to be replaced by town homes. 2008, the SFR bubble bursts, leaving an unbalanced rental market in its wake: A huge contingent of former owners who had to rent, and a constrained supply of rental units. Today's rental pricing is the result, but it won't last. Of course developers are going to build more rental supply since that is where the money is today, so supply will increase. Owning a home will become more cost competitive compared to renting.
What I would like to know is what the average debt load of apartment owners is today. No doubt many are becoming as over-leveraged as home buyers were pre-2008 as they buy more rental properties. I'm guessing the rental market is in bubble territory today, but the best way to tell is to look at the debt of landlords. I would also like to know what sort of finance terms rental buyers are getting. I doubt they can get fixed rates, so a hike in rates by the Fed could really put the pressure on landlords. I'm not sure where to get this information, but I bet it is interesting. Buying rental property in 2009 was a great idea. Today probably not so much.
Now that Gates is advising Nadella, I can imagine the conversations revolve around that fact that Microsoft never made the actual platform that ran Windows. Phones are a bit different, but logically is Android really so different from IBM, Phoenix, AMI, Award, etc., BIOS? Gates and Nadella probably think of Azure as Windows, sitting on top of Android or iOS instead of whatever BIOS, with Office 365 and every other cloud app being the equivalent of desktop apps in the PC era. I doubt they really care if Microsoft services are running on a Windows Phone in the long term.
Another observation: I have a Nexus, iPhone and Windows phone. My observation is that the iPhone has the best app implementation, the Nexus / Lollipop is close and "good enough", and that the Windows Phone is obviously second fiddle in the app world. Windows Phone has most of the apps I need, but not all, and the other problem is that even if Windows Phone has the apps I want, they are not maintained as well as the iOS and Android versions. That said, I am somewhat surprised to say how much better I find the Windows Phone UI to be over Android and iOS. I am guessing individually downloaded apps will matter less and less and integrated services more and more in the future, so Microsoft may very well achieve the same thing in the mobile world as they did in the PC world.
I lost my dad when I was about the same age as your daughter. That was a long time ago, but I still wonder occasionally what it would have been like to have a father during those formative years. Rest assured your daughter will retain all of her good memories with you. I think writing down your thoughts for her, especially about turning points in life is a good idea, and making videos is, too. But the important thing to resolve from my experience is something work out with your wife. Kids need role models. After your daughter works her way through the trauma of your loss, I think she will seek someone to give her perspective since you will not be there for her, even if she is not consciously doing so. By no means am I suggesting your wife go out and "get a male role model" for her, but rather actively seek the opportunity to find one for your daughter. Maybe the "Big Brothers Big Sisters" program would be a good place to start when the time is right, or maybe another approach. I am sure you have discussed this sort of thing with your wife by now, but I looking back, having someone to go to in the absence of a parent makes a big difference after the loss. I would also archive this/. post for her so that she can see it someday. It will tell her something about the community that you are part of, and that will tell her more about you, too.
Guess it's the geek in me, but when I think of all the noise being generated I think "Why is this energy going into sound instead of the wheels?" Sure, when I was a kid we all thought it was cool to flip the air filter covers and get glass packs, but now I think it is like sticking cards in your bicycle spokes. This is especially true now that I have had a chance to drive a Tesla: No vibration, or excess sound, just smooth power going right where you want it. Put your foot in it, and you are pushed back in your seat with very little noise. Driving a Tesla, or any decent electric is almost a transcendental experience after driving ICE cars. I read a review by someone who said Rolls Royce has to come out with an electric car because the experience is so much better. Of course electric cars are dangerously quiet for pedestrians, so a noise maker at low speeds is legit. Audi has been busy making interesting concept sounds for their electric vehicles.
..."Let's teach more Americans to code. (Even the President is learning!)."
Wow.
>
Is it just me or does this mean the market for coders has topped out? It's like the "Time magazine cover indicator" for the stock market: When you see a cover that says "Stocks, how high can they go!", sell! When the cover says, "Stocks, no hope in sight...", buy!
With all of the political people talking about coding, it must be sign of some sort of market top in the industry. I also think it's true that coding is for people who like it for it's own sake, not just because someone says "that's where the jobs are." The people who have coding jobs are able to provide value because they are self-motivated and often self-taught as they progress in their careers. The political types don't get this, which is strange since they would probably be the first to say that no one in politics gets ahead without a lot of individual initiative.
Saw the interview, too. I think there is a quid-pro-quo with Charlie Rose and Hollywood: He does a certain number of interviews with people who make less than stellar movies, shall we say, but that allows him to arrange interviews with people from Hollywood who might otherwise say no. I have don't problem with the trade and on occasion even the people involved with the movies no one is going to watch are interesting. Alec Baldwin actually talked about this during one interview. He said "Of course we (he and the other actors on the show) are making the rounds to promote the movie, but at least we like talking to you." Pretty open about what was going on, but this it was Alec Baldwin after all...
There are two reasons I would like to see "Blackhat": The cinematography and Tang Wei. I'm curious to see how Tang Wei is in an American movie after she was blacklisted in China. She seems likes a capable actor so I would like to see her get new opportunities.
As for Chris Hemsworth, I thought he was good in "Rush". The movie was quite enjoyable and had plenty of interesting technical details for the geek audience. Maybe Ron Howard will make a movie about hacking. I think he would do a good job of it.
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The fact that this story is dominated by the merits of a headphone jack tells me Apple is adrift with regard to phones. If they were to announce that they were getting rid of the idiotic hardware button and go to the soft buttons Android has, (plus the finger print readers or biometric recognition, etc), that would be interesting. The iPhone is just being carried by apps now. Not that apps aren't important, they are, they are the only reason I have an iPhone, but the thing is an anachronism.
They should have used a water park theme instead, one with a jump and a shark. Then the customers could impress each other... oh wait.
There's another huge benefit to automation that I have not seen mentioned within the posts for this topic: Automation minimizes litigation risk. I saw a situation where accounting screwed up an employee's paycheck. She worked a few hours of OT she was not authorized to work. Accounting screwed up her time sheet and didn't pay her for the OT because they didn't catch it. (This was a part time employee who never worked 8 hours / day, but worked consecutive days which also constitutes OT.) The total amount of OT not paid was $120. The employee found the error, then turned it in to the labor department. That $120 mistake turned into $4,000 because of fines. I kid you not. Guess what impact this has on prospective employers - Slow to hire, quick to fire. Zero tolerance for any mistakes. Add to that all of the other labor laws, and you have accumulate a number of disincentives to hire anyone.
Ridiculous labor laws increase the incentive to use robotics. Litigation risk is probably more significant than the dollar amount of a minimum wage.
I find the Windows Phone's default swipe keyboard to be the best I have used. I find it marginally better than both HTC's swipe keyboard and also Google's keyboard.
Totally agree. I don't understand why they don't add the feature to the Surface devices, too. I use the full keyboard in a conventional fashion, but I have become so used to swiping short notes that I find it to be faster than typing.
No doubt a future episode of American Greed will be featuring Theranos. Ms. Holmes is an interesting character as all such individuals are at some level. What I would like to know is how she convinced a rather stellar list of individuals to become involved with her company.
Oddly enough I actually like the way they drive in China better than in the US. It's certainly true that Chinese traffic laws are more policy hints than laws, or so it seems, but Chinese drivers make maximum use of the roadway and gaps in traffic. For the most part, traffic keeps moving, but at slower speeds. In the US, people follow the laws so traffic flows faster. The problem with this is that when accidents do happen, they are usually at higher speeds and therefore a lot worse. I don't know how anyone could possibly drive in Beijing while being distracted by a phone. All the taxis I rode in were driven by people who had to be focused on the traffic around them. No way they could navigate it otherwise. For all of these reasons a self driving car that can navigate Chinese streets tells me the technology is advancing.
Chinese driving habits make crossing a street as a pedestrian a rather memorable experience. Good practice for getting used to self driving cars that slow down but don't stop when you are in front of them.
Because they require more service than an electric car, as the article mentioned. I don't buy the argument that electrics are too different from ICE cars Most car sales people don't know much about a full featured ICE car, either. Their primary objective is to sell you something on the lot, because it has a carrying cost. Better still, lease it to you or "help" you finance it and get you to buy an extended warranty. But the big money comes when you service it.
You can make an argument that having a lot of inventory is one advantage to the dealer system. But for the most part, I think car dealers are worthless and the process of buying a car is truly insulting, even with high end cars. My next car will be a Tesla or Uber or Lyft or some combination of the above. I'm done with ICE cars and the jokers who sell them.
The problem here is that there's a low-grade civil war brewing in Crimea after Russia's invasion. Wake me up when/if the US has a similar problem. Zzzzzz....
I would not be too complacent about this. Clearly we are going to reasonably wonder "could it happen here?" and what would it mean. A valid concern, but the much greater issue as I see it is that it appears Putin has a new and serious challenge on his hands. How many more problems can Russia manage before something snaps? A breakdown in Russia could be a very big problem, especially if it is chaotic.
My God Man! What you are describing sounds like a free market or something.
This is AMERICA!
Speaking of free market, how much longer until people don't need to own a car anymore? This is one of the promises of automation, but before that comes to fruition there will services such as Uber and Lyft that take the marginal car buying customer; people who live in cities. I would get rid of my car in an instant if I could. It's an expensive object and is parked most of the time. I share the opinion that dealerships are essentially worthless and provide the worst retail experience of all. But they will go the way of CDs. There will be a few dealers left selling specialty cars, but big dealers that exist today will be gone and no one will miss them.
I always wondered how the door handles would work after an ice storm or freezing rain. I've dealt with my share of frozen car door locks, but at least I could get the handle to move. I think the touch screen console was a big mistake. You need to be able to manage things like climate settings, radio stations, etc. by touch. Forcing the drive to look at a screen for mundane things was a bad idea. I don't own a Tesla, partly because they are so new and I don't like the design elements I mentioned. But I have driven one. There are very few other cars that are as much fun to drive.
Here is link about washing machines.
Portable ultrasound machines may also be highly disruptive in terms of the impact they are having on gender ratios.
In this case a "negative externality"
Wasn't there, don't know he people involved, so who knows what the situation was. What I don't like is the fact that Ahmed Mohamed didn't accomplish anything worth of presidential attention, yet he was invited to the White House. There are children who do far more interesting things. Let's not forget David Hahn. I think it can be said Hahn set the bar quite high for teenage science projects.
FYI:
Tesla Motors was founded by Martin Eberhardt and Marc Tarpenning. Musk was an early investor.
You must not be in California, where the labor laws are so stacked in favor of employees it is absurd. For example, if there is a wage and hour dispute, and employee can file a complaint with the DLSE. The first meeting is a settlement hearing, not one in which the facts are presented and discussed. IOW, the employer is guilty by default. If no settlement is reached, the employee can decide whether to go to a judgement hearing, or just sue. If the employee doesn't have a case, he or she will sue, paying their lawyer on a contingency basis. Because it costs so much to defend in court, employers are usually forced to settle for a 5 figure number. The employee doesn't incur much risk since we do not have "loser pays" in our legal system. I'm not saying that is always bad, but it does have an impact. Notice also that the NLRB just ruled franchise parents can be considered to be in the "dual employer" role. That means plaintiffs attorneys have deeper pockets to go after, so there will be a lot more of this litigation.
The cold result of this is that it becomes much more difficult for people with limited work skills or employment history to get a job. For an employer, it simply is not worth the risk. Of course the laws were put in place to protect employees against unscrupulous employers, but the reality is that the people who need jobs the most are the least likely to get them now. This is an unmentioned reason why we have a growing underclass of unemployed people. Ellen Pao has become one of these individuals since she is now known to be litigious and therefore an unacceptable risk. She might get a job at a non-profit, though, since non-profit directors have special immunities.
All Amazon is going to have in a few years is Type A assholes who are willing to kill themselves and they'll have no creatives, no inventors and nobody who actually is innovating. They'll have people who happily work 100 hour weeks to reduce the delay after clicking "Buy Now" and nobody coming up with the next Kindle.
Just noticing my own consumption patterns. I find myself buying far less from Amazon than I used to. I go the public library for most books now, keeping just a few in my Kindle app for reading while traveling or reference. I stream music now instead of buying it. I reverse showroom - Go to Best Buy, look at a few products, then read the reviews on Amazon to determine which one to buy since BB will match.
Amazon's big advantage in the early days was their ability to sell new products to consumers without sales tax. Bezos leveraged this to build mindshare and brand, but now he doesn't really have that huge advantage over other retailers. Sooner or later Amazon will be average internet retailer - Lots of products for sale with low margins. That may be one reason they push their people so hard, the profit margins they have now are not sustainable. Could even turn into another Sears.
It's possible that phone apps are the punch cards of the future. Most apps require a network connection. What if there is a better way to launch and manage them via Cortana and they run on a cloud system, turning your phone into smart terminal? Then you won't care what OS a phone running as long as it can render the information you want. Maybe Microsoft is now thinking "The Network Is The Computer" as Sun did years ago. The approach might work, it might not, but that would be a reason to get Cortana on as many platforms as possible.
, if Obama had done even half of what he promised to clean up the government, he could have asked for a Cuban-style health care system
Cuban-style health care system? I know an American who lives in Cuba. His wife (Cuban) had a spot on her tongue and was worried it might be cancer. The Cuban health care system could not schedule an exam for her for two months, so her husband flew her to the US to be looked at the next day. Turned out a dental fixture was irritating her tongue. Whenever the people I know have a problem they think requires immediate attention, they fly to the US. This doesn't happen very often, but at least they have a choice. In the meantime Cuba rents^H^H^H^Hsends its doctors to other countries to bring in money for the regime. No thanks.
Is this really a surprise? During the housing bubble years, unqualified in reality buyers got financing anyway and bought more then they could afford. Rents were dropping or flat because no one wanted to rent. Single family residences were favored over multi-family construction, apartments were being converted to condos or being torn down to be replaced by town homes. 2008, the SFR bubble bursts, leaving an unbalanced rental market in its wake: A huge contingent of former owners who had to rent, and a constrained supply of rental units. Today's rental pricing is the result, but it won't last. Of course developers are going to build more rental supply since that is where the money is today, so supply will increase. Owning a home will become more cost competitive compared to renting.
What I would like to know is what the average debt load of apartment owners is today. No doubt many are becoming as over-leveraged as home buyers were pre-2008 as they buy more rental properties. I'm guessing the rental market is in bubble territory today, but the best way to tell is to look at the debt of landlords. I would also like to know what sort of finance terms rental buyers are getting. I doubt they can get fixed rates, so a hike in rates by the Fed could really put the pressure on landlords. I'm not sure where to get this information, but I bet it is interesting. Buying rental property in 2009 was a great idea. Today probably not so much.
With that logo, they should have named it "Elvis"
Now that Gates is advising Nadella, I can imagine the conversations revolve around that fact that Microsoft never made the actual platform that ran Windows. Phones are a bit different, but logically is Android really so different from IBM, Phoenix, AMI, Award, etc., BIOS? Gates and Nadella probably think of Azure as Windows, sitting on top of Android or iOS instead of whatever BIOS, with Office 365 and every other cloud app being the equivalent of desktop apps in the PC era. I doubt they really care if Microsoft services are running on a Windows Phone in the long term.
Another observation: I have a Nexus, iPhone and Windows phone. My observation is that the iPhone has the best app implementation, the Nexus / Lollipop is close and "good enough", and that the Windows Phone is obviously second fiddle in the app world. Windows Phone has most of the apps I need, but not all, and the other problem is that even if Windows Phone has the apps I want, they are not maintained as well as the iOS and Android versions. That said, I am somewhat surprised to say how much better I find the Windows Phone UI to be over Android and iOS. I am guessing individually downloaded apps will matter less and less and integrated services more and more in the future, so Microsoft may very well achieve the same thing in the mobile world as they did in the PC world.
My condolences to you and your family.
/. post for her so that she can see it someday. It will tell her something about the community that you are part of, and that will tell her more about you, too.
I lost my dad when I was about the same age as your daughter. That was a long time ago, but I still wonder occasionally what it would have been like to have a father during those formative years. Rest assured your daughter will retain all of her good memories with you. I think writing down your thoughts for her, especially about turning points in life is a good idea, and making videos is, too. But the important thing to resolve from my experience is something work out with your wife. Kids need role models. After your daughter works her way through the trauma of your loss, I think she will seek someone to give her perspective since you will not be there for her, even if she is not consciously doing so. By no means am I suggesting your wife go out and "get a male role model" for her, but rather actively seek the opportunity to find one for your daughter. Maybe the "Big Brothers Big Sisters" program would be a good place to start when the time is right, or maybe another approach. I am sure you have discussed this sort of thing with your wife by now, but I looking back, having someone to go to in the absence of a parent makes a big difference after the loss. I would also archive this
Guess it's the geek in me, but when I think of all the noise being generated I think "Why is this energy going into sound instead of the wheels?" Sure, when I was a kid we all thought it was cool to flip the air filter covers and get glass packs, but now I think it is like sticking cards in your bicycle spokes. This is especially true now that I have had a chance to drive a Tesla: No vibration, or excess sound, just smooth power going right where you want it. Put your foot in it, and you are pushed back in your seat with very little noise. Driving a Tesla, or any decent electric is almost a transcendental experience after driving ICE cars. I read a review by someone who said Rolls Royce has to come out with an electric car because the experience is so much better. Of course electric cars are dangerously quiet for pedestrians, so a noise maker at low speeds is legit. Audi has been busy making interesting concept sounds for their electric vehicles.
Wow.
>
Is it just me or does this mean the market for coders has topped out? It's like the "Time magazine cover indicator" for the stock market: When you see a cover that says "Stocks, how high can they go!", sell! When the cover says, "Stocks, no hope in sight...", buy!
With all of the political people talking about coding, it must be sign of some sort of market top in the industry. I also think it's true that coding is for people who like it for it's own sake, not just because someone says "that's where the jobs are." The people who have coding jobs are able to provide value because they are self-motivated and often self-taught as they progress in their careers. The political types don't get this, which is strange since they would probably be the first to say that no one in politics gets ahead without a lot of individual initiative.
Saw the interview, too. I think there is a quid-pro-quo with Charlie Rose and Hollywood: He does a certain number of interviews with people who make less than stellar movies, shall we say, but that allows him to arrange interviews with people from Hollywood who might otherwise say no. I have don't problem with the trade and on occasion even the people involved with the movies no one is going to watch are interesting. Alec Baldwin actually talked about this during one interview. He said "Of course we (he and the other actors on the show) are making the rounds to promote the movie, but at least we like talking to you." Pretty open about what was going on, but this it was Alec Baldwin after all...
There are two reasons I would like to see "Blackhat": The cinematography and Tang Wei. I'm curious to see how Tang Wei is in an American movie after she was blacklisted in China. She seems likes a capable actor so I would like to see her get new opportunities.
As for Chris Hemsworth, I thought he was good in "Rush". The movie was quite enjoyable and had plenty of interesting technical details for the geek audience. Maybe Ron Howard will make a movie about hacking. I think he would do a good job of it.