"You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain"

Once upon a time, Google was a tech company that used advertising as a means to an end. Now they're an advertising firm with an end to a means?? Does that actually make sense? I dunno.

I miss Google Chrome Frame. It helped me cope with the disgusting soul-rot brought about by IE. Hopefully the day won't come when there's a need for Firefox Frame, though it may already be here?

I'm James and I get paid to write software. The one actual whiteboard interview I had, I intentionally did not really try to appease the process. I was well-familiarized with it and could have easily prepared. But I decided to use the process to filter unworthy employers. The recruiter asked me to implement some basic things on his whiteboard in C. I gave him pseudo-code and commented that I've written many things, including a compiler. Syntax while technically relevant is not actually relevant. Suffice to say, he didn't seem convinced and I went on to work with another (awesome) company who cared about my attitude most. I figured if that actually mattered to them, then they weren't right for me. Years later I talked to a friend who'd worked at the whiteboard interviewing place, he told me I'd dodged a bullet.

It is hilarious, the cosmic double standard. I love that getting replacement parts/service/accessories for apple stuff is super easy.

Smart Phones are so far from what Phones used to be. They're their own class of device and really ought to have a different name entirely, as they're really really far from just being phones now. Same goes for Smart Watches, especially an Apple Watch. If you genuinely only wanted a watch, then buying an Apple Watch would be pretty hilariously misguided, for all the obvious reasons. I recently took the plunge as someone close to me died of a pointless heart attack and I started to feel my age. These devices being ON our skin and fastened to our body have a unique vantage point to enable health-centric apps. I'm now watching my heart rate (and logging to HealthKit) all the time. I keep a decent record of my motion. I'm gaining a little insight in to my sleeping patterns, etc. These medical features are valuable to me. Beyond them, the watch is kind of nifty and handy in small ways. Without the medical aspects, then smart watches wouldn't really get very far. I think we'll find because of the health focus, they have a good fighting-chance to carve out a healthy niche.

If you aren't interested in the medical/fitness features, then I agree. However, for monitoring your body, I think they'll become fairly well adopted. Probably not ever in the under ~40 crowd.

+1 this jives. Apple is poorly understood and receives comical amounts of hate. Nevertheless, they're massive for a reason.

I guess I'm not a person then. Because I just bought an Apple Watch Series 1. I did so because I wanted a decent heart rate monitor and I figured if I paid double I could get a fairly good one that doubled as a toy. I'm enjoying it just fine, even wrote a little app for it too (getting it published on the App Store was painful, but done). Suffice to say, they're not for everyone, but I like them. I guess that's why they'll go away. Most products I like aren't ideal for idiots and since that's the crowd that gets all the love..... (*weeps softly*)

Tell that to the telegraph operators with burned hands from a big CME back in the 1800s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859

+1: Perfect!

Well said. I totally agree.

This outcome is because early successes build confidence and lower resistance to learning new things in our education systems. The discovery a strong correlation here is a symptom of our flawed education systems. I struggled massively as a child and after two hard-fought degrees, I have become a successful engineer. The correlation certainly isn't a law.

(*Bursts in to tears*). To even mention IE6. It has ruined my self-esteem as an open source web app developer, trying to serve up modern solutions to a non-tech company. IE6. You are my nemesis.

Since I doubt this thing can pass the Turing Test, I'm skeptical. A cool notion and significant effort. But still, seems pretty far fetched. I hope it works well.

I use Google Reader OFTEN. Multiple times per day. I used it to bring me to this article. I also used Google Notebook heavily. When they retired it, it wasn't so bad, because they'd then started Google Docs (AKA Google Drive). However, Reader isn't being replaced, it's just being stabbed in the face and thrown in the dead-pile. I don't overly blame Google, as it probably doesn't pay for itself nor would I be willing to pay for it if they asked me to, I'd just spool up my own private web app, which I'm in the process of doing, btw. Still, I'm saddened by this attitude of optimizing margins and catering to the biggest level of user literacy. At least we still have Open Source software and the like.

$200K+ for sharing 24 songs? Those profound douche-baggery. I'm so glad that newer methods are emerging to kill off the record label. This is an example of the industry that we call "The legal system", milking the life-force out of lady justice and then ripping her corpse apart and devouring it without a napkin. There's no measure of justice involved at all. Was there REALLY $222K in damage? Hell no, she helped advertise a brand, of sorts. What a disgusting farce. Glad I don't live in the states.