Genres come and go. The superhero genre has run its course. Poor writing hasn't helped. M-She-U, anybody? Ugh!
Give people something entertaining and they'll pay to watch it. Barbie and Oppenheimer weren't superhero movies. Nor was The Eras Tour. All three made a bundle.
...laura
If women aren't interested in such careers, who cares? We're all different.
If there are barriers to womens' participation in technology, that is a problem. Some workplaces are a little too much of a frat house atmosphere. This is a bona fide problem, but it's not the subject of this silly article.
Yes, sometimes I get tired sometimes of being the only woman in the office or in meetings. It's a rare treat when there are other women around, whether we go for coffee and doodle equations on napkins, discuss fashion trends or DSP algorithms over lunch, whatever.
...laura
You can't mandate a technology that doesn't work unless you have other goals in mind.
We (I'm Canadian) don't have the electricity infrastructure, nor will we by 2035. Danielle Smith and Scott Moe have been shouting this until they're blue in the face but the feds are so driven by dogma they don't listen. Here in B.C. we have good answers, 98% of our electricity is generated by hydro dams, but we need a lot more capacity. Big capacity, Site C-level, not solar farms that don't generate at night or in the winter.
In time the technology will be useful and cost-effective and people will adopt it. EVs have their attractions - I'd be happy to have one as an around-town runabout if I had somewhere to plug it in at home - but they're not there yet. I look forward to the day when they will be. They have a lot to offer.
...laura
I was there the second night and wasn't at all surprised that the show was seismic. I assume the big seismograph peaks coincided with 22 and Shake It Off. Lumen Field was really bouncing around.
...laura
I'm currently doing development on Android and iOS. On Android we use Firebase. On Apple we use APNS directly.
As recommended by both Apple and Google our notification payloads are minimal: "You've got mail!". The app then phones home to retrieve its messages. I'm curious what you could learn from the notifications. We know the messages themselves are sensitive and take care to protect them. We know about CALEA and related laws, but this is way about my paygrade.
...laura
How did they all get to Dubai? Oh. Right. OK...
If such a conference is necessary and must happen in person, it might be a nice touch to have it in a town that is genuinely on the front line. In Canada I nominate Timmins, Ontario or Prince George, BC.
That the climate is changing is obvious. What to do about it (if anything) is not at all obvious. Socialism always seems to be the answer, no matter what the actual problem is...
...laura
Years ago my employers decided we needed maps on our web-based application. Google Maps was in its infancy and didn't really have commercial terms, so we bought a mapping package (MapInfo) and figured out how to make it play with our software. The initial performance was disastrous. I figured out how to make it less disastrous.
I also spent some time designing attractive maps. I collected paper maps (I like maps anyway), picked out the ones I liked, tried to identify why I liked them. Made MapInfo draw similar maps. Liked what I saw. I even bought a couple of fonts from Adobe to dress up the presentation, to try to make the maps ours. I subsequently attended a map design session at a MapInfo user's conference and confirmed I was generally on the right track.
Then the Powers That Be said our maps had to look like Google Maps. So they did.
...laura
I loved The Eras Tour, first time I'd seen a movie in a theater snce Skyfall.
On TV/streaming I'm just finishing up Reacher, but that's a 2022 leftover.
...laura
We know where Taytay stands on various subjects (e.g. Lavender Haze, You Need To Calm Down), but it's never intrusive. Her music comes first. Fans respect that.
I saw her in Seattle back in July. A spectacular show, worth every penny.
...laura
Give people what they want and they'll pay money to see it. Don't, and they won't.
Taylor Swift's home movie was the second-highest-grossing concert film before it even opened.
...laura
The Beatles were enormously influential in their day - and, arguably, still are - but they broke up when I was 9 years old. I'm 62 now. A lot has happened since then.
Like all modern recordings/reissues/remasters this one sounds more like a really good tribute band than the Fab Four themselves. Nor are they breaking any new ground: Now and Then sounds like a B side from Abbey Road or Let It Be.
...laura
If an electric car meets my needs at a price I can afford, I'll consider it. If it doesn't, I won't.
At the moment no EV meets my needs. They're interesting, but (for me) just not there yet. If I had somewhere to plug one in at home I'd consider a low-end EV as an around-town runabout. They're good for that. Since I don't - I live in an apartment and the building management aren't interested - I won't be driving an EV any time soon.
...laura
How are transmission rates a useful metric? Testing positive isn't a death sentence and never was. It's no joke, but it's not ebola. COVID really fucked some people up. That's the metric that matters.
People just didn't like masks. Scientific results were beside the point.
...laura
I work from home, and have done so for a long time. I have to be really sick to not be able to work. Maybe once in the last 10 years?
I used to have colleagues who viewed their sick time as extra personal time to be taken at will. I didn't. I don't.
...laura
Here in western Canada the temperatures were seasonal this summer, despite the OMG WERE ALL GOING TO DIE narrative.
The drought, on the other hand, is serious. Low snow pack over the winter, bone dry spring. We've had a really bad forest fire season. I know the fire people are working their asses off, but if we're spending that much with that little to show for it, maybe we need to rethink things?
What are we supposed to do about it?
...laura
The optimum committee has no members. -- Norman Augustine
