Do we know when Vulkan was conceived? The trademark for Vulkan was filed in February, so... I don't know the behind the scenes dynamics at Khronos or Apple.

Metal has been worked on since at least 2013, when the betas for iOS 8 were being written. Metal as an API has been ready to ship since iOS 8 came out. Vulkan's still in the proof of concept stage and might replace or augment Metal in the future.

Is Vulkan ready yet?

Because Metal has been shipping since iOS 8 and usable now.

Microsoft has their own API but you're not crying foul about DirectX

Back in 2008...

Symbian code signing was like 200 bucks every six months(So 400 a year!) back in the Symbian days and you got little to no support.

BlackBerry signing was a little complicated and had three tiers of API usage, each tier costing $100.

Qualcomm had their own requirements that was something like 100 apps for 400 bucks for use on the Verizon game store.

So in 2008 when Apple announced that it was going to only cost $100 bucks for unlimited apps and all public APIs with a storefront that you could make money on, it was a godsend.

Apple sheep here(I own 3 daring fireball shirts, so I think that should establish my sheep cred here).

It's marketing pablum. It's not slower, and really, that's more than what I can say for other OS upgrades.

errr. no?

You're assuming that we completely pay off the debt. That's a really bad idea, because that's just getting our balance sheet to completely zero for no good reason other than the fact that zero is an arbitrary round number.

Having debt and being able to create debt is a good thing, because it allows for money to flow in and out of the system. Having some debt on hand shows that we're serious about trading on our obligation and allows us to borrow when we need money. It also means that when we face inflationary periods we can put all of that extra money somewhere and plug the hole.

Being able to meet our debt obligations and having a debt small enough where our obligations are not onerous on our budget is what's important. Not being free of it.

Finance at the national level isn't anything close to what finance is like at the personal level. Even then, having some credit lines open and having some debt on the books is a good idea. Maybe not thousands and thousands of dollars worth, but most of us will own a home or have a credit card or two that's got some debt on it.

if you want to know why Apple is beating the pants out of everyone else in the computing industry, it's because they give a shit about those touchy feelie humanities stuff.

The purpose of "higher education" is two fold. It is to get you a prescribed training to get you a specific skill set to perform job duties as required. The second part, is to get you a piece of paper, proving you've completed said prescribed training.

No it's not. You're just stating it. Show me where "getting a job" is part of any college's charter that isn't a for profit school.

Again, you're confusing education with training. It's not just training. It's about learning about the larger world around you. What you're looking for is vocational school, not college.

A person can do all such things without going to college. Education doesn't always require a degree from a 4 or 8 year college program. The two part answer I gave above is relevant here. A degree in Women's Studies simply means you've completed the prescribed course. It doesn't mean you understand women. I am not even sure that is possible (JK)

You need jesus. And a few classes in Women's Studies.

Why? Why should I pay for some idiot to get a degree in Woman's Studies? One that you have already admitted being economically worthless? Government paid education sounds great, until you factor in economic viability of those degrees. Government sucks at economics.

Why? Because that's what they want to study. There's more to life than money. We already do 12 years of Government paid education. Why is another 4 impossible?

Government is *great* at economics, btw. I don't know where you're coming up with that. Actually Government is only as good at economics as the people who run it. But it's not this economically destructive force you paint it to be. Having the Federal and/or State/Municipal Government pay for education at institutions they're already supporting isn't a huge leap.

Here is the test. If a person (or business) fails, that person pays for it. If Government fails, everyone pays more. There is no incentive to prevent government failures, just raise taxes (all taxes are regressive)

That's a crappy test. If we have less people with quality college level educations and more people with crappy loan debt then that's the test.

Because having a bunch of janitors who are philosophy majors means that when it comes time to vote, we aren't going to elect a bunch of morons next go around because we have a generation of people who find it pleasurable and worth their while to be educated on the merits of education.

Also it means that being a janitor isn't such a bad job when you don't have to worry about student loan payments eating into your income.

We're also fighting major wars overseas with historically low tax rates.

If we set the top marginal tax rate to like 40% instead of 35, and closed corporate tax loopholes and taxed HFT at like a fraction of a penny per trade and stopped fighting expensive wars, we could easily afford to do a lot of things.

The problem isn't the budget deficit itself, it's the amount we owe in interest and our obligations on our debt. If we can pay that off, then the deficit itself doesn't matter.

Because as a collective whole, tax payers can afford to pay for college for everyone. But as individuals, a lot of people are falling through the cracks because of socioeconomic imbalance. Even people who would've been well off a generation ago are struggling.

Why bother doing anything on a collective group level if it means someone has to pay for anything to help anyone else? I mean, it's not my house on fire or me that's being mugged, what's in it for me? I drive, why bother paying for public transport infrastructure?

yeah but no game is going to be as good as MGS V: The Phantom Pain.

Even if the gameplay is as good or better, I'm pretty invested at this point in the story line so, I care about that more than just raw gameplay.

If the gameplay is awful then whee hype train just plowed through the terminus and completely derails, but all reports seem to be that yes, it's worth the hype.

First, why is it the purpose of higher education to get you a job?

You, like a lot of other people in tech nerdy spaces are confusing higher education with vocational training.

From your example, getting a degree in Women's Studies might not be great for finding a job alone, but if you're interested in understanding the context that women live in, then it's invaluable and you can't put a price on it.

Second, even if it is free, getting a CS degree or a physics degree or an MD or any other degree that is difficult still requires you to actually show up and do the work. You're just now burdened only by doing the work and not figuring out how to pay for the privilege of working your brains out to get a mastery of that subject matter.

Yes, because it's a good idea to give out college level educations.

Like, getting a BA in Philosophy might not be a great way to have a career, but it is worth it to round out one's education.

The idea that the firs twelve years of someone's education should have a free tier but any education after that comes out of our own pockets is laughable.

That's not to say that there's not a place for private institutions that charge tuition, but with the way things are going, we're going to have to prop up public universities and colleges anyway, so why not just make it free and stop squeezing students?

The NES got a trickle of games for it from 1991, release of the U.S. Super Nintendo, until 1995, U.S. release of the final game for the system.

So it's not been instantly.

Measuring in inches?

Yes. That's largely only an American thing.