I'd rather you be able to both communicate effectively and do reasonable design, so as to avoid embarrassing, very very expensive, or fatal problems. The idea that somehow STEM grads naturally pick up on how to communicate effectively is about as laughable as the idea that humanities students learn science through daily life, and the idea that somehow STEM education is so difficult that you have to skip out on humanities is absurd.

I know- it's so terrible to have a sub-$200 laptop that boots in seconds and that has everything stored in the cloud so if my kids break it I can replace it trivially.

Google certainly will- its dominance in search means the FTC might take a rather dim view of them excluding alternates on Android.

Apple might not, although they allow lots of other MS apps including some that compete directly such as Office365 vs. iWork. My guess is that most iOS users are so embedded in Apple's ecosystem that switching to a less-well integrated app away from Siri will be the choice of just about nobody.

Please tell me you're being ironic here. If not, please go read about pTerry's views a bit before commenting again

You missed one: Iain Banks, 59.

Pratchett's death is the most depressing news for me since I read of Banks' demise.

What's wrong with Hangouts? You have a better option for a free video conferencing service that can handle ten people at a time?

Lots of people, you among them. It's not even a matter of "Well, there are 300 makers of this product with odd Chinese names, or LG. Hmmm- which to pick?", it's just getting the name out there at all so that you know they might be a supplier, especially if it's a new market. One of my employees sent me a note yesterday on a special type of active HDMI cable that might solve a problem we have right now. Are they the best? I don't know, but chances are I'll make note of the name when I'm doing a search for that type of cable. That tiny bit of brand recognition does make a difference, even if you think it doesn't.

I work pretty hard to keep ads out of my life, but I'm well aware they manage to affect me anyway.

Did I just see the availability of games on an Apple device being touted as an *advantage* over Windows? Man, comp.sys.mac.advocacy must be exploding... (BTW, I have Steam on my Surface, so there's not exactly a lack of games for it)

Kind of the same boat. Via work I have an iPad 2, Nexus 7 (first gen), MS Surface, Samsung Chromebook and HTC One phone. The Chromebook is my primary portable machine (email/web/notes), the Surface is really useful for certain specialized tasks, and the phone is always there, but the iPad and Nexus pretty much gather dust. The keyboard/trackpad combination is just really hard to beat for most tasks, and the Chromebook's is better than the Surface's. Doing any kind of real work on an iPad is just a recipe for high blood pressure.

The iPad is useful as a ereader when I'm on an exercise bike, so there is that...

Really? Boeing returned a first stage booster from an orbital launch to the ground, intact? [Citation please] I've been following the space program since I was born- my first memory is Apollo 11, and I'm pretty sure Boeing has never managed anything like this at all.

And yes, the LEM managed a landing and ascent. On the moon. With no air. And 1/6th the gravity. And using separate ascent and landing stages- the stage that launched to lunar orbit was *not* recovered intact, and the landing stage was discarded after descent. It's not exactly the same problem.

*stands*

Debated modding or replying here, but I'll echo this with a (quiet) absolutely.

Quiet is so rare these days people freak out when they (don't) hear it. I have a private office at work and it's still noisy- spillover noise from outside conversations, air handler, nearby printers, etc. I get a few minutes of it at nighttime and I'll often lay and enjoy it- enough quiet that I can hear a soft breeze outside or my wife breathing.

It's a lot like dark- very few people have ever been someplace actually *dark*, and their first action is to turn on a light rather than let their eyes adapt.

Obligatory

If he said anything other than "$5 pair of reading glasses" get a new optometrist. I had exactly the same experience with progressive lenses, and hated them. I put the prescription ones away and bought a pile of $5 2.0x reading glasses which are fine. The next trip back to the doc he asked how I was doing, then wrote my prescription for plain old 2x glasses.

(I actually mostly use $30 ones now- I can get anti-glare/anti-reflective/oleophobic coated, scratch resistant polycarbonate glasses with memory titanium frames online)

I always like the articles magazines like Forbes publish about Amazon. They're tired of seeing Amazon make no profit because it plows all its income back into infrastructure- "It's time for Amazon to start providing a return for investors". Fuck that- stockholders can get stuffed. If you want dividends, buy something else. Amazon (and Google) are thinking years to decades ahead, and they'll be stronger for it long after all the companies that took Forbes' advice are dead.