Regardless of the opinions of anyone on "flatness"; a big motivator was a growing dislike of skeuomorphism amongst the public and Apple's developers. They couldn't get rid of it, though, because Scott Forrestal was in love with the idea and had the clout to force it on everyone. And when he bungled the Maps transition and "retired" later on, what should probably have been a more careful and gradual transition was rushed. causing some annoying peculiarities.

They didn't remove Pandora when they launched iTunes Radio. They didn't remove the Kindle app when they launched iBooks. Netflix is still available, despite the existence of the Movie and TV sections of the iTunes store. Chrome is available as an alternative to Safari. And when Apple dumped Google maps from its default position, Google fairly quickly came up with a less embarrassingly out-of-date maps app that's in the app store right now.

Why should it be any different with Spotify?

So, Apple is dominant this week, not doomed, beleaguered, suffering dramatic loss of market share, and just about to finally be utterly destroyed by the superior-in-every-way-both-morally-and-technologically juggernaught that is Android... like they were last week?

It's so hard to keep that straight.

Well, this was Massachusetts; where light-up Mooninite signs are treated as a "terrorist threat" worthy of a city-wide alert; wearing a t-shirt with some blinkenlights on it is "justification" for threatening Course VI students with submachine guns (and then arresting them); and where police, entering with neither warrant nor invitation, accost (black) university professors in their own homes, arresting them for disturbing the peace should they get irate and raise their voice; and all of this goes unpunished.

So, expecting a reasonable and calm common-sense reaction out of the police there is Quixotic at best.

Well, even if he did open fire; an Imperial Stormtrooper would be hard-pressed to hit the side of the school's *buildings* at more than ten yards or so. So, unless I'd happened to wear a red shirt to school that day, I wouldn't worry very much.

It's true that Honda and Toyota don't have much interesting going on beyond the new Civic Type R and the FRS (Which is actually a re-badged Subaru.). There are, of course, those rumors of a new Supra, but I'll believe that when I see it. And that airbag issue is just disgraceful.

Mazda, Subaru, and Nissan however, are all putting out vehicles that are innovative, fantasic to drive, and every bit as reliable as Japan's reputation for quality would lead you to believe.

Maybe the Army has been pretty pragmatic about what works and getting rid of boondoggle projects this last decade. But the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps sure do seem to be fully committed to burning billions upon billions of dollars in the F-35 money pit.

> stupidity on the part of a few cops doesn't mean
> we're living under ISIS.

When those cops go unpunished it means we're moving in that direction. I'm not saying that the sky is falling and it's for sure we'll get to the point where it's that bad. But we do have a serious problem with increased militancy on the part of the police and a lack of accountability for their misconduct. And it's not out of line at all to call their pattern of abuse to reigned in and to have the abusers punished.

Also, modern pressure cookers are not the same beast as those old relics. They're programmable and multi-function. Mine also functions as a slow cooker, rice cooker, steamer, and yogurt maker; allowing me to save space by owning one appliance instead of four (I don't actually make my own yogurt. But I could.). For someone without a lot of time to cook, it's fantastic. I can just measure the ingredients, toss them into the pot, seal it, start the program, and go off to do other things. It even releases the pressure automatically after it's done cooking. So I get a fantastic dinner while investing a fraction of the time, effort, and attention.

It's not that theft is an uncommon crime though. It's just that the police don't want to be bothered investigating thefts, arresting thieves, or recovering your property. A stolen car will get a bit of attention. But for just about anything else, the best you can realistically count on is them letting you go into a station and fill out a report that a desk officer will sign and photocopy so you can file a claim with your homeowner's or renter's insurance. Even if your stolen property is GPS enabled, and you can show them on a map a 100 ft. circle where it is, you won't get any help (Not if you're "little people" anyway. A corporation with a stolen prototype will get plenty of help.).

Violent or not, thieves are scum. I'd happily replace every single drug offender, of any kind or level, in prison with a thief.

This is terrible.

Just how are body cams supposed to do their job of uncovering and providing evidence of police misconduct if the footage can be redacted, automatically or otherwise? These people are public servants who have a history... an especially ugly and heinous history in the last year or so... of misconduct on the job and dodging accountability for said misconduct. I don't have any particular expectation of privacy from my employer during the performance of my job. Why should they?

You do realize that, unless you're 100% solar or otherwise disconnected from the grid, the electricity you charged your Tesla with is also taxed. Why should it matter whether the tax is paid piecemeal at the gas pump or on your monthly electric bill?

> I understand that semis tear up the roads more than
> cars, so yes, an extra road tax for them is not
> unreasonable.

I don't even see why that is necessary. Those very same semi trucks also use a lot more gas than a Prius or similar. Likewise, one of the ways said Prius, or any other hybrid, achieves it's high mileage is by being as lightweight as possible. And lighter weight cars cause less wear and tear on the roads and should pay less to maintain them. So just set the gas tax such that it's sufficient to bring in whatever revenue is necessary and be done with it; with no invasive monitoring.

Sure, there will be boundary cases. Some exotic sports cars are lightweight but have low mileage because they're designed for speed and acceleration, not efficiency. And electric cars, obviously, do not use gas; though i'm pretty sure the electricity itself is taxed (At least it is in my state.). But in both of these cases, they're rare enough that they really don't need to figure into the equations.

The last time I flew, the little map w/ the airplane icon gave only a very rough approximation of where were actually were. Just from looking out the window, it was apparent that it was tens of miles off... almost 50 at times. (It was showing that we were way down by Moffat Field, when we were *landing* at SFO.

So, on Virgin America's A320s at least, I highly doubt that the passenger entertainment map data comes from any FMS. The thing would be useless to the pilot if it was that far off.

> aren't always entirely honest

That's an understatement if there ever was one. Outright dishonesty is pretty much a requirement to work in sales or marketing. How else do make a claim that some sugar-laden, tooth-rotting, breakfast cereal is "a healthy part of a balanced breakfast" while showing a "breakfast" that easily has better than half the calories one should eat for the entire day?

I think that's where a bit part of the assumption of the stupidity on the part of sales and marketing types comes from. It's a lot harder to be dishonest as an engineer. A pice of code either works, or it doesn't. A bridge or building either stands up to its designed load, or it collapses. And there's a very common assumption amongst honest people that dishonest people are dumb, because if they were smart, why would they have to resort to lies?