Wasn't there a large period of cold around the 70s? such that fear monger scientists were worried about a global ice age and wanted to coat antartica with soot?
Wonder if that lowered the average for the 20th century any...

Limit profits, or profit margins? Answer this question intelligently and you may be taken seriously.

Why should a corp be taxed for being more efficient? Sounds like the Button Guild to me.

Awfully nice of him to volunteer other people's money.

Look, it's simple. If one can't perform a function better than a machine, find another function to perform. Robots handle repetitive (often unskilled) tasks quickly, cheaply, and reliably. They are unitaskers. They do one thing. They do it extremely well, the same way, every time. As a human, you are pretty darn adaptable, or at least capable of being so.

tl;dr: whatever your definition of 'feminine design' is, it's likely not efficient, or costs extra. Rectangles are are cheap to make and efficient, nothing to do with maleness.

Efficiency and cost savings had everything to do with 80s and 90s computer designs. Nothing gendered specific at all. It's easier to fold sheets of steel at 90 degree angles for box shapes to hold rectangular parts. Glass and clear plastic panels were a luxury then as it is now, with no business wanting to waste money on something that didn't add to the performance. Likewise, consumers wanting to save money often didnt care or want these features, leaving it to the enthusiasts to custom mod or drive the market for such things. It wasn't until apple decided to market towards the 'hip' crowd with plastic fishtanks with no upgradability than color really entered the mainstream. And they charged a hefty premium for it too, and still do.

rectangular shapes are easier to model heat and air flow through rather than whatever your definition of 'feminine' shape is, i'll presume something curvy. Heat and airflow being highly important to computers, even in modern times with fancy water cooled light up systems, they are just icing on the true goal of highly efficient cooling.

Agreed. Some people it just comes naturally, some have to work for it, others will never get it, or will never be better than a mediocre coder bc they just cant grasp certain concepts and internalize them.

I'm one of the fortunate that grasped it naturally, programming in one language or another from the age of four after old man taught me to count in binary. My old man doesn't get it, he's hardware, my kid kind of gets it, but it's not her thing. I've never had to work hard for it, but I absorbed, out of pure curiosity and desire to always-be-better, every bit of knowledge I could on the subject. Projects have been challenges to overcome, but never a struggle.

But i've seen ppl struggle with it, trying to grasp a pattern of something and having difficulty. Some ppl have to translate things in intermediary steps before they can understand it, where to me it's as obvious as breathing.

Sometimes, pushing more ppl to code gives them a bad experience and either turns them off from it, or teaches bad lessons that then propagate further in technical life. It's not for everyone, nor should everyone have a basic understanding of it bc that leads to bad designs from insufficient knowledge and experience from ppl who think they know enough.

Ppl that go to programming will either pull themselves up from their boot straps out of a love and interest of the field well before college, or they will see it as a career path and put in the hard work to get there. The knowledge is out there without university, and easily found.

and also Right to Work laws so one can't be forced into a union, and the ability of the employer to terminate unions should it choose.

Everyone knows the hockey stick is bogus manipulation of data.

It'd be nice to have fiber everywhere. It'd be nice to have jetski for each foot, and a dolphin with mechanical spider legs to walk around town as a chariot.

It's not a right to have any of these things. If my state or local municipality wants to provide for these things at my tax payer expense, well, as a tenth amendment adherent, fine. but not a federal program. I'd prefer government not being involved at all, at any level. Let an investor take the gamble to spread fiber to areas they think they can turn a profit. If their analysis thinks it's not worth it, well, that sucks, but no one should be forced to subsidize.

My old man lives in the boonies and cable internet stops a block from him. It sucks, but that's the breaks, there aren't enough residences to justify the cost of expanding the network further, and I certainly dont want to give government subsidies to an already shitty cable company.

Myself, I choose to live in a fiber neighborhood. I made the conscious choice to do so, and my cost of living is higher and I suck down gigabit internet. All my choice in where I want to be. My old man prefers his privacy of shooting guns on his property and walking outside buck nekkid and not giving a damn what his neighbors think. his choice to live there, i couldnt do it.

But i'm certainly not going to pay for ppl that have no connection to me, not even in my county or state, to have access. that's their responsibility.

There is obviously more to the story than just getting read ended. Hell i've been rear ended by a drunk and shoved under an SUV in front of me.

Long story short, don't do things that get you in the legal system in the first place.

I made a multiplayer co-op map of my highschool back at the time filled with demons and shared around. Great learning opportunity in how to make maps and stuff.

Nowadays, i'd have been expelled, arrested, and branded a psychopath for life just for discussing the idea of making such a map in highschool.

Is money.
Google et al, scum buckets and hives of villany tho they all are, spent money to collect, organize, store, and maintain that data. If a government wants to license that data on behalf of it's citizens for whatever mutually agreed upon price, more power to them. If they want to dictate that the information be given up or seized just bc they say so, well, thats how revolutions get started as Britain learned a couple centuries ago.

Thats not how TFA describes the situation. Having design many such systems converting paper to UI with appropriate fields handled by the appropriate ppl, this isn't hard to do. It's either a failure in planning, or someone said "yes, this field needs to be filled out and the docs need to do it" and the docs are griping bc they could get away with it in the past.

If the doctors are ignoring the fields on paper forms, why were they even on paper forms?
If the answer is bc doctors are SUPPOSED to fill in these fields, well, shit, can't blame a program for enforcing what doctors are supposed to be doing anyway.

My doctor has a wonderful app that they use for patient sign in and info updates on ipads for patients to use. nice big text, large button for old fogies, simple and straightforward to use and prevents mistakes.

Except Wheaton is one of the biggest violators of that.