"Never buy used GPU" is taking it way too far, but that sentiment is still there for discounting their prices. Electronics do experience wear and tear, though not in the same way traditional mechanical parts do. Nothing lasts forever. Capacitors, resistors, diodes, LEDs, even the circuitry itself. Multiple reasons but it all really comes down to chemistry. Take metal whiskers as a particularly interesting phenomenon. For the past 20 years I've been on a 3-5 year cycle where either the performance gains demand an upgrade, or my old car simply kicks the bucket. There's always a reluctance to buy used, hence everyone expects the discount!

I dunno man. The first 2 of those 3 of those candidates were pretty popular until the public get a better glimpse of what they were really like and started babbling some really weird garbage. You'll need better examples than them to use the words "wrongly disqualified". Carly Fiorina on other hand, maybe. She could never message her tenure at HP as CEO properly. Sure, she took over the company when it was having rough times but its own board fired her. That was a tough sell on her public image. Unfortunately public image wins in public offices.

You sir, have hit the nail right on the head. Congratulations on your bullseye.

Words of encouragement are always a beautiful thing!!! I just had to call out the overuse of the cliche regarding "things used to be better" theme. I couldn't help it, it's become a trigger for me. But just because I think things have never been better certainly doesn't mean I think things couldn't be better. Go, continue doing God's work!

I don't buy into your alarmism because intellectuals have been singing this same song for thousands of years now. I think we sometimes fail to realize most of humanity never engaged in any critical thinking beyond headlines and sound bites to begin with. Homo sapiens living or contemplating the lives Aristotle, Newton, Einstein, Hawking, or the like have always been in the extreme minority.

That being said, these things just like every other technology, they're nothing more than tools. Even the cost of being spied on is nothing new, internet and credit cards anyone? How you use these tools is what has always mattered. I enjoy my Alexa because of all the home automation and app integration it brings to the table, where it really excels. It pales at understanding simple questions however, something Google's is better at. So I for one am happy to see Google's product seeing greater adoption. I hope this will spur Google for greater integration in the home automation and integration arena finally. I'd be happy to see a product that handles both really well

I would say neither of you are really wrong. There are a lot of economic forces there at work. What's true for Austin is not true for the entire US, what's true for the entire US (average) is certainly not true for Austin either. Anyone can pull up any city example and easily be countered with a different city with different conditions. I can bring up my location, like Western New York, which is your stereotypical rust belt city, and contradict everything you're seeing in Austin. Houses here are extremely affordable and jobs are few but pay "OK". I think this is your classic example of why we can't use national averages and look at everything as if it actually applies. There is certainly a national trend of many companies focusing their operations in dense cities (like Austin) for many good reasons instead of being more disbursed a tad more evenly around the country. Talent, infrastructure, innovation, tax benefits, etc. One painful side effect is this is creating an exponential feedback loop. More people, more jobs, less space. There are companies that are wising up to this problem but there are only very few willing to take the risk of moving/expanding operations in cities with fewer opportunities. Can we really blame them? So in major hubs, it's only going to get worse. I don't see how it's ever going to get better.

You're certainly not wrong!

I know plenty of examples in both camps. Older devs that are more current than I am, younger devs that are less current than I am. Like you said, the key is being able to learn. Not everyone is. There's a whole spectrum of where peoples' minds are at. Some only dedicate time to learning on the job. Some people and digest blogs, articles, and books everyday like dinner. I will say, based on my own anecdotal experiences and opinions, there is a higher tendency that as people fill their lives with non-technical-based things, it begins to weigh down on the likelihood of them staying current on tech. Whether it's family, grandkids, dating, partying, age, managerial growth, money, other hobbies, etc. I mean there's definitely the biological factor that we don't learn as quickly as we all get older, but I'd like to think wisdom and experienced counteract that for much of our professional careers. Age itself might be one of those coincidental factors that plays up the stereotype. At least to a certain point. Despite the presence of survivors, the herd definitely thins out over time. I can use my father-in-law as a great anecdotal example. He started on punch cards and ended on doing .Net MVC in his early 60's. Gave him a lot of respect for that but he eventually reached a point where he developed a "know it all, but really doesn't" attitude that annoyed his other colleagues. Old people tend to repeat themselves a lot. I notice it even more in myself even though I'm only in my mid 30s and it's a little scary lol.

Agreed, as much as I "bible thump" for global climate change. I really, really detest the political-left's eagerness to jump on every unusual weather phenomenon as proof of climate change. Climate != weather as Macro economics != micro economics. It's as foolish looking at the price of Twinkies at your local gas station to declare a rise in inflation. One rare weather occurrence over the past even 100 years struggles to break past simple anecdotal status. If we could have somehow tracked weather events over the past thousand years, across the entire globe, it would be a heck of a lot easier to dry to draw some tangible conclusions from these events.

Very insightful. Yes we're taught which only exacerbates the problem of boys bullying feminine boys, but in the larger context and time scales of evolution, I don't think this would be quite unnatural to instinct either. Looking at our immediate evolutionary ancestors and relatives the sexual dimorphism is fairly apparent but not as obvious as some species. Still, it's never that simple. Even more importantly than that, bullying transcends sex and gender, and carries many faces. The desire to dominate others are just our instinctual brutish attempts to rise to power through whatever means necessary.

It's not easy for everyone to rise above their nature to override their instincts. No matter how "civilized" society becomes. It'll always be a part of who we are. I haven't watched this star trek yet but that was one of the subtle themes I really, really latched onto in TNG. I found it interesting that humanity achieving such dazzling levels of civility and wisdom, elements of our primitive selves remained nonetheless.

I typically hate the response I'm about to give since I've always felt it to be a cover-all-cop-out but this time I think this is an instance where it does apply. You're under no obligation to buy it. If they miscalculate a technology or marketing decision, you and everyone else should "punish" them by simply not buying the phone. Corporations aren't democratic. At best, you can stretch them to qualify as a republic with money being your elected representative. We can sit here and criticize them all day but if the phone sells like hot cakes because people love this feature, then we're just wrong.

Sir, I believe you've found yourself a troll!

lol, that's all you needed to say

It'll blast off as soon as crypto currencies become widely used by common people for everyday transactions, like buying their groceries, paying their mortgage, or filling up their car. It'll take off so fast everyone's heads will never stop spinning. Until then, everything is speculation. Bitcoin, Etherium, and the like may be superseded by yet more superior crypto currencies, maybe governments will continue embracing, maybe they will become the most secure way of transacting business, or maybe they will unreliable once it hits mainstream? Whatever challenges come up, I'm sure they will meet them head on and adapt as needed, but who knows what the future will hold.

As for your wide disparaging remarks about slashdot readers, I suggest taking more nuanced approach. Anytime you mention any idea to a wide group of people you're going to get a lot of diversity in opinions. There will always be nay-say'ers. Negative remarks from the few shouldn't lead you to generalize the many. We are pre-programmed to do this at the most primal level so it's not easy to undo. It's why we love to cling to our racism, prejudices, and stereotypes even though we claim to be cured of them all the time.

Reading the way you phrased this slapped my brain kind of funny. It's almost as some people treat science like another religion instead of science being just science? When it comes to religion, If you point out something contradictory/wrong in a religious text, that's blasphemy and creates a visceral reaction. The religion's truth is at stake. It creates a shouting match and people hate each other, use it to discredit one another, because the whole thing is at risk of toppling. Science on the other hand is a tad different. You point out something contradictory/wrong in a scientific text, it still creates a visceral reaction from academics that published it, but it's expected. The scientific truth is at stake but if it's found to be false it's just replaced with something that may not be better but at least it's more accurate. They still have a shouting match and hate each other, they still try to discredit one another, but the "wars" never leave the sphere of funding and academic backstabbing. The whole thing is never going to topple, nor is it ever at risk of toppling. But it seems like the people that attack parts of science are under the impression that it will topple?