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Comment by philistine | Hacker News Reader

His Something rotten in the state of Cupertino piece earlier this year broke his relationship with the upper echelons of Apple, and to be frank he's no longer inevitable as an Apple commenter. He cannot understand the European Union at all, so he devolves into saying they're idiots. Really? The EU, the whole thing, idiots? Really?

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I don’t think we should conclude that a tech columnist who regularly shits on EU tech policy really intends to attack the EU writ large. If he sounds like he’s generalising to the “whole thing,” I’m pretty sure he understands most readers know he’s not talking about the entire EU experiment. Just the backward tech regulation.

Oh no, John criticizes at large. He complains that the EU itself is too obtuse, that the way they enact laws is obtuse, that the nomination process for officials is obtuse.

No. He criticizes quite specific things that show how completely clueless he is, as it is immediately pointed out both by people in the comments and his blogger/influencer/programmer friends.

He really is unique in how consistently wrong and clueless he keeps on being.

https://daringfireball.net/2025/03/something_is_rotten_in_th...

This article? If it caused consternation it boggles the mind. These are all completely normal reactions to Apple's AI missteps.

If detailed but milquetoast criticisms are grounds for excommunication, maybe the company really does have serious management issues.

Well excommunication is not appropriate as a term. Apple has cut off access to the most important cardinals for interviews, not told John he's out of the Catholic Church.

Oh, there also was the mildly sensational "I wonder too, what taste Cheetos-dusted 78-year-old testicles leave in one’s mouth. Whatever the flavor, I hope it lingers."

https://daringfireball.net/2024/11/i_wonder

> If detailed but milquetoast criticisms are grounds for excommunication, maybe the company really does have serious management issues.

This has always been the case at Apple. Tons of ex-employees have commented about challenges in criticism.

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