4,784 karma · joined September 21, 2012
Toyota reminds me of Microsoft when the internet went mainstream. Very slow to respond, but once they got their giant tanker turned in the right direction they were all in. I suspect Toyota will be the same.
As far as EVs, if one is in an apartment with no charging infrastructure and have a relatively long daily commute, and poor charging access at the worksite, an EV is just a bad choice. If there is good charging at work, and the commute is short enough, then an apartment can work but it is still inconvenient to have an EV if you can't charge it while sleeping.
I think eventually more and more apartment owners are going to start using charging infrastructure as a marketing tool so perhaps it will get better over time.
Try on this hypothetical. Imagine that ten people in a giant company called ACME made some decisions that led to 50,000 people getting hurt. ACME also employs 100,000 hard working people, representing perhaps 0.3-0.4 million family members dependent upon that income. Imagine further that ACME's other products have dramatically improved the lives of hundreds of millions of other people.
Given that scenario, does the ethical math really work for ACME to be completely destroyed? It is easy to see how the 10 decision makers should be punished. It is also easy to see how the people who were hurt should be compensated in some way. Destroying ACME entirely will harm lots of other people so it is not clear how to justify that. It is a very frustrating domain because we think of these companies as monoliths, but they are really just a large collection of mostly very decent people.
I think we can at least confidently say that other people are more willing to listen to an NP winner. That could completely explain the phenomenon.
Public service request: There are millions of Americans with compromised immune systems who are finding the current environment treacherous since most people have completely moved on. If we have an interaction with someone who is masked, it would be great if we could just mask up at least during that interaction as a courtesy. That person could be at significant risk and it does no harm to us to mask up for a few minutes to help reduce their risk even if we aren't concerned for ourselves.
Just starting a rocket engine is a complicated dance that can easily turn out badly if not handled with extreme precision. Sorry, but I don't think there is any way one can equate the complexity of a diving bell with that of a rocket.
> technologically aware people know what Apple are doing
Yes, I do. I have over 30 years designing chips and computing systems (not an Apple employee). The Apple Silicon Macbook Pro I am typing on has great performance and I never think about battery life any more and I never hear a fan. I've owned a lot of laptops and nothing has ever come close in build quality, design, and performance/watt.
Apple has over 2 billion active devices in service. Two possibilities: We are all suffering some massive delusion, or your criteria for evaluating quality and engineering need to be adjusted.
Please name another large company that cares more about privacy, freedom, education, empowering people, the environment, diversity, etc. than Apple. They are from perfect, but they keep investing in the quest to do better. What specific ethics issues are you so concerned about?
Please answer a question for me. How come so few people who are into open source operating systems seem to be unable to understand that the vast majority of the world doesn't want to deal with all of that stuff? I think it is great that some folks enjoy the configuring, tweaking, writing their own services, setting up their shells, arguing about vi vs emacs, etc. That's really cool and I am happy that is available for those users. However, don't condemn me if I have other priorities.
It is super simple. Apple makes products. If people like the products they will buy them. If people can't do what they need to do with the product and don't enjoy using it, they won't buy it again. If you are right, Apple will soon die and your problem will be solved. If you are wrong, their unprecedented growth will continue.
They cancelled Newton in order to compete? I don't understand the assertion.
Newton was cancelled by Jobs in 1997 for a number of reasons, but mainly because Apple had lost focus and was running out of money. Jobs cleaned house and only kept the products that could bring in larger profits more quickly.
Palm pilots were sold as complementary products to Macs or PCs and synced well with either one. I don't understand how that is eating Apple's lunch for 15 years since Apple was not shipping a competing product. Does Boeing eat Apple's lunch since Apple doesn't sell any airplanes?
Apple released iPod in 2001, again, not a competitor to Palm but it did provide a means for Apple to learn how to build handheld devices in very high volumes. Ignoring the Motorola ROKR, when Apple finally entered the smartphone market in 2007, Palm began to wither away.
"Present 3D content, animations, and visual effects in your app with RealityKit, Apple’s 3D rendering engine."
Hmm. Not a good analogy. Script handwriting adds no new information. A 1 meter square backcountry topo map provides way more info than looking at a handheld screen. I can see big picture terrain as well as high resolution of my immediate surroundings. Completely different sense of surroundings and the information is simultaneously clear in overall layout, dense, and abundant.
It is decidedly not obsolete. I would never take an extended backcountry trip without a detailed waterproof topo map and a compass. Stuff happens. Batteries fail, screens shatter, etc...
However, you don't have to go into the backcountry to benefit from a printed map. A city map will immediately impart a much better sense of spatial relations between different points and a more immediately intuitive understanding of the routing between the points.
Not true. IEEE, one of the largest professional orgs, accepts Latex. So does ACM, a huge comp sci org. I'm not familiar with others, but wouldn't be surprised if many others still accept Latex.
"You can learn how to develop apps for Apple platforms for free without enrolling. With just an Apple ID, you can access Xcode, software downloads, documentation, sample code, forums, and Feedback Assistant, as well as test your apps on devices. If you don’t already have an Apple ID, you can create one now. To distribute apps, join the Apple Developer Program."
https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships
So the poor hobbyist argument is really a moot point if the point is writing apps for yourself and to learn.
Many of the people criticizing clearly didn't see the presentations.
Is there non-trivial risk of market failure? Of course. They are trying to create a computation and entertainment focused AR device. That is new. It is inherently risky to create new markets. Is it also possible that they have executed this so well that people may find it very compelling and buy it? Yes, that may be true. Only time will settle this question, so making extreme conclusory statements is just silly.
Real, open-minded discussions of the tradeoffs of the tech have unfortunately been in relatively short supply this week. Some folks have made interesting and thoughtful comments and I for one have enjoyed them very much. Kudos! More of that please.