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I might get down-voted more, but I'm going to dig in because I don't think you know what you're talking about.

I'm not sure of the qualifications held by the tasters in the study and the quality of the descriptors used, but I've spent quite a bit of time with people training for the advanced level of The Court of Master Sommeliers. At first, I was a skeptic of wine tasting but they completely changed my mind after doing a number of blind tastings with them. They would usually be able to pick out the variety of grape(s) used along with a rough part of the world the wine came from during blind tastings.

> differences between white and red wine are imaginary

In most cases, they're not. There are some exceptions such as light bodied reds that can be very similar in taste to some orange or white wines, but largely, each wine has different chemical composition (different polyphenolic profiles) and a good sommelier can tell the difference. Here's the deductive tasting format used by 'the court' if you interested in all the different things you can look for in a wine: https://www.mastersommeliers.org/sites/default/files/ES%20Ta...

Wine tasting is an art of deduction. The first step of any wine tasting is to look at the color, rim variation, legs, etc. From there, you take account the smell and taste. At a professional level, this is always done in a particular order to help narrow down possible characteristics for the next step. If you change the color of the wine, you'll send the wine taster down a completely different mental flow chart.

The tasters assumed the wine didn't have food coloring and correctly used all senses available to them to do the tasting. It's very disingenuous to point out that they should have used more white wine descriptors. The wine was red, so they used that information to further deduct characteristics of red wine.

I also find it peculiar that they don't mention the variety used for this study [1]. The color of the wine comes from how long skins are left with the must (skin contact) while making the wine. There are many wine varieties (white and red) that taste very similar. In some cases, you can have both a white and red coming from the exact same grapes (Pinor Noir, for example).

[1] I did Ctrl+F for "variety" on the study: https://web.archive.org/web/20070928231853/http://www.academ...

Along the same lines: if your store has multiple locations, allow me to filter by location. Sometimes I don't care so much about the exact product (think audio cables), I just want to be able to go to the closest store and pick it up.

No, macOS just makes it seem like apps can't add files anywhere. They only recently made it a requirement to ask to write to certain locations like your Documents, Downloads folder, etc.

> Make the Start Menu Full-Screen

I'm surprised by this one. I couldn't stand Windows 8 because of the full screen start menu. Maybe it was because it was too animated. But I think it was more because I didn't like getting kicked out from my desktop and losing context of what I was doing.

I much prefer pressing the Windows key and typing the first few letters of the app I want. Seeing a full screen of apps is way too distracting to me, especially with live tiles.

This is a good story, but Google can still literally kill any business that relies on the Play Store or Chrome Store with a flick of a switch today (like mine). No human even has to get involved. At any moment, some code running on a Google server can decide to flip a bit and disable access to an app or extension in their stores.

To be fair, even Apple chooses to use different wording about it's own privacy labels. They opt for a friendlier "allow personalized ads" instead of the scary sounding "allow X to track your activity across other companies' apps and websites" like they force third-party app developers to use [1].

I'm not defending Google's business model and I don't disagree with Apple's move to improved privacy. I just hate how hypocritical Apple is, and they always get away with it.

[1] https://mobiledevmemo.com/allow-this-app-to-personalize-adve...

This was me. I lost money on GME betting on the fact that more shorted shares still had to be covered.

The short squeeze wasn't a complete failure. It happened, it was just much smaller than many predicted. I still wonder what would've happened if Robinhood didn't shut off demand by preventing people from buying shares. My investment thesis didn't foresee this happening. I don't think anyone did.

The other large part of the problem was that a lot of people, including myself, were going off of stale short interest data. Updated estimates for GME were reported to be 39% of float vs +100% on 1 Feb [1]. Hedge funds pay for more accurate data which us retail investors don't get visibility on.

It's over for now, but please bear this in mind when talking to people that may have lost money on this. Some people did some research, knew the risk and allocated money they were willing to lose. I learned a lot along the way, it might make some hedge funds think twice about aggressively shorting a stock, and it was just plain fun to be part of it.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-01/gamestop-...

Edit: updated short interest data stats and link.

I don't know though, Microsoft already runs multiple app stores (Xbox & Windows, Edge). I don't see why they couldn't build it out for another platform or at least figure out some kind of arms-reach integration with Github -> Microsoft Store.

This could be a nice come back into the mobile sphere they lost out on. As a developer, I completely agree that Microsoft earned my trust over the years.

Just found this Firefox extension that removes paywalls. Works great: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bypass-paywal...

This is similar to thanking Google for bringing the cost of email down to $0. There sure is a lot of upside to the average user, but a lot of the costs are just shifted behind the scenes (data collection, privacy).

I'm not saying it has no place in the market, but a more informed user might calculate the risk and decide to use a fee-based brokerage instead (like ProtonMail vs Gmail).

Jan 28 2020 (14:05): 196,808 reviews (2.x star rating) https://web.archive.org/web/20210128140536/https://play.goog...

Now: 180,500 reviews (4 star rating) https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.robinhood....

It seems like they just deleted all of today's ratings.

I don't think it's fruitless, but it shows how much we'll need to rely on clean technology rather than a change in human behaviour to curb climate change.

No, please no. Make sand-boxing an optional feature the user has control over. Sort of like containerized tabs in Firefox. Not all apps have legitimate reasons for accessing your hard drive, but I'd argue that 90% of them that do, really need to. Let the user decide.

I wish it was money they optimized for. It's probably engagement or some other obscure marketing metric.

The problem with that is if they introduce a bug that requires you to refresh the page more often. All they'd see is an up-tick in "engagement" and keep the change with the bug. I think it happened to me with Facebook page notifications and not being able to clear them properly, at least on Firefox...

This sums up my experience developing on macOS as well. Apple forces you to use broken API's and then you have to find workarounds to make your app usable.

Someone should start an Apple developer support group on appledevsupport.group or something and get users to upvote broken API's (and broken terms of service: like mentioning donations are accepted in a free app!) that need fixing. Getting enough developers in one place to embarrass them might be the only way to make Apple care.

Filing onerous radar reports to help Apple is not my job.

Bitcoin halved on May 11, 2020 which incentives mining because of a lower inflation, lower supply and higher demand. On top of this, you have speculators timing their investment around this halving cycle to get these crazy spikes. This is built into the protocol and will continue to occur until 2140.

Since fewer people sell coins than buy them over time, you end up with a more and more stable asset class which derives value from being a decentralized currency that can be sent across the world without being hindered by banks and governments.

While Bitcoin shouldn't be viewed as an 'investment' (no more than gold is), it would be a mistake to simply dismiss the idea of holding any. A lot of smart people buy gold etf's to hedge against inflation. Bitcoin is a way to hedge against central banks, sanctions, and global money transfer restrictions.

Yes, it's also really buggy. One of the API calls return bad data (after the mac wakes from sleep). Side loaded extensions get corrupted on some macOS/Safari updates requiring the user to fully reinstall apps.

They make reporting bugs impossible because you can't just reproduce it by updating your OS again. Native app messaging is done through shared data which forces you to poll for updates.

Urggh. I wish they could just own up to the mess (like Microsoft did) and fully move to Web Extensions, including native app messaging.

I also agree with fats being the most satiating for me. For a second, I missed the part where they controlled for it, but it's there:

> The meals (all 3.5 MJ, 28 energy-% (E%) fat)...

I can't find where I read this, but I thought Comic Sans makes text easier to read for people with dyslexia. A pretty narrow use-case, I agree, but there's at least one redeeming quality from something so ugly.

The problem with this service is that most times, I don't chose what I listen to. Spotify does.

I play music all day while working and I'd love to listen to more artists but most times, I'm stuck in the routine between my Release Radar on Fridays, Discovery Weekly on Monday, and Daily Mixes during the rest of the week. I add songs I like to a variety of personal playlists and sometimes I start a "Song Radio" for a song I like. But even then, I just end up getting the same songs Spotify seems to think I liked only because they've already played them to me over and over. Part of me wonders if their algorithm favours songs that costs them less in royalties...

Playlists made by real people seem way better than any Spotify playlist, but they are difficult to discover. I'd love a feature that recommends me playlists from people that share my music tastes. One example, is a playlist called "Sexy Bath" by Nicoleta Tataru.

I've been through the Canadian equivalent of West Point and have done a week exchange at West Point. You're totally right about the experiment in human nature.

Depending on which degree you were working on, there was often just way too much to do with the time given. The "academic wing" wouldn't coordinate with the "military wing" and we'd end up having a slew of inspections alongside midterms. I remember getting caught skipping out on military training on a Saturday (which was just a day of lectures, easy to slip out after attendance) to catch up on homework. At the same time, an officer went through the dorms to ensure nobody was skipping. I was caught in my room and spent the next two weeks having to wear an uncomfortable uniform all day and reporting to do drill every morning.

Obviously, choosing to cheat academically is way worse than skipping a Saturday of lectures, but if the system is designed to break you, it shouldn't be impossible to recover from.

Those are all fair points. I was just speaking about incentives for a new iOS developer today. They might see the option to disable IDFA in addition to Apple's lowering of it's commission as a nudge towards creating a paid app over an ad-supported app in terms of choosing a business model.

I'm sure ad-supported apps are still going to exist, but the pros are a bit muddier now. The perceived devaluation of ads caused by removing IDFA, compounded by the lower Apple tax, are probably going to decrease the number of free apps in the App Store.

About $26 a quarter for US/Canada users, so just under $9/mo.

https://whotargets.me/en/much-facebook-makes-per-user-per-mi...

First off, I agree with you that this change is a net positive for privacy.

However, let's not ignore the massive market for apps supported by ads. iOS developers had a way to be modestly compensated (without the Apple tax) in return for an app that is available to anyone for free. How much less profitable are ads going to be because people can opt-out of IDFA? I don't know. But I'm sure many developers are going to think twice about developing free apps for iOS.

Conspicuously, Apple also just reduced it's commission from 30% to 15% overnight for these developers. It seems to me like Apple really wants to nudge developers into creating paid apps. Is it because of privacy, or because it's better for Apple's bottom line? Probably both.

I'm glad Apple found a way to monetize privacy, but I didn't mind installing a free app with a few ads if I knew that I'd only use it a few times.

True, but I also feel this might also be part in staying relevant with touch displays. The dumbification of UI coincided with the rise of tablet computers and touchscreen devices. Windows 8 came out around that time too.

I personally preferred Gnome 2 when Gnome 3 came out, but I've gotten pretty used to the top-left corner flick after a couple weeks. I sometimes do it on Windows and get disappointed when nothing happens :) This sounds somewhat perverse, but I kind of like the fact that it takes a little extra effort to switch applications. I'd say it keeps me maybe 5-10% more productive!

Ideally, UI's should be tailored for the device they get installed on, but I'm happy Gnome was able to accept a few design compromises in order to keep moving the project forward.

As you correctly point out, those are revenue figures, not profit. $10 billion from Google out of $60 billion in profit is significant. Apple saying they 'care' about privacy while making +15% of its profits from Google alone is hypocritical.

I don't want to minimize Apple's efforts on privacy, but this is only happening because the Overton window on privacy is finally shifting. Let's not pretend that Apple 'cares' all of a sudden. They only 'care' because it's a convenient position for them to take. Their business model isn't directly tied to the collection of data, which allows them to differentiate themselves from Google and make surgical changes like this. I propose we ask Apple to go further:

If Apple really cared, they'd make IDFA opt-in only. Why are we now applauding the option to disable a feature that the EU deemed illegal from the start? [1]

If Apple really cared, they'd remove Google as the default search engine and forgo the $8-12 billion they make from Google. Then, allow a fair bid for privacy focused search engines (or make their own). [2]

If Apple really cared, they'd stop tracking you in Apple Services like Apple TV+ and stop sharing your data with third parties. [3]

[1] https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/what-is-apples-...

[2] https://www.macrumors.com/2020/10/25/google-apple-search-def...

[3] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208511

> Their income is from selling physical devices.

Not entirely true anymore:

1) About $8-12 billion paid by Google to have their search engine default. [1]

2) About $20 billion from their 15-30% cut of third party app developers. Where the App Store is protected from competition. [2]

3) Apple services (like Apple TV+), which collects usage data for itself and third parties. [3]

[1] https://www.macrumors.com/2020/10/25/google-apple-search-def...

[2] https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/15/21292203/apple-app-store-...

[3] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208511

> Google believes that the browser market is still largely uncompetitive ... This is because Internet Explorer is tied to Microsoft's dominant computer operating system, giving it an unfair advantage over other browsers. Compare this to the mobile market, where Microsoft cannot tie Internet Explorer to a dominant operating system, and its browser therefore has a much lower usage. The value of competition for users (even in the limited form we see today) is clear: tabbed browsing, faster downloads, private browsing features, and more.

Wow, this is enlightening. I'll take back my last statement. Maybe Google should be offering users to pick a default search engine from the start like they wanted Microsoft to do...