glenndebacker

The company I working for is more then 6 years old but we are still calling ourself a startup.

Sometimes I think it's because of marketing reasons or as an alibi for certain decisions because "that is how they do it in startups". Although we only do the meetings stuff, the benefits we don't have.

So when exactly is a company not a startup anymore ?

I really would like to know what need you could have that is solved by making a laptop 3mm thinner.

I personally think their whole obsession by making these laptops thin is contra productive if you think off al the things (non solderable RAM for example) we need to give up for it in return.

Or maybe they should just give the user a choice.

"...and longevity"

I never had a laptop that I used as long as my MBP (2011) and it's still going strong.

That being said the problem with the new Macbook Pro's is that in their quest of making things thinner a lot of possibilities regarding future upgrades disappeared. Through the years I have upgrade my RAM and replaced the HDD with a SSD. I spend in total (including the macbook pro itself) 1500 euro's max and that over a couple of years.

I do work but I'm also disabled making that my income is not at the range that I honestly can afford the new Macbook Pro's or can cough the amount to get a configuration that will last me 5 years... The base model costs more than my current system (including the upgrades) and the price they ask for a simple 16Gb RAM makes the cost even more out of my reach. And unfortunately in this we aren't able to buy refurbs from the store as it only includes iPods and iPads.

That being said there are more important things in life than a MBP and I'm also thinking about my post mac life that will happen when my current machine dies.

"Please don't perpetuate this myth of Apple being first with such and so. As a rule they are not first with anything, instead they see what others are doing and produce their own version of the idea. A refined version often, but that does not make it the first version."

I really don't understand why people are getting so worked up of company X of Y being first or debunking Apple myths....

I personally couldn't care less (and I think most consumers) because I value a good working implementation before the fact that a brand is the first in anything. Why does that matter?

It grants corporations the rights to bypass national courts and directly file claims in some kind of international tribunal. But the way it's setup is really fishy to say the least.

Unfortunately in this case it also has some local political reason as the national government is a right wing government and is Pro CETA/TTIP. That is also the case with the regional Flemish right wing government. The regional Walloon government is left wing and is against. So it's a bit of an impasse.

"Safari is the new IE6, stop supporting it and let it die."

I can only assume you never went through the pain that IE6 delivered... It has been some years now but I still get nightmares about it. It literally made me question at one time if I didn't made the wrong choice to focus on web development.

Apple may be dragging its feet when adapting new api stuff, but the situation is by no means comparable as what the situation was with IE6. Not by a million miles.

It's not only huge files that it's chocking on.

Last year I was working on a game demo under time constraints and to cut a corner I base64 encoded a bitmap font. Every time I opened that 32KB file it began to slow down because that one big line.

That being said I still use atom daily but not one big files or ones that contain big lines.

Here in Belgium they did make that mistake. They issued green power certificates so people installing solar panels could receive some money.

After a while it became pricey and they needed to halt the program. Still they were obligated to pay those certificates to those who registered under that program. The consequence is that they needed to raise other energy taxes and a lot of families who are struggling are being hit extra hard.

The sickening part of the whole story is that we have big wealthy industrial families who have build complete solar farms under that program and pure for the certificates. Some are receiving 10 millions euro a year (for 20 years) and paid for a part by the poor.

It's not perfect but it's certainly an improvement if I think back at the time that IE6 was the dominant browser.

I worked at an e-commerce company at that time and it was corporate policy to have webpages render perfectly in all browsers. That involved a lot more workarounds and tricks then what we see and use these days... Using document mode's to trick browsers into rendering stuff different, faux columns,... .

I see a lot of younger people bitching about JavaScript and CSS but they have a lot more luxury (also regarding tools) that was available in the past. Which doesn't mean that we should stop improving the state of CSS/JS today, but to put things a bit in perspective.

So does this come without tracking and more privacy because for that price you can't play the "they need to recoup the costs through user data" card.

Apple it seems can do it for devices in those price range.

Here (Belgium) it has been legal for 14 years now. Anybody who suffers (even psychological) has the right to decide between life or death. There are some rules (number of doctors, free will, unbearable suffering, ...) you need to follow.

The public support for euthanasia is also overwhelming. The only parties against are mostly the catholic church but their influence is nil as we have a clear separation of church and state.

I don't use ES6 because of the cool kids, but because it makes some Javascript things more tolerable.

One constructive thing that I would like to add is that the "You don't know JS" book series has really taught me a lot about the common pitfalls of JavaScript. Since then my JS stress levels have been reduced dramatically!

Seems you have a case of a selective memory because the case in question had some more arguments than round corners. It's intellectual dishonest to reduce it to only that.

Samsung was being caught having a 155 manual (http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/8/3227289/samsung-apple-ux-ui...) of how to copy the iOS UI. That alone is so clear that it's not even funny.

That's a fact the iHaters always seem to left out, but the round corners on the other hand...

I find it very hard to believe they won that case on the pure fact another device had round corners.

I personally think in this space that they experiencing more competition from boards with the ESP8266. You could use the rpi with the gpio pins but for some projects it doesn't make economically sense.

For 4 euro's and less you can buy a board with the ESP8266 and you can even use the Arduino IDE to program it.

"Apple in particular could be the target of an action in that space."

I never understood that people keep saying that. It's not because you make a lot of money that you will get under investigation for being a monopoly.

Microsoft was fined because it used it's marketshare to bulldoze into other markets. Apple marketshare is so small in comparison that it can do all the same stuff without disturbing anything.

You could also buy an NodeMCU (http://nodemcu.com/index_en.html) if you don't like soldering. Personally without a formal electronics background or great soldering skills, I had not a lot of problems with setting up the ESP8266.

But I do agree that out of the box it's less "plug and play" as an Arduino.

At work we are forced to spend some of our free time writing "commercial interesting" articles mostly of topics that doesn't say a lot to me. It's something that I (and a lot of my coworkers) dread a lot.

On the other hand I have my own blog where I have the freedom to write about what I want and when I want. I'm having a lot more fun when writing for the latter.

I also get a lot more reactions regarding articles that I write for my own so I assume that fun or interest also shows in the quality of my writings.

"especially since the EU has had it out for US tech companies for awhile now"

Sorry but this is typical American FUD, European companies are scrutinised on the same terms and when breaking the law or dodging stuff are getting (high) fines as well.

It is not Europe's fault that this kind of news doesn't find its way in the US... .

Don't know of this helps, but most of them also comes in ePub format which you could read on an e-paper device.

That is pure FUD and you know that. Here we don't have ApplePay (yet) but alternative payment solutions for bankcards have also certain restrictions and sometimes this also means regarding hardware.

That being said I have still the choice to way I pay and that won't be different than when ApplePay is available... . If I heard it correctly it can even use the same POS HW that other NFC based payment solutions use.

The only "negative" thing will be that I as a consumer, will have more choice.

In Belgium that is also mostly the case. But at my current company we have a 40 hour weeks (and a lot of unpaid overtime) because for some bizarre reason management is convinced "that is how successful Silicon valley does it". I personally think that American dominance in technology has to do with other things than low pay/max hours, but who am I.

This is the first time in more then a decade that I am working in such a regime and I'm not really convinced that I am now more productive then ever. Au contraire, I have the feeling that I'm working more on autopilot and I'm a lot less creative in solving problems.

In the past when I was dealing with a problem, solutions often came when I was doing something mundane like driving or gardening. I got my best solutions/idea's when I was away from my computer. The moment you could switch off and put your unconscious mind to work, now I frankly don't have the time.

"It's never mentioned, for example, that his organization in Turkey runs "houses of light" (isik evleri) which serve..."

And here is the problem that I personally have, it could be that the whole organisation is like Scientology, Opus Dei or they spend their evenings with prosecuting chickens, but regarding the coup the world still need to see some solid evidence. Where is the proof and preferably something that has more value than Erdogan's word for it.

It doesn't matter if somebody is a not a nice person. When there isn't any evidence of a crime you don't prosecute them, simple as that. Also don't tell me that of all that is going on after the coup, that these are the results of proper investigations or a good functioning justice system.

Meanwhile in this European country we are confronted by Turkish (even third generation) people that threatening other Turkish people, arson or destruction against buildings of people they clearly don't like and that mainly because some egomaniac in a country far away is throwing blind accusations like there is no tomorrow.

We are even at the point that the Turkish embassy is calling all people to report anybody who "insults" Erdogan, because the world clearly needs more LOTR comparisons or poems. Hell, this week the president of this region needed to make the comparison with nazi's because that was the last time we were confronted with a foreign power trying to meddle in our local affairs. In the end the ambassador needed to apologize, but we are seeing more and more of those incidents.

Wasn't he the one that said that when he goes to downing street they listen, but when he goes to Brussels they only take notice ?

skeumorphism has notting to do with clear use of iconography. Even for a young kid a meaningless icon is still meaningless...

I don't follow all the points in the article but I can't count the times that I overlooked photo's for example.

"Brexit was partly about the EU's sclerotic lack of democracy"

Oh please, first lookup what a (representative) democracy is and how the European commission and parlement works before shouting nonsens. I'm not particularly somebody who find that everything the EU does is good, but I have also seen my part of BS regarding how it works.

If I remember it correctly what I have been reading, but it doesn't differ that much with a lot of political structures in Britain. Or is the UK also undemocratic ?

"and partly about failure to control immigration"

Which is also a nationalisme agenda ergo the reason why the Brexit supporters at the European mainland (Front National, Vlaams Belang, PVV, ...) are nationalist parties. Not to say xenophobic. That is another thing that is very ironic, it's all about democracy but then they look for support (at the continent) to parties which are only democratic when you are white. Because that are the parties some of you are investing your hopes in.

You can't deny that nationalisme ideas (a lot of elderly voted with some reminiscence to the days there was still something like the British empire) has also driven that agenda ergo it is quite ironic that it created a situation where the crown jewels could be picked cheaply by foreigners.

Even if you read the article in question you can see the same theme's (independence, ...) repeating...

Seeing how the pound has fallen, I think it's cheaper for foreign investors to buy Britisch companies.

That is a bit ironic if you keep the surge of nationalism in mind.

In Belgium the only reason full-face burkas and niqabs are outlawed is because you need to be recognisable. There isn't a burka prohibition but rather one against clothes/masks/... in general that can make it difficult to identify somebody.

The only exception is when it's carnival ergo the reason why it's called the carnival law here. And I assume that is also the case in most European countries.

When you are wearing a headphone you can be still identified.

"So what you are saying, is that the problems in Greece are down to the UK? "

The problems in Greece where mostly introduced by abuse of the Greeks themselves. That is the small detail that mostly is left out.

"The UK has nothing to do with reforms concerning the EURO. That's up to France and Germany and the EU Central Bank."

The OP is talking about the measures the US has taking regarding the banks. We are taking about the reforms of the banks nothing regarding the currency. The thing the UK wanted an exemption for, the reason why a lot of measures couldn't be taken... .

"Those payments the UK makes is going too."

Yeah because that access to the single EU market will come for free... .

"Once this happens, I think you'll start to see other exit musings in other countries and it'll be the beginning of the end!"

What is that with that British obsession that some have with destroying Europe and bring instability to the continent?

"The Euro just seems like a complete failure. Giant economies are limping along with 20% unemployment, unable to recover 8 years after the recession. In contrast the US has managed an OK recovery, now closing in on full employment."

You are aware that the problem with the EU banking reforms (or lack off) was also that the UK didn't wanted stricter rules with regards of the city of London... ? They even wanted an exemption.

In this regards I find it really intellectual dishonest that over the pound they are pointing fingers to the failure of Europe as they were part of the problem to begin with.

I do hope that from the moment that the UK stops dragging their feet and leave the EU it will be able to make swifter decisions instead of losing energy in constant oppositions.

"On the indie side things are much better so if you are only a very casual gamer or really like some old school stuff you'll have things to play, if you want to play AAA titles Linux isn't where you find it."

Indie games doesn't automatically mean casual games or old school stuff. I personally find triple A a bit of a misnomer seeing how the gameplay is seriously lacking in a lot of those games. In the end when I want to watch pretty pictures I will rent a movie.