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Its funny how many 90's sitcom episodes were based on this exact premise - the uncertainty of someone's location, not being able to contact them, etc. It was a major problem back in the day.

I agree in one sense. Classic American network TV is absolutely abominable. Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would get this bad. Nobody I know is watching the big American networks anymore, it just does not work at all.

On the other hand, the quality of serialized dramas being released these days is unparalleled. There are so, so many well written shows being made right now with razor sharp production. But people are mostly getting these shows by paying the production companies directly (Netflix, HBO, Amazon) or simply streaming them illegally.

I was a kid in the 90's so I remember keenly the unmistakeable technological shift. People started saying "information highway" an awful lot. And I remember the first time me and my friend used dial up networking to play Doom 2, and I could see his character's movements on my screen in realtime, and I thought, "I am living in the future."

You would be correct to believe that.

Would have to agree there. The salaries in Toronto are far, far lower than a comparable on the US West Coast. If you can get a public sector job at a university though, you might be laughing. Although, public sector jobs will suck the creativity right out of your veins like a vampire..

Turning down Russia I can (sort of?) understand. The last conservative government was keen on playing hardball with the Kremlin over Arctic sovereignty - seems there's no reason to back off that stance now.

Turning down American help was strange though. I'd like an explanation for that..

Not to mention the subtle social engineering I caught on my visit - a little mail icon on the navbar, made to look like I have (1) new message.

Suburbia exists because people want a quiet, relatively safe place for their kids to grow up. I didn't realize this until I had children myself. I remember reaching my teenage years and cursing the dull, boring, culturally bankrupt suburbian neighborhood I grew up in. I left the minute it became feasible.

Fast forward to now, and I'm right back in the 'burbs, in a house where my kids have access to safe streets, parks, and decent schools. I realize now that it was never my parents' responsibility to raise me in a place I would find interesting, but to give me the best possible start in life they could. If I can give my kids a similar start, I hope they can safely reach the age where they can go off and experience the adventure of the big cities and abroad when they're ready, just like I did.

While that's an interesting edge case, what I probably should have said is that pizza and beer is something adults expect to exchange money for, as opposed to apps.

Is it possible that you now (like most consumers) have been conditioned to expect apps to be free? Meanwhile, nobody expects anyone to give them a pizza or a beer for free.

Again, something software devs catch right away, that the layman often doesn't.

One possible explanation is the peacock feathers effect. People come into your home and go "Oooh, what's that?". The homeowner now has a chance to stand out from her peers.

Interestingly, most of the scrutiny of these early entrants into consumer IoT come from software developers themselves, who are already well aware that "all software is shit." (In the tongue-in-cheek sense of course)

par·o·dy ˈperədē/ noun

noun: parody; plural noun: parodies

1. an imitation of the style of a particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect.

While splitting hairs can be fun, for all intents and purposes, I'd say this is a parody.

Nest is a cool product, but it might be just slightly ahead of its time, by a hair. Maybe the future generation of homeowners will be adamant about having a high tech touchscreen interface for their HVAC system, but for most people I know, it isn't a problem they're compelled to pay for. As the saying goes, the existing solutions are generally "good enough". I think Nest is on to something, but I'd bet it's another 5-10 years before they start seeing real breakthrough success.

Its truly an amazement - I can't think of another field with such advanced, accessible tools yet such a shitty market to enter than the games industry.

PT Barnum - the pg of the 19th century

I'm inclined to agree. Google probably does not want to be the company that creates Terminators for the Pentagon. Watching the last BD demo on YouTube, watching that humanoid stomp through the forest, I couldn't help but joke how terrifying it would be to see one of those things holding a machine gun.

A highly reliable, rock solid robot nanny would easily fetch 30k and sell millions. This must be, what, at least a century away? I'm probably venturing into Jetsons territory here...

There's also another likely natural response:

3) Rebel

But..isn't that what you just said you wanted?

Whenever these kinds of JS commentaries pop up on HN nowadays, I notice two distinct camps of commenters emerge: Those who are obviously steeped in the JS scene and are delighted to argue the finer, more sophisticated points of it, and those who take their best look, step back, and criticize this convoluted house of cards - and of course proceed to be downvoted into the Stone Age as the latest casualty of HN censorship.

My only observation of note I guess is the sheer marvel that all of this is nearly entirely supported by the Open Source community, and the amount of engineering effort being poured into the JS ecosystem at this point in time is nothing short of astounding. I can't wait to see where it goes in the next few years.

How can a third party commercial 3D engine be a layer to writing your own 3D engine?

True, but again this ties into the first point about the marginal cost of producing apps being basically zero, thus they hold little value to anyone. Especially when the stock OS apps do nearly everything the average, non-niche consumer wants to do with a mobile device.

You accept the friction of paying for a porterhouse steak because no butcher could sell them for less than the marginal cost of producing them and remain viable. Since the marginal cost of producing apps is (essentially) nothing, it's no surprise almost nobody can resist the downward pressure and make a buck off apps.

I was going to say exactly the same thing. Once the initial novelty of app stores wore off, only the shitty economics behind them were left to bare:

- The barrier to entry is so low as to be non-existent. We haven't seen a mass distribution channel with entry barriers this low since the lemonade stand.

- Since the above point forces most participants in the market to now compete mostly on price, the race to the bottom of the last decade or so has raised a generation of consumers who now expect software to be free.

- The subtle friction of finding and installing apps has led the average person to basically not bother at all, as we now know most people install zero apps per month. The lions share is now exclusively the domain of those with ridiculous marketing budgets and iffy business practices.

I'm just not sure exactly where we are on the technology curve of App Stores. Are we in the trough of sorrow, where a new horizon of viability and sustainability coupled with lowered expectations is just around the corner? Or will we look back at the App Stores as the AOL of the 2010's? I'd love to hear opinions on the subject.

I had a similar experience with Bluemix. One of the biggest turn offs though was the ridiculously convoluted website for IBM's cloud services. Some serious streamlining is in order there. I had no idea where to go or what to do to get the information I needed for simple things like straightforward API pricing, etc.

Hi fellow Hamiltonian!

Nostalgia is a powerful emotion. People always remember the truly great games but seldom remember the countless bargain bin cartridges they popped out as a kid after muttering to themselves, "Wow, that sucked."

Is it really though? I'd be more surprised at the scenario where the average hacker read this piece and didn't immediately make the mental connection to "Oh, he's talking about the Thiel thing."

One of the greatest games of all time for sure. It's a pity that they also dropped the ball on a decent mobile version too - seems like the medium could lend itself well to a well designed turn based strategy.

A valid point, but why should the pessimistic outlook be any less likely than the utopian one? Are you sure that a major missing link between where we are now and a prosperous future for everyone is the fountain of youth? Sure, the HN'ers want the Einsteins and Feynmans of the world to live forever? But what about the Nixons, King Leopold II's, and Kim Kardashians of the world? Is it okay with you that they will be given first dibs at the antidote?

You're seeing it as the key to suffering, but its equally reasonable to view it as what it will likely become - an instrument of power.