loudthing

... the Lisa, the Apple III, firewire, calling wifi "Airport" for way too long, that home speaker boombox thing, the weird round mouse that came with the iMac, ...

But seriously, I remember reading on here a comment from a previous Apple employee that all of their products are designed with the primary goal of looking good in a keynote presentation, which makes sense for their image, but results in underdeveloped products that "disappear" after a few years.

I completely agree, specifically a middle management problem that bubbles up.

TIL: there are no nuclear reactors in Australia.

Unfortunately the folks that get to make these decisions are so removed from the reality of their company's every day tasks that all they can think is "if I don't see butts in the seats I bought, then obviously no work is getting done".

I’ve never heard someone call their own country a “third world country”. Out of curiosity, which country are you referring to?

But do woodworkers consider their home workspace a "lab"?

That's awesome. Reminds me of retro computer enthusiasm. It's not about the hardware, it's about the experience and keeping classic tech alive.

It's the phrase "homelab", I suppose. Why not call it "Home IT" or "Home Data Center" or "Home Network Infrastructure". Calling it a home laboratory sounds like enthusiasts are trying to escape some preconceived notions about the topic. I digress...

I guess I'm struggling with why I would buy the same commercial grade equipment to play with at home when my profession should be fulfilling the needs of that skill set. Sounds like if you feel like you need to do so, you're more than likely unfulfilled in your current career.

I've never understood why fiddling with IT equipment in your home is considering a "home lab" since you aren't necessarily creating anything (like a laboratory would do), you are just integrating together other people's industrial components to serve non business purposes. The most egregious factor of this hobby is that you are often buying equipment that costs enterprise prices with your own money, whether or not it is used equipment.

This is a really cool little look into implementing relatively basic functionality that we have become accustomed to with mainstream PC's.

Back in the day I had a Thinkpad T40 tablet that served me very well. Absolutely bullet proof PC, and it could run Crysis on integrated graphics :)

"I want it to just work" is a very subjective phrase. I think you'll find the majority of users have very different use cases for technology than you do.

Also, try to read past the first sentence before you downvote me.

Honest answer: Apple is a lifestyle brand, however they manage to offer a superior product to the layman because they have tight control over both hardware and software codevelopment. In my experience, people tend to also like Apple hardware because Apple stores are ubiquitous, so when you need a repair done, you just take it to your local mall and get it fixed rather than mailing it away to Lenovo and hoping for the best.

Out of curiosity, in your engineering course, what are students expected to used to their own computers for? In my experience, any engineering course with labs that would require dongles supply desktop computers anyway. Your school doesn't have desktops in the classroom right? What equipment are you interfacing with that would be easily both mac and pc compatible anyway?

Interesting how slow USB-C adoption has been so far, which is a shame because the connector and concept are a great standard, but the implementation of various busses (Thunderbolt, PCIExpress), video adapters (Displayport, HDMI 2, 2.1), USB versions (trying to be inclusive of USB 1 through 3 and all its flavors) is maddeningly complex, and unappealing to the typical consumer.

Darn. I was really hoping for a new Macbook Air :/

"Britain last year backed a $546 million funding round at the company to develop the country's first small modular nuclear reactor (SMR), part of its drive to reach net zero carbon emissions and promote new technology with export potential."

Cool. Although I foresee exporting this technology will be difficult as far as fuel and waste supply chain goes. Having the possibility of multiple new, smaller countries receive nuclear power makes moving fuel and waste across multiple borders more difficult. Also, protecting the technology so it doesn't fall into the wrong hands becomes more difficult as well (assuming these things can enrich uranium).

"Each mini plant can power around one million homes...".

This is where I did a spit take. I was really underestimating the capacity for these "mini" reactors. Being able to power so many homes (and being more centralized than I thought) means these reactors would still require huge infrastructure investment in order to spread the power.

Not quite. The Great Firewall of China has the ability to shut off access to specific sites, services, and even communications protocols very easily and very effectively. Trying to access Google from China doesn't result in a page from Google apologizing that they won't comply with Chinese laws. It's as if the services simply doesn't exist and you get a 404 error.

Also, Google actually has a sizeable office in Beijing. I'm not sure what they do specifically since it's not easy to access any of their public services without an obscure VPN (the most popular ones get blocked pretty quickly).

I for one am a proponent for free and open internet and net neutrality. Banning any sites/services in the US is a slippery slope. There has to be better ways to deal with these problems.

I missed that ratio part. I actually thought it they were saying 1.75x more expensive for 3d vs 2d. I wouldn't expect one art style to be thousands of times more expensive than the other. Good catch.

Also regarding 2d cinema animation, I'm speaking through a very American lens (considering the link points to Disney) so take what I say with a grain of salt.

3d movies require a lot more technical r&d, experimentation and tool development.

This was true for 2d in the past, but Princess and the Frog was made in more or less off the shelf 2d animation software.

The biggest challenge to doing 2d though is finding the talent and the justification. Take a look at what most art school are offering as far as animation goes...

This seems super pointless but fun.

In the US in May of 2018, a federal law went into effect saying all new cars require a backup camera. This means that there needs to be an LCD screen visible to the driver for the camera. This is sort of a slippery slope as far as feature creep. Now that you have this screen, aren't drivers going to expect to see something on it 99% of the time when they aren't backing up?

Actually this leads me to realize why some automakers like Ford integrate the screen into the rear view mirror, so when it isn't on, it disappears behind a one way mirror.

This still sounds terrible.

"and I get to see the USA from outside the decadent, rose-colored bubble from which it is usually experienced."

This. As someone who moved to the USA ten years ago, you do not understand "the bubble" Americans live in until you see it from inside and out. People here live on a stage with absolutely no idea that a global audience is watching them. People also can think and say things in absolute confidence which are considered ludicrous by 99% of the rest of the world.

I for a long time could not wrap my head around why so many people actively reject the idea of free health care, but it made me realize how little I appreciated when I had it.

... and it's scary how things just seem to be getting worse here with no real hope for improvement without massive reform. Reform that can only happen if something catastrophically bad happens in the near future.

edit: and I don't mean this in a critical way, I mean it objectively as possible.

This is a very good answer. You also don't necessarily need a degree for it.

I'm going to get downvoted to hell for this, but "software engineering" is not necessarily, and historically hasn't been, engineering, or "physical engineering" as you called it.

Also historically it was possible to get an engineering job without an engineering degree or similar, but that really isn't the case anymore.

So you may be SOL unless you want to go back to school for four years. That said, there are plenty of similar positions that don't need degrees, such as mechanical/electrical/civil designer or technician, but you more than likely need a certificate of some sort.

Don't give up!

Edit: Another commentor brought up industrial automation engineering, which doesn't necessarily need a degree. I've known many industrial automation engineers who were self taught. The pay is great and you can basically do it anywhere. PLC's are one of the most common and important things that most people have no idea even exist.

Reading this title gave me a headache.

Thanks for the response. I hadn't heard of Zerotier. Going to check it out.

Can't believe I've never heard of this. Thanks!