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pi-err

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True but it also reflects that the EU has indeed destroyed most goodwill towards it in the last decade regarding most things digital.

Most EU initiatives have damaged everyday UX on the web and in tech. Yes, some malicious compliance has played a role by over-reacting to well-intended regulations. But overall the EU has brought this upon itself.

This specific Open Source Strategy memo is typical. It's in fact not a strategy but a list of key goals and requirements, put together in technocratic jargon. It will have zero effect on the actual open source ecosystem.

Awesome book. Students were already gaming the system as extremists in 1200 Paris.

(the cleric students were) marked by the tonsure, which granted them two major privileges:

the privilegium canonis, protected their persons, which were regarded as sacred. Any physical violence against them entailed excommunication, which could only be lifted after severe penance. One did not mistreat a cleric without exposing oneself to serious consequences.

The second was the privilegium fori, which placed clerics under the sole jurisdiction of ecclesiastical courts... Philip Augustus is said to have observed the boldness of clerics who rushed into the fray brandishing swords, yet wearing neither armour nor helmets. Hardly surprising, when a shaved head offered better protection than a helmet.

This specific design decision makes so little sense, really curious on how it got approved. It's not an accident or a miss, since the variable radius got quite heavily promoted during WWDC.

Hopeful they don't wait 7 years to change stance.

Clickbait built on 2 fantasy notions:

1- that Jobs would somehow be the hero of a mythical arab/syrian culture and diversity politics who would have behaved differently than Cook towards Trump.

If anything, Jobs cherished the white working suburban middle class of the west coast that has been destroyed in the last generations. He _never_ behaved as a white knight and nobody knows what he would have done (and nobody knows how hard Cook's political equation is)

2- that Apple is due for perfect, idealized products that fill 100% of people's void. This guy explains that iPhones make too many compromise and the OS is just "good enough".

Would be curious to hear of _one single_ previous or current OS platform or hardware at that scale that matches Apple's 2026 line up.

It's ironic that you didn't read a comment before answering.

it's unclear that Nasa can ever be without that (military and political) oversight

By design, Nasa is probably doomed to get interference.

If theyd kept their budget and autonomy after the moon landing it looked like they wouldve been building reusable rockets

Pure fantasy. Nasa's interest for reusable vehicles led them to the Shuttle. Even without all the design changes, it would have been a dud.

Due to its nature, Nasa can't freely explore and commit to a design like SpaceX does/did. It draws a concept and freezes it after contractor review, only to find after an already massive investment if it works. Then there's public accountability instead of executive risk taking.

I'd bet the proper way to have protected Nasa would have been to keep it focused on key scientific missions with limited financial exposure. Mars rovers are a perfect case, or most James Webb.

Using Nasa to go back to the Moon or reach Mars was doomed to fail (sort of like it failed post Apollo).

You could swap "tech" for "big media" and just play the same blame game for Reagan's and Bush Jr's elections.

the crown jewels of America’s last century

Including Nasa in this pure idealization of the past. Nasa had many flaws that enabled a catastrophic Shuttle program and then the slow loss of US go-to-LEO capability.

There's probably more to expect of US investment in space without incompetent or contradictory military and political oversight than the current nasa zombie programs.

And it's unclear that Nasa can ever be without that oversight.

Feels more like Apple is sticking to its position that "all those LLMs are gimmicks and not actual AI". So they think they're not late because they see the primary tech behind oAI (etc) as a base for non-threatening features.

This stance will probably age very poorly but that's what it is.

Sounds a lot like "Google+ will catch Facebook in no time".

OpenAI has been on a winning streak that makes ChatGPT the default chatbot for most of the planet.

Everybody else like you describe is trying to add some AI crap behind a button on a congested UI.

B2B market will stay open but OpenAI has certainly not peaked yet.

Pretty sure this is not about revenue but profit margins, since the Services line was under heavy surveillance by markets back then.

Though that's the core issue, margins on services are just too addictive for big tech. Not sure Apple can keep its recipe for success with both services and hardware.

You could argue that macOS development is too slow, not too fast and in need of a maintenance year.

Basic OS features have fallen way behind in term of UX - and of vision. Managing files and searching for information have become a chore compared to most internet- or llm-based services. Even a bug-free Finder or faster Spotlight would not bridge that gap.

All apps listed in the article feel similarly lost behind - Mail, Messages, Photos. The only exception is System Settings that does definitely need a snow version.

This is obviously true for other platforms as well.

We are possibly lacking a leap forward. Not faster horses, electric cars.

An obvious root cause of this is the lack of newcomers to the OS again. It's an oligopole that has no interest making things much improved.

tl,dr: CCP involves as many ordinary people as it can into the judicial and extra-judicial killing process in what could be "life insurance" for the regime: too many have blood on their hands to ever face accountability.

Personally, the dissonance around China has come to an extreme. Is most reporting incorrect, or has CCP become the most efficient and durable totalitarian regime in history? Or is it a form of social engineering that has actual mainstream support in China? Or is it a doomed experiment, just like all other previous authoritarian regimes in history?

There is something quietly unsustainable building up.

I've always been a fan of those projects but it's clear they've now mostly turned to greenporn.

For this specific project: nothing makes sense. The farm is operated by "Nordic Harvest", with claims that it can produce 200 tons of products in 2021 on a 7000 sqm footprint. The products would be fresh herbs and salads (the website only displays fresh herbs). So the total output of herbs on year 1 would be more than the equivalent surface of beetroot, one of the heaviest products. The site says the farm uses "no fertilizer" then comes to explain than they only use "natural fertilizer". The entire thing looks like a byproduct of the windmill industry, which is crumbling because of intermittent surplus of cheap electricity. All details on https://www.nordicharvest.com/

This reminds me of for urban farming in Paris a couple years ago, where I witnessed most "startup farms" from inception to failure: it's a perfect PR choreography. Some company builds a "farm" on its roof (with bee hives), advertises it as a totem of some vacant post-carbon strategy, collects fiscal incentives, then the farm never gets to see its 3rd year because it's so impossibly hard to even dream of reaching profitability or large-scale production. In Paris, the "largest farm in the world" is twice the size of this dutch "world largest" and actually operated by Unibail Westfield (and produces barely anything): https://www.urw.com/en/press-room/press-news/world-largest-u...

There are exceptions in urban farming (Lufa in Montreal, some sites in Singapore) but the PR pressure and laziness of journalist coverage is ruining it from the inside.

Al Jazeera is 100% owned by the Qatari state (itself lacking democratic institutions), with its 2 last CEOs being from the ruling Qatari family. The current editorial standards are supervised by AJ chair man, who is Qatar's former minister of information.

So no, there's no comparison whatsoever with CNN or BBC and it's a problem that articles and information from AJ is shared without any caution.

AirPods Max 6 years ago

Not sure this is the weakest link in value-for-money for Apple products. Like many people I know, my iPhones have been changed for no fee, outside warranty, for minor or major issues.

I'd say it's more about Apple moving from a yearly/bi-yearly iPhone renewal goal to a 2-3 years calendar, with now lucrative gadgets to buy in between. Fine by me: just get the long lasting core products and then pick what you want/need.

This is missing something on the larger dynamics at play to reinvent the car. It’s one of the biggest addictions inherited from the 20th century (with disposable plastics and cigarettes).

This is not only about engineering and sales. Current car culture is rooted in post-WW2 values: masculinity, personal freedom, power and control. Even Tesla plays that book with the SpaceX halo and the insistance on performance.

I wonder how Apple will approach this change of “soul” in car culture. It’s a shift not unlike what they brought to computing in the 80s, though they transformed the design then. Can Apple build a personal, shareable, fully automated electric pod? I can’t imagine them selling a vehicle with a wheel for instance.

All in all, doubtful we ever see the outcome of the Titan project.

I live in Paris and whatever you think of the current mayor, this is pure marketing babble for the elections next month.

Paris has always had this very dense city core where 99% of daily life is 5-10’ away. It’s a great concept for dense metropoles, but it only works because the city is so small: 100 square kilometers in an ocean of much lesser density. 80% of “Greater Parisians” live outside Paris itself.

Unfortunately there is no actual representations for 80% of those “outside Parisians” since they are split between hundreds of small cities with individual political dynamics. Pure game theory as local governance.

Over 10 years of terrible back pain, tried all kind of things. At some point, I was prescribed painkillers, tried PT, yoga, everything.

Turned out that the “glutes/hip weakness” approach was correct. Changed my life - not a single issue since years of muscle reinforcement in the posterior/hip area with a focus on posture.

Apple's Middle Age 8 years ago

Tl,dr: “it makes sense to settle down”. Tells how much this is pure projection from the author (he’s open about it).

Apple has amazing bricks to build on (Watch especially) so to not settle down. Even iPhone X shows they can still bet big with their flagship.

If you love market panics, you're going to love this one.

So many just bathing there with no swimsuit whatsoever.

A bit OT but how did ancient civilizations know that they should NOT watch an eclipse with a naked eye? The knowledge would have been lost or unavailable at each occurence. Remote areas would probably never get the word. So how didn't they get massive eye damages back then?