horacio's comments

You don't have to go that far back to find an editor who's willing to pay the symbolic price when it comes to influencing customers and advertisers by modifying press coverage.

Just last week, Ben Richardson, Bloomberg News' editor-at-large for Asia, resigned his post over Bloomberg management's pressure on their journalists to refrain from producing articles critical of China.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/09/world/asia/bloomberg-news-...

It's a truth universally acknowledged, that a restaurant in possession of a good name, must be in want of a good web designer.

I believe the article you're referring to is Steven Brill's 26,000 word opus "Bitter Pill - Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us", which appeared in the U.S. edition of Time Magazine in March of this year.

In it, he makes a specific criticism that not only do hospitals that purchase diagnostic scanners tend to make greater use of it, but that quite often, an above-average count of referrals to diagnostic imaging centers (which are places which only do MRI and CT scan work) are one of the leading indicators of out-of-whack pricing for a given hospital.

Patients still reflexively follow their doctors orders. So if their doctor says an MRI or two is required before he proceeds with treatment, the patient will happily get the MRI done.

Changing the ingrained behavior of patients in this regard is a must if we expect to be able to control this particular aspect of medical cost increases.

sbercus10 has done this thread a huge favor in his comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6015542) where he provides the following link to a PDF of Brill's Time article:

http://livingwithmcl.com/BitterPill.pdf

There's never a bad time to re-read this classic. Here's one link to the entire book:

http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html

It's not only a Good Will Hunting trope, but has a very relevant, very current real-life example that came to light a few weeks ago.

Tom Zhang, who now teaches at the University of New Hampshire, recently published a proof of the mathematically-famous twin prime conjecture for certain prime number pairs.

For quite some time, Zhang couldn't find work as a mathematician, and during that period, he worked as a Subway fast-food restaurant worker.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/that-figures-profe...

I believe I understand the point that Manjoo is making in his article, but both his choice of example, and the specific derogatory language he uses to express his reaction, makes it seem to me that he has some specific ax to grind about the nature of technical credentials and their social cachet.

Others have already noted parts of this, but Broder is very clearly only naming 3 people at Tesla: the CTO, a press spokeswoman (who's since moved on), and a product planner.

These are not technical support personnel.

I doubt that the specific operational advice that Broder received when he called Tesla's 24-hour customer support line was wrong or contradictory.

I can very much believe that if he placed a reporter's call to a press spokeswoman's cell phone late at night (as he claimed in his response of today), or to a product planner, or even to a CTO who's not in the weeds of the tech support database, that he might receive contradictory information.

I think this confusion between Tesla people who aren't technical giving Broder advice, and Tesla's tech support people (who aren't named in Broder's story) giving him advice, is a large part of the source of the contradictions.

Indeed it will certainly attract needed scrutiny. Both by the lawmakers and by the courts.

The presumption by all of these vendors who operate their own app store is that they are legally protected in tying their hardware product (their smartphone, for example) to their online store.

But there is a history in both the written law and from the courts that makes these 'company store' policies illegal.

There is no technical reason whatsoever that prevents a smartphone/tablet vendor from allowing their smartphone/tablet from accessing anybody's online store. An Amazon tablet should be able to visit the Apple online store (if they sold Android apps) just as easily as an iPhone should be able to visit the Android marketplace (if they sold iOS apps.)

Imagine the outcry if Chevy could force you to only buy tires or gas for your Malibu from their store. Or if Mattel could force you to only buy outfits for your kid's Barbie doll from their store. Or if Dell could force you to only buy software for your laptop from their store.

The law has long been clear that this type of market coercion is illegal.

The only reason that today's device vendors are still getting away with this is because the threshold for an outcry hasn't yet been passed. But the more stories we read like this, the louder the volume is from the everyday consumer.

Their choice to use their own Segoe typeface is what will make this a less-pleasing logo than it could have been.

Segoe looks good in its intended use for text on screen, and printed text at small and normal sizes, but Segoe does not look good at very large sizes.

When this logo appears on billboards, and in other large display settings, its weaknesses will become apparent.

Please.

Andos, I don't feel his humility (expressed here and elsewhere) is at all disconcerting. I feel it's both endearing and appropriate.

Each of us who have accomplished much less, but have boasted of much more, need only keep Knuth's example in mind as a guide for our future lives.

Amar Bose was a good professor, and in making this donation to his alma mater, he continues to carry on the tradition of MIT graduates doing good things long after they've made a name for themselves.

His work today in no way lessens the impact of an audiophile's criticism of his company's products. Not only are they overpriced in consideration of value delivered, they are in many respects poor implements for faithfully reproducing sound.

But those criticisms are criticisms of product and market, not criticisms of people and principles.

He completed his Electrical Engineering undergraduate degree in 1951.