jaxtapose's comments

> Consider the case of car insurance.

A car is a luxury. Health is a right. Keep your examples apples to apples, thanks.

> The physical form factor isn't what's new, the implementation, software, use cases, and the whole experience is what's new

Actually. I want to explain why I was so vicious before. What made Wieser's ideas about computing so fantastic wasn't physical form factors. It was about a new age of computing where the way that people use computers would be significantly different to what we had then. It's taken more than 20 years for that to /start/ happening. The iPhone/iPad is the start of a Wieserian world because it bought the idea to people, not because they invented it.

The iPad really is an extension of the pad idea from Ubiquitous Computing. End of story. There's no counter argument. It's irrelevant who you've shown your ipad to, or how novel you think it is. You're wrong. End of story.

In fact, the iPhone and iPad are two great examples of what Wieser talked about so often in his work. The only core difference is that Wieser, the optimist he was, believed that devices should be like note pads in the office and not owned by a distinct person. Computers should transend the need for us to serve them, but instead they should serve us. Pads would be used like note pads are today, but with the power of computing facilitating our contextual needs.

But just because it's new to you, and your group of friends is irrelevant. The idea is old. Even from an implementation point of view.

The one thing that Apple can be congratulated for is bringing that idea into a marketable position. That's no small feat there, they deserve recognition. However, they didn't invent the idea. Just a marketable implementation.

He also thought that there should be more computers, everywhere, that pads/tabs/boards interlink with.

a) Coaches can pick and choose their players. b) They get paid for the risk. Many schools pay more for a football coach than they do for the school principle.

Imagine if each class had to have academic try outs? Now imagine that teachers got massive wages and bonuses for winning academic competitions? Now reflect on the number of deadshits in your classes that never, ever, would have passed an academic try out for anything.

That's right, it's a stupid comparison.

The only good thing is that most people would know they have a second or third rate education. Because they never met the cut to get into schools who used such a stupid system.

The iPad is an entirely new type of computer? You mean, like a pad computer as suggested by Wieser in the 90s?

> turned out to be substantially better than anyone imagined

By anyone you mean analysts, right?

> This is true everywhere.

Not quite. Other nations have easier access to understanding how many people are unemployed due to unemployment benefits being so readily available. Look at Australia as an example. Anybody can qualify for benefits and it doesn't expire. On top of that they will pay for training and education.

> As an aside, all non-wage benefits that employees receive (like free dental plan or paid vacations) is eventually subtracted from their own pockets.

I think you missed the point of the article. Europe pays dramatically less, and receives dramatically more.

Europe spends "9 percent of GNP on medical" and receives nearly 100% coverage on all health insurance.

USA spends "between 15 to 16 percent of GNP on medical" and has 80% basic coverage and 60% dental insurance. On top of that 20% of the population have access to basic rights of first world nations like sick leave, and roughly 15% of the population has to use food stamps to get buy.

Your assertion of having to pay more to get more is flatly wrong.

11: People who make amazingly broad predictions will forget that the vast majority of what they said was wrong, but will hyper focus on some specific point of view that infers that their point wasn't a waste of time.

Typing speed is probably irrelevant. Touch typing is probably important for programmers to master, even if it is just so they don't have to break their zen state while programming.

How children gained the ability to explore the world without leaving home.

Who does a PhD to get a job as an Academic? I did a PhD to have the opportunity to learn something that nobody else did.

5.8% growth per month, not too shabby. Must be getting exciting.

MineCraft

I think the guy is on the right path, don't glorify dropping out. Glorify removing unessential distractions.

Anybody who has to work with Google (not for) would know that Google and Focus don't belong in the same sentence. Individual teams are fine, but overall Google is fractured and confused.

How much do you know about Erlang? Because, anybody competent with the tools of distributed systems would know that Erlang is one of the best tools for the job. You could spend a decade, or more, building the base level functionality that comes stock standard in Erlang.

If you're not using the right tools, for the right job, you're incompetent.

Yeah, because comparing something that, if it pays off, will put your family into the lap of luxury, and if it doesn't you can go back to your old life with something that offers no intrinsic value or reward if it pays off, and if it doesn't leaves you dead on the side of a mountain where people name the feature after the colour of your boots is an apples to apples comparison.

Good one.

> exploration is always a serious business

What did you explore? Nothing, it's all documented, explored, exploited. Hell, it's a tourist attraction.

> My honest impression was that you must not be very good at what you do if you can make something as basic as reading your site so frustrating.

I felt that it was overly wanky and art-bloated and neglected basic principles of Information Architecture, Usability Heuristics, and Interaction Design.

I got to your web site, but I couldn't read the text easily, so I left within 3 seconds.

Agile has a similar problem to Waterfall.

Business is a bunch of cheap pricks who don't understand the value of doing things right.

> $2/$3 a month sounds much better to me, especially for services for which users aren't very expensive.

How do you know if they are expensive or not?