dankoss

> Run speed is objective and measurable

Unfortunately in most modern OSes run speed on x86 is variable and profiling itself is intrusive. You might be able to get a general trendline toward a faster algorithm but it'll still be lost in statistical noise.

The second problem is that the underlying processor is a moving target. The x86 programming model doesn't directly map to hardware anymore, with out of order execution, branch predictors and register renaming. One variant of the processor with a particular caching algorithm might have totally different results than the next.

I also do DSP development and looking at the x86 architecture it almost seems pointless to try to predict what the processor is doing. Out of order execution? Register renaming? The only way I can be sure assembly is faster than generated C is by profiling, which isn't even exact anyway without isolating the operating system.

For us, latency and determinism are the most important requirements of any processor, and it's very hard to get that on x86 without writing your own OS. But that negates the entire advantage of using the x86 platform with so much available code written on top of other kernels.

Amazon added this about six months ago, but it requires another iOS device:

http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/17/amazons-instant-video-app-a...

The 535s have three drivers, and Shure now has the SE846 if you're interested in quad drivers. But I'll caution that triple and quad drivers don't necessarily make for better sound.

LEDs are incredibly common and incredibly useful debug tools. I've had to work with boards that don't have them and without physical access to the traces for a scope, you're out of luck.

While some of it is fascinating, I've also had to spend entire days figuring out why a single pin won't toggle on a microcontroller. It sometimes takes herculean effort for the simplest debugging tasks.

I'm not sure why this exists either.

Most consumers benefit far more from improving the acoustic system (speakers, headphone, room) than the playback system.

Once you have $200 headphones or $500 speakers and $500 room treatment, you might be able to hear a difference with lossless or 24-bit audio, assuming that the source material was recorded properly and not overly processed. But until then, a fancy music player or even FLAC audio isn't going to help much.

Oh man, this describes me as a musician, audio engineer and technologist. I've definitely spent too many hours researching the best text editor, operating system, new programming language, studio monitors, etc...

The best cure for gear acquisition syndrome I've found is shipping deadlines. "Real artists ship." Even if it's a hobby, progress is measured by some tangible event, whether it be a Github checkin, an upload to Soundcloud, a live performance, or a blog post.

Limitations also help. The most powerful DAW, programming language, or guitar pedal will force you to spend more time fiddling than creating. So what if it's not exactly the sound you hear in your head, or the webpage looks funny? It will never ship if perfect is the goal.

You're correct, I intended to refer to Amazon's proprietary format instead of the ePub standard.

The problem here isn't ecosystems, it's standards. Standards that allow us to move MP3s, emails, books, etc. between providers.

I'd like to believe that HTML5 will eventually be the standard for video delivery, but this may never happen. There's no incentive to standardize streaming content delivery because it would increase competition and take power away from the corporations.

Yeah, Amazon is actually the worst at this because of their e-book DRM. At least iTunes eventually removed DRM so you could move to Amazon MP3 or Google Play.

There are many other reasons for unibody construction (also on MacBooks): Easier manufacturability, more durable due to less failure points, more structurally sound for drops, less mechanical parts to stock and manufacture, no part tolerances to fit together, and of course aesthetics.

Having been on the other side of product design, it's never as simple as "they should have done that." There's always a good reason.

I've been looking at this, but it doesn't yet have watch windows and package import is somewhat broken. That said I do like the interface.

Less competition, but also less demand and less career options.

Source: This is what I do.

I think phablets may replace small tablets, but the real question is whether large tablets will replace laptops/desktops. That's where the growth market is for tablets if the software becomes powerful enough.

The initial tablet market struck me as a very boomer focused device, one that made computing easy for a limited subset of tasks.

I think he's wrong that tablets have peaked. As the software and hardware on tablets catches up to the capability of a full laptop, they are a much more compelling device for use at home or at work. Content creation, software development and file management are still a challenge but these can be fixed.

I really hope the Surface and derivatives catch on in the enterprise, because I'm tired of lugging a 7lb laptop to and from meetings.

Most people in the US don't have a choice in their ISP.

I would say your other competition is Tumblr, which can be adapted for short, medium and long content but seems overwhelmingly to be used for slightly-longer-than-twitter posts.

A couple of counterpoints:

* Intel's fabs are still almost all in the US.

* Corning's Gorilla Glass was invented in Kentucky.

* Microsoft and most of the world's software is still developed in the US.

* The memristor came out of Berkeley.

I'd like to think that technological supremacy comes from having the best universities, which the US has led for many years. If we start seeing American students emigrating to Asia to get technical degrees, there might be cause for concern.

I assume you're familiar with WorkRave[1] and Time Out[2], both of which are free? How is what you're offering different?

[1] http://www.workrave.org/ [2] http://www.dejal.com/timeout/

I can see the correlation in adoption rate, but social media users don't get purged from networks like infectious diseases do from our bodies.

The reasons people use and/or leave social networks are completely different from the reasons diseases leave the body, which is the correlation needed for this study to make sense. It just seems like linkbait to me.

How do infectious diseases have anything in common with social media?

Anecdotally, most of my family and friends are casual listeners who prefer Pandora and traditional radio to decide for them what to hear next.

Spotify and Beats Music are for big music fans like myself who want to hear a specific song or playlist from their favorites. But there's a much smaller market for big music fans. If Beats can make a play for the Pandora/iTunes Radio audience they have a chance. Otherwise they have to prove they are better than Spotify, Rdio, Rhapsody, etc. for hardcore listeners.

I think Spotify has the mindshare largely because of the free version, and it's going to be difficult to overcome that.

That being said, I've been using Beats' predecessor Mog for over a year now and I like the interface and the known good sound quality (Spotify wasn't the first to have a 320k library). If Beats is easier to use on mobile than Spotify, it could make a dent.

The integration angle though -- that's where players like Pandora have an edge with apps on Apple TV, smart TVs, etc.

Hmm, my experience has been that most places in Chicago are far quicker to drive than take public transit. And since many jobs have moved out of the city center to places like Naperville and Schaumburg, it is very difficult to find public transit options for a commute or reverse commute unless you happen to live within walking distance of Metra.

If you can live and work entirely in the city limits, public transit might work.

> Email that isn’t related to intelligence is rarely viewed, and it’s even less often viewed if it’s from a US citizen.

The fact that it can be viewed at all is the problem. Someone else doesn't get to decide for me what is private information and what isn't.

I've had no trouble with Comcast in my area in service or support. My problem with them is that they're colluding with AT&T to keep internet prices high and upsell everyone onto bundled plans, when all I need is internet (not home phone and TV service). Thus they charge $20/mo for 3Mbps, $50 for 6Mbps and $65 for 25Mbps unbundled internet, and AT&T charges roughly the same.

That's funny, many of the embedded chipmakers are finally standardizing on Eclipse, which means I don't have to relearn a new proprietary IDE when we change chipsets. In that sense Eclipse is way better than environments written 10+ years ago. That's Eclipse's biggest strength at the moment.

I wish there was a Sublime-based IDE with visual debugging support. As a low level developer I still need immediate access to watch windows, memory and registers, and that prevents me from using Sublime for anything more than code refactoring.

While the 5S is a pretty awesome phone, I have to agree with the author that it doesn't enable us to do anything fundamentally different than the 4. The major generational innovations:

3G - 3G data 4 - Retina display, FF camera 5 - LTE, screen size

All of those things are nice, but they simply make use of the phone faster, at a higher resolution with slightly more screen area. So I can check Facebook faster on a nicer screen.

I'd like to see some fundamental improvement in user interaction, something that enables us to do things we couldn't before. Google glass is pointing in that direction, but it's still along the same vein of more immediate, always on computing power. I don't think we've fully tapped the innovations that these devices can allow.

For example, I think the idea of the universal Ubuntu phone would fundamentally change the way people saw their phones, because it would allow their phone to become their ONLY personal computer by simply plugging into additional human interface devices (larger screens, keyboards).

> When your processor is too slow, buy a new CPU, or you get a new heat sink and over clock it

The motherboards for PCs built 5 years ago are completely different from those built today, and the CPU sockets have changed every other year. New processors from Intel will be soldered on.

The performance of a PC from five years ago is probably adequate for web browsing and office tasks. For anything more demanding, the advances in power consumption, execution efficiency and process node are huge leaps from five years ago.

Why hasn't this already been done by Amazon, or Google Books? I understand Prime has something similar, but only for select books. Is this purely a publisher licensing issue? If so, wouldn't Amazon/Google have more leverage to make it happen?