vparikh

I second Wiha screwdrivers. I have been using them for years. In fact I am still using the set I purchased (Wiha #30299) that has every type of screw driver I you could come across in normal US products Slotted/Phillips/Torx/Pozidrive and Square). I keep them in my tool chest - been there for 21 years and still going. Bought $120! - https://bit.ly/3B7FtCn

I addition I am using the Wiha 26-IN-1 Tradesman multi bit screw driver - love it. Has every bit you would commonly need - I keep one in the office and one in the kitchen drawer. Fantastic tool - $36 - https://bit.ly/3q1sYCa

Can't see the point of spending this kind of money on this.

Leo Fender and the Fender company gets the credit for making the first successful solid body guitar - the Telecaster.

The common wisdom is the Stratocaster was the successor to the Telecaster - but in my opinion, I think the Telecaster is the superior guitar. The simplicity makes it indestructible, the string through fixed bridge makes more stable in tuning. It allows one to easily use alternate tunings as the Stratocaster whammy would be complete useless in this scenario.

Just take a look at all of the guitars players over the last 15 years or so have re-discovered the Telecaster. Not to mention punk, heavy metal and even thrash meal guitarists are picking them up. The running joke is that Jimmy Page sold more Les Pauls then anyone else playing Telecasters :)

Check out this video that compares the tone of Telecaster vs Les Paul:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sjAiCRemyw

Leo Fender got it right the first time.

True the DLSR has the advantage in power consumption, however, most users will accept the trade of and carry extra batteries / charge more often to take advantage of the advantages that mirrorless provides. The battery consumption is improving with every generation of mirrorless.

But yes, that is probably the biggest advantage the DSLR has left.

The mirror box / pentaprism combo is not required. DSLR cameras were built as the technology did not exist to eliminate them. Now that processor, LCD and AF systems have caught up, the SLR is redundant.

The primary advantage of the SLR was that you can see the image as the lens is framing the image - a huge improvement over rangefinder systems (such as the Leica M). This allowed the use of super telephoto, wide angle, macro and tilt shift lenses to be much easer. The primary downside of the SLR was that it did not show you how the exposure was going to be recored on the film or digital sensor.

The mirrorless system eliminates that and now lets you see precisely how the image is framed as well as how it is exposed in real time *without* taking the image as the LCD and viewfinder are constantly reading from sensor. In addition you gain the possibility to handhold at much lower shutter speeds due to the mirror slap being removed and the on board sensor shift stabilization systems. DSLRs couldn't do this and relied on lens based solutions (Olympus & Pentax did have sensor shift stabilization, but it was niche and the market leaders Nikon & Canon relied on lens based stabilization). Another advantage is that with the removal of the mirror box, you can have short flange distances allowing new lens designs and lens interoperability. Nikon has the shortest flange distance in the industry and has support for just about every other lens mount out their (though through third party adapters - some with full AF capability also).

So the DSLR, except for maybe a few niche cases is old technology that is superseded in every single way. The interesting thing will be to see how the new mirrorless cameras effect the UI and ergonomics of the camera systems. So far, the pro level systems (Z9, R5, etc..) are all still for the most part using the DSLR form factor. Especially Nikon. I actually like this, but lets see what the future holds.

In the end - I don't blame the developers. They are a business and in it for the profits. The game is just a byproduct.

The public votes with their dollars - and judging by the popularity of these "features" - people are more than okay with it.

All it takes is two things:

1. The investor bubble to bust - and I think this will happen due to the soon to be rising interest rates making capital much more difficult too secure.

2. One of the big employers dumps devs into the market - say one of the FAANG companies has a sever downturn and lays of thousands of devs. Don't think it can happen - Facebook and Google are just a few regulations away from mass lay offs and downsizing.

Not really surprising to anyone really is it? I mean what other profession asks you to:

1. Manage a 25+ children 2. Be responsible for their learning/growth 3. Expected to be part-time law enforcement 4. Expected to be part-time psychologist 5. In some districts, carry weapons and tasked with keeping the peace 6. Get paid way below what skillset that requires 7. Get targeted by parents, politicians for under performing children when parents are not involved and politicians constantly cut funding 8. Have to go on strike just to get cost of living adjustments 9. Funding is so poor, that a lot of teachers have to reach into their own pockets to cover up the difference (voluntary, but still) 10. And after all that, to not be compensated financially is just pouring salt on the wound.

If you want people to pick teaching as a career path, we need a complete shift in the culture of America. As it stands, teachers get zero respect in our culture. The coach is put on a pedestal, the match teach - good luck. He is lucky if the only acknowledgement he receives are insults

In other countries, teachers are respected by parents and students. They are paid well. They are elevated to a higher station in society. In America they are put down, vilified and threatened.

Why is this even a surprise? Didn't thinks like Conway's Game of Life demonstrate this decades ago?

So let's get me get this straight - you have to deliver hydrogen to all existing gas stations. Which is expensive and requires an entire new distribution infrastructure. So as an owner of a hydrogen car, I will have to bare the brunt of that.

Second, you have to make sure that the seal is tight? What happens if there is a leak? What are the safety standards? Do we trust the average person to do this correctly (especially since this is the first time most everyone will be doing this)?

And third -- There isn't a performance benefit? So why would I buy this over the existing options?

With electrics, none of these are an issue - distribution happens over the grid, fueling up is dead easy (we all know how to plug into a power outlet right?) and there are huge performance gains.

I do not see the advantage of this at all. If anyone else here has some insight that I am missing here - please enlighten me. This to me is just a gigantic dead end. Toyota went down the wrong technology path.

Apple released one of the very first digital cameras back in the day - The Apple Quick Take (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Qu). Somewhere deep in their R&D facility I wouldn't be surprised if they are quietly working on a full speced ILC camera system - they could just license the Nikon Z mount (which is the most advanced and future proof mount of any other vendors - Nikon's real ace in the hole) or - as people have said here just outright buy Nikon - and apply all of their silicon / imaging knowlege to it.I wouldn't put it past Apple.

I think you missed what I was saying - Olympus could no longer afford or had the willingness invest the R&D required to compete with what Nikon and Canon are going to release over the next 5 years.

Nikon has the best mount/technology base going forward. Canon has the most money. Canon/Nikon will survive. I see Sony, Pentax, Panasonic leaving the camera market.

I have been a long time M43 user since they released the very first OMD-EM5. And the OMD line has been the best camera for the everyday user - highly capable, small with amazing small lens that really are great. The Olympus 45, Panasonic 20mm and the 80-150 are truly some the greatest lens for any system. Shure, you loose some depth of field - but for 95% of the people it is perfect.

However, when I was ready to upgrade my OMD-EM5 purchased in 2009 (11 years ago!) - I started the move away from my M43 system. And heres why:

Cost - The Nikon Z6 with an FTZ adapter can be had for $1550 brand new. Compare that to a new OMD-EM5 MkII for $1200 - the EM5 just can't compete.

Size - the Z6 + Nikon 24-70 F4 S is really not that much bigger than the EM5 MkIII. Add the Nikon 24-70 F4 S lens, and the size difference is negligible. But the AF capabilities and image quality are far superior.

Compatiblity - The Z Mount is absolutely amazing. With third party adapters you can use just about any lens (Nikon F, Nikon S, Sony FE, Canon EOS) with full autofocus capability. The Z Mount is the most universal mount anyone has ever come out with.

Video - I am not a video user, but the Z system has an excellent reputation for video. Olympus never really concentrated on video - they seeded that market to Panasonic.

All of this with an amazing echo system and with the first gen Z mount it is quite amazing already. And the Z mount going forward I feel is going to allow Nikon some amazing things - largest diameter with the shortest flange distance allows for unique designs and edge to sharpness that is absolutely amazing.

I know this is turning into a Nikon Z love fest, but the point is - with the new entries from Nikon & Canon, combined with average consumer going to the cell phone instead of a traditional camera - Olympus simply had to invest way to much in R&D to justify the possible profits. The shrinking camera market just put a stake through the heart.

It is sad. Olympus was the most innovative camera company. They were the first to have sensor cleaning, the best in body stablization, amazing lens and real-time exposure. All with the most robust bodies in the business.

It is sad to see such a great company with a respected name go to an investment group. They will probably use the brand and make sub standard products going forward or milk the brand for a quick buck.

Here's to hoping that some other company comes in restores it to its former glory.

Great looking board - for your use case (playing at home/practicing) it should be great. That is a nice basic set of pedals too!

But a tip as you get started on your guitar gear journey:

1. DO NOT go on the gear board - it will just get you to spend money on stuff you really don't need. I would avoid it until you are at whatever proficiency level you have set for your self.

2. Seriously consider a multi-fx as a way to try many types of effects - so you get an idea of what they do, and how they might interact with each other.

3. And the most important advise - tone is in the hands! 99% of the time, that new flavor of the month distortion/overdrive won't make you a better player, it will just drain your wallet.

After spending thousands on pedals and pedalboards (boards, cables, power supplies, etc.) I sold all of my pedals and basically use a Helix Effects, a boss TU-3 Tuner and a OneSpot CS6 power supply on a Pedaltrain Metro 16. Does everything I need. And will do everything I ever need to in the future or am capable of doing. Total cost of complete setup? $875. Sounds like a lot, but I spent more than $5,000+ over the years on pedals, boards, cables,power supplies. Gear Acquisition Syndrome (GAS) is a real problem for guitar players - so beware.

Welcome to the life long tone chase!

Software as a wide spread phenomenon has been around since what late 1970s (I am talking about business and individuals using it). Compare it to building industry, accounting, law and any of the hard sciences. They have been around for thousands of years. It is kind of crazy that we insist on perfection withe less than 50 years of practice. Heck we can't even decide on one language yet - and the one that are standard (I am talking about you JavaScript) - people keep re-inventing them (Coffee Script, TypeScript, etc.)!!!

I should have clarified - I was 4 and my sister was 2 when my parents immigrated.

Being a first generation immigrant myself (parents immigrated to America in 1975) I can give a few cultural reasons:

1. Stable two parent home - my parents lived together and shielded us from any arguments/disagreements they had and presented a stable unified upbringing

2. My father had a degree in Microbiology, but when he first migrated had to take a less paying job due to language/racism. My mother had a high school education. My father eventually ended up in a top research company and my mother got a masters in computer science from the local state university. This example ingrained the merits of grit and hard work

3. Education - specifically math and science - were emphasized in my family over sports, social and other activities. This was very different then my friends.

4. Academic expectations were extremely high - in my family strait As was baseline.

5. Family and community support - we had strong support from other immigrant indian community growing up. And the community as a whole valued the same things as my family.

These traits can be replicated in non immigrant American society - but often it is not. The main difference I see is a lack of a strong family unit and acceptance of low academic standards.

This could be just my experience - would be interested in hearing others

A really good example of this is the implementation of Objective-C. I believe even the original C++ implementation by Bjarne Stroustrup were also C macros.

Well most of us older devs had what could be called "Tee-Ball" for software developers. Back in the day it was generally referred to as the home computer. You had multiple kinds, that stressed different priorities - like the Commodore 64, Atari 800 series, Apple II etc. Pick your favorite.

The unifying concept was they were simple machines, with a basic feature set. Came well documented and when you turned them on they dumped you into a BASIC shell.

Everyone typed in something to the effect:

10 print "Hello"

20 goto 10

Run

No compilers, editors, linkers, deployment, security rights. Nothing. Just turn it on and type simple stuff. Screw up the machine -- just power on, power off. Bam - you get to the default stable state to try again. Get into the complexity when you are ready and willing to deal with it. Brilliant.

Kids today don't have that.

There are two main reasons for this:

1. 95% of the people use their cameras for output to the web (i.e., instagram, pintrest, etc.) And email links to them, or actually email the picture itself when they share them.

In this case, you don't really need a high end camera such as a DSLR or a Mirrorless. That doesn't mean you can't benefit, its just that the reason you are taking the picture isn't worth to learn how to use a camera properly. For these people their crappy cell phone lens based phone is good enough.

2. Has any body looked at the used DSLRs available? Go over to KEH and take a look. You can get a Nikon D300 in excellent condition for less than $300 with a 180 day warranty!!! Want a pro body? You can get a Nikon D3s in excellent condition for $1100 with a 180 day warranty.

That D300 just 4 years ago was $1900 and that D3s was going for well over $6000 around the same time. Why on earth would anyone go and buy a new camera these days?

The camera companies did this to themselves by releasing a new camera every 12-16 months for the past decade.

I predict that those companies that can survive this downturn will have huge success down the road. People will realise how much a real camera offers in quality, capability and options. And then the market will return.

Do we really need a printer in there? What if it just connects to one of those Fuji Instax printers or something like a Canon Selphi printer.

Sure there was crazy evaluations, greed, and ridiculous business ideas that would never succeed getting real coverage. But what I remember was the excitement that was around at the the time - that anything was possible. There were entire shows on prime time TV about technology and its effects on society. Sunday mornings had talk shows on the industry and where it was headed. There was this crazy show called The Site which was actually pretty good. Even the the DevNull cartoon thing was a bit off. There was real excitement around and people knew the world would never be the same.

Well housing is a good investment once you pay it off and stay in that home for an extended period of time. The problem is people just want buy ever larger homes. I mean look at the average square footage of homes in the 1970s which was 1500 sqft and by 2014 its 2,657 sqft (https://247wallst.com/special-report/2016/05/25/the-size-of-...). People are buying way over their means.

I purchased a 1800 sq ft home when I was 22 that I am still living in today (I am 45) with a 15 year fixed mortgage. I paid the mortgage off and have lived rent/mortgage free for the past 8 years. Assuming I live here for another 12 years, that will be 20 years of rent/mortgage free living. And yes I am married and have a 2 year old.

And when I do eventually sell, I will get back all the interest I paid and then some even adjusted for inflation. The problem is people just keep jumping int every larger homes. As soon as they can.

I fear history will repeat itself. During the Vietnam war, the US was heavily dependent on technology to solve the problems of air combat. They designed the F4 Phantom with a cannon, why you ask? Because they felt it won't be needed. They were convinced the air to air missile would defeat any adversary in the air. Until the met the Mig 15 -> a fast sleek fighter with no missiles but 3 canons. It was a deadly adversary in the air and the US learnt a valuable lesson before the end of the war. In air combat, speed and pilot training in close quarter air combat are what creates a victory situation.

And here we go again, we just built a plan that has sacrificed visibility, maneuverability, and speed for stealth and advanced air to air weaponry. It has already lost in test combat runs against the US's own F16 -- a faster, more agile and cheaper fighter. Guess we will have to learn the hard lessons again in combat.

I think people just need to learn that the journey is the reward, not the mastery. We in the US are in many ways, over concerned with the perception of success and the outcome of an activity. Starts very early on -- "Winning isn't everything. Its the only thing"

Hardware is the easy part. The software is where the "soul" lies. Microsoft for the most part, has always had descent hardware - its the software that causes them to be unpleasent and unreliable to use.

Sure the ad-tech industry sucks. But they do use a lot of very interesting technology. If you are working for some of the better ones or more innovative ones, they will be using massively parallel computing, geo-based location services, machine learning, and have a pretty significant foot print on AWS or Google Cloud Services. Every single one of those is a lucrative career onto itself. Learn as much as you can! Think of it as the best 2.5 years of paid training you will get. Either be a master at one of those or be a generalist and learn enough in each of those to be able to make a contribution. In 2.5 years you will be able to name your price and pick the industry you would like to be a part of. With the bonus that you will be have enough tech knowledge to start your own company should you decide to.

I worked for two ad-tech companies and they both taught me more about the craft of software development then any school or the previous 13 years of me working in corporations did.

As long as the company you are working for is not doing anything illegal or fudging the numbers, I don't think you need to justify anything.

Embrace the job, learn everything you can, and then you will be shocked how valuable you have become. Remember - you are trading your time for a paycheck. It is upto you to make sure that time is well spent and that it benefits you as much as the company you work for.

I didn't mind COBOL as a language (but it was overly verbose), it was the JCL to set it up and kick it off that drove me nuts.

And how could you not include Uridium, Way of the Exploding Fist, Summer Games and Paradroid?

Because todays kids are coddled and have a 'safety net' of being able to stay home and not join 'adulthood'. I mean when I was a teen ager - my parents couldn't afford to support me. I had no way of staying home and riding it out.

If I wanted anything in my late teens (car, fuel, guitar, computer, books, money for dates - etc.) I had to come up with the money for it - my parents provided shelter, food, clothing and a safe environment to sleep in. Everything else, it was unsaid fact I was going to have to provide myself.

This allowed us to be a lot more free - we knew at worst we would be like our parents. Make ends meet and eck out a basic living. It wasn't too bad as everyone else was the same. So knowing that doing nothing - would result in being where we were - the only way out was to do something. Take a risk, go out and see what the world offers.

Today, I see plenty of kids having iPods, Mac Book pros, flashy clothes and driving cars all provided by their parents. Why work hard? Why take chances? Life isn't that bad after all.

The starting point is so much more comfortable for all of these kids.

>The way I see it: you're wealthy when you can do, wear or say nearly whatever the fuck you want and not worry about your money/lifestyle going away.

That is not the point I was trying to make. The point is, people in that income bracket have an easy time living a good life AND saving.

If you make $250K a year, you are fully capable of being financially independent very quickly. The average family in the US lives on 50K a year. So lets double that - you use 100K a year. That still leaves $150. Lets say your taxes are 50K (20% which is about right) you still have 100k a year in Savings. That is twice the incoming in savings of the average US family. In 10 years you will have 1 million in savings (not to mention the other assets you ave created over the years).

If you can't bring yourself to live on that budget, you really need to take a good deep look at yourself and your priorities in life.

Putting kids in private schools and getting a rent-a-maid are not requirements to a good life.