BlackDeath3

I really love all of the things that I can do with my smartphone these days that I'd never have been able to do with an older device (trying to even browse the Internet on a phone that I owned as recently as five years ago was painful), but I do miss a certain amount of reliability and hardiness of the older devices. Maybe nostalgia plays in a bit here, but I think that the move away from embedded device to general-purpose computer brought with it a lot of the downsides of the latter, along with the upsides.

As nice as it is to be able to watch an HD video stream on my pocket-sized computer on a stretch of rural highway halfway from nowhere, I don't always trust my phone to be able to, like, dial 911 when it really counts, and that's a little scary.

But ~$89,000 isn't six figures, so...? Also, I suppose it depends on the source and relevant area covered by the statistic. I've heard other (lower) figures elsewhere.

>> ...they even went so far as to say it didn’t even matter what you studied!...

> ...They weren't wrong. The sheer number of people who have had their resumes ignored simply because they don't have a degree of some sort attests to that.

This doesn't imply that having any degree would have gotten their resumes looked at, or secured them an interview.

> Vets can easily make 100k+ in rural areas where the median wage is in the 20s or 30s...

Eh... depends on the job. I don't think that most prospective veterinarians dream of working for the USDA ($$$) when they graduate.

>> Veterinarian programs specific limit how many students they accept, because if they didn't, their graduates wouldn't be able to afford a living wage.

> Are you sure that's the only reason?

I'd be surprised. I'm sure that, as always, budgets and class sizes are concerns as well. There are also other ethical concerns to be considered (e.g. lots of students implies lots of animal cadavers implies...?).

Limiting class sizes to keep wages inflated sounds a little conspiratorial to me, but I won't deny that it could be a factor.

> Restrictions on how private parties can provide a private service are ubiquitous in every market...

I'm speaking more about "ought" than "is" here. I don't see any reason why Facebook should have to choose between serving everybody, regardless of the regulatory burden that it places on them, and taking a hike from the global market entirely. I'm not saying that they won't be forced to do so anyway.

> ...I don't think most of the people who find Facebook convenient for coordinating groups actually choose the tracking knowingly and willingly (at best begrudgingly)...

And yet, they've probably chosen it all the same. In the hypothetical scenario where somebody has a metaphorical (or literal) gun to somebody's head, forcing them to use Facebook, I don't see how Facebook themselves can be blamed for this, and simply chalking this sort of thing up as a "negative externality" and saddling Facebook with the burden seems to be weaselly way of making Facebook to the will of somebody who just can't bear to give it up.

You can't always get what you want. Some of us would do well to internalize this a bit.

Right, I'm not talking about withdrawing from the market, I'm talking about remaining in the market and being allowed, as a private company providing a private service, to freely associate.

I have no qualms with a competitor starting up to serve those denied by Facebook, but let's not muddy the water by equivocating a monopoly as a result of anti-competitive practices with one that forms simply because nobody wants to use anything else.

Personally, I'd really not like to see a precedent set for a company entering a market, doing very well, and then being legally compelled to provide their product as some sort of legal right to an entire population. It might be a different story if said company is employing anti-competitive practices, but telling somebody that they're now legally obligated to serve a community because they're just too good at what they do, or so popular that nobody else can best them, seems a little too authoritarian for my taste.

I find this distinction increasingly odd as time goes on. Or, at the very least, the use of the phrase "real life", as if interactions over the Internet are somehow cleanly separated from the rest of one's interactions.

Appealing to authority is not always fallacious.

>they treat it as an insult

I treat that as an insult. As if their ego is more important than me not being launched through a fucking windshield.

Do they not provide comparable functionality?

As it should be!

The ubiquity of the "funny == upvote" mentality is rather depressing, and I'm glad that HN (generally) tries to avoid that. It makes the comments section a much more interesting place to be (to me, at least).

>Everyone is saying the same thing. Registry Cleaning is unnecessary, won't improve performance, and really only offers you a chance of doing damage.

Well, shit. I've been using the registry cleaner for years now on Windows 7. I've always liked that it seems to clear certain cruft from my system (unused file extensions, crap left behind by uninstalled programs, etc.), as I have a certain need for digital tidiness. I'm now considering abandoning the feature after these posts.

Thanks for the explanations!

I'd imagine just about anything that exists in any capacity can be tied to the physical in some way. I think that in this context, "tangible" means more than that.