innino

What is Bitcoin's deeper significance? I don't know much, but here are some sketches.

1) Bitcoin has the potential to destroy the tools of monetary policy. 2) Bitcoin has the potential to hide taxable income from governments. 3) Governments with dwindling tax bases may react by printing traditional currency, hastening the flight to Bitcoin in a vicious cycle. 4) Traditional currencies may collapse as people rush to convert them into Bitcoin. 5) Unable to tax coercively, traditional governments may collapse.

What might replace them? Toll roads and kickstarter philanthropy in Randian democracies?

(Is this in the ballpark for Bitcoin's potential impact or not?)

He thinks Silicon Valley is cool AND made a geeky reference to a cult film? BURN HIM!!

Christ, the problems of a princess. Sell the Pro and buy the XPS.

Yeesh, what sensationalist garbage.

That's what I always think when I read about these sorts of problems in Japan and Korea. There's a tremendous amount of pressure generated by the overwhelming influence of the big companies, and the shame felt by those who aren't given validation in this system must be acute (or at least it sounds like that for Korea, I don't know as much about Japan.)

Anyway the most common reaction may be to accept the judgement that you feel has been passed on you - that you are worthless - but at some point someone has to come along who refuses to accept that, and realises that the whole system is founded on narrow-minded bullshit. Then that person can build a challenger to the chaebol - one fueled by fresh thinking and real inspiration.

I mean look at LG and Samsung. Where's the passion and love in their products? Raw technical competence and business acumen might lead to limited success, but these companies seem completely soulless. At the end of the day, the world will never love a Samsung like they do an Apple. No matter how big they get, they'll never be able to make it to the next stage, where they actually inspire people and have devoted, passionate fans. So the space for alternative approaches within Korean culture seems (from an outside perspective) huge, even if the first steps are going to be very hard.

The fair policy is to take the most competent candidates, regardless of gender.

I like what Apple is doing, but I hope Microsoft can build a viable competitor ecosystem. I do think Apple is good at beautiful, approachable products, but I think they make so many sacrifices in terms of power and usability to achieve it that we need a strong alternative from Microsoft.

The iPad Air looks amazing for example, but compared to the OS-level features offered by tablet Windows 8.1, I think it's lacking.

I'm pretty sure it's much simpler; HN is anti-everything.

The author's been reviewing OS X like this since 10.0. Probably involved with Apple's OSes since even further back. It's clearly become something dearer to him than a child.

I wouldn't describe Microsoft or Nokia's tablets as high-volume, low-margin...

Looks lovely. I would be really interested to own one of these if I had the money to buy surplus devices at the moment. Trying to see how using it solely vs an iPad would be interesting, 8.1 is clearly a more capable mobile OS but I wonder whether the iPad's superior app store would clinch it regardless. Versus an Android tablet would also be interesting.

my impression of nexus devices is that you are tied to the package of google services. is this so, or can a nexus-user break free from google's domain and enjoy the benefits of a quality low-cost device without being beholden to the google ecosystem?

Thanks for that. I do hope you're right. The prospect of eternal isolation is not a pretty one.