intractable

This is true, to a certain extent. But it doesn't mean that masters for vinyl always have more dynamics left intact.

More often than not these days, the same compressed master is used for the vinyl. To combat the groove-jumping problem, the overall level is simply dropped.

> Robert Redford, Sydney Poitier, River Phoenix, James Earl Jones, Dan Aykroyd

Don't forget Ben Kingsley, another Oscar winner.

> I find the contrast to be perfectly fine.

Which is why you chose to write your comment in a low contrast colour.

> But in absence of this conflict, or the external meaning that is the cause of the (perceived) conflict, they wouldn't know what to do with their own existence

What nonsense.

> "Google" is nothing more than a tightly-bound collection of humans.

Yes, and collections of humans tend to exhibit emergent properties / behaviours which are not necessarily ideal in all respects.

Discussion of these properties / behaviours, and their desirability, is not a bad thing.

> They see the world in a black and white. "Us" and "them".

This is humorous to see in a post expounding a false dichotomy between the "two" types of people in the world.

I'm interested to know how you manage the risk inherent in project-based billing.

In my experience it is simply unworkable: the client will provide the vaguest of specifications and providing them with a set-in-stone price raises unrealistic expectations. The requirements are simply too fuzzy at the outset of a project to be able to price it accurately.

Of course the solution only becomes more concrete as the project progresses and requirements change and crystallize based on feedback. This is expected behaviour of course, but I've never been able to reconcile it with project-based billing.

Do you simply allow a certain buffer zone and take the good with the bad?

    > underline an arbitrary line of text with '=' characters. In vim that's 11 keypresses across 3 operations

Sounds like a vimgolf challenge to me. Here's my entry:

YpVr=

I would imagine that it would be much easier for Stripe to acquire local Stripe equivalents and rebrand, rather than trying to navigate the labyrinth of financial regulations in each location. Maybe that's the game plan for Pin?

From another Perth guy, more congrats to the Pin team (I actually discovered them when I had the same idea, googled it and found that it existed already - in my own town!)

OO is a subset of imperative.

Can you name me an OO language which doesn't support imperative programming?

No, the analogies are spot on.

Anything in the preceding comments which seems ridiculous has been introduced by the concept of "zero tolerance", which precludes common sense.

Zero means zero. If the rules are enforced as written - arguably as intended - this is what you get. The preceding comments just take the concept to its logical conclusion.

More than any other here, your post makes me nostalgic about the old days. Kudos.

> And how is Apple waging war against openness?

This does not need to be an either / or proposition.

_Both_ Apple and Google are doing "evil", in their own way. Along with a bunch of cool stuff, too.

> Mandatory urine testing

I don't think these are the "IP issues" to which he was referring.

In my experience, one of the most significant hindrances has been access to and communication with medical personnel:

- Medics, especially specialists / surgeons, have extremely busy schedules, often holding down both public & private patient responsibilities as well as performing duties for their specific colleges etc.

- The level of IT-savvy amongst healthcare pros is generally low.

- They seem to have a different logic to us IT folk, answers are nebulous for non-medics and hard rules are very difficult to pin down. Ask the same question n times and you will get n different answers, from the same respondent.

When you find a medic who is willing / able to help and towards the positive on all the above axes, you must hold onto them with a death grip.