pi-err

Maybe, living in France where maybe half the roundabouts of the world exist, I have been exposed to too much beauty.

But mostly I see roundabouts as one of the most depressing, ugly and environmentally-destructive gimmicks of 20th century car culture.

True but it also reflects that the EU has indeed destroyed most goodwill towards it in the last decade regarding most things digital.

Most EU initiatives have damaged everyday UX on the web and in tech. Yes, some malicious compliance has played a role by over-reacting to well-intended regulations. But overall the EU has brought this upon itself.

This specific Open Source Strategy memo is typical. It's in fact not a strategy but a list of key goals and requirements, put together in technocratic jargon. It will have zero effect on the actual open source ecosystem.

Awesome book. Students were already gaming the system as extremists in 1200 Paris.

> (the cleric students were) marked by the tonsure, which granted them two major privileges:

> the privilegium canonis, protected their persons, which were regarded as sacred. Any physical violence against them entailed excommunication, which could only be lifted after severe penance. One did not mistreat a cleric without exposing oneself to serious consequences.

> The second was the privilegium fori, which placed clerics under the sole jurisdiction of ecclesiastical courts... Philip Augustus is said to have observed the boldness of clerics who rushed into the fray brandishing swords, yet wearing neither armour nor helmets. Hardly surprising, when a shaved head offered better protection than a helmet.

This specific design decision makes so little sense, really curious on how it got approved. It's not an accident or a miss, since the variable radius got quite heavily promoted during WWDC.

Hopeful they don't wait 7 years to change stance.

If 90% of passengers were scamming the drivers or hijacking the car for some nefarious purpose that affects other cars, you definitely wouldn't find that silly.

Looks like it's recording all the time and analyzes 900 screenshots every 15 minutes? And it keeps records for 3 days.

So I'm not sure I buy the lightweight/low-impact claim.

That's one is first point: "don't buy anything Apple" based on the linked Anil Dash's post, itself based on Arab Steve Jobs fantasy and Cook's supposed betrayal.

Clickbait built on 2 fantasy notions:

1- that Jobs would somehow be the hero of a mythical arab/syrian culture and diversity politics who would have behaved differently than Cook towards Trump.

If anything, Jobs cherished the white working suburban middle class of the west coast that has been destroyed in the last generations. He _never_ behaved as a white knight and nobody knows what he would have done (and nobody knows how hard Cook's political equation is)

2- that Apple is due for perfect, idealized products that fill 100% of people's void. This guy explains that iPhones make too many compromise and the OS is just "good enough".

Would be curious to hear of _one single_ previous or current OS platform or hardware at that scale that matches Apple's 2026 line up.

It's ironic that you didn't read a comment before answering.

> it's unclear that Nasa can ever be without that (military and political) oversight

By design, Nasa is probably doomed to get interference.

> If theyd kept their budget and autonomy after the moon landing it looked like they wouldve been building reusable rockets

Pure fantasy. Nasa's interest for reusable vehicles led them to the Shuttle. Even without all the design changes, it would have been a dud.

Due to its nature, Nasa can't freely explore and commit to a design like SpaceX does/did. It draws a concept and freezes it after contractor review, only to find after an already massive investment if it works. Then there's public accountability instead of executive risk taking.

I'd bet the proper way to have protected Nasa would have been to keep it focused on key scientific missions with limited financial exposure. Mars rovers are a perfect case, or most James Webb.

Using Nasa to go back to the Moon or reach Mars was doomed to fail (sort of like it failed post Apollo).

You could swap "tech" for "big media" and just play the same blame game for Reagan's and Bush Jr's elections.

> the crown jewels of America’s last century

Including Nasa in this pure idealization of the past. Nasa had many flaws that enabled a catastrophic Shuttle program and then the slow loss of US go-to-LEO capability.

There's probably more to expect of US investment in space without incompetent or contradictory military and political oversight than the current nasa zombie programs.

And it's unclear that Nasa can ever be without that oversight.

Feels more like Apple is sticking to its position that "all those LLMs are gimmicks and not actual AI". So they think they're not late because they see the primary tech behind oAI (etc) as a base for non-threatening features.

This stance will probably age very poorly but that's what it is.

Sounds a lot like "Google+ will catch Facebook in no time".

OpenAI has been on a winning streak that makes ChatGPT the default chatbot for most of the planet.

Everybody else like you describe is trying to add some AI crap behind a button on a congested UI.

B2B market will stay open but OpenAI has certainly not peaked yet.

Pretty sure this is not about revenue but profit margins, since the Services line was under heavy surveillance by markets back then.

Though that's the core issue, margins on services are just too addictive for big tech. Not sure Apple can keep its recipe for success with both services and hardware.

You could argue that macOS development is too slow, not too fast and in need of a maintenance year.

Basic OS features have fallen way behind in term of UX - and of vision. Managing files and searching for information have become a chore compared to most internet- or llm-based services. Even a bug-free Finder or faster Spotlight would not bridge that gap.

All apps listed in the article feel similarly lost behind - Mail, Messages, Photos. The only exception is System Settings that does definitely need a snow version.

This is obviously true for other platforms as well.

We are possibly lacking a leap forward. Not faster horses, electric cars.

An obvious root cause of this is the lack of newcomers to the OS again. It's an oligopole that has no interest making things much improved.

An engineer in chief is not necessarily the best way to grow an engineering driven culture.