vitd

It depends on what you mean. The OP was talking about prime time programming on the 3-4 major networks. That's very different from what's being produced on pay channels like HBO or Showtime, or on Netflix. I agree that the high quality stuff is better than 10-20 years ago, where everything was a Friends or Seinfeld ripoff. But I think most of the high quality stuff is on non-major networks these days. Though maybe that's just my perception. I find myself watching less and less stuff on those networks, and more and more on the other networks.

Nice find! Another one I heard about was that Microsoft's Windows keyboards, when used on a Mac, will sometimes insert a Control-P into the middle of your typing if you press the Windows key. Most apps just ignore it, but apparently not all!

I personally don't want a bunch of personal data, like photos, in the cloud where hackers can steal them, the cloud provider can go down, or decide I don't deserve access anymore. And I also travel on planes that usually don't have wifi. So I keep my podcasts and music local on my device. (I'm less concerned with keeping music in the cloud since it's not that personal in the way that a photo of my family is.) I was just running out of space on my 64GB device when the 128GB model came out. I upgraded, and find I'm just a tiny bit over 64GB 9 months later. So I guess I found my equilibrium (at least until I decide to start keeping something else local!).

That and if you have a spouse/roommate/etc., you're boned if you want to use the "living room" and they want to use the "bedroom."

Well, I have to use OpenGL for my development, and it's a giant state machine that works mainly via side-effects. It's notoriously frustrating to work with, but that's life. I realize not all code works that way, but I'd bet the majority of code does. So I stand by my statement that it's a terrible way to debug, maybe with the caveat "unless you can work with only pure code and no state."

When you say "alter code and re-compile on the fly," do you mean and continue debugging without stopping the app and re-running? Because if so, that's a terrible way to debug. You now have state that may not be possible to achieve with the new binary you've made, and you may be debugging something that won't every exist in reality. And it may be very hard to tell that's the case. That doesn't sound very useful. It sounds very dangerous.

Amen! And it makes you wonder what it's doing to our young programmers? I first used gdb in college and had I not already been using Turbo Pascal and Lightspeed C's debuggers, I would probably would have decided that debugging was too much trouble. I see this a lot on Stack Overflow, too. People writing fairly complex code who don't know how to check the value of a variable in the debugger. It's both shocking and depressing.

There are other options. For example, I used to be a poor college student who had no money. I listened to NPR sometimes, but didn't pay. Now I have a good job, and I pay to listen. I don't mind at all that I'm supporting people who can't pay. Some of them will pay eventually, some will continue to get it for free. It's not an either/or proposition.

It's not really equivalent since you taking one diminishes the number left for other paying customers.

Let's do a realistic thought experiment that's actually fair:

Imagine you have a movie that you love. It's showing tonight on an over-the-air channel that inserts ads throughout it. You decide to record the show and watch it later.

Do you skip the ads?

FWIW, I "block" TV ads by either watching the show over the internet and paying not to have ads (iTunes, Netflix, etc.), or by recording them on a DVR and skipping the ads. I avoid newspapers and magazines both because of ads and because the need for ad revenue has compromised the quality of the product.

I'm a white guy who used to have long hair and lived in the South of the US. I would often get the stares, and they were often from people trying to intimidate me or who felt threatened or disgusted by my hair. Apparently many of them thought it meant I was gay or transgendered (even though I dressed like every other male around me), which they felt was wrong, and gave them the right to look at me in ways or say things to me that they wouldn't have otherwise. I can totally understand how not enjoyable being stared at everywhere you go is. Heck, even celebrities don't like all the attention they receive just going about their business.

Why should that matter? You could say the same thing to a transgendered person. He or she can wear the clothes for the gender people assume they are. They have a choice. That doesn't make it any more right for people to be prejudice against them.

Looks good! Thanks!