I think you're missing the context in which "people have it pretty good" is said. It's not a statement made by itself out of nowhere, but as part of a moral judgment, to claim people today have right to complain about whatever suffering they are feeling. The author's counterpoint is that it still is pretty terrible even if yesterday was worse.
As a native English speaker who is hard of hearing, I can echo his pain with phonetics. I learned most of English from reading and writing, and I say a lot of words incorrectly. People I am talking to that do not know me well often treat me as if I am retarded.
I can imagine it is far worse for people like antirez.
> Also, I think the commutes are somewhat blown-up. Plenty of cheap places in San Jose that aren't much more than 40 minutes away if you avoid rush hour.
Leaving aside the question of whether or not 40 min is a reasonable commute, you don't get to determine if you avoid rush hour, and you probobly won't. So 40 min is at best a lower bound rather than what you would expect to see.
Games are sadly just on the cusp of developing a true arts culture - but we have yet to move out of the consumer mentality, where the only value of a game is if you were entertained by it at your most base level. It also doesn't help that a lot of internet commentators can't distinguish between someone criticizing something they like and personal attacks.
I think more likely they're referring to Perestroika and Glasnost leading to the 1991 failed coup. Does anyone who matters seriously believe the above myth?
I met an one of the entrepreneurs behind the jitterbug(now known as a different company). Initially they focused it at parents wanting phones for their children, but now it's mostly for the elderly.
He said they failed at their market research - they tried to make something that appealed to parents, but neglected to see what kids actually wanted(to have things like the adults do). American kids knew it wasn't a real phone, and rejected it. Their parents then got them a flip phone instead of a "kiddie phone".
Instead of the asinine speculation currently below your comment, I thought I'd post a helpful link explaining Obama's relationship with the surveillance state.
I grew up after the open source revolution of the 80's and 90's, but my parents did not get internet until I was in high school. At one point though, I read "How To Be A Hacker" and tried to emulate that world when I started to learn programming. I fell out of love with as I grew up, but there's still a bit of nostalgia for that world to me(false nostalgia - I was never part of it).