> It’s eerily parallel to the situation with Ukraine today, in fact.
I'm sorry, but this is not a realistic view of what transpired. Russia was and continues to be an opportunistic colonialist. They keep moving territory markers overnight in Georgia. Crimea/Donbass didn't happen because of some breakdown in some peace treaty. The last minute deal offered and wasn't accepted right before the 2022 invasion that some blame Ukraine on was awful in every possible way. It would have neutered Ukraine militarily and required a puppet government subservient to Russia be installed.
> Most of the people I know who pursue creative/crafting hobbies alongside a software development job have chosen to work for well-known big companies, for prestige and safety, and ended up unfulfilled in their jobs.
Depends on the industry. I've been doing iOS for over a decade. You're right in that there are different dynamics with enterprise that can wear you down. I find that to be less so the case with jobs in the retail sector. Things are always fluid and changing there.
Still, this is a very subjective statement. As someone in my middle ages, I've come to appreciate and understand how views change over time. The 20-something me would have jumped over to new jobs every 2-3 years. The 40 something me recognizes value in work/life balance, stability, and a more defined and often opportunistic growth path in larger companies. And it's at this stage that while I may not fully comprehend the occasional stubbornness of 60-something devs, I can at least approach their way of thinking as not wrong. When you have a spouse, family, and mortgage to support, the potential upsides of a smaller, more nimble company just don't overcome the peace of mind of being in the corporate world.
It's mostly 2. The harder point to prove, though I think it's true, that much of the pro-Palestinian rhetoric is as much anti-Israel, i.e anti-Semetic. It's hard to discuss subjects like this without nuance so most of my observations/opinions tend to be around trends. But a good comparison could be Ukraine and Russia. Much of the US widely supports Ukraine's plight and fully believe that Russia is a belligerent, colonialist nation fully at fault for the war. Nothing gray about it compared to the Israel/Palestine conflict. And yet you don't widespread hate and mistreatment of ethnic Russians in the US. You can't say the same about the treatment Jews, even those born and raised in the US.
It wouldn’t surprise me if it’s a licensing issue more than a data one. Atmos support for my Xbox headset, for example, has a monthly subscription cost.
This is a wonderful speech full of noble platitudes. None of this actually answers the question of why Apple (or really anyone) should let anyone have free and open access to something they paid and keep paying a lot to create, deploy, maintain, and iterate on. It’s their stuff, not the public’s. Nobody should expect corporations to be charities.
>The Switch simple can’t do the same things that an Xbox or PlayStation can do. Many of those consoles top selling games would not be playable on a Switch, because they’re high performance games that require high performance hardware, and the Switch simply isn’t a viable substitute for that. Even for the most graphically demanding games that can run on a Switch, they can only do so with comparatively low resolution and frame rate, which in case you didn’t know, are major selling points for the segments that Microsoft/Sony are competing in.
Absolutely no one is arguing this and it's not the point. You should give the commentators on this forum more credit than thinking we aren't aware of the power/capabilities differences.
The "high-end console gaming market" is what is what people are taking issue with. It's such a limiting segmentation and is arguably not a very good definition. There's a console gaming market as a whole, with a subset of it being high-end, that competes on user's gaming time. In my view, that's how it should be defined. There's also the mobile gaming market. Are we to now say the Switch shouldn't belong in the mobile gaming market because of screen size and power capabilities? It doesn't make sense to define the Switch in its own, standalone market. What would it be? Mid-tier portable gaming market? One that has no competitors and it has a monopoly in? That's not practical nor reflective of gaming purchasing habits.
Segregating the market based on capabilities breaks down in many ways. The argument shouldn't be that the Switch should belong in its own category because many people who own an Xbox or a Playstation also happen to own a Switch. Nearly half of Xbox owners also happen to own Playstation console (myself included) so does the fact that there's an overlap now mean that Xbox and PlayStation should be somehow in their own category? Of course not. Nor should the argument be about how it's played. One can that the Switch can be played in a portable manner but I just as easily play on my Playstation or Xbox through my iPad locally or even the cloud. Yes, it's not a popular option but the capabilities are there. All that's left is arguing about whether or not something can play AAA games in higher fidelity. If fidelity is something a gamer is truly after, they'd be buying a PC.
It’s something MS has been saying numerous times, including in the FTC court case.
The number of games that are exclusive to a platform that are paid to be that way is actually quite small. Almost all platform exclusives come from companies that are subsidiaries of their respective platform company (343 Studios, Naughty Dog, etc).
The argument of graphic capabilities as something that defines the Switch to be in a different market that’s that of Sony/MS is a straw man argument, IMO. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere in these comments, it’s still competing for peoples’ video game time.
Call of Duty will be available for Switch under Microsoft. Halo and God of War are platform exclusives. But so are Tears of the Kingdom and various Mario titles. Elden Ring is the only game listed that's not available for Switch but is on both others.
Even then, there are a ton of games that are available across all platforms, including some AAA ones:
Mortal Kombat 11
The Witcher 3
Assassins's Creed (multiple)
Skyrim
Resident Evil (multiple)
Monster Hunter Rise
Overwatch 2
etc...
I don't really buy this. There's only so many much time individuals can/will commit to playing video games and spend on accessories. There'll be an overlap of those who can afford the time/money to use both a Switch and a PS5. And with consoles, it's often game sales that matter more than hardware as Nintendo is the only company that makes some money off of its hardware.
Quality of games doesn't matter so much. If someone is spending hours playing Tears of the Kingdom, that's time not spent on playing games on another console.
Even with your analogy there will be some people who can afford 2 cars and drive them for different occasions but others only dedicate to just one. And even then a person can only drive one car at a time.
By rocky, I’m not talking about pebbles and small stones. I’m referring to boulders and ledge that may need blasting. It happens quite often up here and most of the time excavators may not know about these issues until they start digging.
> Well you dig it till it is the same shape as the plan...
That’s not how it works. Either the surrounding property needs to be regraded, in which case you’d still be forced to use excavation equipment, or you’re making an even more complex machine to be able to support building things like walk out basements on a custom grade. In the case of basements there’s simply a lot of volume of material that would need to be either removed out of a lot or just moved within the lot. Again, still needs excavation equipment to do that. The same excavation equipment that can dig out a foundation within hours and is perfectly adept at dealing with boulders.
A machine to handle other parts of the job such as foundation pouring might be viable. I’m just saying that a magical machine that can do it all if left alone for a few days is wishful thinking.
You lost me there. I’m guessing you’ve never had to deal with rocky New England soil and non-flat grades. I’m sure many other regions have their own challenges, such as water tables and custom insulation requirements.
Yes, it was some of the best reporting in the conflict by Simon Ostrovsky who’s now at PBS (https://www.simonostrovsky.com/). His material and access to people from both sides of the conflict was without equal.
I'm of the opinion that WFH has been a net negative to productivity. Measuring productivity was much easier for managers to do when everyone was in the office as employees would find it more difficult to hide attempts at slacking off. Those who are less productive when WFH are less willing to admit it and I believe it's the reason why whenever the topic of WFH comes up, it's drowned by the voices of all those who say it's been absolutely great for them.
I don't think anyone is going to argue about the conveniences this WFH culture has brought. And I'm certain there quite a number of people who can prove how much better their work has been because of this shift. Those who are being far less productive, though, are kinda ruining it for the rest of us and lots of managers know it. I think Satya is on point when he talked about what employers say about productivity and what their managers think is actually happening.