At the risk of being flamed, I want to state that I think GIMP is worse. I have no objective evidence, though; it's all subjective and anecdotal.
I started with Paint Shop Pro, and what it lacked in features it made up in ease-of-use. I especially liked the ability to mix raster and vector layers; Photoshop still hasn't captured the simplicity and power of PSP's vector layers, IMO (in terms of UI, at least). After I used PSP, I moved on to Photoshop. While it was initially a bit intimidating, my familiarity with PSP quickly helped me overcome this and I was up to speed pretty fast. Fast forward a long time and I try Corel Painter. Its interface is definitely different, but still easy to follow. I picked it up in a few minutes (for some definition of 'picked up').
Then I tried GIMP. I couldn't make heads or tails of it, and I never got used to it. I can't explain why GIMP doesn't work for me; just that I didn't -- couldn't -- pick it up like I did Photoshop or Painter (or openCanvas for that matter).
This idea sounds controversial, but I think folding news.YC into a section on reddit (at least in name) would prompt people to post the irrelevant fluff on reddit, and keep news.YC on topic.
I'm sure there are many reasons not to do this, but the idea still has merit, IMO.
While I don't agree with you, I see where you're coming from and don't think you deserve negative karma for your post.
Let me play devil's advocate for a moment:
One could perhaps make the analogy to caffeine (as others in this thread already have). Sports and academia alike drink it all the time. This is a drug so generally harmless that we don't even consider it a drug. Who would argue that caffeine gives an unfair advantage? Does it not make sense that a drug with a more pronounced benefit and similarly innocuous side-effects should be accepted?
Introducing technology failed horribly (in one case, at least; our smartboards fared well) at my school when Neil Bush tested Ignite!. Introducing technology to schools is tricky, because in most cases it's not essential to teaching. Often, good teachers are nervous to change what works, and the bad teachers are usually unable to make it work well. If you want more interactivity in education, I'd advise you draw up a sample curriculum and offer to work (for free) with the school's star teachers to develop the technology around their curriculums.
Also, if you don't mind the plug (as I am an alumni), my mixed middle-high school, Gretchen Whitney HS, is ranked #1 in CA by API, and has a few very good and forward-thinking teachers who may be willing (hopefully) to do just such a thing. Couldn't hurt to ask.
No.
Hackers aren't totally insulated from politics, and as long as we have some interest in these things, having that reflected on n.yc isn't bad, IMO. By the same reasoning a deluge of such stories would be inappropriate because, proportionally speaking, we're not as concerned about such things as more traditionally hacker-relevant topics.
I wouldn't applaud them for marginalizing PDF so much as applaud them for providing a better alternative for online content.
OS X's support for PDF is phenomenal, and Foxit's launchtime on Windows is lightning fast. I can't speak for Linux (as I haven't opened a PDF on linux in some time), but I agree that where embedded content is concerned, PDF's browser integration is terrible across the board.