A 30 year progression has brought that old dream to hundreds of millions, who just call it a "phone."

I have a hard time seeing the long history in terms of just one brand, or even a few. The trend is much bigger.

I actually like the confusion of the Android market, but I chose a purely conforming Nexus for myself.

Still I like an ecosystem that is really that, and Xiaomi contributes to diversity, even if I don't buy one.

While I did get some quasi support from people who thought it might help in a career someday, the much more common response in those days was "who needs a home computer?"

Update: I agree that we should encourage everyone with an aptitude now to go into higher ROI fields (of which CS is one), I do think it is a bit reconstructed history to make TRS-80s actually "cool" and "non-cool kids excluded."

Indeed, the TRS-80 was not even a game machine. PCs as game machines came a bit later, and as price effective ones, much later.

1 - with apologies to Kohlberg

That was funny, I cussed for the next few miles.

Even better is when you learn to cook or build without measurement, just transferring sizes directly. See James Krenov on building a cabinet.

We need less car than we think we do.

The really sad thing is that the current battle isn't just about this or that "poor" offering in the present, it is against the whole effort. Do you have an idea for a better way to run distance learning? You too are a "solutionist" and have enemies in place.

[meaning sticker combos should be pseudo unique]

I don't think IBM wants to sell _both_ a corporate data initiative and a new phone at the same time.

What Apple and IBM have really done is join an ongoing movement, something that has been going on for years. People already have these iPhones in their pockets, these iPads on their desks, and they very naturally have been integrating them with their life-and-business processes.

Sure, Google would love to have the IOS cache, but this deal more reinforces IOS market dominance than "disrupts" it, the leader.

There could be a downside to the early entrants benefit. Sure, you can explore new territory and carve out a huge position, but you become a "Land Barron" in a sense, and no friend of later "squatters." (Relatedly, Bitcoin)

("sure I've got 20000 points, but they guy just climbing from 100 to 200 is a repwhore")

Why not the Google answer, which is that search brings you "good" no matter how much "bad" there is?

I guess it's a vision opposite of the internet itself. Rather than "find one of a million pages that work for me" it is "there should only be one."

(In the spirit of the internet, perhaps if a question cannot be found by a simple search on SO, that IS a reason to ask again, and to fill the search slot.)

Update: Go ahead, save seeds from your hybrid tomatoes!

http://blog.arrowheadalpines.com/2011/08/go-ahead-save-seeds...

That said, I see nothing wrong with the branding, as an education and promotion drive. If it gets more gardens in, all the better.

(I try to beat the "input costs" with my home container drip system, and not abuse the planet by growing $400 vanity tomatoes. Recycle, reuse, buy on closeout.)

Compare to Japan, Tokyo in particular, with tiny homes and tiny apartments pushed into every nook and cranny.

Why do our costs keep rising? Because we have structured it that way, for the apartment owner and for uniform suburban living.