arlor

seanismorris said:

I don’t know where you’re getting this is “the golden age” of television... until you’re referring to number of channels.

That's part of it, but it's such a common critical and industry observation that it has, among other things, its own Wikipedia page. It's certainly not an observation about broadcast TV, which is on a slide, but HBO/Showtime/Netflix/Prime/etc. I think I first heard the phrase when The Sopranos was on the air. 

eta the link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age_of_Television_(2000s%E2%80%93present)

wizard69 said:

What a waste of money.    NYC is one of the sicker cities in this country.  There are hundreds of mid sized cities in this country that would be cheaper and in many cases offer up a more suitable work force.  

Increasing returns to scale, my friend. Des Moines might be cheaper, but it doesn't have the incredibly deep well of young, ambitious people with the right skills, because it doesn't have a critical mass of companies and educational institutions for them to hop back and forth between as their careers advance. The tech industry already supports several hubs: Seattle, the Bay Area, Boston, NYC, northern Virginia. The big companies need such a constant flow of talent that they can't make it work in a mid-sized city unless a bunch of them jump at once. I'm sure Des Moines would be delighted to talk. 

d_2 said:

gregoriusm said:

“Shazam's 2018 profit was $34.5 million, less than 2017's $44.8 million, but boasted a profit of $158.4 million and reversed $19.4 million in losses the year prior.“

Am I missing something?

Glad it’s not just me confused with this statement.

Me three. I looked at the actual report, and I'm not an accountant but I couldn't find the exact numbers cited under any label. 

On page 10 of the report, it shows $40.8m of revenue ("turnover") in 2017, $31.4m in 2018, with operating losses, not gains, of $17.8m in 2017 and $13.8m in 2018. That's as close as I think we get to the underlying operational revenue and profit (that is to say loss). The profit in 2018 of $144.2m (before tax of $20.3m), not $158.4m, is entirely due to a payment by Apple of $157.7m for intellectual property (see page 23) offsetting the $13.8m in operating loss. 

Notsofast said:

Fair points, but underlying the entire editorial is the dubious proposition that Apple wants to be like Netflix, etc.  It seems increasingly clear that Apple has no desire to have a large back catalogue of stuff that most people don't care to watch. Instead, they seem to intend to be more of a HBO, indeed as HBO transitions under its new owner to having more and more content, Apple may be the only high quality focused service out there.    

This may be a good analysis, but even before HBO's strategy shift, they had a heck of a lot more content than Apple will have anytime soon. HBO's been making original content for far longer than they've had a streaming service, so they had a substantial back catalog right from the beginning. 

Thinness is cool and all, but I type thousands of words a day, and I don't move my laptop around all that much. Short key travel and lack of wrist elevation both reduce comfort and the latter is a well-studied cause of repetitive stress problems. Comfort when I'm working is far, far more important to me than comfort when I'm carrying the thing around. Modern laptops from almost any manufacturer are already light and thin enough that further progress seems unnecessary. 

I think the thinness has gone further than is sensible on the phones, too. The camera bump exposes the critical covering of the camera to scratches and damage, and means that the phone doesn't lay flat. Sure, both of these problems can be addressed with a case, but what's the point of the beautiful design if it's just going to go into a case?