Yes, i thought it was silly as well. revisionist analysis such as these are pretty common, though normally better written. You can probably find half a dozen essays with titles like "Sherlock holmes fought against colonial oppression, a deep dive in how Conan doyle covered unpopular and controversial topics in the victorian age". And another 50 essays arguing the opposite point.
I feel like this article is revisionism. The author is making a wild assumption that no male, no matter the circumstances was presented with having issues or trauma in victorian literature. Being nice and sympathetic is also not a concept which was only discovered recently. The article just throws in key words like mental health to make it sound relevant for today.
Maybe the only interesting part is that drug use was considered (barely) socially acceptable and holmes was still respectable. Note that he wasn't an alcoholic.
Shout out to the bbc adaptation which does a fantastic and hilarious job of portraying holmes as an erratic drug addict.
Regardless of if we consider Holmes a drug addict, abuser or merely a controlled user, it is clear from the stories that Watson was very concerned as both a Friend and Medical expert, that Holmes is damaging his mental faculties
Mind actually using words to form useful sentences?
He of course insisted he wasn’t an addict - like all addicts do - but he always went back that I remember - like all addicts do. And he used it to cope with not having any interesting problems and the misery of life.
He was enabled by Watson and his brother, and mostly supported in the elements of normal social functioning by them.
Where we draw the line between addict and not is quite subjective in these situations eh?
Only if you think a large empire is the epitome of success.
People have a tendency to look at the cruelest warriors of history and think that is success. Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar or Napoleon are not something to emulate. They were successful by causing horrific pain to a lot of people.
Success and greatness of historical figures do not mean they were moral heroes although people would like you to believe otherwise. King Example XIV of the 15th century might have been a really good guy but he never did anything so nobody knows or cares about him. His half brother and uncle killed him and invaded and subjugated 6 neighbouring states but was less bad then everyone else at the time so he's great and successful instead of a villain. I don't think there are rules, but i think anyone who generally advances progress instead of reversing it is considered great. Genghis Khan as far as i know didn't so he isn't. Julius Caesar did so he is.
Pure misandrist nonsense. You could have picked Hitler or Stalin to at least have half a point.
Napoleon spread enlightenment values that benefitted generations that came after. Julius Caesar took civilization across a continent. Deng Xiaoping was leader during Tianenmen Square but brought more people out of poverty than anyone else in history.
Being great means being able to do some things others do not like because the resulting upside is better for everyone.
The old boys network and class still plays a big role in UK politics. I'm convinced that the behaviour of Boris Johnson and even Starmer is incomprehensible without that unspoken element.
Is it a bad thing? perhaps. Is it a recipe for disaster? I would say the historical evidence is pretty clear that no, not really. It worth pointing out that the US where class is much less important is more successful.
In my head Holmes is descended from minor nobility while Watson is solidly upper middle class.
Now, Labours envy based attacks on the private schools that gave them all their advantages in life helps nobody. It won't matter to rich kids and is just a barrier to success for middle class kids. When you consider the quality of state education, at least there should be some educated people to run the country, even if it's a bad system.
Ot but hogwarts is a great parody of the British boarding school system. A drafty, dangerous castle full of dangerous animals, homicidal, abusive and incompetent teachers, serious injuries are a fact of life and complacent staff. Add in the most incompetent and negligent headmaster in all literature, who hardly does anything throughout the series and thinks that soul sucking demons are an acceptable security measure to protect his students and runs the school as his personal domain. Throw in class based bullying in the student body and you have everything. I always found it striking that the most hatable character in the series is a school inspector (Umbridge).
It's actually a terrible idea. You're giving the people who "fail fast" no real incentives to fix themselves up and try again, and the people who "succeed" no incentives to do even better in the future. Even aside from how cruel it obviously looks, it's really a recipe for pervasive incompetence and a failed society.
Again the Brits had their biggest empire when led by this caste of people, which is why their boarding schools get so much overseas business today. To paint that as incompetence or a failed society is wishful thinking - they were the peak of what they could be.
"Big Money Waster" is what we used to call them. They are notorious for electronic faults in particular. They're just very complicated, which electric cars aren't.
I don't understand that. 98% of devices over 15 years old have either died of old age or are completely obsolete. Something can be said about unlocking deprecated devices, but it would only ever be used by a tiny percentage of people. Apple devices in particular last a very long time anyway, as you should expect from a premium brand.
They did the same for the iPad Pro. My kid is using the hand-me-down of my mother (so from grandmother to granddaughter). I put a case on it to protect against bumps, protect screen (has a couple of burn-in marks but it is still very usable) and put tape on top of the camera (the mics likely still work). I also put it on my IoT VLAN. She uses it for YouTube Kids and Disney+, mainly, but schooldays it is limited to 15 min a day and weekend days (fri and sat) to 1 hr. After that, she needs to ask for more time. Usually we don't give that, although in vacations we are lenient. The device still works very well, although the battery (still same as in 2017 or so when it was bought new) is a lil' bit hammered. Now here's the thing: is this device not overkill for the tasks I mentioned? I think so, yes. A kid her age (almost 8) would be happy with whatever, it could be 480p and they're cool with it, as long as the software is still secure (and don't give me the BS of 'don't give them a tablet'; it is locked down and my first shared PC was in like 1989 when I was about her age). And sadly, Apple doesn't want to provide software updates for this device anymore. Microsoft not either, btw, as they deprecated Windows 10 and Windows 11 requires TPMv2 (though Windows is more about PCs and laptops, I'm not sure if there's any effect on Surface hardware). I believe companies can do better, but if they don't want to, they should unlock the bootloader and give the user free reign on the device. You quit support, you unlock the hardware, or else you're violating the local law. That'd be my preference.
Absolutely, me as well. I think the key here is that Apple is selling a platform that is used for a multitude of purposes, often including running software from third party developers. If you’re selling a platform device in large numbers you should have the choice codified by law of either continuing software support to some degree or releasing an unlock kit for it. You should not have the option of effectively abandoning and bricking it, if that’s the route you must go the buyer should get the option of a full purchase price refund at that point in time.
It's the larger point. A device with a 64-bit SoC, higher-than-HD display, battery, gigabytes of RAM and storage being consigned to landfill is bonkers.
>It's the larger point. A device with a 64-bit SoC, higher-than-HD display, battery, gigabytes of RAM and storage being consigned to landfill is bonkers.
That's not a high bar to clear. Who's realistically going to use a laptop/desktop with a Core 2 Duo (2006), for instance?
You're going to think my answer is bizarre, but those kind of underpowered devices would be ideal for office work or non-IT businesses in general. They need computers to do the same things as they needed 15 or 20 years ago. Writing documents, spreadsheets, taking inventory, sending and receiving e-mail.
No, your idea is perfectly rational. Somebody I know consulted me on what kind of computers to buy for their new small business that would only be used for browsing, email, word processing. I found them a store that sold used Dell and HP workstations. They got 3 Dell machines (CPU + Monitor + Keyboard + Mouse), all Intel Core i5 with 16 GB RAM, 1 TB HDD with Windows 7 Pro, for $75 / each. We spent an additional $25 to purchase a cheap 128 GB SSD and installed Linux (LMDE), Firefox, LibreOffice and GNU Cash on it. (Preserved Windows Dual boot option, just in case they needed Windows for something). This was 2+ years ago and the owner was so happy that I reduced his IT hardware budget by a quarter. I recently purchased a used HP 25" monitor from Craigslist, for $60, in excellent condition and still having a year warranty on it, whose retail price was around $500 on launch. There is so much e-waste being produced ...
It's the same as with cars - companies want brand new because then you get a full warranty and theoretically you don't need to worry about it. So that $400 you saved would be spent in IT support for your old failing hardware.
But the thing is.....old PCs are really not that unreliable. If they survived the last 5-10 years then they are probably still chugging along just fine and for a small business there is literally nothing wrong with using them.
> Writing documents, spreadsheets, taking inventory, sending and receiving e-mail.
Well... Outlook is already a web app, the rest of the Office suite will follow rather sooner than later, and inventory - it's either web apps or SAP, both memory hogs.
But not all businesses need to use the latest versions of Microsoft Office. They might not even need to use Microsoft Office at all. iPads come with a stock e-mail application, as well as word processing and spreadsheets etc. And if you're using old PCs, you can use old versions of Office. Or WordPad and an e-mail client. They are light-weight.
You are thinking of big businesses, where as I was talking about Micro and Small businesses (in India). They don't even use Outlook today. For them email means Gmail, and even its use is declining as most business communication in India is done over WhatsApp!
>>Who's realistically going to use a laptop/desktop with a Core 2 Duo (2006), for instance?
I was literally still using a Core2Duo Macbook Pro as a kitchen laptop just for looking up recipes and watching youtube videos etc until last year. Worked absolutely fine until Chrome decided that it's not going to update itself anymore and since I'm on an old version of chrome I can't use google sync. That's what killed it for me - the hardware itself was still perfectly functional.
> Something can be said about unlocking deprecated devices, but it would only ever be used by a tiny percentage of people. Apple devices in particular last a very long time anyway, as you should expect from a premium brand.
Used by a tiny percentage only because Apple has made it as difficult as possible to not upgrade, which is especially egregious precisely because their devices are long-lasting.
(This comment brought to you via a perfectly functioning iPhone 8 running the latest possible iOS that supports it.)
> I don't understand that. 98% of devices over 15 years old have either died of old age or are completely obsolete. Something can be said about unlocking deprecated devices, but it would only ever be used by a tiny percentage of people. Apple devices in particular last a very long time anyway, as you should expect from a premium brand.
HN is biased towards the sort of people who keep computers from 2009 to play with and wish they could get more use out of their 12 year old iPad Air. That's great, but it's simply not a thing for most people so i don't see how it significantly reduce ewaste.
If mobile devices would routinely last twenty years, which they very well could, that would reduce a lot of e-waste. Software getting more demanding is also a function of hardware churn.
> If mobile devices would routinely last twenty years, which they very well could, that would reduce a lot of e-waste.
Unfortunately, battery technology doesn't - and even if we had long lasting batteries, we'd also need fall-resistant screens. And no matter what, even if you have a device held together by screws and allowing easy repair instead of messing around with glue and click-tabs... screens still are really expensive, making it often enough more worthwhile to take the opportunity and upgrade the whole device rather than to repair the screen.
Not in most phones. You always have to mess with glue and unless you take extreme care and caution to remove _all_ pieces of it you will end up with compromised water-tightness, not to mention risking the screen cracking or being exposed to air (ruining OLEDs).
> my main desktop monitor
We were talking about phones. Phones get dropped, scratched by keys, ... the list why phone LCDs/OLEDs can get broken is loooong.
You clearly haven't met a lot of your average PC or phone user then. Most people don't care about getting the newest and best thing. If a thing still works, they'll use it until it doesn't anymore, however long that is. You have no idea the kinds of PCs I saw people using when I worked as a technician. People just don't have an interest in getting new tech unless they're forced to, because they largely aren't interested in tech. They're interested in document processing, watching videos, listening to music and dealing with their pictures. And they don't care how old the device is they're doing it on.
In addition, they don't want to spend money on it. They'd rather spend money on things they actually care about. Festivals, clubs, vacations, a new TV, a car, restaurants, whatever. Your average non-tech person is happy if they don't have to spend anything on gadgets for 10 years.
My mum was still happily on some 8 year old iphone, I'm not even sure which one that was, and then got really annoyed that she had to upgrade just because her banking apps stopped updating and wouldn't log in anymore. It's just pure and complete e-waste.
The iOS ecosystem graduated to status symbol for many, $66k average salary doesn’t really matter when society will just take whatever carrier trade in deal they can use to status up.
>You're living in a bubble to think people don't want to get more time out of their family's iOS devices.
No, at least for Apple devices, the overwhelming majority are replaced before they reach EOL. According to https://telemetrydeck.com/survey/apple/iPhone/models/, only around 25% of people are using iPhones that were released more than 3 years ago.
Maybe more people aren't running older hardware because it's too difficult, rather than because they don't want to. The basic idea is here is taht if a device can still hold a charge and the user is OK with limited features, they should be able to keep using it as long as they feel like it.
Citing large absolute numbers for rhetorical effect is dishonest because multiplying a huge number with any percentage will result in a shockingly large number. The original claim is that "people who keep computers from 2009 to play with and wish they could get more use out of their 12 year old iPad Air [...] it's simply not a thing for most people", which is true even, if there are millions in absolute terms.
The PC ecosystem is the exception to the rule. 20 year lifetimes are typical, but in the smartphone world 10 years is treated as an impossibility. It is all disposable by design
I'm not sure about today's conventions, but it used to be that every component inside a car had a minimum standard of 10-year-life. The Toyota Landcruiser famously had a minimum 25-year-life for each and every single component. I have worked closely with some older Toyota engineers in Japan. It is possible but not conventional.
That's not even the main problem. Youtube is basically unwatchable with all the ads. Maybe it's just me but it often feels like it's badly broken. I found skipvids a while back. I find the videos on YT and watch them there. I don't watch yt often so that's the path of least resistance for me.
I mean, in terms of getting your caffeine, Redbull is basically the least poison in the game. It's not even a lot of caffeine and doesn't contain a lot of the other shit that stuff like Monsters contain.
Like really, checkout the redbull ingredient list sometime. There's not much to it.
Not saying it's healthy at all. Nobody should really be drinking energy drinks, but Redbull is probably the least awful of the bunch.
technical there are many "non energy drinks" which have no less caffeine or other wake-up effects as energy drinks.
But funnily one of the ways Red Bull works is by giving you Vitamin B12 and Magnesium,
which are commonly on a slight deficit in, case where people take energy drinks. They can lead to a noticeable feeling of boosted energy in a similar time as caffeine takes effect (ironically Caffeine takes 15-30min to take effect, anything before is either something else or a placebo effect...). In general if you have problems with low energy in the morning taking B12+Magnesium alongside the breakfast is a things worth trying out (just maybe not by drinking a Red Bull :=) ).
>There are also pictures of people
enjoying the spectacle that
demonstrate the morbid fascination
that many Americans had with nuclear
weapons at the time.
Was this written with ai? No person in any time period wouldn't be interested. Big explosions are never boring.
The article doesn't generally read like AI to me, though I can't discount the possibility that I have been fooled by a new and more advanced slop machine.
I think HN is probably biased towards a subset of the population that is perennially interested in nuclear explosions. They surely occupied a much greater part of the public consciousness in the 50s than they do today (and certainly much greater than a few years ago, before a nuclear power invaded Europe).
I'm wondering what happens when the earths magnetic field flips. A mass die off?
>“It is
amazing that sea turtles have access
to a wealth of invisible information
that they use to navigate in ways that
are hard for us to even imagine.”
we can never hope to compete with nature, but i do find that statement funny. They literally built a device to help emulate turtle navigation. GPS is a part of life. Humans can detect and have found uses for almost every part of the spectrum. Compasses have existed for centuries. I'm not being dismissive of this discovery at all. I just find it remarkable how much we have managed to achieve.
According to wikipedia the reversals can take a while
>Some sources estimate the most recent four reversals took on average 7,000 years to occur. Clement (2004) suggests that this duration is dependent on latitude, with shorter durations at low latitudes and longer durations at mid and high latitudes. Others estimate the duration of full reversals to vary from between 2,000 to 12,000 years.
reply