6 ms·

Because this headline demands a cynical response - this isn't cooler than Apple, its cooler than RadioShack. Also, why the couch? Unless there are some coding

Because this headline demands a cynical response - this isn't cooler than Apple, its cooler than RadioShack. Also, why the couch? Unless there are some coding camps at the location, I can't imagine someone (even a parent) coming in and needing to sit down. Maybe an experienced sales associate that maps out the types of activities that can be done, but I doubt that as well.

arkitaip 8y ago
I think it's cooler for people who actually create and hack hardware. There's a level of play and tinkering that you probably never ever experience in an apple store.
- abhishekjha 8y ago
  The problem is core CS subjects don’t train you enough to do that. You would have to learn that from somebody who already is an expert and that maybe a little out of reach for a lot of people. I have been wanting to hack hardware but I haven’t had any guidance yet about what/how to proceed and debug. Looks like abstractions have gotten complicated enough for somebody to necessarily ignore how it works under the hood lest modifying the behaviour.
  - gambiting 8y ago
    Why would a CS course teach you any of this? You want an EE degree to learn this, not CS
    - collyw 8y ago
      CS must teach at least some hardware, no?
      - crumpets 8y ago
        Not really. Hardware and machines that actually run algorithms are just an implementation detail. :)
        zimpenfish 8y ago
        Anecdata: Mine did (CS, Manchester, 92-95). First year a certain amount of hardware was mandatory, second and onwards was optional (and I opted out.) (Many people opted in because it gave you a chance to be lectured by Steve Furber and later work with him on 3rd year projects, IIRC.)
        C1sc0cat 8y ago
        Also for years only Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial and UMIST where considered the truly good CS degrees.
        TickleSteve 8y ago
        Manchester Uni CS certainly was partially hardware-based up until '97 or so. Was doing CS, but plenty of hardware topics were available, such as creating your own processor on an FPGA, etc. How can you possibly write good software without an appreciation of hardware??
      - jki275 8y ago
        Certainly did in my program. Computer Org & Design has been a canonical part of CS for a long time.
    - SiVal 8y ago
      There are exceptions, but neither really teaches these things in most universities. My EE classes were about the skills needed to design a RasPi, not use one, which was "electronics technician stuff", not "serious electrical engineering". And CS is about lofty concepts of algorithms and type theory, where mere "programming" is a dirty business that sometimes can't be avoided. Hardware in CS? Oh, dear.... (Clutching my pearls, heading for my swooning couch.) Using a RasPi is in that middle ground of intellectual disrepute where hobbyists teach each other and have lots of fun. It's what you do after school.
- bunnycorn 8y ago
  Doubt. Do they have a LM7812? And a LM117Z for a fan? Do they have a NTC 100K with a beta of 3950? I'll also need a 40x40x20 fan at 24V, 3 pin. Plus some DIN562 M3 nuts, but it needs to be stainless steel. And I expect no to pay more than $10 for all of that. Not cool.
nicky0 8y ago
Call me crazy but sometimes it's nice to sit down.
hinkley 8y ago
You’ve never gone clothes shopping with your SO? Remember the chairs by the changing room? These are the changing room chairs for the other half.
- clintonb 8y ago
  I've always found this situation weird. When my wife and I go shopping, we don't really do it together. I go to my stores. She goes to hers. No need for chairs. I can certainly understand why someone might shop with an SO, but it's never been a requirement for us.
  - benj111 8y ago
    How does that work? You go into the shop, see shirt, check size, buy it, bam, done. Spend 30 minutes ogling PCs, Cars, Bikes, (pick your poison), before going to to find your partner who is still in the first shop with 50 rejected tops outside the changing room. So you find a seat..... (This is a therapy session right?)
  - collyw 8y ago
    When I rarely go clothes shopping it does seem to be pretty normal for couples to shop together.
- C1sc0cat 8y ago
  Its also why the mothership Games Workshop in Nottingham has such a nice café/bar. They also did a nice GW branded bitter
- gholling 8y ago
  That's one of their uses... I had a chat with a couple of people sat down and they were just waiting for their SOs to finish browsing. So I gave them a MagPi and Hackspace magazine to read while waiting. I noticed that they bought the Hackspace! :)
jayd16 8y ago
It does have a "Steve Jobs designs RadioShack" vibe to it.
laumars 8y ago
> this isn't cooler than Apple, its cooler than RadioShack. Arguably it could be cooler than both. You’re making an arbitrary distinction where one isn’t needed. Plus we never even had RadioShack in the UK (maybe Maplins might have been more apt? But I think the Apple comparison serves the authors point quite fine). > Also, why the couch? Plenty of shops in the UK have seating. It isn’t that weird at all. > Because this headline demands a cynical response No, it really doesn’t. You just chose to be negative for your own personal reasons.
- benj111 8y ago
  "we never even had RadioShack in the UK" We did kind of. Tandy was basically RadioShack, they even sold RadioShack branded products. I would like to say that it rebranded as RadioShack towards the end, but I cant find any evidence of that. So that's probably just my failing memory.
  - stan_rogers 8y ago
    Tandy and Radio Shack are the same company. On this side of the pond, Tandy was the brand for a leatherworking hobby shop run by the company, while Radio Shack was electronics; you'd usually find a Radio Shack and a Tandy store next door to each other in the sixties and seventies.
    - jki275 8y ago
      And into the 80s! I remember them. I miss Radio Shack -- not the cell phone store they became, but what they were in the 80s.
  - dpwm 8y ago
    > I would like to say that it rebranded as RadioShack towards the end, but I cant find any evidence of that. So that's probably just my failing memory. Many of them became Carphone Warehouse circa 2000 [0]. By 2001 the brand had been killed off. My last memory of Tandy was buying a RadioShack 14in TV. It didn't disappoint: it came with the schematic. But, I definitely remember seeing a shop with RadioShack written on it in Boston, Lincolnshire around 2004 – and that was a town that I don't think ever had a Tandy. I never checked it out as my component needs were satisfied by an independent electronics shop in Lincoln. I'm speculating that, after Tandy went, independent distributors of RadioShack products sprung up. There does appear to be a shop in Lancashire using the RadioShack logo.[1] Though unless they've got incredible warehousing, they can't sell much RadioShack stuff any more. [0] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/01/03/tandy_is_dead_long_live/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/01/03/tandy_is_dead_long_... [1] https://www.yell.com/biz/radio-shack-lytham-st-annes-2879625/# https://www.yell.com/biz/radio-shack-lytham-st-annes-2879625...
darkpuma 8y ago
> " its cooler than RadioShack." Such a headline would probably be misinterpreted as criticism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damning_with_faint_praise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damning_with_faint_praise
Tor3 8y ago
> Also, why the couch? I love shops with couches or comfy chairs. And every shopping mall should have them, spread around. If I can't sit down now and then I don't stay there for very long - I need to get out of there. Another poster mentioned that he never shopped together with his SO - he goes to his shops, she goes to her shops. That's fine when you're in your own town. That doesn't work so well when you're visitors to an unfamiliar city. And I hope to go to Cambridge reasonably soon. With my wife.
jplayer01 8y ago
> why the couch Are you American? Do your stores not have seating?
- Tijdreiziger 8y ago
  I'm not OP but I'm Dutch, our stores don't have seating.

arkitaip 8y ago

I think it's cooler for people who actually create and hack hardware. There's a level of play and tinkering that you probably never ever experience in an apple store.

abhishekjha 8y ago
The problem is core CS subjects don’t train you enough to do that. You would have to learn that from somebody who already is an expert and that maybe a little out of reach for a lot of people. I have been wanting to hack hardware but I haven’t had any guidance yet about what/how to proceed and debug. Looks like abstractions have gotten complicated enough for somebody to necessarily ignore how it works under the hood lest modifying the behaviour.
- gambiting 8y ago
  Why would a CS course teach you any of this? You want an EE degree to learn this, not CS
  - collyw 8y ago
    CS must teach at least some hardware, no?
    - crumpets 8y ago
      Not really. Hardware and machines that actually run algorithms are just an implementation detail. :)
      - zimpenfish 8y ago
        Anecdata: Mine did (CS, Manchester, 92-95). First year a certain amount of hardware was mandatory, second and onwards was optional (and I opted out.) (Many people opted in because it gave you a chance to be lectured by Steve Furber and later work with him on 3rd year projects, IIRC.)
        C1sc0cat 8y ago
        Also for years only Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial and UMIST where considered the truly good CS degrees.
      - TickleSteve 8y ago
        Manchester Uni CS certainly was partially hardware-based up until '97 or so. Was doing CS, but plenty of hardware topics were available, such as creating your own processor on an FPGA, etc. How can you possibly write good software without an appreciation of hardware??
    - jki275 8y ago
      Certainly did in my program. Computer Org & Design has been a canonical part of CS for a long time.
  - SiVal 8y ago
    There are exceptions, but neither really teaches these things in most universities. My EE classes were about the skills needed to design a RasPi, not use one, which was "electronics technician stuff", not "serious electrical engineering". And CS is about lofty concepts of algorithms and type theory, where mere "programming" is a dirty business that sometimes can't be avoided. Hardware in CS? Oh, dear.... (Clutching my pearls, heading for my swooning couch.) Using a RasPi is in that middle ground of intellectual disrepute where hobbyists teach each other and have lots of fun. It's what you do after school.
bunnycorn 8y ago
Doubt. Do they have a LM7812? And a LM117Z for a fan? Do they have a NTC 100K with a beta of 3950? I'll also need a 40x40x20 fan at 24V, 3 pin. Plus some DIN562 M3 nuts, but it needs to be stainless steel. And I expect no to pay more than $10 for all of that. Not cool.

nicky0 8y ago

Call me crazy but sometimes it's nice to sit down.

hinkley 8y ago

You’ve never gone clothes shopping with your SO? Remember the chairs by the changing room? These are the changing room chairs for the other half.

clintonb 8y ago
I've always found this situation weird. When my wife and I go shopping, we don't really do it together. I go to my stores. She goes to hers. No need for chairs. I can certainly understand why someone might shop with an SO, but it's never been a requirement for us.
- benj111 8y ago
  How does that work? You go into the shop, see shirt, check size, buy it, bam, done. Spend 30 minutes ogling PCs, Cars, Bikes, (pick your poison), before going to to find your partner who is still in the first shop with 50 rejected tops outside the changing room. So you find a seat..... (This is a therapy session right?)
- collyw 8y ago
  When I rarely go clothes shopping it does seem to be pretty normal for couples to shop together.
C1sc0cat 8y ago
Its also why the mothership Games Workshop in Nottingham has such a nice café/bar. They also did a nice GW branded bitter
gholling 8y ago
That's one of their uses... I had a chat with a couple of people sat down and they were just waiting for their SOs to finish browsing. So I gave them a MagPi and Hackspace magazine to read while waiting. I noticed that they bought the Hackspace! :)

jayd16 8y ago

It does have a "Steve Jobs designs RadioShack" vibe to it.

laumars 8y ago

> this isn't cooler than Apple, its cooler than RadioShack. Arguably it could be cooler than both. You’re making an arbitrary distinction where one isn’t needed. Plus we never even had RadioShack in the UK (maybe Maplins might have been more apt? But I think the Apple comparison serves the authors point quite fine). > Also, why the couch? Plenty of shops in the UK have seating. It isn’t that weird at all. > Because this headline demands a cynical response No, it really doesn’t. You just chose to be negative for your own personal reasons.

benj111 8y ago
"we never even had RadioShack in the UK" We did kind of. Tandy was basically RadioShack, they even sold RadioShack branded products. I would like to say that it rebranded as RadioShack towards the end, but I cant find any evidence of that. So that's probably just my failing memory.
- stan_rogers 8y ago
  Tandy and Radio Shack are the same company. On this side of the pond, Tandy was the brand for a leatherworking hobby shop run by the company, while Radio Shack was electronics; you'd usually find a Radio Shack and a Tandy store next door to each other in the sixties and seventies.
  - jki275 8y ago
    And into the 80s! I remember them. I miss Radio Shack -- not the cell phone store they became, but what they were in the 80s.
- dpwm 8y ago
  > I would like to say that it rebranded as RadioShack towards the end, but I cant find any evidence of that. So that's probably just my failing memory. Many of them became Carphone Warehouse circa 2000 [0]. By 2001 the brand had been killed off. My last memory of Tandy was buying a RadioShack 14in TV. It didn't disappoint: it came with the schematic. But, I definitely remember seeing a shop with RadioShack written on it in Boston, Lincolnshire around 2004 – and that was a town that I don't think ever had a Tandy. I never checked it out as my component needs were satisfied by an independent electronics shop in Lincoln. I'm speculating that, after Tandy went, independent distributors of RadioShack products sprung up. There does appear to be a shop in Lancashire using the RadioShack logo.[1] Though unless they've got incredible warehousing, they can't sell much RadioShack stuff any more. [0] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/01/03/tandy_is_dead_long_live/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/01/03/tandy_is_dead_long_... [1] https://www.yell.com/biz/radio-shack-lytham-st-annes-2879625/# https://www.yell.com/biz/radio-shack-lytham-st-annes-2879625...

darkpuma 8y ago

> " its cooler than RadioShack." Such a headline would probably be misinterpreted as criticism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damning_with_faint_praise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damning_with_faint_praise

Tor3 8y ago

> Also, why the couch? I love shops with couches or comfy chairs. And every shopping mall should have them, spread around. If I can't sit down now and then I don't stay there for very long - I need to get out of there. Another poster mentioned that he never shopped together with his SO - he goes to his shops, she goes to her shops. That's fine when you're in your own town. That doesn't work so well when you're visitors to an unfamiliar city. And I hope to go to Cambridge reasonably soon. With my wife.

jplayer01 8y ago

> why the couch Are you American? Do your stores not have seating?

Tijdreiziger 8y ago
I'm not OP but I'm Dutch, our stores don't have seating.