Yep. I think that applies to most things in life. It's like a separate category of emotion opens up of appreciation instead of things being pure enjoyment/entertainment after you know the work that goes into something.
436 karma · joined April 5, 2011
Two other similar things ring similar to me. I was big into haunted houses when I was younger, volunteered at them and hung out around the online "haunting" community every season, and to this day visiting haunted houses is more about admiring what is being done than being scared. I recognize the animitronics from the catalog, know to expect that panel to drop, and know how that illusion is done, but I still enjoy visiting a good haunted house.
The other really sad thing, is that living in downtown Atlanta where there is a moving/tv show being filmed within a block of my place every other week it seems, I've seen the sausage being made. Knowing how long it takes to setup and shoot a scene that may only be 30 seconds in the movie, it's "ruined" watching TV shows/movies, as I can't help but think about the filming process. I was blissfully unaware how much work went into filming a simple shot of two people walking down a city street.
I often wonder if those of us who first experienced computers in the 90s (And remember DOS->Win 3.1->95->98->XP) are the last generation for who a computer was a fascinating thing to learn, as now things seem to be moving to computers/tablets/smart phones merely being consumption and social sharing devices. There were several of us that learned HTML in elementary school for our angelfire pages. I can't understand the fascination people have now at watching other people play games on youtube/whatever that other site is. Oh well, C'est la vie.
My worst Uber experience is better than my best cab experience. I don't know anyone who's tried Uber here who would go back to using cabs except as a last resort. I don't understand why people would prefer a random almost untraceable taxi (Unless you memorize or document the license # of every driver, assuming it's even legit) over a known GPS tracked Uber. Perhaps things are different in other cities.
I can't understand the current fascination with single cup makers, but I grew up in a family that went through several pots a day at home. Perhaps as a starbucks replacement the economics work out.
With the right networking and projects in the high school years, you can have a position waiting on you and then have 4 years experience under your belt before you'd have graduated college. For some people, this will make more sense (and cents) than the college route.
There's a lot of people with college degrees waiting tables, but very few people with software or operations experience have a hard time finding work, regardless of their college education status.
It's nothing to do with the app being "so cool", but being able to get a clean car that actually shows up and being able to pay with a credit card. If you call a taxi in ATL, you expect at least a 15-30 minute wait if they show up at all. 90% of the time the driver will be blaring music or talking on their cell the entire ride. Some times they will refuse to take you to places, or refuse to run the meter but demand $xx for the trip. (Happened multiple times to me, all my friends have similar stories.) If the meter is running you have to carefully watch that they don't drive longer routes or even literally in circles (happened to me). And at the end of the trip, it's guaranteed they will only want cash and to take a CC will likely result in a screaming match and attempts to charge extra fees.
When Uber hit Atlanta, it was awesome. A car that actually shows up in 5 minutes? Clean, quiet, with a friendly driver? Map of your gps tracked trip emailed in receipt and card on file charged? The reasons people avoided cabs were removed. I personally take far more uber rides than I ever did taxis, and I know many friends for who it's the same.
It's not that demand for rides wasn't there, it's just there was no supply of quality rides before Uber. Taxis in ATL do not provide an acceptable experience, and are used only if there are no other options. People who before might have crashed on a couch, drove home after drinking, not attended an event with limited parking, asked a friend for a ride, etc. are using Uber because it's easy and economical. I have no idea how big of a percent this is nationally, but among the city dwellers in Atlanta I know of, Uber has been immensely popular and used for trips people would previously avoid with taxis.
How it doesn't violate usury laws to charge someone $35 for a $5 overdraft, I'll never understand.
It's certainly possible amazon could end failing and the stock would end be worthing much less than expected. It seems unlikely the name brand, market capture, datacenter and distribution facilities, etc would not end up with amazon being acquired by a walmart or something ala AOL/TW.
Another big thing is that the interests of the business community and the residents are aligned in rural areas. There was no carrier hotel or POPs by any other providers in Dalton. Before muni fiber in both Dalton and Chattanooga if you wanted high speed internet you'd have to get a private loop backhaul all the way to Atlanta and then also pay for the internet access. No national or local providers had IP routers with gig-e or above ports locally that I'm aware of. Not like in Atlanta where you can get a local loop (from multiple national providers) to a carrier hotel and have your pick of 50+ IP transit providers.
Muni fiber was the only option for affordable internet access for both businesses and residents in these areas, and the utility was guaranteed an almost instant monopoly on high speed internet for business users. They electric cos also had all the rights of way and customer billing infrastructure, pre-built client base, and were running fiber anyway for their own use in managing the power network.
I think there's a reason why almost every successful muni fiber ISP is in a rural area with a muni electric company, and that's that local governments probably shouldn't be in the ISP game, but in some cases it's the only option by communities to obtain high speed internet, and in those cases necessity is the mother of invention.
In larger cities, I think the model would have to be different, and a muni fiber network would be a transport loop only service and you'd get to pick which ISP to connect to on the other end, like DSL in the CLEC days.
As well, almost every successful muni fiber out there has been in an area with a muni electric provider, and little to no fiber providers outside of the muni, providing them an almost monopoly for commercial business. In major cities, commercial service is well served by multiple fiber providers, so the investment is mostly residential with no subsidizing by commercial. Many of these rural areas also have some of the cheapest electrical rates in the country as commercial user subsidize those.
Source: I grew up in Dalton GA that has muni fiber/elec 30 mins from Chattanooga who also has muni fiber/elec. I can't see this working in a major city like Atlanta.
As more and more young people are moving into the cities again, especially cities in the sunbelt that lack the public transit and availability of cabs of NY/Chicago, there's huge opportunity for uber. When you consider all the people now moving back into downtowns and wanting to live the urban walkable lifestyle, but in cities with subpar transit, the opportunity is massive.
Level3 as a Tier 1 who pays no one for peering or transit, and is of course not going to do that. That leaves their transit client Netflix with the choice to either use other providers, who will likely run into the same traffic ratio issue, or pay for peering directly with Verizon.
When Netflix is pushing out 1/3rds of the internets whole traffic, and it's all going in one direction, there's practically no tier 1 network out there that can provide transit for that without breaking their peering agreements, except perhaps the same content providers (Verizon, ATT) offering paid peering to netflix. It's not unreasonable with their traffic levels to expect netflix to peer directly with the largest consumer networks.