spideymans

> Why is it surprising that driven students at an elite institution are probably going to do well most of the time?

This only makes sense if you assume that Harvard students are unusually academically driven.

Given that Harvard has historical been very eager to accept students that have personal relationships with Harvard alumni, I wouldn’t make the assumption that these students are more academically driven than average. A lot of these students will see success because of their connections, rather than their academic aptitude

I don’t understand this assertion that this is push 4K monitor sales.

Once heard a coach say that luck was just preparation meeting opportunity.

In other words, you’ll be “lucky” if you put yourself in a position to succeed whenever opportunity comes.

Chart-topping original music has also gone "extinct"[0]

0: https://www.billboard.com/music/chart-beat/no-2022-hits-harr...

I'm so happy I actually enjoy programming. I would do it even if I never got paid for it. Enjoying programming feels like such a life hack, considering the generous financial compensations.

1. FCP sells Apple hardware.

2. It’s also a “halo” product. A showcase of what Apple’s computers are capable of.

On large (>24-inch) monitors I prefer windows, but on smaller monitors I typically prefer full screen apps, for the reasons you mention.

A WeWork-type setup, where coworkers could come in and collaborate on certain days, sounds perfect for your situation.

>I did have previous jobs where we worked on hard technical problems, and spending face-to-face time with a couple colleagues hashing out solutions at a whiteboard was invaluable. But that is not my FAANG job, where the whiteboards are rarely used for anything other than interview questions

I hope that I get to work on some actually hard problems at some point in my career. Sounds fun :)

That's only true so long as Apple can maintain their App Store monopoly.

If software developers are free to distribute outside of controlled app stores, free from any external vetting, we'd see the exact same predatory behaviour we see in the broader software industry. Hard-to-cancel subscriptions and misleading free trial scams would be two big examples. Dating app publishers haven't made any secret of their predatory desire to make mobile subscription cancellations more difficult, to extract greater revenue from users, for example [0]

However, the "attack surface" would be much bigger, given that consumers spend far more time on their smartphones than on PCs.

0: https://nypost.com/2019/11/06/tinder-owners-stock-tumbles-af...

This is largely just a semantic argument. There are developers that are individuals (eg, you and me), and developers that are businesses (eg, EA, or Match Group). Developers that are businesses can be (and frequently are) predatory, just as businesses are frequently predatory.

Keep in mind that the overwhelming majority of software that people interact with is coming from developers that are businesses.

I just want myself and consumers as a whole to be protected from predatory developers.

Regarding the regulatory changes, I'd be happy with one of two things:

A) Governments impose restrictions on third party developers that are largely similar to the consumer protection standards that Apple has imposed on developers, while opening up alternative payment platforms.

B) Governments impose restrictions on Apple to prevent Apple from preying on their customers.

However, governments are going down the path of removing whatever protections the App Store provided consumers, without replacing those protections with any other pro-consumer regulation. This is the absolute worst case scenario for me. We've seen time and time again how developers will prey on their users, particularly with subscriptions.

Regardless of whatever good intent regulators have for "freedom" or whatever, I feel like these efforts will just result in predatory developers having more freedom to prey on their users, and ultimately a worse experience for end users. These developers aren't righteous actors; they're just businesses, like any other, looking to extract as much money from their users.

Ideally governments, and not Apple, would be regulating away this predatory behaviour, but I don't view that as a realistic prospect. Governments have never been great at regulating away anti-consumer behaviour.

>An automated car is still a car

Early cars were designed as [carriages with the horses removed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseless_carriage). It would not be until many years later until we saw car designs that leveraged the unique technological advantages of horseless cars to deliver designs that looked and functioned nothing like horse-drawn carriages. We're still at this stage with automated driving.

As automated vehicles become more commonplace, we'll see designs that leverage the inherent benefits of automaton. For example, we might see designs that essentially function as moving living rooms, bedrooms or meeting rooms on wheels. We might see other designs that resemble small busses, where groups of people travelling to geographically proximate locations can carpool into a single automated vehicle. Heck, we might even see something like moving diners on wheels (potentially serving several clients at once), because why wouldn't you want to eat a hot breakfast in the "car" while on the way to the airport or work.

Once these new designs and use cases become commonplace, people in the future will view our car designs as increasingly archaic and restrictive (just like how we view horse-drawn carriages today).

Imo, as automation takes hold, one of two things will need to happen:

1) We'll all need to collectively let go of our societal ideal that work is virtuous. We will need to accept that a significant portion of people have little to no productive work available to them, and that there is nothing wrong with that. It's just the natural culmination of increasing automation and societal advancement. UBI would be a necessity in this scenario.

2) We'll see an increasing number of "make work jobs" that exist solely to keep people busy, and to generate an illusion of productivity. These jobs may ultimately be government funded, although governments may obscure the source of the funding to keep the "productivity illusion" going. For example, governments may provide business grants to keep a certain number of low-wage workers employed. I suppose this essentially would be an indirect UBI program, except that we'd make people do some nominal amount of unproductive work to "prove" that they're worthy of the UBI.

I strongly suspect we'll head towards option 2.

> When you have a test, you have something definite to prepare for. Even if you do not have dedicated mentors or well-wishing, caring teachers, you simply know there is a test that significantly improves your chances for MIT.

Totally tangential, but this is also why I’ve slowly come around to appreciating technical interviews. Yes, it’s annoying, but it’s also a pretty straightforward path to getting a $150k+/yr job.

Does Google tell you their income?

>Most of the population, including most people who have economic stability and freedom, have not had STEM jobs and very likely will not have STEM jobs.

For now. Let's look at young people though. They're indicative of the future.

Outside of finance and STEM, it's really hard to see a clear and reliable path to prosperity for a 20-something year old. Perhaps some trades as well.

What's even worse is that the paths to prosperity seems to get narrower and narrower by the year.

If Russia's foreign reserves are stored in foreign banks, access to those reserves can also be limited via sanctions

Or, you know, developers could be thoughtful enough to create a half decent UX. That's not asking for a lot.

I'm happy a significant portion of consumers have been trained to expect better than the bare minimum in terms of UX.

Gosh. I hate Apple’s right to repair BS, but to this day Apple remains the only consumer electronics company that has provided a consistently positive technical support experience for me.

It’s so hard to step out the Apple ecosystem when these other manufacturers have consistently screwed me over with repairs.

I’m specifically calling out Dell, Samsung and LG here. All were utterly terrible experiences.

Dell was the absolute worst though. They sold me a $1,700+ XPS notebook that months later had a non-functional trackpad, and they refused to do anything to rectify the situation. With an investment that large I need certainty that I can get support, and thus far Apple is the only PC OEM that has provided that.

If anyone can suggest non-Apple OEMs that at least provide a competitive support experience, I’m all ears.

> Focusing on iPhone users and and not iPhone developers probably was/is the right thing to do.

Broadly speaking, I feel that we in the tech community tend to erroneously assume that what’s good for developers must also be good for users. That’s not necessarily true. Developers are ultimately just businesses looking to extract revenue from users —- we should expect the relationship between developers and users to be adversarial to a certain extent.

> People who used to make high quality web content have moved to youtube instead because you can make more money there and it's probably easier.

Web video has also become so much more accessible thanks to faster download speeds.

>Unfortunately, smartphones, due to their form factor, don't actually allow precise editing or manipulation of content

The precision of editing they do allow is "good enough" for the average Joe.

This really says something about the state of internet tech reviews. None of these reviewers ever keep their products long enough to experience long term issues. They'll keep recommending the XPS 13 (or other flawed products) to consumers, as long as no issues pop up in the week or two they review it.

I suppose one good thing about Apple and MacBooks is that just because of how incredibly common they are, and the amount of mindshare they command, if there is a fatal flaw with an Apple product, there will be widespread consumer knowledge of the issues. On the other hand, models from Dell and these other manufacturers sell in low enough volumes that they can just keep pumping out broken products, and not enough people will care to hold them publicly accountable.

I had disavowed Dell more than a decade ago due to their horrible support, but I figured it was time to give Dell another shot at the height of MacBook keyboard gate.

Boy was I wrong. The laptop itself was great when it worked. But my XPS 13 shipped with a barely functional trackpad. As with you, I had to spend countless hours on the phone with them to get them to repair the laptop that was well within its warranty. Never again.

> The second is the evidence we have from the ancient world, which was a mere 2,000 years ago. We have written records going back another 3,000-4,000 years before that. I find this period fascinating for many reasons but a big one is how alien we would find the ethics and how societies worked

Can you elaborate some more on these differences? I’d love to learn more.

You’re not wrong, it what does this have to do with App Store commissions? I (an end user) would be quite happy to see iOS remain a restricted environment for developers, while also lowering App Store commissions, such that more business models will be competitive on iOS.

Downvotes are awful. People on Reddit will downvote posts merely because it doesn't fit a particular narrative. This will be even worse on Twitter.