I think there are two aspects to this which are worth challenging.
First and foremost is the issue of companies trying to dictate what you are allowed to do on your own computer. If Google sends you the data, who are they to say how your computer decides to interpret it? What's next? Mandatory camera access so they can monitor your living room to make sure "unauthorized" people aren't watching? They would if they could get away with it.
Two is the business model of offering a free, useful service until people are hooked and then squeezing people for money. It's dishonest, it's extortion. Especially something like YouTube where the site itself is meaningless without the content creators who all largely started out as volunteers. It's the digital equivalent of a time-share sales pitch. Trap your audience. It perverts the normal operation of markets because everyone made decisions to use YouTube based on false economics, and now they are such a behemoth that moving to other platforms is not realistic for many. Had they not been allowed to do that, then the competitive landscape would look much different.
> If its not done its because there is no money in it. In fact the opposite
This bears repeating. It's the disease that has consumed software and is making all modern software the worst possible version of itself.
I think it's the VC funding model which has driven the industry this way. Startups get millions in funding, then it's a race to make enough money to pay back those investors which leads to this. The companies have to squeeze dollars from their app as fast as possible which means anything that doesn't have a ROI metric attached to it will not get a second of anyone's attention.
Honestly, there are many reasons for our current situation. One is that companies aren't (usually) run by engineers; they're run by product or business people. Those types don't care about performance, website footprints, smooth scrolling, etc. They care about adding new features, getting users, and doing so as fast as possible. Another reason is that many web developers were taught that software engineering is mashing together a mixture of Node, Ionic, Bootstrap, Vue.js, Angular, jQuery, etc. to quickly make a website. No one was taught how to do things on their own so they just bundle framework after framework into their projects just to do simple things. Finally, it's not like people built highly performant software in the 90s because they genuinely embodied this article's spirit; they did so out of necessity. As soon as computers got fast enough, we stopped having to focus on micro-optimizations just to get our products to run.
> Those types don't care about performance, website footprints, smooth scrolling, etc
they don't care because their _users_ don't care.
I find these discussions are always led by engineers, shaking their fists at clouds. nobody cares! it doesn't make any money so you're just whining into the void.
That's like saying only engineers care about appliances that work long past the warranty expiration; users don't so business people value engineer it and everyone except the engineers are happy.
Except that's not true. Users do care they just don't have a choice in the matter. I have listened to many, many laypeople who have expressed frustration with software. They may not be able to articulate it to the extent that the quote does, but when they're stuck on 3G and they need to load a webpage that keeps timing out they get frustrated even if they don't know its because of the footprint, it's a poorly made SPA, or whatever.
> they don't care because their _users_ don't care.
I respectfully disagree. I think the users care, but they don't make their own choices - their choices are made for them by people who don't care!
Was MS Teams chosen by their end-users? Nope.
Come to think of it - was Slack chosen by their end-users? No, again.
End-user's aren't given an option, usually:
1. For B2B the choice rests with one (or a few) people.
2. For B2C the choice is made purely because some product got some traction for reasons unrelated to its quality, and that was enough to force the rest of the users to follow or be left out of the network (Slack, Facebook, major shopping sites, etc).
The majority of end-users did not exercise any choice.
Pretty sure we had people spin up a Slack instance at our company while we were still on Hipchat officially. Slack was a big improvement over what we had before that IMO.
I think often users do care but they have no meaningful way to tell anyone this or otherwise cause change. I hate the banking web app (from a major US bank) that I have to use. It is incredibly slow, buggy, poorly laid out, and occasionally just decides to put up a spinner forever. Who do I complain to about this. If you call and tell a customer service rep they'll just tell you to refresh and try again, often sympathetically. They know its terrible and hear many complaints themselves, but also have no power to do anything about it.
This gives engineers a bit too much credit. We have a tendency to heavily over index on last year's problems. That or exploring edge cases that also make no bloody sense.
Indeed, the very existence of so many frameworks is also very easy to blame on errant engineering.
> This gives engineers a bit too much credit. We have a tendency to heavily over index on last year's problems. That or exploring edge cases that also make no bloody sense.
When I was in university (a long time ago, shortly after the big bang :-)) the informal motto of the computer science faculty and students was Computer Science: Solving Yesterdays Problems, Tomorrow!
Now that I think about it, I don't find it that funny anymore.
"companies in an economic environment of sufficiently intense competition are forced to abandon all values except optimizing- for-profit or else be outcompeted by companies that optimized for profit better and so can sell the same service at a lower price."
Restaurant and packaged food (e.g., cookies, frozen meals) prices up an average 30% since 2020 is what I usually think too, but I also think bargains have disappeared, which is probably harder to capture.
It feels like far fewer restaurants have lunch specials than in 2020, for instance, and a lot of cheap restaurants have either raised prices to the norm or closed. Bars and casinos having discounted or free food to get you to drink has gone out the window (even where legal). And looking back 20 years, it feels like far fewer restaurants have small and simple orders available.
For instance, you used to be able to go into a diner or other casual restaurant and get a hamburger or other sandwich with no fries or side. That’s harder to find now. So is cheap, unremarkable coffee and cheap breakfast items, like small pastries or two-egg plates.
Similarly, it’s harder to find a small car, a house or apartment without central air, a 15 inch TV (though TVs have gotten cheaper), etc.
I think the big one is the people who produce inflation statistics struggle to capture increases when products change, particularly shrinkflation.
The ONS (Who produce the UK inflation statistics) specifically noted limitations in their methodology because when a particular product (whether that's a particular brand, or specific size) is discontinued, they replace it in their subsequent basket with a similar item for measuring inflation but don't measure the change in inflation from the change in product.
For example a 25p can of peas may be withdrawn from sale by the manufacturer, so the next month ONS would switch to checking the price of a 30p can of peas (the next cheapest can). The fact that people who were buying that can of peas now have to pay 5p more for peas is never captured in inflation.
This is definitely part of the problem, and another issue is quality decrease. Sure, maybe a given item has only increased 80% in price, but perhaps now the quality has decreased so that ultimately you are comparing apples to oranges.
The fun thing with quality is that statistics agencies are in fact trying to include quality change in their inflation calculation (it's called hedonic adjustment) but AFAIK they only do it for “objective quality” increases (like when CPU clock frequency increases or Disk Size increase), not when actual quality decreases.
BLS personnel don't "struggle" to capture shrinkflation. They are well aware of the issue and always normalize prices by actual weight or volume. Have you read their documentation?
Yeah - I distinctly remember back in 2006-2007 (My early college days) getting a 2 for $2 deal at McDonalds - 2 bacon, egg and cheese biscuits for $2. Now one biscuit (normally) is $3.89 and they run 2 for $5 specials, but seemingly way less often. Back in the day, the special was ran literally all the time, but even still the cost of the biscuit was under $2. And this is 7 years past 1999.
The Big Mac Index shows the price of a big mac in 2000 at $2.24, and now at $5.58, so that would put $1 in 2000 at $2.49 in 2020 which feels a lot closer to the actual number...but still low because everything "around" the entree has also increased similarly, if not more.
In about the same period Taco Bell had the .79/.89/.99 menu options. You could feed a family of four for about $10. Now even the $5 combo box is becoming rare.
One thing that happened since 1999 is the rise of price discrimination at fast food restaurants (well price discrimination in general, but fast food is easiest to see). If you have the App, you can get that $5.59 big Mac with a free fry and drink. Without the app, the meal is probably close to $10. (Just a made up example, but in general app coupons seem to often save 30-50% over not using coupons).
yeah, people are being forced to buy features or addons, which adds to the cost. this is another way to pass on inflation to the consumer marketed as a 'good deal', when it isn't. instead of an economical small car, you have to buy a bigger car which gets worse mileage and full of unwanted stuff.
It’s not anecdotal, search online for old copies of menus from popular chain restaurants.
Inflation has been retconned (i.e “Burgers were always $15, what are you talking about?”) They don’t want you to notice as your wealth is slowly stolen through the loss of purchasing power.
The gp used poor terminology. Inflation doesn't impact wealth nearly so much as income. The idle rich draw their income from capital gains on investments in the things that are becoming more expensive and are largely non negotiable. People must spend wages on shelter food energy and probably transport. They will pull back on things they enjoy but cannot afford now. The wealthy will continue to purchase what they want when they want. That is why selling high end luxury goods is a much more stable option than selling thebthings that are luxuries for those who get their income from wages.
> The idle rich draw their income from capital gains on investments in the things that are becoming more expensive and are largely non negotiable. People must spend wages on shelter food energy and probably transport.
Wages have gone up in real terms (how the fed measures inflation). Food, energy, & transport have slightly under-performed inflation.
i.e. there's no way to slice it - the average laborer can afford more food & labor now than in the past.
The linked site differs from Case Shiller - saying that housing has also under-performed inflation. I'm interested how they arrived at that.
Housing is the real problem - and the vast, vast majority of housing in the US is owned by individuals and mom-and-pop investors, not corporations & billionaires.
The idle rich cannot be blamed for our problems in housing - though they can be blamed for other things. On housing, we can only blame ourselves, voting aggressively to curtail development at every opportunity.
I'm suspicious of the food numbers too. The CPI substitues things like hamburgers for pot roast. The price of a healthy diet has increased, the price of a dose of Soylent green is less than the price of what a healthy diet used to be. And I think that is what they are reporting.
Energy is cheaper, but we need more of it with years of back to back escalating extremes for both heating and cooling. Moving somewhere that isn't an impact gets into the housing issue.
And then medical and education are out of control.
Edit: to clarify, I am not laying all this at the feet of the idle rich, nor do I think idleness or wealth are bad things. They are great things we should all strive for for ourselves and others. I lay it at the feet of all of us who have made bad decisions, but some are more responsible than others, and many of those that shaped the policies that lead to these issues are wealthy as a result.
You are living in such a society. People who bought BRKA shares 55 years ago and just sat on their asses have done immensely better than those who worked their asses off.
Wages have not stagnated. It's been a defining feature of our COVID inflation that inequality stats have gotten better.
Specifically in HCOL coastal cities, we've seen increases to minimum wage, adjustments to the "tipped minimum wage" laws that mean business needs to cover more of the wage, and finally.. labor shortages causing restaurants to pay over even those increased minimums.
It wasn't long ago NYC minimum wage was under $10/hr, with "tipped minimum" being $7/hr.
Now you have some restaurants paying $20/hr to get staff.
The Whataburger I got way-too-frequently for just under $6 in 2001 is like $10 bucks now.
MSRP of a 99 M3 = 46k; 2023 stating at $74300.
Outside of housing and gas I'm hard-pressed to think of anything that's more than double the cost. GPUs, I suppose, but that's a weird hobby transition + a lot more industrial uses.
That said, housing+gas == huge parts of people's day to day lives, obviously.
The big mac has more than doubled since 2000 according to the Big Mac Index: $2.24 -> $5.58. I think the issue is the high end didn't rise nearly as much as the low end. Your BMW is a good example..a 2000 Honda Civic: $10,750, 2023 Civic: $23,750.
Yeah, but the fast food example has a large price discrimination component. Only those not using the app pay the high prices. Last Big Mac I bought was $2.50 (earlier this year).
Civic is more interesting, since the 2023 base-model Civic has far more technology, far better safety features, automatic transmission, and is quite a big larger than the 2000 model. Wouldn’t be surprised if the 2000 base model Civic didn’t even have power windows. That being said, if all you want is basic transportation, then your choices are much more limited than they were in 2000.
It's an artifact of how the measurement is made, as it accounts for insurance profits. While a good proxy in normal times, corona sent this measure into a wild rollercoaster-ride. However, it is generally a good idea not to change the method of measuring because you do not like the measures in the short term. The most important measure is the headline number (and MoM is more informative than YoY in these times), as it is the basis for actual politics. The headline number absorbs a lot of craziness in the underlying measures.
It's included in CPI, though, right? If so, doesn't that mean this "artifact" has improperly affected the CPI making it look like inflation hasn't been as bad this year as it actually was?
Taco bell is the most ridiculous now. If I eat there I will only order a $2-$3 "value" burrito. The moment you order any kind of combo, you are out $10+.
> I ate a meal with a drink at Taco Bell for $2-3.
Taco Bell in particular has gone mad, I don't see how they can survive with current pricing. I used to go often, knowing it wasn't good quality but it was oh so cheap.
Today their prices are so high that I can go to a local taqueria and get a giant burrito with far better and fresher ingredients and friendlier service for less money than a few mystery meat tacos from Taco Bell.
So on the positive side, I now only frequent the local business with good quality food.
Compounding is the 8th wonder in the world for this reason. It's amazing how in the span of a few decades how much prices have gone up. Except for clothes and electronics, everything seems to have gotten way more expensive compared to cpi. but even iPhones still cost a lot. The situation seems out of control for things like tuition .
Compounding interest on savings for most of us is much less than inflation, so the purchasing power of work done gradually dwindles to nothing over time. Pretty depressing.
The really depressing thing is it's not just a diminishment of purchasing power, it's a transfer of purchasing power to those who first get to spend the newly created money (which tends to be financial institutions and people with the wealth/connections to gey big loans). Which needn't necessarily be the case, if the inflation occurred via evenly distributed "helicopter money" rather than the current approach.
This is maybe true if you only store money in cash equivalents. If you bought stocks, housing, or almost any other productive asset you'd easily beat inflation over your working lifetime.
I think we’ve finally hit the point where compound interest on savings is outpacing inflation (at least in the US). Savings accounts at 5%+ interest are now widely available as long as you avoid the big banks like Chase and BofA. Meanwhile inflation is still elevated, but at least its well below 5%.
OTOH, the prior 10+ years even when inflation wasn’t very high, 1% or so interest rates meant savers were falling farther and farther behind.
This probably varies from place to place. A high-quality double cheeseburger in my area can be had for $6.19, and adding tomato is only a little extra. (I checked prices a minute ago, so these numbers are fresh.)
Carl's Jr./Hardee's even advertised "The $6 Burger," which sold for about half that, as a way to say, "Look, you can get a restaurant-quality burger at our fast food chain for leas money."
Because for the last 50 years or so there has been a vast effort to erode the regulatory power of our government. From the FDA and EPA, to the education system and more -- these institutions have either been captured by industry or starved for funding.
The result is that business can do pretty much any ani-consumer thing they want and there is nobody to stop them.
Much of the federal government's regulatory authority shouldn't exist in the first place, and stems from an overly broad interpretation of the Commerce Clause. Hopefully we will see Supreme Court decisions which overturn those precedents and eviscerate the power of most federal agencies. Most issues should be left to the several states, or if federal authority is really needed on certain issues then let's pass narrowly targeted Constitutional amendments to that effect.
So when companies are dumping so much hazardous pollutants into local water so that the river catches fire[1], who's responsibility is it to deal with that?
If the problem is contained within one state then the state government can deal with it. If there are significant levels of pollutants flowing downstream to another state then that would be a federal issue under even a very narrow interpretation of the Commerce Clause.
So most major waterways affect and are affected by interstate issues, especially when you take into account watersheds that feed into them. And anything you put into the air by definition is going to be impossible to contain within just one state. And the ocean is by definition an interstate issue by default.
So maybe we need some kind of federal agency to, you know, protect the environment.
And since 90% of these issues affect the nation as a whole, and this agency would have the most data, maybe it could, like, set some rules for everyone to follow so we have consistency. That way you don't have to figure out 50 different sets of rules to do business in this country. And 50 states wouldn't have to spend all their money just to re-learn the same lessons independently.
And then we are right back at the issue that strong federal regulation is the only efficient and effective way to run things.
It really feels like tech companies are taking the approach of "we'll guarantee you anything you want!" As a sales strategy.
The cynical part of me wants to say it shows that they have high confidence they can manipulate the legal system enough to dictate the outcome of any challenges.
Not a lawyer but I imagine the infringement on the input side, during the dataset creation and training would take place wherever the model is being trained? So presumably the us? On the other hand, yeah. Memorizing input data and spitting out protected characters on the output side seems like an issue.
I've been to the Lick Observatory. One of the best kept secrets in the Bay area is that during the summer they have a concert series which performs at the observatory and includes the chance to look through their telescopes, mini lectures from astronomers and a gaggle of amature astronomers who bring their own telescopes to give visitors more chances to view the night sky. It's so much fun for the price of a ticket.
No idea. Though if you're after the absolute best viewing conditions I doubt Lick Observatory is it. Most because there has been a huge amount of development in the surrounding urban areas since it was built in 1888, so there is a lot of light pollution.
Mostly the original telescope they have there is an absolute work of art. It was the largest refracting telescope when it was built. Just being in the room with it is awesome inspiring. The entire room is crafted for the purpose and beautiful. It's like walking into a scene from Myst.
They have a much more powerful, more modern reflecting telescope there too, and it's like 1/10th the physical size of the old one, but nothing beats viewing through such an inspiring machine.
if you want a wild looking telescope, i saw this recently. it's the scope that
Percival Lowell made this mars observations with in arizona. made it Pennsylvania (like me). upenn gifted it to new zealand in the 50s, but they couldn't get it installed because the roads weren't paved in this part of south island until the 90s or something like that.
Advertising is a psychological war where thousands of experts in the art of manipulation combined with hundreds of years of learning and research funded by dump trucks of money are against you alone.
I agree with this, but I think there is a deeper level which explains this. And that is convenience is a product. The thing that truly defines how corporations in America have shaped our culture is that everything is turned into a way to sell you something.
First and foremost is the issue of companies trying to dictate what you are allowed to do on your own computer. If Google sends you the data, who are they to say how your computer decides to interpret it? What's next? Mandatory camera access so they can monitor your living room to make sure "unauthorized" people aren't watching? They would if they could get away with it.
Two is the business model of offering a free, useful service until people are hooked and then squeezing people for money. It's dishonest, it's extortion. Especially something like YouTube where the site itself is meaningless without the content creators who all largely started out as volunteers. It's the digital equivalent of a time-share sales pitch. Trap your audience. It perverts the normal operation of markets because everyone made decisions to use YouTube based on false economics, and now they are such a behemoth that moving to other platforms is not realistic for many. Had they not been allowed to do that, then the competitive landscape would look much different.