I think this is the biggest problem with this post. Sure, I can definitely see how it might be fun to make an app in a day or two and release it to yourself and a couple friends.
But any app that a decent number of people would want to download and use probably won’t be ’vibe coded’, any polished app made by a large corporation certainly won’t be.
The author states that developers will flee Apple because of this friction, but developers will go where the customers are, and I’m not sure a meaningful number of customers care about this.
This is likely because you bought a pair of AirPods when they were already very popular and everyone thought they were stylish.
I bought my first pair of AirPods very close to their initial release and everyone looked at me like I was an idiot for wearing such an ugly and expensive device that couldn’t really do anything better than a $20 pair of earbuds. Do you remember everyone making fun of them at the announcement? It wasn’t until around 2 years later that AirPods were widely worn and accepted.
I’m not sure Vision Pro will go through the same adoption curve, but I am not confident that it won’t happen by late v2 or v3.
If V2/3 doesn't make you look like an idiot and actually works for work and leisure, then perhaps, but its hard to develop an VR/AR headset that would do that, since it inherently cuts you off from the social world in which the esteem of the product would be evaluated.
What do we think of people who sit around with a VR headset on all day? We think, usually, that they are anti-social, that they are afraid of going outside, that they want to trap themselves in a world that generates and serves their fantasies. How does a company which makes so much of their money off of people associating their products with high social status break into a market that appears to be solely for those who stand on the other end of the continuum?
The rational is contradictory: technology (according to the Silicon Valley playbook) profits by transforming the world into a place of further alienated and isolated individuals whose entire lives are shaped by and for tech companies which only exist to exploit them; and yet, such a world, in its total form, could never appear, since people could not work and live in that world unless they participated in it collectively, at some level. Phenomenologically, we can't view this move as anything more than an extreme error of judgement, a move from a post-jobs apple that doesn't seem to understand the magic of great design, the element of the sublime that technology can create--but it would always have to be this way, since the philosophy would never overcome the profit-motive.
Its why I said that computers can only go so far. We're at the end of the rope of the transformational power of technology, and everybody knows it. The world will not change on the whim of the market, the market will just constrict and eventually kill us all.
If you have a 3D capable setup Gravity is a must! Avatar and Life of Pi are also some favorites.
There’s also a few gems and lesser known films that were released on 3D Blu-Ray like Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder, which was shot in 3D but wasn’t originally released in the format because the 3D fad died by the time the it came out.
They’re hard to watch because 3D TVs were so unsuccessful. You often need a special Blu-Ray player, and I don’t know of any streaming service that supports 3D.
3D TVs were too far ahead of their time. 3D works far better on 4K than on 1080 since each eye only gets half the image, (though the 4K 3D format doesn’t exist) so it would be nice to see it make a comeback on VR. While 4K and HDR are much better I still miss the occasional 3D film.
I've still got a 2013 plasma with 3d and while you lose half of the horizontal resolution (the image is stored twice side by side) it isn't really noticeable in most 3d blu ray movies. Streaming services lose a lot more sharpness by compressing the heck out of their movies.
Most blu ray players (even the 4k ones) still support 3d since the only thing needed is to pass the image with a '3d' flag set. The rest is up to the display.
Personally I'd like to add the movies "Hugo" and "The Martian" ;)
> It’s not a crime to deprive someone of their income stream
It is in some cases, for example, DCMA and copyright that make it illegal to copy digital goods, the topic of this thread.
But as an aside, laws are (generally) based on ethics, ethics are not based on laws, so even though it is illegal, it doesn’t conclude anything about the ethics of a situation.
There are many arguments for why piracy is unethical, but the simplest might be using Kant’s categorical imperative “a universal ethical principle stating that one should always respect the humanity in others, and that one should only act in accordance with rules that could hold for everyone” [1].
So could piracy hold for everyone? If everyone pirated Marvel movies then Marvel would not be able to make $100+M movies and these movies would not exist, which is a contradiction. Therefore piracy violates Kant’s categorical imperative, therefore piracy is unethical.
> If everyone pirated Marvel movies then Marvel would not be able to make $100+M movies and these movies would not exist, which is a contradiction. Therefore piracy violates Kant’s categorical imperative, therefore piracy is unethical.
Here is where your use of the categorical imperative breaks down: creating an economy that prevents Marvel from making movies is not in itself unethical. Undesirable, perhaps, but not unethical.
No one is entitled to have their favorite business model work regardless of whether or not it makes sense in a given economy.
You are correct. I suppose it is a lot more nuanced.
I believe a sound argument for copyright/DMCA would require:
1. Arguments to be made for the social utility in laws enabling such business models to exist, and
2. ethical considerations that come into play when said laws are violated (for example, a creator operating under the assumption of those laws being followed loses out on revenue when those laws are broken)
I still think there are cases to be made for both of these claims, but this might be one reason why the two sides are so at odds with each other.
I agree there's more nuance to this. Your original application of Kant's imperative is wrong, but it's not a total loss either - I feel it could be rescued with a more precise line of argument.
I particularly like the bit from your point 2. here:
> a creator operating under the assumption of those laws being followed loses out on revenue when those laws are broken
I'm not 100% certain - I'm trying to think this through now - but I feel that this is an ethics issue, related to honesty and fairness.
Why do you say that “2049 is obviously the superior movie”? You don’t give any reasoning, so I can only assume that you’re implying newer=better?
Is The Batman (2022) obviously superior to The Dark Knight?
(I was not alive in the 80s and love both Blade Runners, but would probably give the edge to the original if I had to choose my favorite. I greatly prefer TDK to TB, but that could be influenced by nostalgia)
It's superior because the technology for filming and effects is exponentially superior. Also story telling has become superior... Pacing is something directors pay more attention to and story formats are constantly imitated and improved upon.
The gap between 2022 batman and tdk is too small. When star wars came out it was relevant for over a decade.
Additionally it's impossible for things to increase and become "better" forever. In the last two decades we have are heading towards slow downs in improvements. For example Photoreal special effects can't get any better than Photoreal.
You give the edge to the original? Do you like older movies in general? Do you like vinyl records even though Spotify is superior? Then you belong to a segment of the population who hates everything mainstream because it's too popular. The more niche something is the more you like it because you think it makes you unique when I ironically it makes you cliche.
That could be you. Barring that then you just have unique tastes for br. What I talk about is more of a generality here. It doesn't account for deviations too far from the bell curve, unless your goal is to deviate from the bell curve as much as possible. Ironically if that is your goal, as I stated previously, then you're just moving closer to the center as a hipster.
I also like the small and usually invisible scroll bars that the author is against, like the ones in MacOS. Though I only just realized that I can’t remember the last time I have used one to scroll the page - for me they always act as indicators.
The only scroll bar I ever use as a scroll bar is the one in VS Code, which I absolutely love. Displayed next to a miniature, much taller version of your document, with little bands for highlighted or searched for variables, that scroll bars is, in my opinion, peak design.
In my final semester I wrote/directed a short film with friends that I met in the university’s filmmaking club. Most of them were Freshman or Sophomore.
I was looking forward to discussing some deeper and more obscure films with them, and they did have more knowledge of, for example, Lynch’s work than most people I talk to. However, they overwhelmingly talked about the new Star Wars saga and Marvel movies.
But any app that a decent number of people would want to download and use probably won’t be ’vibe coded’, any polished app made by a large corporation certainly won’t be.
The author states that developers will flee Apple because of this friction, but developers will go where the customers are, and I’m not sure a meaningful number of customers care about this.