>Being a programmer is not about configuring your development environment.
I know what OP is referring to. Back in the day, a programmer was expected to have built their own toolbox of utility scripts, programs and configurations that would travel with them as they moved from project to project or company to company. This is akin a professional (craftsman, photographer, chef, electrician, etc.) bringing their own tools to a jobsite.
Sure, I have ~/bin and a .emacs.d that I've been working on since last millennium, and various other tools I've written that I use regularly. It's certainly a handicap to work in an environment that's unfamiliar, especially for the first day or two. And sometimes spending five minutes automating something can save you five minutes a day. Making grep output clickable like in Emacs, as demonstrated here, is a good example of that.
But, on the other hand, time spent on sharpening your tools is time not spent using them, or learning how to use them, and the sharpest tools won't cut in the hands of the dullest apprentice. And sometimes spending five hours automating something will save you five seconds a week. All the work I spent customizing window manager settings in the 90s, or improving my Perl development experience early this millennium, produced stuff I don't use now—except for the skills.
> All the work I spent customizing window manager settings in the 90s, or improving my Perl development experience early this millennium, produced stuff I don't use now—except for the skills.
If you enjoyed the process it was time well spent.
Oh come on. I'm sure they care about the users, and they were also hoping to build a business. Why the hostility? You don't have to kick them when they are down.
>Yeah, if you want to pump oil, you better also build your own railways to distribute it
You're being facetious, but OP is right. For software platforms, this has been a constant. It happened with Twitter, Facebook, Google (Search/Ads, Maps, Chat), Reddit, LinkedIn - basically ever major software platform started off with relatively open APIs that were then closed-off as it gained critical mass and focused on monetization.
I'm not being facetious, I'm pointing out a real problem - the market fraction accessible to a new business, that isn't reliant on the good will of some giant incumbent, is shrinking. This time it's Discord, another time it's Google ads/search blacklist, or Microsoft flagging your website or program as malicious, or Facebook shadowbanning you (or charging to show your posts even to people who explicitly followed you [1]), or Walmart extorting you for shelf space access, VISA and PayPal rejecting you..
If your move is to simply retreat, and give up all this ground, what market is left for you? People who get their news and ads by paper mail, shop only at tiny independent stores, paying in cash? How many businesses can survive with ~5% (a generous estimate of the described market's relative size) of their current traffic?
And it's bigger than software. This is just vertical integration; both your suppliers and your customers will ask if they can replace you. As they should. If your only value is as a middleman that your upstream supplier can easily replace... well, that's not a lot of value.
>I’m sure Uber and DoorDash and Lyft and Tinder and Instagram and WhatsApp are regretting the billions and billions they made doing this.
I'm not sure which platforms those companies built their businesses on .. are you equating build an app on iOS or Android with building an app that relies on, say, Facebook APIs and only works on Facebook?
That's because we're communicating synchronously in person. If you say something when I'm not listening to you, I will probably start listening midway through your statement, and miss potentially vital info. In a slack message, I can just read it again.
IDK about you but I get chats from 30+ different people and I usually miss at least one person's message a day as it falls off the "front page" so to speak
I don't see how "hello?" helps with that. If anything, it makes things worse if everybody does that, because now half of those chats from 30+ different people are that, drowning out the useful messages.
In the described scenario (chats falling off the front page) it doesn't help either party.
In the case where you want an immediate discussion, don't trust the status indicator, and there are multiple different people you could contact, a quick confirmation that the selected party is online and available is not unreasonable.
By the way, I also hate the "hello"-only message. I am, however, guilty of writing "Hey. Do you have a second to chat" - typically in cases where either through chat or video conference I want to go through something that is more involved, and I also want some confirmation of understanding and acknowledgement.
If the notification bubble just says "hello" it's on the bottom of the stack of my priorities. If it's "hey, this alert came up..." then it's actually going to flag my attention.
If you want my attention give me a reason to give it.
>Because I doubt there's any difference betreuen a US and EU powerbank.
Based on what? I can absolutely see them having different suppliers. But even if they have the same supplier, it could be the case that only the lots destined for US had the defect.
Are taxis/ubers really better for the environment than a personal car? I'm not sure I consider them "mass transit" since they still typically only carry 1-3 people. While they may require less parking infrastructure, they likely spend more time idling, and they don't reduce congestion on the road.
Some problems with buses are that they can be slow, require more planning, and may not drop you off exactly at your destination. There are three primary reasons people choose them anyway: Ethics (i.e. environmental concerns), convenience (in some cities, public transit is actually faster on average) and cost.
Bus lanes are meant to make buses more appealing by increasing their speed and reliability (i.e. convenience.) Filling a bus lane with Ubers will slow down buses, making them less attractive which also hurts the price conscious (i.e. lower class) the most.
> When they have no passengers, they still are driving around
You're ignoring the environmental impact of parking. Also, Ubers by and large aren't aimlessly driving around. That's taxis. (Where TNCs fail is in their deadheading costs [1].)
> You're ignoring the environmental impact of parking.
Interesting - what impact? Driving around looking for a space? Parallel parking wouldn't seem to be a problem, unless you're not very good at it. :)
> Ubers by and large aren't aimlessly driving around
They drive to me, which by itself increases their driving for my trip by ~~~~~50% (I have no idea). I suppose in Manhattan, they are likely to be closer, but I'd guess that impact is more per time (stuck in traffic) than per mile.
> Are taxis/ubers really better for the environment than a personal car?
Yes. They're more-closely monitored for emissions. Because they run through quicker, they're usually newer metal, which tends to be more efficient. And if you can get saturation as it is in New York, where car ownership decreases, you lose the massive footprint of manufacturing and distributing a private fleet of cars.
More-closely monitored for emissions by who? I would believe that some municipalities monitor taxi emissions, but I haven't heard of anything like this for Uber. Many states have emissions tests for private vehicles too.
I was just in DC and noted that the taxis were all at least 10-year old models. I specifically noticed many Ford Fusions, because I own one myself. Mine gets about 23.5mpg on average, and that's including lots of highway driving.
I think the reason NYC has so little car ownership is due more to the subway than taxis...
> the reason NYC has so little car ownership is due more to the subway than taxis
It's a combination. Car ownership is lowest in Manhattan [1]. We're rich. And we're well served by subways and taxis. Not owning a car makes sense because you never have to compromise. If you planned, take the subway. If it's raining or you're in a rush, you have the option of a cab. (We also tax the living shit out of private parking. That helps.)
As a side note, the number of people I know who take the LIRR to the airport went up significantly after Uber came on the scene. Because suddenly getting to Penn or Grand Central wasn't the pain it used to be.
I've only been a tourist in NYC, but I've found that it's generally faster to take the subway (which tends to run frequently) than to wait for an Uber. Maybe taxis are faster - I've never hailed one!
> it's generally faster to take the subway (which tends to run frequently) than to wait for an Uber
It depends on where you are, where you're going and when it is. For the most part, yes, the subway tends to be faster the further you're going, unless you're in the netherlands between Brooklyn and Queens.
> This is mass transit - taxis and Uber are not
My point is the Ubers were complimentary with the mass transit. Absent Uber, those folks--myself included--would have taken a taxi to the airport.
I apologize, I misunderstood your point and thought I edited it quick enough, but you were faster!
That said, why did you need an Uber instead of a taxi to get to the station? To be clear, I'm not opposed to ride sharing full stop - I think they do solve some problems and help to reduce car ownership, which is a noble goal. But I am not convinced that they are better for the environment (i.e. emissions) than private vehicle ownership.
And I still believe that prioritizing ride hailing vehicles over mass transit (i.e. buses) on public roads will disincentivize mass transit on said roads. Rail is obviously not negatively affected as the infrastructure is not shared.
> in Manhattan, they are likely to be closer, but I'd guess that impact is more per time (stuck in traffic) than per mile
I don’t want to gamble on whether I’ll hail a taxi in time to make the train. And if I’ve spent a few minutes hailing such that it’s questionable if I’ll make the train, I’ll just gun for the airport.
> I am not convinced that they are better for the environment (i.e. emissions) than private vehicle ownership
If you can get people to not own a car, ridesharing wins hands over feet. In most of America, ridesharing just decreases private miles driven. There, the environmental impact is more mixed.
> prioritizing ride hailing vehicles over mass transit (i.e. buses) on public roads will disincentivize mass transit on said roads
I think anything that makes mass transit more accessible, or which pays its bills, is good. Because the default in most of the country isn’t busses. It’s private cars. If we get self-driving cars while busses are still on a legacy model, those systems will be shut down.
>Are taxis/ubers really better for the environment than a personal car?
Yes. They are part of general non-car transit. You would never build an entire public transit infrastructure on taxis, but they are a component of it. A person who doesn't need to own a car because they use taxis/ubers is a net benefit to the environment, and city congestion - not to mention limiting need for parking spaces.
> The public transit degrades because bus lanes are now congested with people taking mass transit instead of single cars ... and we don't want this why?
That would be nice. In the real world they would be congested with Uber buses that purposefully block the public option to ruthlessly "out-compete" it.
Maybe uber will start transporting their food delivery in the bus. Now you have a congested bus lane full of burgers.
> The goal is to get people into taxis/uber, buses, subways, bicycles ... basically anything except a car
This attitude is part of why public transit in America is failing.
Americans love their cars. We're not going to recondition that. Designing systems that are anti-car doesn't lead Americans to ditch their cars. It leads them to ditch public transit.
This shuttle is a good example. Shuttles running between busses increases throughput while decreasing latency. It increases the chances that I go to the bus station versus reflexively calling a car. If I have to look up a timetable, though, I'm not going to do that: I'll call a Waymo.
Another missed opportunity is RORO rail stock, where folks can take their cars on a family vacation on a train. We don't have it because the rail folks are all anti-car. As a result, their projects get cancelled.
Attempting to vaguely level the playing field is not "anti-car". Nobody in the US is "anti-car".
The reality is that we have conceded such an absurd amount of money, space, safety, noise, you name it, to automobiles that even if we reeled that back 90% we'd still be squarely in the "pro-car" space.
On one side, you have one concession that we spend trillions of dollars subsidizing and spend the majority of all space in our country getting to work. And then, on top of that, it's the primary cause of death for multiple demographics. And we still subsidize it.
On the other side, you have something we don't put any money into.
i dont think its because the train people are anti-car. if anything more the converse. Amtrak in the US used to heavily advertise the auto-train. they still run it along the southeast coast.
While Americans can mean "from the US", the term "statunitensi" is how people from the US are commonly called in Italy. And in other countries. The two things are not mutually exclusive, and calling Americans for people from the US is just a figure of speech called synecdoche.
The United Provinces of the Río de la Plata (Spanish: Provincias Unidas del Río de la Plata), earlier known as the United Provinces of South America (Spanish: Provincias Unidas de Sudamérica), was a name adopted in 1816 by the Congress of Tucumán for the region of South America that declared independence in 1816, with the Sovereign Congress taking place in 1813, during the Argentine War of Independence (1810–1818) that began with the May Revolution in 1810. It originally comprised rebellious territories of the former Spanish Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata dependencies and had Buenos Aires as its capital.
But then it clashes with the naming of other people that live in America. We south americans also call ourselves Americans because we live in América – taught as a single continent with two subcontinents. We call people from the US Estadounidenses because “Americans” wouldn’t make any sense for us.
>The administration has absolutely no idea what they're doing.
In general, I agree with your sentiment, but there are competent people in the administration. However, all of them are paralyzed because Trump can alter any plan or policy at a whim, and he insists being involved in everything. And you can see that in the interviews Bessent or even Lutnick give - where they hedge everything because they know it could change any minute. For example, there was no plan to set 145% tariffs on Chinese imports, Trump just did it out of nowhere on TruthSocial.
That's also true of foreign policy in general. Rubio and State Department have zero power at the moment. Neither the Russia-Ukraine peace plan, nor Iranian nuclear arms control, nor Gaza-Israel negotiations are going through the State Department.
>All of this is happening so the wealthiest 1000 people, who already pay almost no taxes, can pay slightly less in taxes.
I disagree with that. This all happening because Trump is incompetent but also arrogant and highly opinionated. I don't think there is a nefarious plan here. Trump probably really does think that you can replace income tax with tariff revenue.
interviews Bessent or even Lutnick give - where they hedge everything because they know it could change any minute
The problem with this is they quickly realised it's easier to BS and lie than to be honest and noncommittal. In the latter case they'd have to fess up at some point and say 'well no we didn't have a plan for that/see that coming/whatever' or admit that they simply don't know the answers to relevant questions. Instead they say one thing one day, and when Trump reverses the policy they come on TV a day or two later smirking and saying 'well this was always the plan'. Once their public statements are disconnected from consequences they realize that lying is a way to wield power and of course that quickly becomes intoxicating and addictive.
Right now it might seem to them like it's just some white lies for the greater good/to assuage public anxiety, but in my view that sort of behavior is a one-way street. I think they've already shredded whatever professional credibility they had, and when things get economically bad they'll be incapable of offering leadership or reassurance that would calm markets (in contrast to, say, Lewis Powell at the Federal Reserve). If the economic situation gets sufficiently bad, Trump will throw them to the wolves and hire in some new faces to buy time. We saw this in the first administration, every time he replaced someone the meda and Congress would grant them a honeymoon period and talk about how much better and calmer things were getting, even though this was based on desire rather than outcomes.
Trump is the culmination of the 50+ year Republican project, a project intentionally designed to transfer wealth from the poor to the rich. He's not an anomaly. He's the inevitable end product of decades of consistent insitutional destruction and corruption.
I agree that Trump is delusional about tafiffs but think abou tit: income tax is pretty much the only progressive tax left. There's serious momentum in the conservative movement to get rid of it for that reason: it's further wealth transfer to the ultra-wealthy.
It sounds like you're not seeing the bigger picture here: the wealthy view themselves as inherently better. In tech circles (including Elon and Thiel) transhumanism is popular.
What is transhumanism ultimately? it's eugenics. It's why these weirdos fill the world with their IVR fetishes, spreading their "superior" genes. It's co-opted the conservative movement, which itself is rooted in eugenics (ie white supremacy).
He isn't actually, if anything he is an empty suit that yells whatever the last guy in the room told him and that guy tends to be the most extreme dumbass on whatever topic it was.
So when you hear him yell about tarrifs, you are hearing him yell whatever peter navaro last told him (plus or minus trumps misunderstanding of the situation, see also trump screaming at the reporter yesterday about how the maryland guy in the el salvadorian prison has literal MS13 tattooed on his knuckles, where it's very clear that the picture he saw had those letters photoshopped onto the photo)
When you hear him yell about immigration/the border/racistbullshit, he's just yelling whatever stephen miller yelled at him.
He is just the avatar for whatever sychophant that is currently in his good graces (ie whoever bribed him or sucked his dick last (see also laura loomer))
I know what OP is referring to. Back in the day, a programmer was expected to have built their own toolbox of utility scripts, programs and configurations that would travel with them as they moved from project to project or company to company. This is akin a professional (craftsman, photographer, chef, electrician, etc.) bringing their own tools to a jobsite.