TadasPaplauskas

I've been driving manual for the last 12 years. I enjoy and prefer it simply because it's more fun (to me).

That said, I don't think we should be making a virtue out of necessity. There's nothing objectively better about this set of mechanical constraints compared to another set of mechanical constraints.

I remember EV sceptics using similar arguments half a decade ago. No gears, no engine noise, no rumble - what is there to get excited about? Well, guess what, EVs are some of the most exciting cars to drive these days, and having no gears to shift definitely doesn't take away from engagement.

It's just a different experience - not necessarily better or worse.

Update: the safety/attention argument might only apply if you have to think about shifting gears, like in a first year or two. I live in Europe where many cars still have manual transmissions. Trust me, there are plenty of terrible and distracted drivers over here too :)

No, you're not overreacting :) it sucks.

In theory, you agreed to all the ways they can screw you over when signing up. In reality of course no one can be reasonably expected to understand the full ramifications of multi-page terms of service.

I'm happy that EU is pushing this ownership argument forward. GDPR seemed unreasonable just a few years ago, now it's the new standard. I also don't think it's the final destination. We're moving towards more regulation, but that's expected in any mature industry.

However, this specific topic to me isn't as much about ownership as it's about redundancy and diversification.

Of course it's not a good idea to build your whole identity on some corporate identifier (@gmail.com, @icloud.com...). Of course your business income shouldn't be based on a single platform (e.g. youtube demonetization, facebook news). These problems could've been forseen even without the benefit of hindsight.

There's no such thing as absolute ownership anyway. Even your money or real estate belongs to you within the framework of modern banks and governments. Doesn't mean this ownership isn't meaningful, just that there are always limits and gotchas.

The most meaningful thing you can do is own as much of your digital surface area as you can. Having everything under your own domains will get the most bang for your buck. I don't bother with self-hosting, but for someone else that would be a must. Your mileage may vary.

> otherwise Apple will drop the port and move to wireless charging

Since the aim is to reduce e-waste, I suppose going all-in with wireless charging wouldn't be a problem (or even preferable) in the eyes of the law.

Apple Notes for long-running projects or anything I want to come back to and expand upon in the future. Since I expect to read these notes more than write them, I optimize for searchability and access.

If you're into apple ecosystem, nothing beats Apple Notes - seamless access right from the spotlight search, you can paste images or files right into notes (surprisingly few apps have that feature - it's a must for me), to-do lists that just work, cloud-sync, so on. And it all comes built-in, for free. I've tried all major alternatives and I always come back.

Paper notebook for daily plans and short-term notes. I don't expect to refer back to those notes in the distant future, so I choose to optimize for writing experience, and nothing I've tried beats paper.

A personal blog for anything worth sharing. In my case it's a bunch of markdown files in a static site generator.

> Perhaps just prominently feature your email address?

That's exactly what I'm doing right now :). Email address is not exactly as encouraging to reach out as a simple comment box, but I've had a hunch that the small possible upside is just not worth the hassle, and your experience seems to confirm that. Thanks!

While I share the sentiment that cash is king and everybody should have some ready at all times because shit happens, author’s line of reasoning seems a bit out there: “USA mistakenly collected taxes on my assets -> buy gold”. Not keeping all your money in a single account in a jurisdiction you don’t understand well seems like a more reasonable conclusion. Fight bureaucracy with bureaucracy - authorities will still be able to freeze some of your accounts, but much harder to do that everywhere at once.

Forgetting to lock the house or batteries in detector running out is an accident. Not providing secure and up-to-date firmware for devices which are known to be an easy targets is a company policy, which comes out of incentives (the cost of security is huge compared to the cost of a breach to IoT manufacturers). While we cannot/should not legislate against accidents, we sure can and must legislate against harmful policies. Shifting blame from companies to hackers simply is not as productive as making companies responsible for the quality of their product.

Wheel torque is not the same thing as engine torque. I'm pretty sure the confusion is intentional, since it's the first time I see wheel torque advertised for any car.

I get the appeal from company's perspective, but there's only so many "movements" a customer can handle. I don't want every tool I use to disrupt my thinking - imagine how tiring that would be. Unfortunately this approach is currently so in fashion that a simple landing page which just states it's proposition in a clear way seems refreshing.

Also, it seems incredibly desperate and fake when a company tries to forcefully come up with unique culture when there is none to begin with. Some companies are naturally more interesting than others and that's okay. Not everyone can be basecamp and not everyone needs to :)

There are many valid reasons to have a government - not least of which is protecting individuals from society.

What if there was a transparent and fixed hourly rate for all developers? Developers would be forced to compete on other aspects than price. At least it would solve the issue with devs from third-world countries bringing down prices for everyone. Ratings and reviews would mean something - no more "works great considering what I paid for it" reviews.

Also, this would serve as the natural quality control - with hourly rate being reasonably high, low-value projects and clients would simply skip the platform. Of course, this could only work for a more niche market than upwork.

If one fixed hourly rate is just too limiting, then there could be 2-3 price tiers. Just keep it simple.

This might be already implemented somewhere. In that case, does it work well?

well, here's the ultimate theft protection for ya.

Of course driving manual in traffic is pain in the ass, but I would prefer to skip heavy traffic anyways, instead of trying to make it somewhat more bearable.

Had some experience driving automatic in Cyprus, which is very mountainous. It was impossible to keep constant speed, as car was constantly trying to find "optimal" gear for every hill and slope, instead of finding optimal gear for the whole trip. Ended up using sport mode, which just kept the engine working at higher RPMs. Not optimal in any way.

I'm sure there are great automatics, but unfortunately not in my price range. There's a difference between automatic ferarri and automatic hyundai.