smelendez

Doesn’t it vary heavily?

Auto mechanics usually are required to bring their own tools to the shop. Historically civil engineers working on paper often brought their own favorite mechanical pencils, calculators, and slide rules.

Back when paper manuals were more common, it was pretty common to see software developers have their own dog-eared O’Reilly books in their cubicles, and those were probably the closest predecessor to something like Claude.

Vape shops sell addictive products and they have minimal overhead. I think the markup on a lot of what they sell, especially the more grey market stuff like nitrous oxide "whip cream chargers" and poppers, is quite high.

A lot that I see have extremely cheap-looking fixtures and little to no decor, and unlike virtually any other store, they stock what they stock, which is generally the same as every other vape shop, and don't even bother to fill out the entire space if it would hold more merchandise.

I assume some are able to negotiate lower rents in exchange for short term leases while the store is technically still on the market for a long-term lease, similar to a pop up store. A lot that I've seen could be shut down, with all the merchandise and equipment loaded into a UHaul, within a few hours if necessary.

Nail salons are similar. They really should have custom ventilation systems since they're working with paints and solvents and glues and nail drills/lathes, but this seems to not be enforced since they're seen as girly little spas rather than industrial workshops and are often staffed by poor immigrants.

People definitely seem to notice.

I see restaurants post AI flyers and ads to random local Facebook groups and most of the replies are about them being AI slop. I think it’s an uncanny valley problem: People don’t mind if you post a real photo of your food or a cartoon drawing of a pizza or a pig on a spit, but when it’s a weird fake photo with texture issues, it looks gross, especially when it’s food.

I think a lot of people who open restaurants probably aren’t extremely online, partly because it would be physically impossible with the amount of work they have to do, but they definitely pay attention -sometimes too much attention — to public online feedback.

Yeah, a woman wearing pants to an office job became totally normal. A man wearing a dress or skirt would be assumed to be transitioning gender or wearing a costume.

Joss Whedon, the Simpsons, Letterman, Tarantino, etc. came at a particular time for film and TV too, where everybody watched a ton of formulaic shows and movies which had been influencing each other for decades.

Unrelated to AI, that’s just not true anymore. But also, it’s probably not a coincidence that alongside the parodies and genre-referential humor came a whole range of new types of programming that didn’t fit old genre conventions and arguably displaced them: reality TV, prestige serials, oddball comedy, primetime political talk shows, and later short form and vertical video.

With football it’s possible to watch every game, which I think better fits today’s model of fandom.

Baseball I get the sense people watched or listened to some, often while doing something else, and followed the rest in the newspaper or the evening news highlights.

I think the US problem is that unionized transit workers (and a dwindling number of other unionized workers) can do quite well, but if they were to lose that job, they wouldn't be able to get anywhere near the same salary, benefits, etc. in another job with similar duties. I don't think this is as true in other countries with stronger labor protections overall and a more equitable healthcare system.

Also, the culture for whatever reason seems to emphasize enabling gamesmanship around overtime, special duty pay, etc. as opposed to paying a good steady rate for a normal day's work.

I don’t really understand what the issue is in Houston and why it feels so culturally bereft. Part of the issue is sprawl, sure, but it feels like there’s just less going on than other sprawling cities like LA and Atlanta.

I was there a few years ago in the summer, and figured I’d go see live music at night, and there just was literally not any to see besides at the megavenues. And surprisingly few bookstores for a city that size. I think it’s possible there are more independent bookstores in New Orleans than in Houston, a much larger and wealthier city.

It’s a cycle. Everything looks bland and professional and serious and homogenized right now, from Xbox to McDonald’s.

I bet by the end of the decade we’ll see more designs looking to stand out again.

Not necessarily. Even in competitive markets, you can potentially route customers to more suitable suppliers, etc.

And you can introduce people to products they didn’t know existed and now want, as opposed to showing them things they don’t need.

And this is a complicated case.

You need evidence from Cash App and likely other third parties like ISPs. You ideally would have an expert to testify about the limitations of the prosecution evidence.

It’s hard to fully pass on UX knowledge. For one, a lot of software and hardware isn’t available, including recent software. You can’t use a version of Slack from 2019 or AIM from 2001, for instance.

But also, it’s hard to convey the full experience of actually using old software as a tool (or toy)—trying to maintain your company records in Lotus 1-2-3 or looking up something in Microsoft Encarta knowing that if you couldn’t answer your question you’d need to go to the library, or even trying to solve a puzzle in a game with no reference materials.

I’m sure this is true of other technology: You can learn to ride a horse or read about how telephones and telegrams worked, but can you really capture the experience of riding from NYC to Philadelphia in 1840 or trying to convey an urgent business message the same way in 1920?

Yeah, and sizeof and malloc are very easily things students could have been exposed to in high school or their own studies. I’ve seen C books that use them in the first chapter.

It’s fine to say solve this problem using the following tools, but not great to say “if you find another approach, I assume cheating.”

Yes, I was confused by the article’s claim there was no ragtime at the fair. Was his work not ragtime by that point?

This is a more normal English meaning in my opinion — you picture a sentry patrolling a border.