144 karma · joined March 2, 2021
The ladder question (a common tool for measuring SWB) is this:
Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from zero at the bottom to 10 at the top.
The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you.
On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time? (ladder-present)
(If you’re asking about the units for wealth: USD, Euros, etc)
That being said, I’d argue “2001 dollars” is a unit, not “dollars”. You’ll often see data in econ journals cite something in that type of unit.
Another angle on this is that comparing wealth across time is nontrivial (and the money isn’t to blame). How do you compare the value of a iPhone in 2020 to a landline in 1980? It’s possible, but nontrivial. Our units (in some messy imperfect way) reflect that (and other factors).
Some of this is unusual (no gps) but the rest is standard, no? iMessage is e2e encrypted and lots of platforms have disappearing messages.
(Not a front end dev, genuinely curious)
So you see more ads, the people publishing content make more money (more ads + better ads --> more valuable eyeballs --> more valuable content), and then the ROI for making content is higher, so people make + publish more of it. You get more, more valuable content.
Now, you may argue that the privacy cost is higher than the reward of more/better content, but I think that it probably isn't. Especially because it's hard (not impossible) to match your browsing history with your IRL identity and no one really cares about you, I think that the privacy cost is smaller than the reward. You might disagree.
(Haven't had a chance to read it yet)
For several years now, programming has been a required course for all grade-school students.
The tech field is flooded with talent, and it is virtually impossible to get a job.
The technical interview has grown at an unbounded rate.
An aspiring engineer walks into the interview room, freshly shaven. He sits down, cracks his knuckles, takes a long sip from his branded thermos.
Waits.
And then it begins. The interview.
10, 100, 1000 logic puzzles. Faster than seems possible, he recites answers memorized from algoexpert.io.
Cut to a wide shot. Speed up time. Stubble, then a beard, appear on his face. The sun rises and sets, and yet he dare not sleep.
Eventually, he forgets language, reason, civilization, coffee. The touch of his baby son's skin, although he's not such a baby anymore.
He grunts, diagrams, and whiteboards. That's all his life is now.
"Ok, well thank you very much! You'll hear from us soon," Says the interviewer. The sounds are foreign to the engineer, but he is lead out of the office and onto the bright street. His car sits there, rusted.
The interviewer motions the next candidate inside.
He doesn't hear from them.
Yes. That's the problem. Make less money from ads --> make less content/riskier to make content (same thing). The more money ads make, the fewer of them you have to see to fund the same amount of content (or, alternatively, you get more/higher quality content for a given (fixed) quantity of ads).
Technically (and by accident) what I originally said is still true— it makes a lot of money (but may cost a lot of money) and so it still looks good on quarterly reports (esp. if they bury the costs) so they’ll keep it around.
Plus, I wouldn’t be surprised if my Google search results were informed and improved by their data about my watch history.
I imagine they've made it viscous/non-Newtonian/whatever (not sure on the technical fluid mechanics term) enough such that gravity pushes/pulls it down towards the tip but prevents it from flowing the other way.
Edit 1 (just before getting in the shower): Removed references to air pressure, as I don't think that makes a difference.
Edit 2 (post shower): Air pressure might a difference after all, it depends on where the seal is. If there's an air tight seal on the tip end (which there might be, if that's how it's kept from leaking) then air pressure might add to the "only goes one direction" effect.
Windows forces you to use bing/edge when you accidentally search from the launch programs menu, but I never intentionally search from there so it’s a minor inconvenience (for me). Never had it fail to respect that setting elsewhere. It also does a good job letting you set default apps for all types of files (and in fact letting apps change that setting themselves with a little user interaction) unlike iOS which only lets you change it for a few types of apps (and then through the worst designed settings menu I’ve ever seen). Can’t leave iOS behind though because I need my iMessaging.