TheGRS

I would think the late game would be getting bought out by AWS/G Cloud/Azure.

I'm also assuming OP didn't really intend to pay if they're coming to a tool that they'll use for 5 minutes. They don't see the value in paying, I'm just reading between the lines there.

Maybe its still better to let them get a long free trial so they tell their friends about it, I dunno. Not a marketer, but it struck me as kind of disingenuous that if you came back to a tool after 3 months where you know you need to use it, they still don't want to pay.

Your example just demonstrates the usefulness of a time-based trial. You personally might not come back but the next customer might.

I know everyone complains about Adobe's switch to subscription, but it would fit the model you'd want where you could pay for a month of usage and then turn it back off.

Yea I can see this in the article as well. And anyone who has read the books can probably see this wasn't the authors real interest. I can see where someone with their pulse on international politics might read into Trisolaris vs Earth being some sort of a proxy for China vs USA. But my take is that the author was just writing about sci-fi ideas from their personal perspective in China. Chinese history, politics, and culture plays into how the plot unfolds. But it didn't feel to me like they're trying to say much about the international politics of the situation. Instead the plot marches ahead into speculative fiction steeped in some current-day theories about the universe. There's certainly a lot of dabbling in human emotions and conditions vs aliens who don't share those same ideals. But like "how does the USA respond vs China" is like an afterthought of the book, can't remember if that even really came up.

The books are very imaginative. Not always a fan of the prose, and the character development is lacking, but I think this is a great new take on the alien invasion genre that tries to put all of the current theories about extraterrestrials (or lack-thereof) into a very big plot.

Part of the draw of the first book is how much it talks about communist China from an insider perspective. I found those parts the most interesting by far, with some of the more interesting sci-fi ideas emerging toward the end. The next 2 books basically go down a speculative fiction path with the first book's ideas set in motion.

I always felt like the books were a fan fiction of certain blog posts I've read about the Fermi Paradox or the Great Filter. Any self-respecting sci-fi nerd needs to read them, and all 3 of the books. They probably won't wow you in the same way other award-winning authors have, but they should be thought-provoking.

Reminded me of Grimrock too, but if you also like this I'd recommend a game called Barony. Great multiplayer RPG romp that has a lot of depth and secrets to discover. Also procedurally generated.

Behavior change on this is going to be such a slog. Made worse by the "told-ya-so"s who generally weren't very helpful to begin with. Might be better to make specialized plastic landfills just to keep the current behaviors active and not ostracize people's hard work on recycling campaigns. As long as we do something that keeps the plastic out of water systems I'm good with that. And as the writer noted, the real issue is reducing the amount of it in the first place.

Yea for most of us (I hope), sorting is like a non-thought at this point. When I have an aluminum can and I can't find a recycle bin I have a mini panic about it. There's not much of a time waste on the consumer side, its not like I'm sorting through a bag of trash every week. I *do* hope we get managing plastic waste under control though, and soon. Feels like the main problem is now on the government level figuring out what to do about this. The behavior change is largely done. If it just needs to go back into the ground great, I just don't want it near the ocean.

Looking at the government as monolithic and omniscient, sure. But its the same as any organization: made up of tons of people who don't all know everything, who disagree with each other about things, while generally trying to do the right thing. And sometimes they get it wrong (I too remember the food pyramid)

That came to mind reading it too. I'm sympathetic that not all the recycling is making it into reused materials, but I do think the behavior change in people was a success on the whole. Eco-friendly materials continue to be a focal point for many consumers, though not all of them.

And there's probably a lesson in there about how long it takes to effectively shift consumer behavior with the right campaign. I feel like it took about 2 decades to get everyone on board with recycle bins and general eco-friendliness, both using carrot and stick methods.

This post is an introduction to the idea and then as a Part 2 for actions to take. For anyone who hasn't continued into Part 2, it goes into first steps on listening to different performers in your company and basically doing research on what makes everyone tick. There will be a follow-up Part 3. Just want to say that's an interesting way to blog, but a little unsatisfying since I'm not sure if I'll keep coming back for new updates every week.

Interesting topic though! I consider myself both self-motivated and a little lazy at heart so I think I fall into the skilled pragmatist. For me personally it was that realization that I wasn't going to be the 4.0 student, but that I could still get a great 3.5 by doing a lot less work. Sometimes I crank out tons of extra work that helps various people by the simple virtue that its interesting to me. So I think this is hitting a chord with me somewhere.

I find myself in management these days, and the people I manage are all great and talented and as far as I can tell no one is upset with my laissez-faire management style. But I'm always wanting to find how to make the job more interesting for them. The roadmap can often be kind of boring work. When we have interesting projects the work just flies by and you can see the satisfaction on everyone's faces. Would love to just have more of that.

I went to WSU actually and I used to ride the Idaho-Washington bike trail all the time! Miss the scenery out there, its lovely. I've done a bit of overnight bike trips, one that was like 150 miles and on the coast, but never anything quite this long and certainly not as harsh as eastern washington. But still, might be a bucket list item for me, its probably easier than my bucket list of hiking the PCT.

Again though, there are plenty of events that already do this and have people for handling logistics. And indeed people with temporary jobs involved.

Just being devil's advocate since I also don't necessarily agree that TSwift could build a venue in every market, but there are plenty of large-scale events that use open fields and tents and aren't going to cost billions to setup.

Yes, I think they have leveraged their power to keep the situation in their favor and not let a competitor come up. I don't really see a reason we couldn't have 4-5 ticketmaster type companies that still do some of the BS stuff we all hate. The whole thing where Ticketmaster will refuse other artists if your venue doesn't use them is very monopolistic.

That's awesome. So I'm thinking I might want to do the Washington St leg of this some time, do you remember about how long that part took?

I still think its overly simplistic. One man's growth for growth sake is another man's innovation to gain some unrealized value. I'm not a huge fan of penny-pinching either, but there is good in finding alternative paths for your expenses. Sometimes its crappy for the end product, sometimes you save a million dollars a year by printing stamps instead of buying them. And a company should be expected to defend its business practices in court, but sometimes they're scummy practices that the general public disagrees with.

But I find it difficult to separate these just on the idea of growth being a bad mindset. Lack of ethics or quality mindset might be the better thing to go after here, since that seems to be where most of the disagreeable actions come from.

I'm tired of hearing this opinion because its overly simplistic. Anyone expressing this opinion likely would praise a company for growth through innovation. They don't hate growth, they hate companies who are scrounging for additional price value without adding intrinsic value. If Apple came out with the next device/car/service that was a big value add to our lives I'm sure this opinion doesn't come back up in that instance.

Growth mindset is a good thing overall. And sometimes you get growth through pretty shitty means. I can't really throw out "growth" altogether just because a lot of companies employ accountants, MBA executives, and lawyers.

The industry has shifted greatly for creatives. Musicians especially. In the 90s which was peak old industry music, the labels would take chances on various artists and those artists would have a shot at something big for little while. The label paid for the studio time.

These days with creative tools so accessible and widespread, and the ability to publish so cheap, artists need to produce their own music and find their own following before the label takes them on. Instead of the label paying for studio time the artist does. I think that's why these discussions concentrate on the whole "fewer artists making more of the share" part. It IS different, but its not the whole story.

And I'd probably argue in favor of making creative endeavors more widespread instead of being in the lap of a few label executive taste-makers, but you definitely have fewer artists who can just concentrate on making great music and getting nice royalties. Now you have to do everything for a smaller pay day.

I remember when Google was waaay smaller the sorts of goodwill projects like Gmail were required. Engineers had to work on side projects in part of their paid time. I've worked at a couple of companies that supported a "10% time" for side projects that was inspired by this. So products like Podcasts might be like a mutation of that earlier company culture.

You start playing right away in that game.

I remember how Apple Watch wouldn't let you download podcasts or songs on Spotify. Apparently they changed that to allow some recently, but that change did get me to switch to the Apple Podcast app for awhile, which I feel like is inferior.

We're talking about Waffle House staff here so I'd be surprised if the turnover was low.

Still would take a lot of training to get right. Its not intuitive. And I can certainly find a lot of humor in how its implemented.

I can't help thinking its simultaneously ingenious and hilariously convoluted. Looks like it would be fast to setup, easy to read from the line cook area, and also simple to modify. I'm sure if I was doing the work I could learn the system pretty quickly, but glancing over it as an outsider all I can think about it how ridiculous it sounds that an upright jam packet over a mustard packet means 3 eggs.

And they use what they have, these places always need pickles and jam packets, whereas a real magic marker can dry up and you might forget to order replacement. Fascinating for sure.

I was feeling the same way, there is probably some camaraderie that develops in the waffle house staff just around this unique shared language.

Think this is catching on slowly, give it another 10 years or so we will probably have something like that everywhere. America is pretty good at adopting popular food vehicles.

Its not a regular thing to work on for the majority of people. What's the point of manning up for this particular DIY if the danger is high? Is it really that big of an ego hit to pay someone for a job once in awhile?

Its widely known as one of the most dangerous DIYs you can do. I think typically people working on them will get pushed off their ladder suddenly from the tension in the spring releasing.

I'm with you on this part of it. I don't see what the real benefit is to McD if it hurts their brand long-term, which seems to be happening in regard to their ice cream products. We are not talking about highly sophisticated machines or repairs, its more like an organic situation that's made visible because there are so many McDonald's franchises and they all have the same temperamental machines.

I would guess that the real reason is that within the bureaucracy of Mickey D's there is little incentive to get this problem fixed. Leadership either isn't aware or doesn't see the value to fix it. I'm sure some people are definitely benefitting a lot from this, but not enough people higher up are affected by it to care.