datahack

Disruptive technology disrupts.

It sucks for the people caught by the change. Honestly, I’m sorry. But rapid, disruptive change has always been part of working in technology. The industry doesn’t owe any particular job category permanence.

I think the more interesting conversation is what happens to the learning industry now. If AI changes how software is built, then teaching people to become developers has to change too.

We shouldn’t be asking how to preserve the old pipeline of teaching people to write code so they can get an entry level programming job. We should be asking what it means to teach someone to become a developer when AI can increasingly write the code.

The scarce skill may shift from producing code to understanding what should be built, decomposing problems, designing systems, evaluating tradeoffs, debugging complex behavior, verifying AI generated output, and understanding whether the resulting system is actually correct, secure, maintainable, and fit for purpose.

That doesn’t necessarily mean fewer people need to learn software development. It could mean many more people can become capable developers because the mechanical barrier to producing software has fallen dramatically.

The educational model just has to catch up.

The technology changed. The answer shouldn’t be to pretend it didn’t. It should be figuring out how to use it to produce the next generation of developers.

That’s going to be contentious for some people, even a little insensitive. But it’s just how it works in our industry.

Love your mom’s work. Wow.

This is how higher education was done for literal centuries before moving to the written word. So it’s not exactly innovative to return to oral arguments.

But what it does threaten to do is effectively abandon all the efficiencies of the written word.

When higher education evolved into a mass system in the 1800s and into the 1900s, pure oral examination was looked at as super inefficient. A written paper could be handed in and graded without lining everyone up in front of a panel.

The oral system scales poorly. One examiner can only hear so many students in a day. There are damn good reasons Medieval universities were small and modern ones are not.

Requiring every major paper to be defended live reintroduces the bottleneck that written exams were designed to escape.

Accessibility takes a hit too. Students with speech differences, anxiety disorders, hearing impairments, or simply less fluency in the language of instruction face an extra barrier that a written submission does not impose. The written form, for all its flaws, leveled some of that ground. Shall we abandon the differently abled because machines disrupt the academic system and essentially make cheating effective? This does not seem very logical, or sensitive.

So while it’s nice that academics are rediscovering the old ways, I don’t really see this as a scalable answer to raising education levels for the masses, but more of a knee jerk way to try to bypass the obvious technological disruption by returning to non-scalable, inaccessible ways of doing things that our ancestors abandoned for a reason.

It has its place for graduate students and smaller volume education systems. It’s fine for keeping the ivory tower clean. But it’s not the answer to expanding education to everyone and taking advantage of the technological disruption to advance education and learning throughout greater humanity, which is what AI definitely possesses as a possibility.

So, the fact that you went to a medical center just not the specific doctors office?

This seems weak.

Isn’t this just an attempt to build a two pizza team (across the company)? Or the whole “parking lot” philosophy that built Patagonia.

Don’t know if it will work with this weird arbitrary cap, because 15 is fine for some things and way too many for others.

Mandates do be like that.

This should be made illegal as soon as possible.

This is clearly and obviously the shortest possible path to a total surveillance society.

Cool. Hope they enjoy having one less customer.

Can we just get an option to turn it off? This is an insanely dumb workaround.

So, is rasping a subset of hacking now? Goodness.

This is woefully inadequate as a remedy. The dollar amount is minuscule and the remedy time limited. Seems like they just got a license to continue business as usual.

Ok. Someone explain to me why they would f themselves this hard with software engineers when they are absolutely winning. This just seems like a bad move.

Is it infrastructure? Are they unable to control costs?

Everyone else is spending like money is water to try to get adoption. Claude has it and is dialing back utility so that its most passionate users will probably leave.

I don’t understand this move.

I do very much dislike that the concerns of the domesticated bee are brushed aside in this piece, as they are quite legitimate.

It, of course, is trying to espouse that we protect the solitary and other wild bees, and I agree with them about that. It’s very, very important.

Nevertheless, this is a case of both not either / or being the right position. Why should we be advocating for one and not the other, or really in fact all flying insects, especially given their recent catastrophic declines.

We bought and tried their products several times only to find they were no different than a basic veggie burger or whatever. We couldn’t figure out what the hype was even about. And then I started reading about how their ingredient list wasn’t the healthiest.

Just seemed like just another weird Silicon Valley money bubble built on hype and vc cash instead of any kind of meaningful product differentiation.

Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s our genuine experience.

The majority of humanity is not meaningfully engaged even if they are active on social media platforms.

It has a long way to go.

That’s the kind of righteous sarcasm you can build a community on.

Take my upvote.

Wonder if we should coordinate doing it simultaneously in like 10,000 cities and towns?

I know this is only a partial answer, but I feel like Google is once again trying to build a product based on internal priorities, existing business protectionism, and internal business goals, rather than building a product that is listening actively to real use feedback as the primary priority.

It is the company’s constant kryptonite.

They seem to be, from my third part perspective, repeating the same ol’, same ol’ pattern. It is the “wave lesson” all over again.

Anthropic meanwhile is giving people what they want. They are really listening. And it’s working.

It’s not rocket science. Porsche discontinued the gas Macan in the EU, leaving the new all electric Macan as the primary option.

That’s the top seller. So… you end up with more electric than gas — because you don’t sell it.

Absolutely.

Ours are 10 years old, and the bearings wore out (well they were squeaking!) on the drum.

It took 20 minutes and a ratchet set to repair — couldn’t be easier.

It’s the best appliance we have ever owned. Can’t speak more highly of the company. Definitely the best on the market.

30 years is impressive!

Indeed. I think that’s an astute assessment. I listen to a massive variety of perspectives, and as a NATO member I think what they have to say is worth hearing at least. Thanks for your comment — appreciate it.

I’m learning about the “era of the nations” thinking from Hungary’s Balázs Orbán, via an episode of a podcast called the Winston Marshall show. YouTube just randomly suggested it to me.

I just rebuild a speed queen dryer that broke with spare parts from Amazon, which revealed a remarkably simplistic engineering. Very surprised by how simplistic the mechanism was. It’s incredible how over engineered most laundry systems have become.

Also spent some time digging into the integrations between Tesla FSD and rideshare services today. It’s remarkable how much progress has happened.

This is a case study in the failure of product market fit.

There is tons of room for a low cost, high quality small electric or hybrid pickup in today’s market.

Ford Maverick sales have been exceptionally strong, setting records in 2025 with 155,051 units sold in the US of A, up almost a fifth from last year.

Tesla needs to make a product that people want, and continuing to try to sell one they don’t want just won’t work. Why not pivot and build the truck people are asking for? Otherwise, this program will fail.

Truly, it’s a miracle for manufacturing. I wish people would understand what a profound waste burning it actually is.

Yea, precisely. Same reason for the 51st state Canada comments.

You can look at all the reporting that’s been done, much of which is repetitious, but the smoking gun is here:

https://www.bsee.gov/newsroom/latest-news/statements-and-rel...

Isn’t that mixing up library size with market power?

Consumers are going to pay for this consolidation through higher subscription prices because the cost always goes somewhere.

What you’re seeing now is the same consolidation and ad loading that drove the old piracy waves.

I feel like you’re citing the primary source material for the vast majority of us. Like, “let me find the thing that original taught me how to think about radiation pools. Ah yes, this xkcd. Yep, here’s the manual.”

I always wondered if the south by southwest conference was an homage to this movie somehow.

Great finds.

Imagine if Google, which presents itself as a supporter of open source, had clear support policies so that when it ended support for a product, the open source community could take over. Think about how much e-waste that could prevent and how quickly it could make Google the default recommendation.

At this point I’ve thrown out so much Google hardware that was end of life but still operating I’ve become just the opposite — I constantly suggest people don’t use their hardware.

Oh dear, am I the only one who remembers the marauders map? I saw a bunch like you were talking about, but the Harry Potter version was exceptional.

I’ve been listening to the audiobooks of the expanse via our local library. Absolutely fantastic series — you are spot on!

Also, remember to support your local library.