esilver

I completely forgot about this set of practices. Yes, a huge part of youth culture concerned itself with the creation and sharing of mix tapes. Looked at through this lens it makes me almost wistful thinking about the mix CDs I exchanged with friends in high school. They took a fair amount of work to put together and were often deeply personalized for the receiver. Makes you wonder who’s missing out, us or “kids these days.”

This interview sets up this false dichotomy where people ostensibly accessed music by spending $15 on a CD or not at all. The contention seems to be that piracy/Napster were a forgone conclusion because there was no real choice.

People listened to ad-supported radio or they listened to records socially or borrowed them. That’s how it worked for about 80 years.

I’m not defending the music industry, its practices, or its stalwart backwardness. But suggesting music was inaccessible is plainly false.

I love the focus on seniors, who are typically more price sensitive than younger people due to fixed incomes.

Excellent design, too, although larger type, larger savings indicators, and custom images instead of the emoji might be appreciated.

Filtering by savings type might also be helpful, e.g., “save on dinner,” “save on outings,” etc.

That friction presents an interesting set of problems.

One aspect of the current housing crisis, at least as it exists here in California, is that young people increasingly rent instead of owning.

A generation ago home ownership would be a form of lock-in for “legacy” cities. High rents and low home ownership suggest that this lock-in is less of a factor.

Completely new infrastructure. No entrenched stakeholders with an incentive to block growth.

I think the primary problem here is the rural-urban migration; people the world over are moving from villages and small towns to large cities for work and other opportunities. This is a truly global phenomenon with the share of people living in cities rising from 55% in 2018 to a projected 68% in 2050. [0]

Housing and transportation policies are secondary in that they have failed to adequately address this first problem.

The solution is entirely new cities built to meet the demands of the twenty-first century.

[0] https://population.un.org/wup/Publications/Files/WUP2018-Key...

There’s actually a really interesting historical relationship between the U.S. postal service and newspapers in the early republic; basically, newspapers could be mailed at a rate far lower than then-expensive personal and business correspondence.

Check out David M. Henkin’s Postal Age [0] if you’re interested in learning more.

[0] https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo41...

It’s an inspired satirical project. I think there’s value in shipping something no-one would ever use; it allows you to see things from new perspectives. See also: the useless machine [0].

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useless_machine

It's gorgeous and easy to use. I especially appreciate inclusion of demo images and hex codes for easy copying. I'll probably refer to it from now on instead of googling "complementary colors" as I've been doing. Well done!

I worry lawmakers are more interested in scoring political points than fully-understanding a problem and crafting legislation that best serves the public interest.

I don’t think regulation is bad, per se, but my preference is for changes like these to come from the market instead of the statehouse.

This is mind-blowing. Can you point to any resources on how to do this? Also, where’d you sell the components? eBay?

Every one of my devices is from Apple: phone, laptop, and yes, AirPods. My practice has been to sell any devices after four years and use the proceeds to buy new. AirPods are probably the first Apple device I've bought that will likely have no resale value; after all, I put them in my ears. Reading about the Fairphone mentioned in the article [0] and the related iFixit teardown [1] made me pretty envious. While I find it highly unlikely I would leave the Apple ecosystem due to security and ease-of-use I would love to be able to make minor repairs on my devices and keep them for more than four or five years. Apple's been investing in making device components more recyclable [2] but also in making devices less repairable. Regulation seems like the wrong way to compel change but I doubt Apple or others will elect to do so without clear mandates from regulators or customers.

[0] https://www.fairphone.com/en/our-goals/recycling/

[1] https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Fairphone+2+Teardown/52523

[2] https://www.apple.com/environment/safer-materials/

I would be happy to.

ericsilver [dot] us [at] gmail

I’m down with the message of this site but directing people to “just use Hugo + Netlify” leaves out crucial steps for non-devs. While there’s a link to a how-to it assumes a level of knowledge many, like myself, don’t yet have.

It would be cool if there were instructions for neophytes. I’ve been interested in hosting a static blog but haven’t found resources that outline how.

Fair point. Then again maybe half of the Uber and Lyft drivers plying San Francisco’s streets on a given day are from Stockton, Modesto, Fresno, etc. The same or a similar principle may apply to auto mechanics.

Uber and Lyft compete for drivers using a rewards system based on ratings and number of rides completed. If I look at my own dashboard right now (I drive for Lyft) I see a small fuel subsidy from Shell ($0.05/gallon), discounted roadside assistance from Allstate, a discounted Turbotax subscription, and a handful of other discounted services.

I'm only at Silver, the first tier. Rewards improve slightly at Gold and Platinum tiers but honestly they're so insubstantial that I don't think I would redeem any of them except maybe the Turbotax discount because I was already going to use it.

If Lyft started offering heavily discounted auto maintenance, however, I would 100% redeem those rewards. And I have a strong feeling other drivers would switch from Uber in order to redeem them, too.

Smart move.