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I find (2) to be kind of a BS narrative. It’s not like they are open-sourcing the code. All big tech companies have security audit programs. Does that assuage your security concerns when Google, Meta, etc do it? Basically, what they are saying is they are doing it on the backend and you should give them credit for doing it on the frontend because some security researchers are going to get a Disneyland tour.

Personally, I actually am somewhat encouraged that tech companies are subject to legal process (in the form of lawsuit discovery etc). Tech companies have paid billion-dollar settlements for allegedly breaking the laws in segments of their business that don’t generate billions in profits. Obviously there’s a lot of room for them to push the limits of the law, disagreement about what the law is, and there mays be ways for them to get away with things. But the fact that audits are happening, the code and logs can end up in court acts as some kind of constraint on their behavior.

Apple announced many of the new features are not on-device. There are three categories:

1. On device

2. Private cloud compute (aka Apple’s servers)

3. OpenAI (but only if you approve each time it’s used)

This isn’t really a new thing - you could always tell that some of Apple’s AI features depending on remote servers by disconnecting from the internet, using Siri and seeing how much of it stopped working.

If they are shutting down roads that normally get automobile traffic, there might be less pollution during the event.

In California you pay an extra deposit when you buy a plastic bottle. I don’t know if that number is set to properly capture the externality, but it’s enough to get people wandering the streets to pick up the bottles and turn them in (they even rifle through your trash can). Also, it doesn’t apply to most forms of plastic packaging or goods.

Somebody does it once and now we all have to handle it forever!

My feeling is that discussion of this issue includes a lot of people implying things, making vague accusations. I feel it’s useful to get specific about the claims so readers can understand them.

The allegations here, if I got it right:

1. One guy who worked for Saudi intelligence knew about the attacks (disputed).

2. 15 of 19 attackers were Saudi nationals (dubious relevance, generally we don’t blame a whole country for crimes committed by individuals from that country).

3. Bin Laden family has close ties to the Saudi royal family, and Al Queda got funded by the Bin Laden family.

My surface-level takeaway is that Saudi royals deserve criticism for associating with the supporters of terrorism. However, I don’t see evidence the Saudi state conspired to commit the 9/11 attacks.

Are you referring to one of the many twitter links? I didn’t see that in the article itself.

I would suggest putting a sentence like “google ads can show a trustworthy/trademarked url (such as YouTube.com) but if the user clicks, the link actually goes to evilscam.com” in the first paragraph. I didn’t understand that this might be what the article is about until clicking through to the examples and still felt uncertain about it until reading the comments here.

The language about how the tech companies are complicit, have a negative effect on society etc is dramatic. I think more focus on the mechanics of the fraud and how it works and less ideology would make the piece more credible. If the article makes it very clear how companies are screwing up, the reader will make those judgments on their own.

Just email all your data to the author and ask them to run it for you.

The fact that someone who needs to sell will pay back the principal is valuable to the bank. If a bank starts offering the option to get out of the loan at a lower price, it would impair the value of that loan. The only way to make this happen would be to include it in the original terms of the loan (where this feature would be worked into the market math that sets the interest rate) or if the government changes the rules (which would result in a hole in balance sheets as the value of the debt falls).

The fact that some people payoff early factors into the market value of mortgage debt, and therefore the interest rate that is offered. So if it were easier to transfer the debt when moving, the risk profile would be different, and the rate you got in the first place would be different.

A good example of how the market can remain irrational longer than you can stay solvent. Just because Herbalife is morally a pyramid scheme doesn’t mean the FTC was going to shut down the company. Herbalife stock went up and Bill Ackman exited his trade at a loss after five years. When Herbalife stock finally crashed last year, Bill Ackman declared victory for his “psychological short”.

Looks like the places I have brokerage accounts don’t let me make a trade like this at all after hours.

People really do say they “ordered something off the menu” when they found the item on the menu. I believe I could usually distinguish the two meanings if I heard a recording. If the item is not on the menu, the word “off” would be stressed.

I just pay for upgraded boarding ($30) which means that I have my pick of aisle/window seats before it gets crowded.

Lack of premium class seating is real, Southwest is not the airline for you if you require >17 inch seat width or >31 inch legroom.

DOJ has been filing aggressive antitrust cases throughout the Biden administration’s tenure. If you want to be conspiratorial, you can point to their losing record in court and argue they know the cases will fail, but “it’s an election year” doesn’t make sense. I think the realistic take is the people at DOJ are legitimately enacting the strongest antitrust enforcement they can get away with (and then some).

Easy to say in hindsight, but using stock to pay for a merger is common. Most companies are not carrying a big chunk of their value in cash (it’s not capital-efficient). Therefore buying anything sizable for cash will require the combined company to take on debt. So a stock-for-stock merger can result in a combined company that has a safer balance sheet. If the acquiree believes the merger is a good idea, they might consider owning stock in the merged entity to be a good thing. If nobody is offering them a competitive offer in cash, they don’t have much leverage to ask for it anyway. Even if you value the stock offer with some discount for risk, it can still be attractive.

It’s hard to turn down the prospect of making your and all your employees/shareholders investments pay off. In fact, many of them would probably angry if they heard you did that. The potential for an exit is one reason they worked for you and not bigco who pays more. And you didn’t get whatever success you had by ignoring opportunities that presented themselves.

Do you ask everyone you meet?

Ads on the internet are worth a lot less these days if they don’t come with measurement of whether they are causing conversions (aka tracking). Apparently this measurement is a human rights violation when Google or Meta sell the ads but not when Apple or the NYT do.

In the past a lot of options would expire if you didn’t exercise them within eg. 90 days of leaving. And exercising could be really expensive.

Speculation: maybe the options they earn when they work there have some provision like this. In return for the NDA the options get extended.

MacBook works great at work! Based on my experience with my work device, it’s as pleasant for casual media consumption.

The Magic Keyboard actually lifts the iPad above the keyboard, which puts it in a better viewing position in laptop-mode than an actual laptop. Every little bit helps when you have creaky tendons and joints.

Anyone know when was the last time Apple apologized for anything?

Yeah, you could have a device with the same form factor and UI that also has a normal terminal and can compile its own code. It’s ok for my personal use case but it’s a big limitation and rules out the device for many people.

I have a MacBook from work so I do compare them. It’s a worse user experience. No touchscreen, screen is lower and further from my eyes. It’s physically less pleasant to use. There are also some use-cases I can’t even do with the MacBook form factor - eg. on planes, I mount the iPad on the seat in front of me so I watch movies at eye level. Sometimes I hold the iPad in my hands when in pure reading consumption mode.

Currently an iPad Air with the Magic Keyboard is my main personal computer. I’ve found that it’s the most enjoyable device to use for internet browsing. It replaced my Chromebook, which had that role before. Like the Chromebook, it’s got a physical keyboard, so it’s good for typing. The cantilever also places the screen closer to my hands, helping me to fluidly switch between keyboard and touch navigation, which both work well. The browser is noticeably snappier than my Chromebook was, although that might come down to a better processor generation.

A secondary use-case is watching movies while traveling. I did my taxes on there too - Google sheets, scanning receipts from the camera into the Files app, all work well. I plugged in a monitor for that.

The one thing I’m not doing on there is coding. I only do that on my work laptop. If I had personal programming projects, I’d surely be using a laptop that lets me run my own code as my personal computer.

The price for the new Pro sure is high, but I’m tempted. The phone’s 120Hz OLED has spoiled me. Surely they sell more of the cheaper models, but they might as well make a halo device to rake in as much margin as they can from people who are willing to pay for the best.

I heard all this hubbub about Mint going away, but I think it just rebranded. Now it’s part of the Credit Karma app and it still works, my accounts are all still there.

It reminds of the HBO/Max thing. Seems like a braindead decision to try to force all of your customers to install a new app to keep existing functionality. It’s like acquiring all your customers all over again. You’re bound to lose a bunch. Even if it’s downstream of some corporate reorganization, why not keep both apps around in the App Store and just update the branding? If there’s a technical migration happening, even if it’s a totally new code base, can you not ship that as an update and just exist in the App Store under multiple names?

Don’t say the chance is zero unless you have a mathematical proof or something. Would the odds be zero if they lose of a crew of astronauts?

It’s true I spend a lot when I go, but then I don’t go to the normally grocery for weeks. I think it’s a net positive in money and time.