1,295 karma · joined January 4, 2020
For objective/factual writing, asking for a fact check is a widely-used practice. And there's a useful counterpart for writing subjective things and opinionated hot takes, namely to ask the LLM: “Anticipate how this might be misunderstood in ways that might cause offence or trigger people.” Sometimes, you might want to say something that will cause offence, and there might be no way around it. In this case, making a conscious choice to let that be might be the right thing to do. But I find it surprising, how often an LLM will see an angle that I myself did not see, where something might cause offence in a way that I genuinely missed and genuinely want to fix. And then that gives me a chance to re-write before posting something.
And yet, somehow, Ladybird seems to be the darling of the masses (in certain circles at least). Doing vibe-ports to Rust, while going closed-contribution also, in my mind, sits in a marked contrast to the origin story that initially generated so much goodwill.
...that could be a response to anyone taking a political stance in favour of changing anything and, besides being rude, adds nothing of substance.
I'll give you an example: When I went to a copy shop in Austria to have my thesis bound, the attendant said they were only allowed to do it up to 200 pages. Since my thesis had 210 pages it didn't fall under some exemption, and I had to go to a master bookbinder. The result is: Disgruntled consumer forced by law to pay more.
Your "in a democratic society, if it wasn't wanted, it wouldn't exist" is a bit reductionist. It's a very technical / niche kind of law making and is rarely the subject of public debate or decisive in an election. So it's easier for the CDU (in Germany) or the ÖVP (in Austria), to just give these people what they ask for and collect donations from them, than to stop and think about what's good for the economy and for consumers.
All the while these same sectors that enjoy Meisterzwang (the need to be a master craftsman, to practice self-employed) are the ones shouting Fachkräftemangel, Fachkräftemangel (labour shortage, labour shortage) into every microphone that anyone ever puts in their face. And that's another attempt to co-opt the government for their cause, which is to bend the supply-demand balance in their favour, specifically as it regards to the job market for people who will accept low wages, while keeping out anyone who might compete with them on a self-employed basis thus safeguarding their respective local monopoly/oligopoly/cartel. The net result is: no plumber, when you need one.
I'm a mid-career professional, researching opportunities to make a career change right now, in my forties. In Germany, bookbinding is one of the very few things I might actually be allowed to do. In Austria, it would mean I'd have to apprentice for next-to-no salary for 3 years with a master bookbinder, before I get to set up shop, which, at age 42 and with a family to take care of, I'm just not going to do. Anyone who actually cares about preserving bookbinding as a craft in Austria should be opposed to this nonsense, because it's making it impossible/uneconomical for most people who might like to practice the craft to actually do so. The net result is: the craft of bookbinding dies.
...and yet the spin in PBS or ARTE style romanticized documentaries is: "look at these people and their proud traditions! ...shouldn't that be the envy of all of us office dwellers."
> collecting subsidies
In Germany, except for the very largest cities, municipalities don't do subsidies. Their political currency is not money but re-zoning, parking spots, favourable placements of kids in those public schools which happen to be marginally better than the other ones, that kind of thing. It's precisely the kind of currency that doesn't allow for the kind of opportunism you suggest.
Exactly. These regulations stem from the same chapter of history as when kings used to grant monopolies (to the East India company, and similar) in their respective industries. It didn't cost the king anything and it did a political favour to those companies, which might then reciprocate. Or the monopoly might have been the king's quid-pro-quo for some favour that the company had done him.
Monopolies are now widely recognized as bad. The monopoly didn't cost the king anything, but the cost was born by all consumers.
In the centuries that passed, some countries with a more libertarian bend got rid of the guilds and their privileges, or never started them in the first place. In other countries (notably the "old world"), these constituencies have remained politically strong enough over all those centuries to still be around now.
So, this romanticizing about the "proud old tradition" is completely the wrong reaction. There are many things with an "old tradition" where it would seem quite odd if a given country hadn't gotten rid of it (like collective punishment, or whatever; the examples are easy to think of). So something being old is neither here nor there.
> Yes, local integration has value, but also means you had to stick around to get there - comes with a cost.
Not sure if you're implying that regulatory capture of local government is some kind of just reward for "sticking around." If so, I disagree.
...well, often times, when you have a family and real estate in a region, it might be inopportune to do that, and my contention is that some employers capitalize on that immobility by offering worse terms.
> Being in a place where you could help shape local politics seems like a good move, no?
Sure. If you want to buy a forest, have your buddy the mayor re-zone it as industrial, and build a logistics hub there, it's a good move. Not so good, if you're the company from out of town that wants to move in and do the same thing, to compete with the incumbent (and you aren't friends with the mayor). Not so good, if you kind of liked the forest.
> What is the issue with "excellence in craft" as keeping "out the competion"? Why would anyone not want to beat the competion?
You can beat the competition by being a plumber who offers better plumbing at lower prices. Or the better plumbing and lower prices might be from the plumber who just moved here from Turkey. And then you can beat that would-be competition through regulatory capture by having your buddies in politics pass a law to assert that the craftsmanship of the Turkish feller is somehow inferior to yours and they aren't allowed to work as a plumber.
The article, rather than being a strictly historical treatise, is taking the bait to propagate some narratives about the motivations behind why these companies do business the way they do.
Reframe "family values" as "paying less" and see where you land on a critical appraisal.
Reframe "rooted in a region" as follows: Being a relatively large fish in a relatively small pond is often strategically preferable to being a relatively small fish in a relatively big pond, if your strategy involves regulatory capture of local government and the formation of a cartel with the handful of other Mittelstand employers in a region that otherwise doesn't have much going on.
Reframe "excellence in crafts" as "keeping out the competition".
I've seen all of these bullshit narratives getting spun, and all of these mechanisms at play, over the last 7 years, having lived in two separate such regions in Germany. It is a scent of bullshit that is very well known to me. When I see other people in danger of being misled, I will say something, just as I will say "watch out", when I see someone about to get hit by a car.
Here are some of the highlights for the one I live in.
AI image recognition on garbage trucks. -- Yes you've heard right. You do still need a fax machine in Germany to interact with the government. But when it comes to the garbage: Bring in the f##ing AI!! -- If you get the separation or packaging wrong, they won't collect the ton, and will instead leave a note to chastise you. You can meditate on your love for the green party, as you rummage through your weeks-old biodisposables to re-separate, and thank them next time at the polling booth.
Some kinds of garbage can go in the collections, others need to go to a recycling center. Just load up your car with everything you need to get rid of. Drive to a recycling center. Find out that it's closed (opening hours are maximally inconvenient; plan on burning several vacation days for visits to recycling centers that are open during your core working hours only). Once you make it to the recycling center, someone will take X, but tell you they don't take Y, and to try the recycling center several towns over. Of course they are closed. Plan on having your car serve as a garbage truck for several weeks, before it's finally empty.
Of course, some things you can't get rid of at any recycling center: They need to go to a collection. Do you have several cubic meters of styrofoam to dispose of, after re-furnishing your apartment from IKEA? Well tough luck. Find a place to store them for several weeks until the next collection. Then cut them into pieces so they fit in the yellow bag, which is only available in a single size. Then put the many many bags out into the street. If it's a windy day, collect that stuff from all over the street several times. If you're lucky, the garbage truck actually arrives. More likely: You miss the collection several times, because the pickup times are maximally inconvenient and unpredictable. In the meantime, the storage problem is all yours.
Do I need to continue? Because I could continue.
It's kind of understandable, given that the risk is not all that low. But my guess would be that it's amplified by fraudulent claims in relation to psychological illness, burnout, etc. I asked my insurance guy to exclude those, but, apparently, it's something he can't do.
You can kind of see, how this works for a roofer: If you hurt your leg and can no longer climb a roof, the policy pays. What does it take for me to no longer be able to sit in front of a screen? Well, it would almost have to be something in the psychological realm. Sure, there's the possibility of an illness with chronic pain or cognitive impairment, but those are orders of magnitude less likely, so the psychological stuff is what completely dominates the high premia.
...hmm. Not sure that this is quite state-of-the art in sociology today. Crediting a particular strand of a particular religion as the locus of a virtue that confers a clear fitness advantage in and of itself, and without recourse to any outside explanation, seems a bit off.
It's funny how, when the hype is strong enough, the burden of proof around the need for EVIDENCE suddenly shifts.
Normally, the burden of proof is on $NEWFANGLED_THING to prove it's better than $TRIED_AND_TESTED.
Software dark factories where no one looks at code are that unproven newfangled thing and all he's really saying is that, in his experience/assessment, those don't work, so he's trying to find other modes of human-ai-collaboration that might actually work that capitalize better on the things (humans) that weren't broke and didn't need fixing when gen-ai coding came along; and then getting the word out about that.
Under normal circumstances there would be absolutely no ground for any controversy around such a stance. Instead, he's having to contend with reactions like: "But $HYPED_UP_THING, and how great that is is all that anyone is talking about! Don't listen to him, he's just trying to sell you something (other than what everyone else is trying to sell). ...naysayer probably thinks he's smarter than everyone."
I recently got the Shanling M0s. It runs its own OS and seems to me completely at parity with what MP3 players used to be back in the day; in fact I think it's the best one I've ever had, and I've been buying those devices since the Diamond Rio. If more people just got one, Shanling would no longer be a company nobody's ever heard of, and the economics would change to further bring down the price too (although I think it's not all that bad right now).
I think the way to go is lossless digitial downloads purchased as one-time purchases and optimized for lowest non-artist revenue share for sourcing and then probably also hobbyist archiving (combined with sensible backup strategies, etc.) Recording to tape then instantiates the tape as the medium that creates an enjoyable experience and cultural artefact around it. But there's no reason not to have your cake and eat it too, going back to the digital for maximum quality. -- I just don't think the two are in competition all that much.
If he wanted to pursue an actual career in the space (like I did), I would actively try to dissuade him. I think the reasons that applied to me when I got into this in the late 90s / early 00s, simply no longer apply. I would get out, if I could, myself, right now.
For myself, the motivation was ownership over streaming and wanting to support the long tail of artists (or, anyways, the subset whose music I happen to like).
For my kid, my motivation looks just like yours: not wanting to give him access to smart devices and wanting to keep him away from screens.
The big learning was that, almost inevitably, one has to divorce the medium used for purchase from the medium used for consumption (which eliminates vinyl from consideration right there). When I started actually buying cassettes from artists on BandCamp, I quickly realized that I was paying way more for shipping costs and customs duties than for the actual media. Artists often offer the cassette including the digital album on BandCamp at similar prices to just the digital. Makes sense, if you consider that the digital doesn't add any real marginal cost. But, once you factor in the cost of tape stock, production, packaging/handling, often done by the artists themselves, I almost feel bad about taking advantage of their generosity. My intention is to financially support them, but I'm finding it hard to believe that, on the other end of all of these costs, there is any money left over for them. ...so, I tended to use the BandCamp feature for tipping/overpaying, but too much of that got eaten up by taxes and my collector / music enjoyment hobby just became too expensive over all, that way.
So, I stopped buying physical. My plan is to set up some kind of system to help me stay organized with self-hosted music files, and then re-booting my collecting hobby by buying one-time digital downloads on BandCamp Fridays or directly from artists. Maybe, I will also make mix tapes from time to time for myself or to give to other people. -- I think, in this context, the degrading-quality of analogue is a feature not a bug, because the ideal outcome would be for friends to enjoy single tracks from albums in degraded quality from the mix tapes, and then look up the artists they like and buy full albums as high-quality digital downloads, and support the artists that way.
For the kid, I got a vintage Fisher Price cassette player, and am finding it hard to believe that anything based on CDs could match the sturdy build quality. Also, with a toddler, it's a given that the media will be in contact with the floor a lot and scratch. So, this is another area where the cassette is a clear winner.
The third learning is about the actual process of making the cassettes: Right now, I have a tablet connected to a vintage tape deck through an analogue cable, and that's a surprisingly low-friction way to turn any kind of content that you can actually play into a cassette. Trying to stay within the digital realm to burn a CD means fighting the DRM platforms of each channel you're sourcing content through separately (with each presenting a moving target through time). That can get quite exhausting. I guess, if quality is not so much of a concern (which, with cassettes you're throwing out the window from the get-go), one can always use some kind of a screen-recording tool to record desktop audio, so, maybe, this is not a fair comparison.
Fourth, cassettes are easy to recycle: If I have a mixtape that I no longer listen to, or my kid outgrows a given piece of content, I can just record over it. I can buy boxes full of old cassettes as attic-finds on e-bay dirt-cheap, and get some use out of that stuff. This seems more environmentally friendly and sustainable than paying an industry to keep producing something that will inevitably be garbage one day. Maybe CD-RWs present a similar opportunity; not sure (never really looked into it much).
I also buy some new tape stock from Recording The Masters, though, because I dig what they're doing, and want to support them.
So, regarding that whole trend of bringing back physical media, my pick is the cassette.
Also: Saying that "learn to code" has been reduced from a meme about a surefire ticket to economic security to the equivalent of glassblower, is not really refuting what, in broad strokes, the original point actually was; is it?
> large corpus of commercially available source code
Like garbling up GitHub? Currently, people put hand-crafted code there to earn "street cred". Will people continue to do that, if AIs regurgitate their code without giving credit? Will people continue to bother with learning to code, when AI has reconfigured the economy to make this skill a worthless commodity?
Name them. In my 16 years in the business I've never come across any; I've always worked under leaders who did not care about code quality in the slightest and just looked at outcomes, and when outcomes stopped happening as a result of poor code quality were always unable to connect those dots (or wilfully looked the other way).
I think embedded software for highly-regulated medical devices or whatever is just not enough to take in all the "AI-refugees" who are now seeking meaningful work that has been taken away from them. The pessimistic side of me expects that it's probably not true in the first place that these industries work any different than what I'm used to. And even the optimistic side of me has to admit that the laws of supply and demand imply that, in those few niches where it still matters, there are enough people out there desperate to do that kind of work right now, that it will be done for free and won't present a real earning opportunity.
The thing is that programming was one of those rare crafts/arts, where you could have your cake and eat it too: Since you were writing all the code by hand, and since that process takes a fair bit of time anyway, you might as well write good code at no extra cost (which is where the artisanship comes in). Now the difference between good code and cheap code that does the same thing is the difference between 2 months of hand-crafting code and micromanaging LLMs versus an afternoon of vibing, and that is much less defensible from a business point-of-view.
But the variation in horsepower is still there. It's not like cars with 300 HP are forbidden in Germany. It's just that they need to fit in the continuum. The 300HP BMW is the CEO's car, and its existence is justified by the fact that the other top managers drive the 200HP version which is otherwise almost the exact same car, which are in turn justified by the fact that the middle managers drive the 120HP version, and if you're a new-hire individual contributor then anything more than 90HP would cause a scandal if word got out. (I'm painting a mental picture here; obviously not making a universal claim).
I think that culture is part of the reason why a $30k electric pickup truck would ruffle feathers so much, and it's a particularly stupid reason, but I think it's real.
The "Kastenwagen" example from above escapes that calculus by clearly being something that stands completely outside of any established continuum of this kind. The rare Ford Mustang or imported Dodge RAM that you sometimes see in Germany is similarly socially/politically acceptable on the grounds that it would either be expensive as hell, or a car buff's hobby. Both of those cases mean the owner has duly paid for their ticket to the high-horsepower social club (either financially, or by having a respectable hobby and putting in the work), whereas a $30k electric pickup that you can just buy would come across as "cheating the system".
Also: With something like a 75% market share that Chrome enjoys, I don't see how they can keep a straight face when complaining about the anticompetitive practices allowing a competitor to hold on to a 10% market share.