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pwthornton

3,908 karma · joined May 18, 2011

I'm a product designer and tinkerer. I'm working to build a better designed world.
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pwthornton··on Sudo – A dedicated music player designed around listening to music
It doesn't seem to list what it supports. How do I get music on here? What kind of codecs are supported?
pwthornton··on California farmers are struggling to sell grapes as demand for wine drops
Oh, you feel like you sleep well, but the sleep data if you are wearing a wearable is quite poor.
pwthornton··on California farmers are struggling to sell grapes as demand for wine drops
Taking THC at night is not good for you health either. That's going to mess with your sleep, which will have all kinds of long-term health impacts on you.
pwthornton··on California farmers are struggling to sell grapes as demand for wine drops
We have hard data now on the negative impacts of alcohol, even from moderate amounts. Research shows it is carcinogenic. Back when I was a kid there was talk of light drinking being good for your health.

We also have strong data on how its bad for your sleep.

Much of the talk of alcohol being poison in the past was from drunk driving, spousal abuse, spending all the families money. This largely applied to drunks. But now the data has come in a way that doesn't involve any of these traditional ills is still bad for you.

pwthornton··on California farmers are struggling to sell grapes as demand for wine drops
It's probably a combo of the legit science that there really is no safe/good level of drinking from a health perspective (and previous studies saying otherwise are bunk), and all the podcasters/influencers extolling the virtues of not drinking.

Why We Sleep really impacted my view on drinking. It really does mess with your sleep, so I keep my drinking to occasional and on the light side.

Wearables also play a role in this. I had two beers between like 5:30-7:00 on Saturday and my sleep data was messed up. We are talking two 5.5% beers at dinner on a 220 lb man.

It's much harder to ignore the fact that alcohol has all these negative effects.

Still, I think drinking occasionally while socializing is a good thing, and that people becoming hermits is a huge negative.

pwthornton··on Towards Self-Driving Codebases
As someone who builds games, particularly games meant to be played in the browser or apps, it can 100% one-shot a game-like experience, but it will not be very good.

You need to playtest the hell out of games. Play a bit, iterate, play a bit more, iterate, etc. You will get way better results if you start small and don’t try to one-shot it. Start small, vertical slice, playtest, and go fro there.

pwthornton··on iPhone Duo
There is no matching Steve, but I would like to see Apple try at least one live event again a year. Covid is what brought around the super rehearsed video presentation, and it fit Cook well, but are the days of live keynotes really done?
pwthornton··on My local model setup on an M4 Pro Mac Mini
What kinds of tasks are you using this for?
pwthornton··on How accurate have Ed Zitron's AI skeptic predictions been?
The last I saw with Claude was that the plans are subsidized somewhere around 10x. The usage of Claude and similar products (for people not paying the actual API token costs) would be lot less if they were paying 10x more per account/seat.

A lot of people are using Claude and ChatGPT for all kinds of minor things at work, and they probably wouldn't be if they were paying the true cost of the product. And this is all the while their work product is suffering because AI is not a great fit for a lot of use cases.

pwthornton··on Apple caught off guard by AI demand for Mac Mini and Mac Studio
I'm sure there are people dedicated to marketing the Mac Mini, but seeing as Apple has had trouble keeping it in stock from demand, I doubt they spend too much on it. And considering Apple is supply constrained, there is no benefit to trying to increase demand above supply levels.

I think the Mac Mini is legit popular and is actually being used for local AI use cases, especially Open Claw.

Beyond that, Apple is at capacity for SoCs and ram, and the Mac Mini is going to have a ceiling of how much of Apple's allotment they are willing to give it.

pwthornton··on The “mechanical miracle” that ruined Mark Twain’s life
No, it was first coined by people who worked for him in the early 80s. He was really trying to push the limits of what was possible and convinced people working under him to do so.
pwthornton··on Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets
Did you really expect better from a Scam Altman company?

0 morals or ethics.

pwthornton··on Wolves are reconquering Europe. Can people learn to live with them?
A healthy, non-rabid wolf killing a human is way less likely than being killed by a lightning strike.

Farmers are also heavily subsidized in Europe.

pwthornton··on The AirPods Effect
Traffic and honking can be quite annoying. I find the AirPods Pro knock down quick a bit of noise even when off just because of their tips, but when I want it even quieter I use the noise canceling.

Some places aren’t loud but most U.S. cities are. I’m going to Paris this summer, and I probably won’t use AirPods while walking around.

pwthornton··on The AirPods Effect
I wear my AirPods Pro on the train largely for hearing protection. The DC Metro is loud, with or without people making noise in the train. Different train systems have different levels of loud, but when the Metro is flying through a tunnel it is quite loud.

I also often have them in while walking around the city for this purpose as well. I usually have the noise canceling off, but if an ambulance or something is coming my way, I quickly click the AirPod to put them into noise canceling mode.

pwthornton··on John Ternus to become Apple CEO
Is that really true? The price of Macs today is far lower than it used to be when adjusted for inflation. I know this is true of all computers, but you can get a really good Mac computer without spending a lot of money, historically speaking.

The Macbook Air, the best computer for most people, starts at $1099. I paid something like $2,700 for my computer, which I brought to college in 2002. That's about $5,000 in today's money.

pwthornton··on Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis
I would generally agree with you except for three points: 1) the price of going to the cinema has surged so much that you have to budget for it in a way you didn't before. 2) I can pause a movie at any time and go to the bathroom or get a new drink. The lack of intermission during longer movies at the theater is rough. 3) The behavior of moviegoers continues to decline. In particular, people with untreated ADHD constantly checking their phones is really distracting. A phone screen really pops in a dark movie theater. And when I watch these people check their phones, they aren't doing anything other than habitually dicking around.

I can go to the movie and there is a decent chance people will talk through the movie or will be on their phones, etc. Or I could watch at home and be guaranteed a great experience.

Movie theaters have to upgrade the experience. They need to police patrons like they used to. They need to sell better food and drinks. And they need to get the pricing model under control.

pwthornton··on Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis
I am with you on everything but the TV speakers. They are awful because TVs are so thin. They are running into pure physics. Get a nice soundbar, and it's a huge upgrade. Get one with separate rear speakers and a sub, and it's pretty great.

But the experience is way better than when we were kids. Watching Jurassic Park on a 19-inch CRT with mono audio was nothing like going to the theater. The delta between home and cinema was massive. Now I have a 77-inch OLED with 4K HDR and an Atmos sound setup. I'd take my home setup over a generic cinema screen. Only the premium large format is a noticeable upgrade. It's hard to justify shelling out a ton of money for the movie and snacks for similar audio/visual quality to home, and the risk that the person next to me is checking their phone the entire time (happened a year ago, and it's super distracting in a dark theater).

I buy popcorn kernels in bulk at my local grocery store, and we go through a lot of popcorn. It might cost $10 a year in kernels to regularly eat popcorn at home when you pop it yourself.

pwthornton··on Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis
Idk, a giant OLED is a pretty great experience, and the visual quality of them beats a good chunk of professional cinemas.
pwthornton··on How we hacked McKinsey's AI platform
Having done some work with these F500 companies, this is part of it. These legacy companies have long seen tech as a cost center, haven't invested in it, and are unable to attract talent. And, for whatever reason, these companies insist on working with large consulting firms, when a dedicated software or tech consulting firm that is smaller would be way better.

Ultimately, why would a large company hire a consultancy company that is bad at tech and has a lot of bad processes to do their tech for them? Because the company itself is even worse and doesn't know what good looks like. If you are hiring McKinsey or Deloitte to do your tech, it's because you are completely lost and don't have the slightest clue how to become unlost. And you have no concept of what good looks like.

If you think the actual tech talent and systems are bad, when you work with these consulting firms, they are going to do the most heavy SAFe process you have ever seen. For me, the worst part is not the tech talent, but rather the most by-the-book, heavy-handed agile process possible. Everything moves way slower because of this "agile" rot, and there is almost no concept of doing proper ideation and prototyping work.

These legacy F500 companies try to do everything cheaply with consultants and offshoring, and yet it always ends up costing way more than it would if they just had proper in-house tech talent.

pwthornton··on MacBook Neo
I do wonder if the plan was originally at least 12 GB, but the RAMageddon foiled that.

Although this is competing with PoS Chromebooks, which often don't have much ram (sometimes as low as 4 GB) and have slow CPUs.

pwthornton··on MacBook Neo
$499 for general educational discount, but I am betting that school districts will get volume discounts above that. It's going to be very price-competitive.
pwthornton··on MacBook Neo
The ram is the only thing that I think is a little light, but with the ram situation in the world, asking for 12-16 GB have been too much.

This looks like a huge step-up from most Chromebooks, which are frankly junk. Apple, however, will need to build education software and services to really get schools to commit.

pwthornton··on Apple Studio Display and Studio Display XDR
This is a workstation-class monitor for people using these machines to make money. It's not a gamer toy monitor. People on Reddit don't get this. Apple's monitors are fantastic for those of us who use our computers to make money and need high quality. I am not playing video games on the same machine I use to make money.
pwthornton··on Apple Studio Display and Studio Display XDR
There are 5k displays at 240hz?
pwthornton··on Apple Studio Display and Studio Display XDR
Great news. Apple announced a 120hz display today.
pwthornton··on A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification
Term limits are anti-democratic, and it's just a way for voters to not take responsibility for their voting.

A much more real issue is actually age limits. If someone starts in the Senate at 40 and serves for 24 years, term limits hardly seem to be the big issue. They are retiring at a normal time, and they should still be functioning at a high level.

Conversely, someone who gets elected at 70 and then gets term-limited at 82 is still over a normal, reasonable retirement age. The typical 82 is not in the physical or mental condition to be taking on such an important, high-stakes role.

Both of my parents are in their mid-70s and are in very good mental health for their age. They are very lucid, and my Dad still works part-time as a lawyer. They are also clearly not at the same intellectual powers they were a decade or two ago. Some of it can even just come down to energy levels. I have to imagine being a good legislator requires high energy levels.

Many public companies have age limits for board members, and they even have traditional retirement ages for CEOs. In the corporate world where results matter, there is a recognition that a high-stress, high-workload, high-cognitiative ability job is not something that someone should be doing well past their prime.

Al Gore had to leave the Apple board because he turned 75. In the U.S. Senate, there are 16 people 75 and older.

pwthornton··on 27-year-old Apple iBooks can connect to Wi-Fi and download official updates
The flat area and now liquid glass are all post-Jobs creations. Apple needs a true product person back in charge with taste to get this ship back into a better place.

Jobs acted as an editor and sounding board. You can't just let designers (or engineers) run wild.

pwthornton··on Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores
The pitch from Bezos -- and it's a dumb pitch -- was basically just to make checking out faster by avoiding interacting with humans (but this can be achieved by increasing the number of cashiers and baggers). The pitch was never lower prices. The combo of all the tech and the army of Indians watching video was not cheap.

And because they were relying on computer vision and Indian vision, they had to get rid of all their fresh meals because they were too hard to calculate prices for. So, it ended up being a half-assed 7-Eleven concept. The whole concept was made by someone who hates humanity.

I personally prefer stores with actual cashiers. What I don't like are lines, but that is very solvable. The organic grocer near me is super fast to check out.

pwthornton··on Steve wants us to make the Macintosh boot faster
There is also the story about Steve throwing a MacBook Air on a conference room table and asking why does the iPad wake from sleep so much faster? And then he told them to fix it and make Mac laptops sleep/wake just as well as iOS.

Sleep/Wake is one area where MacOS absolutely destroys Windows.

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