Rice alumnus, native Texan, spent half of my early years in Nigeria, have worked in giant companies and several startups. A lot of my ancestors are Czech and I have a lot of connections to Switzerland, so I have much admiration for those countries. Lately I have been writing about tech, faith & government at:
https://reconcilingstate.substack.com
Feel free to reach out or refer me for technology consulting!
In 2024, I launched for a client a Rails platform powered by Hotwire that has thousands of users. Thanks to Jumpstart Rails working out of the box with Jumpstart iOS and Android, the web app views were reused in native iOS and Android apps which drastically sped up initial launch and reduces ongoing maintenance. In other words, much less effort than if I had used Rails as an API with React or something similar.
And I've kept my eyes on Rails UI since it was in beta, and I was poking around with it a couple weeks ago and the cool thing is it could be used on a project like the one above without clashing with anything.
Indeed. It's because of the fashion preferences of American SUV and pickup buyers.
I can attest to the fact that minivans are much more comfortable. I picked up my Pacifica hybrid minivan in early 2021 before the price hike and it was a steal compared to SUVs and pickups. When I was doing paperwork for the vehicle at the Chrysler dealership, I was chatting with some sales guys and discovered the shocking fact they had recently sold a luxuriously loaded-down pickup for over $100K. I was fortunate to easily haggle with them over my minivan because they don't make much money on minivans so they focus on pickups, Jeeps, etc.
A couple decades ago, I had started looking to replace an old hand-me-down car from my grandma, and had been mulling over whether I could ever justify spending $30K on an Infiniti at that time. My boss at work got a new pickup, and he was rather proud of it, and I innocently asked if it cost $25K because plenty of my Texan relatives had driven them over the years and I assumed they were a no-frills working man's practical vehicle. After a brief pause, he answered, "It was a little over 40 thousand." That was over 20 years ago.
When I was at Rice University around the turn of the century, I remember playing with a large expensive monitor running a Windows computer. It was so futuristically fantastical that you could touch the screen to do things. Extremely clunky, but cool. Just a bit too tedious to do anything more than play with it, because trying to get actual work done on it all the time would have been a chore.
Many years later, I was working for a startup called kWhOURS in a little old house in East Cambridge, Massachusetts. Our target users were engineers used to paying thousands for the rugged and expensive Windows laptops we needed to deploy our Adobe AIR tablet app onto since they had a touchscreen. Still a clunky UI, but our software was usable. Then the iPad was released, and it was literally worlds apart, something people have long taken for granted. All of us, including Adobe, were taken by surprise, because all attempts at tablets prior to that were so far inferior to Apple's version, and competitors spent many years trying to catch up.
As a Ruby dev who has built a couple Flutter apps, I was surprised how pleasant Dart was compared to JavaScript and TypeScript, and I sincerely hope it largely replaces those on both client and server.
I know it’s not exactly what you’re looking for, but many years ago I tinkered with RubyMotion, and in recent years I have successfully launched in the app stores with the mobile versions of Jumpstart Pro using way less effort than a Swift or Kotlin developer would due to the way Jumpstart Rails integrates nicely with their iOS and Android templates.
How strictly do you define need? I've been living as an adult long enough that there have been countless times I've searched for photos and emails from one or two decades ago. I distinctly remember the first time I met an Inbox Zero person. It was so important to her to militantly delete everything she had dealt with, and to me, the disadvantages from that practice far outweigh the advantages.
This list is spot on, and the biggest fuel on the fire is the problem of huge financial incentives. I can assure you there are some supporters out there who do understand. Some who do not understand have certainly been fed talking points by entities who may or may not care about the intent of the 2nd Amendment exactly, but definitely do care about making money.
That's simplistic. Actually, to better understand the situation you must follow the money. Many 2nd Amendment supporters are reasonable, but unfortunately, over decades their casual support has been utilized by lobbyists whose goals do not necessarily align with many supporters. The challenge is to communicate that message in a way that reaches everyone.
Except they're under pressure to not exercise such wide latitude. A few months ago, many who had already passed the exam and were just awaiting placement found out they would have to retake the exam, a different one more to the liking of the current administration:
I'll never forget the first time I heard his name. As a kid, I had seen the Spielberg film Empire of the Sun starring a young Christian Bale and considered it one of my favorites. When I was an adult eagerly showing it to friends, one of them who was a theater major loudly exclaimed during the opening credits, "Tom Stoppard wrote the screenplay?!" I knew most of the names in the opening credits but had no idea who Tom Stoppard was until that moment.
When he passed away a couple days ago, I was surprised to discover he was originally from a Moravian town I've been to since one of my ancestors grew up 10 miles farther down the road. The twists and turns his family took escaping from there to the other side of the world and back no doubt enhanced his keen insight into people.
My first job out of college was over 2 decades ago, and I was hired to work on a web app which was considered new technology. But an important application there that was used by hundreds of people around the country was written with Pick, and the owner of the company also had some local Houston businesses whose Pick applications he occasionally did maintenance work on. The owner had moved from Chicago to Houston at the beginning of the 80s because he was able to get a high-paying job with no degree, but when the oil bust happened he learned Pick programming from an older guy and did so well when he started his own business that he retired early.
Houstonian here. I’m guessing you’re in Plano. I’ve been all over Texas: cities, suburbs, small towns and many relatives’ and friends’ farms. I’ve also been to most U.S. states and several continents. What you’re describing is such an outlier that’s it literally sounds like a diamond in the rough. While there is hopefully a new trend among American planners to make this more of a reality for more Americans in the decades to come, for many years to come not more than a tiny fraction of Americans will experience what you’re enjoying. Until then, the most common American experience will be to hop in a car to do almost anything. And again, in most corners of Texas and the country, I have rarely seen people sitting on their front porches talking to people passing by - that seems to be a relic of stories I’ve read taking place in certain towns in the early 20th century. But I should come check out your area!
Confinity created its PayPal product in 1999 and Musk's company got merged into Confinity in 2000 because Thiel said they were both working crazy long hours and it would be more beneficial for everyone to join forces into a monopoly instead of compete with one another. Then Musk got kicked out of the company because they didn't think he was doing a good job, and he was fortunate to benefit financially when they sold to eBay. So it's a pretty classic case of survivorship bias, and the fact that he invested into an already innovative electric car company does not mean his taskmaster leanings are assuredly the key to success. For every one of Musk's companies, there are countless others enjoying a healthy amount of profit without the excessive hours.
Keep in mind that while the store brings in a majority of revenue, it provides less than 20% of operating income. A majority of operating income comes from AWS (which provides less than 20% of revenue).
"We" lived in feudalism? Do you speak for the entire world? Remember that there were peoples that were conquered by industrialist empires who had more equal systems than feudalism or than what we have right now. Communities in the Amazon or isolated Pacific or African islands (and deserts in Africa) have had more equal societies than the USA today and arguably were quite happy till their partway-utopia was wrecked by technologically advanced people. This gives me little hope for people pitching AI leading us into a better society unless the hearts of the people with the power are trustworthy and faithful to promoting good for people rather than profit for themselves.
I swore off Square long ago because I made a handle using the names of me and my wife to let people contribute to a honeymoon fund when we got married and then after a couple friends contributed, Cash banned my handle and support wrote me back only one time and then was forever afterward silent and never restored my account, and I thought, "Great, another Silicon Valley app where the goal is to provide as little support as possible, only it's not about photos or email, it's about money, so that seems like the worst fit for Silicon Valley where they don't like to lift a finger to help you with anything!" Ever since I've seen zero reason to use them over a sea of viable alternatives. My stodgy old bank lets me use Zelle, and my stodgy old bank answers the phone when I call. I can also drive a few minutes to talk to them face to face if there is a real problem with my MONEY.
My wife reminds me of this. And as you both pointed out, it's not just social media, but the algorithmically fueled addiction to endless content. A relative told me their teenagers have to use Chromebooks in middle school, and all quizzes and tests and homework are done on the computer. Not only that, but if they finish a quiz or test in the classroom, they're allowed to sit there and watch YouTube right there in the classroom until the period is over! When I was in middle school, that free time was precious to me because I used it to make a dent in my homework so I'd have less to do after school. It boggles my mind that school administrators would have no clue that kids should have not unfettered access to stuff like YouTube in school. As a guy who has to work on computers most of the time, I'm very grateful my childhood had plenty of analog time, and life in the great outdoors on a daily basis!
Do you have children? We are not bad parents just because we prohibit our children from doing something that is a "common" practice for many other kids in our circles. As for inhibiting socially, do you realize that multiple major publications have just been putting out articles in the past month about adults isolating more than ever? If anything, social media is a contributing factor to that social decline. I'm grateful my kids are young, and were not born a decade earlier because many kids I know that were born around that time have suffered with smartphone access. These are not arbitrary standards--it is a widely understood problem.
I get what scop meant. Family vehicles had cassette or 8-track players when I was a kid and I figured out how to use my parents' record player, but for the purposes of what he was getting at, CDs are a more "analog" experience than streaming music, and give you a feel for what playing an album is like. You have to physically put in and remove the disc to change the music, whereas streaming gives you any song at your fingertips.
HEB also has Slovacek's sausage which is not exactly the same but I still like the flavor. Some people I know are really into Chappell Hill and it's fine for me (just not exactly the same if nostalgia is leading me to go for that specific Prasek's flavor).
Sorry for your disappointment! I can't speak to that part of Czechia as my ancestors came from Moravia. When I first visited Czech relatives in 1991 (Czechoslovakia at that time), we were served fruit kolaches that looked just like the ones my grandmother had grown up with in Texas, although the Moravian ones were smaller. However, I've been back to visit my 3rd cousins multiple times and I get the impression that the specific pastry that Czech Texans are so familiar with is just one of many kinds in the old country. In the 1800s, ovens were not as plentiful in Europe, but were more common in America. Sugar, butter, eggs and white flour were more expensive in Europe, so kolaches were reserved for special occasions. But since it was easier to make them in America, Czech immigrants made them frequently and they became one of the most prominent symbols of Czech culture.
I hadn't heard of Wends until today. I'm Czech Texan, and more Czechs ended up in Texas than any other state, but of course we were still outnumbered by the German immigrants, so I'm not surprised by a subset of immigrants I didn't know about coming from that region. I haven't toured the painted churches, though many people I know have done so. Their story sounds pretty interesting, and I'm quite delighted to see this come across HN.
Hear hear! Fortunately HEB sells it so I don't have to make it all the way to a Prasek's store. Their sausage recipe is the closest flavor to the sausage my Czech Texan grandparents would make, although my grandparents often had venison mixed in as one of the meats.
My kids have learned the precise term for the savory ones from me, but you're right that most Texans, even many Czech Texans, do not know it! To be fair, the origin is that Czech Texans used the same kolache bread and stuck meat in it. People might not think it matters, but many kolaches I've had from shops do not use the bread I'm familiar with from my grandmother (and cousins). I won't name names, but their bread doesn't taste very good, and only a few shops make the same bread I grew fond of at my grandmother's house, and that same kind of bread was used for both the sausage ones and the sweet ones at my grandmother's house.