Depending on where you live it may not really be relatable to you, but living in NYC -- there are people that will intentionally jay walk on a green light and even _stare you down_ knowing that you will stop and let them pass.

People jay walk when there's no traffic all the time, that's totally fine. This is a totally different act of passive aggression.

> Depending on where you live it may not really be relatable to you, but living in NYC -- there are people that will intentionally jay walk on a green light and even _stare you down_ knowing that you will stop and let them pass.

This is the speed walking equivalent of picking up pennies in front of a steam roller. Saves a min here and then until you pay for it big time.

It's easy to get caught up in your own hype when you're surrounded entirely by people who always tell you what you want to hear.

Maybe the sycophantic behavior of AI models comes from rich people having them build to behave the same as their personal yes-men. A person accustomed to never hearing "no" won't like a machine that tells them off.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately… For years this has been said, and for most of us isn’t something we’ve been able to experience until recently. Yet, now we can see how chatbots have made sane folks lose their minds, by simply being too agreeable. I think it’s a grim look at what it’s like to be hyper wealthy. The odds that they’ve completely disassociated from reality, IMHO, have increased exponentially after seeing the effects on “normal” people. The only difference is us plebs, don’t have the resources to then bring our distorted view of reality to life.

I don't think that ads _have_ to be evil.

When I look at Google, I see a company that is fully funded by ads, but provides me a number of highly useful services that haven't really degraded over 20 years. Yes, the number of search results that are ads grew over the years, but by and large, Google search and Gmail are tools that serve rather benevolently. And if you're about to disagree with this ask yourself if you're using Gmail, and why?

Then I look at Meta or X, and I see a cesspool of content that's driven families apart and created massive societal divides.

It makes me think that Ads aren't the root of the problem, though maybe a "necessary but not sufficient" component.

Google is almost cartoonishly evil these days. I think that's pretty much an established fact at this point.

I'm not using Gmail, and I don't understand why anyone would voluntarily. It was the worst email client I'd ever used, until I had to use Outlook at my new job.

The only Google products I use are YouTube, because that's where the content is. And Android, because IOS is garbage and Apple is only marginally less evil than Google.

I’ve recently begun using my personal domain as my primary email address, with it forwarding to gmail so I can “get out” easily if I ever had a reason. That said, I’ve found Gmail’s service great, their spam filtering highly effective, (although I haven’t surveyed the competition lately so it’s possible their huge advantage no longer exists) and their features pretty user-friendly (eg the one-click unsubscribe as well as a page to view all your subs in one place). I have never felt like they _abused_ the immense amount of data they have about me nor used it for “evil” purposes; only to profit on relevant ads that are at least clearly marked and unobtrusive. I don’t like that they have so much data on me, but I’ve felt like they’ve been transparent about it, so it’s been on me for making a decision eyes wide open. As opposed to Meta and the shady shit they’ve been caught doing...

That said, I’m open-minded and obviously thinking about this given moving to my own domain.

What’s the evil behavior you’ve experienced? I’m down to move off if I’m oblivious to something…

Yeah the question is what is the optimal feedback loop between producers and consumers and what are the appropriate communivation channels that respect human rights that we can all agree on

FYI -- Because of this, Apple made a feature where if you click the power button 5 times, your phone goes into "needs the passcode to unlock" mode.

Whenever I'm approaching a border crossing (e.g. in an airport), I'm sure to discreetly click power 5 times. You also get haptic feedback on the 5th click so you can be sure it worked even from within your pocket.

Writing the code has never been the hard part for the vast majority of businesses. It's become an order of magnitude cheaper, and that WILL have effects. Businesses that are selling crud apps will falter.

But your hypothetical manager who needs employee scheduling software isn't paying for the coding, they're paying for someone to _figure out_ their exact needs, and with a UI that fits their preference, ready to go in no time.

I've thought a lot about this and I don't think it'll be the death of SaaS. I don't think it's the death of a software engineer either — but a major transformation of the role and the death if your career _if you do not adapt_, and fast.

Agentic coding makes software cheap, and will commoditize a large swath of SaaS that exists primarily because software used to be expensive to build and maintain. Low-value SaaS dies. High-value SaaS survives based on domain expertise, integrations, and distribution. Regulations adapt. Internal tools proliferate.

> they're paying for someone to _figure out_ their exact needs,

Back in the 1980s this was called "systems analysis". The role disappeared a bit before the web came along, and coders were tasked with the job or told to just guess what the exact needs are, which is why so much software is trash.

I don't know, though, Claude Opus is most of the way to being a good systems analyst, and early reports say that having an AI provide descriptions/requirements to a fleet of code-writing AIs gives better results than having a human do it.

Also people aren't going to stop paying some negligible sum for reliable software and opt for a vibe coded pile of code that breaks with every other edge case. SaaS definitely isn't getting replaced imo.

Write it in Go!

What a nice thought :)

I do—all the time. Why not?

I also use en dashes when referring to number ranges, e.g., 1–9

I didn't know these fancy dashes existed until I read Knuth's first book on typesetting. So probably 1984. Since then I've used them whenever appropriate.

FYI: did you know for (2) you can say "Hey Siri ask ChatGPT if Liam Neeson is alive" and it works perfectly?

Just don't buy what you don't like. There's no throat shoving going on.