9.23.2018

Sunday Morning

Music




Rants

Software disenchantment - A good and mostly right-on rant about the state of software.
Look around: our portable computers are thousands of times more powerful than the ones that brought man to the moon. Yet every other webpage struggles to maintain a smooth 60fps scroll on the latest top-of-the-line MacBook Pro. I can comfortably play games, watch 4K videos but not scroll web pages? How is it ok?
I think we've passed the point where tech and programming were the driving force of the tech revolution and showing the business world how all this computer stuff could make people rich. Now we've reached the point where the business world is driving the process and demanding tech produce at a faster rate. More profits now ! Fuck the quality! The capitalist are in control, there is no time for tech to catch up. The capitalist race to the bottom?  
A side note.... Lack of broadband in large parts of the US amplifies the problem. Try dragging bloated pages, with slow, crappy code across slow, throttled connections. It ain't pretty. 
Also,.... on this
Would you buy a car if it eats 100 liters per 100 kilometers? How about 1000 liters? With computers, we do that all the time.
It wouldn't matter to most people if the liters and the cost to store them were basically free. 

Economics

Tariffs vs Taxes - Political Irony: When is a tax not a tax?
How does this differ from a tax? I can’t think of any substantiative difference. If you buy anything from China or other foreign nations, you will be pay what is basically a sales tax to the federal government. Can you imagine the uproar if the government levied a sales tax of 25% on mobile phones, televisions, washing machines, solar panels, and other goods? Well, they have basically done that, and are threatening to tax those things even more.
I'd guess in some cases, tariffs would help home nation businesses more than a tax. Tariffs on large displacement motorcycles in the 80s helped HD survive but I'm not sure it will work like that with Trumps wide-ranging tariffs. 
But like a sales tax, cost to the end consumer will rise and the poor and middle class will be hit harder than the rich.




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