Those problems of unaffordability of homes is a symptomatic effect of an earlier problem. During COVID-19, facing possible catastrophe in the Economy, Trump presidency pumped money into the US economy. The Biden presidency continued this (despite no indicator of recession). There is a 7% gap between Federal income and expenditure, and this drives up the interest rates, making home ownership less affordable. "Across the aisle" there is no appetite to raise taxes or cut spending so the problem will only get worse. Since the dollar is a global reserve currency, any printing of money is diluted across the global demand for dollars. So the reckoning will come quite late (in contrast with Greece who had to be bailed out following a similar trajectory). But the reckoning will come. Unless spectacular success in productivity arises from AI (which cannot be discounted - the US is a leader here), there will be a crunch where savage cuts and bail outs are needed.
Note US GDP looks great until you realise that it is in dollars whose nominal purchasing power is diminishing. There is no better was of seeing this than in the price of housing.
What has happened here is all about the personalities involved, not a business strategy, not a legal strategy.
It is "Forming, Storming, Norming, ... " (Tuckman's stages of group development)
Forming = setting up the technical and business solution for DMA
Storming = arguing due to the newly experienced dynamics of power/control
Norming = CEO stepping in the get a resolved balance in what to do next
Phil Schiller would have been the point man on the business solution (you can hear his tone of voice in the News communications and now see his private messaging as released by Sweeney).
The regulator involvement would have gone via the CEO route, who would have had to resolve the conflict with his deputised point man (Phil).
Companies are just collections of people. Maybe they share world view or a values system, but they are still just people. So human psychology is a relevant (and I argue the most significant) factor coming into play here.
If there was a market logic, I think it would be that they'd prefer the alternative marketplace provider be someone like Amazon, and then have Fortnite be an app in that store. So the commercial disputes then are deflected away from Apple/Epic animosity.
The original business case for 3G wireless networking was "Girls-Games-Gambling". The business case for alternative app marketplaces is a similar content argument "Games-Gambling&Crypto-Porn". Maybe this is part of what is keeping Meta/Amazon/Google away. Those folks can swallow a Core Tech Fee (although would be a significant friction point for sure).
I think the fundamental root problem here is EC are trying to lower prices to businesses by attempting to foster competition which might lower prices. But the actual solution is to directly mandate lower prices, and keep the gatekeepers with their current control points and systems. In other words, consider App Store commissions as actual Taxes. And we know from history that "taxes without representation" lead to revolution.
There might be parallells with group development research or terms used, but neither Tuckman’s stages, the research it’s based on, or later research in the area apply outside of the internal dynamics of individual working groups.
This is a in-the-field narrative of the Carbfix pilot project to capture CO2 into Basaltic rocks. It is a true tale of the challenges, ups and downs of doing something innovative and "saving the world".
Very insightful - I didn't know about Section 174.
I feel sorry for the overseas labour that a US company startup would be now considering stopping for tax reasons. But I suppose they needed that 15 year amortisation clause (compared to 5 years for a US employee) to stop a flight-to-overseas labour effect of Section 174 (which is presumably 1/3 cheaper).
The framing I see it as is by comparison with the Gold Rush. In those times some made it big (finding Gold) but most of the (reliable) money was made by selling pick-axes.
Here the US is moving from a model where the successful startups cash out resulting in everyone getting paid: e.g. 40% California tax income comes from exits, to being one where the US government takes smaller cuts from medium to failing startups (due to gaining tax revenue of those companies making revenue in their first few years). The drawback is that fewer startups incubate long enough to have a chance of cashing out big.
Note also paying tax as an employee has a better fiscal multiplier to the economy than the owners paying a tax bill. (You buy products and services with your salary more so than wealthy owners on a proportionate basis.)
I find this all quite surprising for the US government, and US innovation culture.
All tech companies I've been at have had this challenge of churn.
As an engineer, the deeper the experience in a field, the more business value you can create (all else being equal). So when you switch speciality, value creation is going to take a hit. Some skills carry across directly, others take months/years to acquire.
This is why companies can simultaneously be hiring teams and firing teams at the same time.
If the team is doing something critical for the business strategy, they need to be on-point straight off the bat. That normally is achieved by buying start-ups or doing deep partnerships. (MSFT + OpenAI comes to mind).
I think that is 2/3 of the story. The other 1/3 is the "patch" workflow.
In linux kernel development, it is all about sending patch sequences to a mailing list, comprising well-crafted logical steps. Then the maintainer applies the changes. This side-steps the rewrite merge history problem.
This is, I argue, what the default workflow was supposed to be, as the workflow came out of the LKML working practices in developing git.
The way I see it from a project scaling perspective, the patch based workflow is the most scaleable. Written another way:
patches > rebase > merge
I think it also gives the best change history, again
patches > rebase > merge
Pull Requests were really a GitHub thing. I like them. I wish people made the best out of them. When they do the atomic change to the trunk, it is worthwhile using a hand-crafted meaningful message explaining the goals, and reasons for making the change, together with a terse heading sentence ahead of the detail. Why many people advocate for rebasing for clean history, but leave a trash default-created PR merge commit message has always puzzled me.
One tantalising statement in there is that AGI-level system is not bound by licensing agreements that a sub-AGI system would be (ostensibly to Microsoft).
This phase-shift places a pressure on management to not declare reaching a AGI level threshold. But have they?
Of course, it could be an ordinary everyday scandal but given how well they are doing, I'd imagine censure/sanctions would be how that is handled.
9to5Mac.com are reporting that Apple are going to support RCS messaging soon:
> Later next year, we will be adding support for RCS Universal Profile, the standard as currently published by the GSM Association. We believe RCS Universal Profile will offer a better interoperability experience when compared to SMS or MMS. This will work alongside iMessage, which will continue to be the best and most secure messaging experience for Apple users.
I'm curious what people think the game plan and business dynamics is for this decision?
It is the intensity of distraction that creates the gap for the serenity of concentration: -
One way to "survive" is to logically separate the work into two different workflows. The "interrupt" workflow is where you are constantly doing trivial things, odd bits of admin, forms, chatting, and interacting in meetings. The trick is to deliberately cram as much of your interrupt-related work into the same half-day segment. The other workflow, the "deep work" workflow is where you do the design and complex coding work. You allocate such periods in 3 hour segments.
For example you could do the morning in the interrupt workflow, the first part of the afternoon in the deep work workflow, and then end the day with interruptions.
The government was mocked for a "tone deaf" campaign to hire from a diverse workforce and re-skill in Cyber. So when a "senior" job was advertised in Cyber, the urge to mock brewed up as seen on social media.
It is not new that government jobs bear modest salaries, nor that the inflated titles that are given to employees are not a fair reflection of the duties that they hold.
Note US GDP looks great until you realise that it is in dollars whose nominal purchasing power is diminishing. There is no better was of seeing this than in the price of housing.