I’ve never owned a PC. The first computer I ever used was a Macintosh II. The first desktop computer I bought was a Power Mac G3. My first laptop was that adorable little Powerbook G4. And I’ve been using an iPhone since 2007.
I’m not frustrated because of the hardware — I’m frustrated because 50% of the software on my phone is made by Google, who seems to actually still care about making useable, stable software that gets how I use multiple devices. The iOS ecosystem just keeps getting worse and worse, and I keep hiding or deleting their software on their hardware.
Ditto! My first machine was an Apple IIe, and my second a Mac SE/30. I've loved almost every Apple machine I've ever owned. The software, on the other hand, seems to get progressively worse. Not so bad to make me ditch Macs, yet, but enough to make me think about it.
I don't understand how you can say that when no other ecosystem offers things like Handoff, Airdrop, and Continuity. How do you use multiple devices that Google software understands but that iCloud/iOS/macOS don't? The difference may be that you have to pay for iCloud, but you're saying that the equivalent just isn't capable.
That makes sense to you (a web user who wants to use multiple platforms, and likely already does) but not to Twitter (a business whose financial interests are best realized the longer you stay within the walled garden of their product.) Twitter doesn’t want you to leave their ecosystem, so they’re considering changing the boundaries of the ecosystem.
Which is all well and good, but when you take away too many of the features which make that ecosystem unique, there's less incentive to use it over anything else.
There are a lot of economic differences between music and apps
Are there? (At least for independent musicians?) From my experience, it seems like a decent comparison—you can make an app or album for $2000 or $200k.
- Different pricing. Apps can be anywhere from $1 to $500, while songs typically hover around $0.99. The wide variance in app pricing makes a subscription model challenging to satisfy all users and developers.
- Different markets. When you make an app, you're tying it to be used on a specific platform. It is additional work to make it cross-platform. That alone is limiting for an apps' market, and in the case of iOS, the platform's owner can impose additional limits. Music is open-ish in the sense that you can make music once and release it in a way that it's playable, essentially, everywhere.
- Different revenue streams. Music is a digital good like apps, but it's also a physical good (CDs, records) and most importantly it's a service (live performances). It's possible to have additional revenue streams with apps, but it's not as common as it is with music. If Apple spontaneously created an app subscription model and your app was iOS only, you would suddenly be very locked into that business model, whereas with music you will always have additional options.
You're missing the biggest difference: longevity. An album can sell for 50+ years whereas an app... well, let's just say it's one step above "ephemeral".
All the more reason app developers shouldn't/wouldn't go for such a deal.
This is slightly off topic, but it seems that iTunes song prices have silently increased to $1.29, which is a huge increase. There are still some $0.99 songs out there, but most of the tracks I buy are $1.29.
Seriously though, here in Australia the regular price for a track is $2.19 -- which is absolutely ludicrous to be honest. As of today, that's the equivalent of $1.70USD
It seems like the more difficult barrier to this model is the technical difference between music and apps. In order for a piece of music to play in the background 24/7, the user has to pretty much explicitly allow it. In order for an app to do the same thing, the user just has to grant it enough permissions.
Yeah, but touring has a crazy pile of expenses associated, in addition to all the unfortunateness of being on the road for as long as you want to make money at it.
It's not that I'm unsympathetic to the artists, but I think that it's unrealistic that they'd expect otherwise.
A career in tech has a crazy pile of expenses associated (Stanford isn't giving away comp sci degrees; continuing education unless you want to end up a one-trick pony), in additional to all the unfortunateness of having to live in a hyper-expensive tech hub for as long as you want to make money at it.
Yeah, you can much cheaper degree (I did) and live in a cheaper region (I had), but that almost guarantees hitting a lower career ceiling than if you have a Berkeley diploma and live in San Jose.
Almost all careers involve tradeoffs. If you want to rise to the limits of your abilities you're going to have to make some hard decisions. Otherwise you'll be competing with the other workers who are happy to get paid less for easier work. In tech, this means a mid-range job in a small market. For musicians, this means playing gigs in Des Moines instead of clubs in LA. Them's the breaks.
> A career in tech has a crazy pile of expenses associated (Stanford isn't giving away comp sci degrees
I would contend that for somebody who's already going to Be Good At This, that would be a crazy expense from a bad decision. The best three engineers I know have degrees from UMass-Lowell, UMaine, and the University of Delaware. (I'm not #2, but I went to UMaine and graduated with $20K in loans. Paid off in four years, and I slacked.)
As far as lower career ceilings--each of those people (and I) are at lead/staff-level positions in the Boston area and have not wanted for challenging or well-paying work, while having expenses less than half of your average San Francisco tech nerd. The specter of the Bay Area looms large, but I think it's silly in how all-consuming it's considered.
Sure, I’m responsible for my debt because it’s in my name. Did I know that as a naive 18 year old trusting my not-financially-savvy parents that this was a wise decision that wouldn’t wreck my ability to produce wealth for the next decade?
Nope.
Sometimes we’re expecting not-yet-adults to make adult decisions and live with the adult consequences. And sometimes they don’t have enough information/support to make those decisions.
And its not even a matter of expecting not-yet-adults to make good decisions. They are raised in a system that teaches them that college debt is good debt and then they graduate and are courted by predatory lenders to take out way more loans than they should for their school loans with no guarantees that they will come out and get a decent job in their field. Schools should be more on the hook for that debt if they breeze someone through a program that they are not a good fit for or that has no job prospects.
Reasonably I'd expect these "not yet adults" to have been shaped by the adults in their lives such as parents, mentors, close family friends, etc. and to be supported in their decision making process by them.
Shouldn't the lion's share of the influence belong to them, and not some 3rd party dealing with the student via infomercial and pamphlet?
I don't think a person that can't understand loans is ready for college.
The creditor gives you money and you have to pay them back, if you ask for too much then it'll be much harder to pay back your loan.
Many students who take loans don't even need them, but could easily pay their tuition by just getting a job.
> Sure, I’m responsible for my debt because it’s in my name. Did I know that as a naive 18 year old trusting my not-financially-savvy parents that this was a wise decision that wouldn’t wreck my ability to produce wealth for the next decade?
> Nope.
But could you have researched the decision? Yep, assuming you had access to the Internet or a library.
My wife and I regularly split a burrito bowl, getting extra rice and beans.Chipotle ends up being one of the few “heathy” places we can eat out for ~$5/person.
Hell of a soundbite. It doesn’t even matter that it doesn’t make sense, it’s a death-by-association repeatable nugget for uninformed voters (which most people are).
The Workout Of The Day is one of the main things he takes issue with. The OP can claim “every single” because the primary methodology of Crossfit is ubiquitous—that’s what makes it a Crossfit gym. He doesn’t have to visit every Crossfit gym to know they do a WOD; it wouldn’t be a Crossfit gym without the WOD.
It’s like saying I don’t need to visit every movie theater in America to know that they all show movies at regular intervals.
I have seen recently, particularly from STEM-themed forums that the standard rebuttal is "you cannot speak for every X since every X is not documented/viewed/visited".
The cinema analogy is very well put. It is an exceptionally weak attempt to divert an argument by claiming *all X must be tested."
In reality all that is required is a reasonable belief of proof that withstands questioning. The OP easily withstands questioning when speaking for all of CrossFit.
Except that blankenship and the author are wrong. Go to 10 different gyms on the same day and you'll get 10 different workouts with 10 different formats. WOD is simply an acronym of a phrase used to describe what you are doing today. There is no definition.
I have been training at a CrossFit gym for several years now. I do the WODs that most people do sometimes. However we also have a small rock climbing "system wall" that I do climbing drills on. I have also been cycling through running programs to be a better runner, single leg programs to improve stability and balance due to injury (not CrossFit related) and just for fun a one arm chin up program just to see if we can do it. All under some supervision from the head coach. We also have ultra marathoners and dedicated Olympic lifters at our gym all doing different WODs.
My CrossFit gym clearly does not conform to the "Reebok CrossFit Games" style of working out and I challenge you to show me when rock climbing drills came up in any WOD. All these arguments against CrossFit are really against the common public perception of CrossFit. Plenty of gyms out there that don't do that and still have "CrossFit" in the name.
BTW, I agree that the popular form of CrossFit is stupid and everyone should probably stay away from these gyms.
> Go to 10 different gyms on the same day and you'll get 10 different workouts with 10 different formats.
But, that is the point they are making. WOD means that your workout is not tailored to you. Everyone in a particular gym at a particular time does the same WOD.
If you are criticising CrossFit because it's not tailored, then you should criticise pretty much all the gyms out their that offer classes. Your yoga class, boxing class, P90x, etc ... none of it is tailored.
You need a coach to assess you and write up a program if you want a tailored program. And even then, you need to ask "Why?". Do you need extra rehab work for an injury? Have a specific goal in mind? Do you train for sport?
I can see your point but ultimately - if your gym is doing different workouts from the WOD including rock climbing then you are CrossFit in name only.
A baseline of CrossFit has to be established. Exceptionally niche and unique workouts from (good) training staff are not really what is being discussed.
I’m a systems-minded designer who can code. Left/right-brained signifiers work decently well in theory, but fall apart with real humans. People aren’t that binary.
Git doesn’t handle image files well at all, because it wasn’t designed for it. That said, I think the OP is talking more about designers using Git for code, not images. Designers don’t just make images, etc.
The whole interview is great, but the last few paragraphs on advice to young musicians are brilliantly helpful.
“Be voracious when it comes to uncovering the secrets of the music business and how people outside the music business behave as entrepreneurs.”
And I wish more of my fine art friends would embrace this mentality (primarily so they can keep making art):
“[Art and business] seem diametrically opposed, but I don't think you can survive being just an artist or just a businessperson. If you're only business, you will lack the flair that attracts an audience. If you're only flair, you'll be taken advantage of.”
"You have to be both. Then you can surround yourself with smart people, secure in the knowledge you can control your own art and your own career--because if you don't, someone else definitely will."
I'm not much of an entrepreneur these days, but I know that the best way to succeed in life is to control your own destiny.
It's especially important if you're in a small artistic niche like instrumental rock that only connects with mainstream interest on very rare occasions, like Satch's Summer Song or Eric Johnson's Cliffs of Dover. Steve Morse handled this by becoming a commercial pilot, which gave him the latitude to focus on composing music that he himself found interesting, rather than trying to tap into what the market wanted.
I’m not frustrated because of the hardware — I’m frustrated because 50% of the software on my phone is made by Google, who seems to actually still care about making useable, stable software that gets how I use multiple devices. The iOS ecosystem just keeps getting worse and worse, and I keep hiding or deleting their software on their hardware.