apparent

I don't use passkeys because I can't tell if they're a one-way door. If I use it once, can I still use passwords to log in in the future?

I also don't understand how the system works when things go wrong (someone hacks your account, etc.). I don't even understand all the ways things could go wrong with passkeys.

Seeing the comments here makes me realize I'm not stupid or ignorant for not understanding these things. Some people do understand them much better than me, but there is no universal answer that emerges after sufficient study.

I will continue to stay away from passkeys.

Very interesting, and possibly quite smart. To the extent this increases the chance that someone pays their bills, it would reduce the interest rate (either explicit or implied) charged by the financing option. It's like how car loans and home loans have lower interest rates than unsecured loans because the lender can seize the collateral. Here, there's much less friction involved (no need to call a repo guy or go through lots of paperwork), just tell Apple.

It does make me wonder what happens if leased devices are stolen. Does the person still have to pay it off, as if they still had it? Perhaps this is how they encourage people to buy AppleCare.

Wow, that kind of undermines the entire premise of the piece. It also makes much more sense. Thanks for digging that up!

I imagine they last longer than some other types, but it hasn't been an order-of-magnitude difference that was advertised. Also the cost/hassle is much more than expected.

We've put some smart LED bulbs into some fixtures, and those have been fine. But they've only been in for a few years, so we don't yet know their lifespan.

The use of solid-state technology gives the lights an extraordinary life-span, often measured in decades rather than years.

I have found this not to be the case. They seem to last several years, but not an amazing period of time. Also, the ones that were installed in my home are quite expensive, something like $45 per can (the whole thing must be replaced), and the price to install is $30 per can because the company changed their plug design in the last 5 years. So I end up spending $75 for each light, which is roughly $10 per year per light (per light-year?). That doesn't strike me as a great value, especially because I can't change the lights myself due to the wiring/plug situation. Maybe that piece won't apply in future years, but it's still a lot even if it's just $45 for the darn can.

Assume you meant "big prize" but I guess it's sort of one in the same?

Found the narrative, it was right there at the bottom. Now I remember reading some of his other stuff and it's very much in the same vein.

I care about having open technology that can be run in the public interest, aligned with the public’s values. Threads like public AI, federated services, and open research have traction but need backing. Getting there in the US needs more nuanced strategy and support than we’re seeing today.

Especially if you're pre-funding, which the sampled startups (those pitching A16Z) were.

The full quote:

When entrepreneurs walk into the offices of Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), a big American venture-capital firm, the odds these days are that their startups are using AI models made in China. “I’d say 80% chance [they are] using a Chinese open-source model,” says Martin Casado, a partner at a16z.

This is very different from what the author portrays. It may be the case that many pre-funded startups are using Chinese open-source models (somewhere in their workflow). But what percent of startups that survive more than a year (either with funding or revenue) are still doing this?

I imagine their pitch is: "look at how well we're doing using open source Chinese models! We'll do even better once we raise money to be able to afford frontier models!"

The way the author presents this quote makes me think he had a preferred narrative and found quotes to back it up. Or he's just a very uncareful reader.

What a weird thing to downvote without comment. You doubt this? I am literally using AI right now to update software that generates tens of thousands of dollars of revenue annually.

I have used AI to ship software that users pay for.

I have hundreds of open tabs in Brave at all times on my M2 MBA and it's fine. It puts tabs to sleep when inactive and is generally quite usable. Also supports all the same extensions as Chrome (plus older ones that Chrome doesn't support).

nobody would buy this watch for its technological aspects

I can vouch for the falsity of this statement. I am more than happy to pay hundreds of dollars for a watch that has weeks of battery life and a great UI. Although there are other watches with long battery life (Garmin, and to a lesser extent Amazfit), their UIs are not good.

Apple and others make watches with nice UIs, but of course the battery life is measured in days, not weeks.

That was before programs like Prep for Prep, which canvasses the city’s public, charter and parochial schools for promising minority students, gives them an after-school and weekend preparatory boot camp for 14 months and then funnels them into private high schools, where they receive need-based financial aid. This program serves about 650 students a year, many of whom might otherwise be admitted to schools like Stuyvesant. And that’s not counting other scholarship programs at private schools, boarding schools and parochial schools designed to increase the diversity of their privileged student bodies.

This is an under-discussed phenomenon. I've heard the same thing said about public high schools in other cities. There are private schools that peel out many high-performing minority (non-Asian, of course) students, which affects the number of high-performing minority students who end up in the public high schools.

People then wring their hands about apparent racial performance gaps in the public schools, ignoring the effect of these programs.

Nah, it's more than that. They didn't just resuscitate the brand and slap it onto some pre-made hardware. They're building everything from scratch. They are building devices that are just like the original Pebbles, but with smaller bezels and longer battery life. The only potential asterisk is the protruding screen breakage issue on the PT2, which the company swears is not a big issue. Time will tell.

If he had built the feature set you're suggesting, and with the battery life it would require, he'd be competing directly with Apple, Google, and Samsung. And he'd have no key differentiator.

The reason Pebble has a chance at success is because they carved out a niche years ago, and for some reason no one decided to occupy it in their absence.

Your reasoning is correct but Pebbles don't use E Ink screens. That's a specific technology made by a company by the same name.

The fact that he's putting his money where his mouth is (replacing all broken screen PT2s for the foreseeable future) is what gives me confidence that the rate is very low, even if his number is not quite right for the reasons you indicate.

The notion that a ring-sized device could be "so environmentally unfriendly" is just not serious. I have no desire to get one, but environmentalism has zero to do with it.

Is my smoke detector "so environmentally unfriendly" because it requires alkaline batteries? There are so many things that are bigger than a ring (and have a greater manufacturing carbon footprint) that we do not think twice about using.

Given their track record hitting the battery life projections for the P2D and PT2 (almost), I would give them the benefit of the doubt on the Index01.

If Apple made a watch with 1/4 the battery life of a Pebble, I would agree. However, there are apparently 20,000 people who prefer to have less functionality and more battery life than Apple/Samsung/Google are interested in offering.

There are other options like Garmin and Amazfit, but honestly the UI on both of those are pretty awful, especially compared to the slick Pebble UI.

Honestly not sure how this is legal given that the software is not fully baked when the devices ship. That is, people were getting PT2s when there was no way to test the touchscreen because the OS didn't support it yet. Same for speaker.

My guess is that if you got a bad unit and discovered it later when the software was updated, they'd probably swap the unit for you. That seems like more of a no-brainer than the screen crack replacements they're apparently doing.

I didn't think I would need to quote more of your message, its essence is that you think these kinds of licenses can be "as good as buying" when they demonstrably have never been close to it... and it's by design.

You cut out a key part of what I said. When people do that, I don't read the rest of their really long replies. Good day.

Generally agree, if Sony is deleting things from user-owned devices. If they're simply not making them available for later download, it's trickier. The case against Sony would be stronger if customers could not move downloaded content from their current devices.

Consumer protection laws can prevail over terms and conditions, it's true. Are there any consumer protection laws that disallow terms and conditions like the ones Sony used?

The lawsuit would have to prove that Sony didn't abide by it's T&Cs, which it seems like they may well have. The issue then is whether it's OK to have T&Cs that seemingly conflict with the "buy" characterization that customers are presented with.

Can customers continue to use the content Sony is removing from their accounts, if they have previously downloaded it? I assume that "buy" doesn't require the vendor to continuously maintain the content on their servers, to be available for free download, forever.

Of course, customers would also need a way to transfer the content from their existing devices to later-purchased devices. If that is possible now, but becomes impossible later (like if Sony goes bankrupt), then does that ruin the "buy" characterization that seemed legit at the beginning?

Not necessarily because whites are only around 15% of the NYC public school population. But it means they are not as over-represented as Asian students, since there are also some Hispanic students who are admitted, which caps how high the white percentage could be.

I said "a decent chance that's as good as buying the thing". If these mega companies stick around and continue to offer access to the content, then it is as good as buying it (arguably better if you don't have to store it and can download onto many devices over decades). But note that this was all preceded by "a decent chance". There is also a chance that it won't turn out to be as good as buying, if the company goes under, gets out of that line of business, or loses access to the relevant rights.

One important question, which I don't know the answer to, is whether Sony is nuking stuff from your devices. If not, then they could claim that you bought the thing and can keep using it on your existing devices. If you can move the content from a PS5 to a PS6 in 5 years, then arguably it's fine to say you "bought" it. But if they're wiping the content from your local devices, then you've definitely not bought the thing.

I've wondered how they'll draw the line on this. If Amazon or Apple has a buy button and it means you get to have ongoing access to the content for as long as Amazon/Apple is around, then for a 30 year old person there's a decent chance that's as good as buying the thing. But if it's hazier, as in the case of Sony's revocation based on losing rights in later years, then you're obviously not getting the same thing. How does CA's law apply to this continuum of circumstances?