"Naturally, violence is never an answer, nor is it a politically effective tactic."
I am not condoning violence, but claiming it is not a politically effective tactic is disingenuous. I get that columnists are trying to cover their asses, but still.
It's only allowed in one direction, but it's effective in many.
Violence is the reason slavery ended in the US. Violence brought us civil rights laws. Gay rights. Women's rights. Labor laws. Environmental protection laws.
Every right granted by default to white Christian gentlemen at the founding of this great nation had to be taken in blood by everyone else. That's just how America is. It cannot be trusted to live up to its own standards except at gunpoint.
When, where and how violence is justifiable is a different question, of course. But the premise that "Naturally, violence is never an answer, nor is it a politically effective tactic" is simply false. If violence were politically ineffective, authoritarian states wouldn't use so much of it.
Half of those things were not brought about by violence. Labor laws? Absolutely. Gay rights, maybe? Gay marriage was famously won non-violently by showing the wider public that gay is normal.
What violence brought about women's rights or environmental protection laws? I suppose protestors destroyed the fur market.
I'm conflicted whether I should keep my Claude Max 5x subscription at this point and switch back to GPT/Codex... anyone else in a similar position? I'd rather not be paying for two AI providers and context switching between the two, though I'm having a hard time gauging if Claude Code is still the "cream of the crop" for SWE work. I haven't played around with Codex much.
I have experienced 0 friction swapping between the 2 models, in fact pitting them against eachother has resulted in the highest success rate for me so far.
I was all in on Claude code as my daily driver for web development. And love it. But I enjoy using pi as my harness more and have never ran out of tokens with Codex yet. Claude code almost always runs out for me with the same amount of usage.
After migrating for the token and harness issues, I was pleasantly surprised that Codex seems to perform as good or better too!
Things change so often in this field, but I prefer Codex now even though Anthropocene has so much more hype for coding it seems.
Every time I've followed the hype and tried OpenAI models I've found them lacking for the most part. It might just be that I prefer the peer-programming vs spec-ing out the task and handing it off, but I've never been as productive as I am with Claude. Also, I'm still caught up on the DoD ethics stuff.
Just speculating, but the intention wasn't reducing key personnel risk. It was so that your employer could fire them and replace them with an agent running off of their associated skills.md.
Besides portability, what other benefits are there to using e-books? I vastly prefer having a physical copy of a book, mainly because I’d rather not look at a screen while reading (unless necessary.) Plus, I love lending out books to friends, and I feel like it’s a much bigger pain to do so virtually (unless they’re tech savvy!)
Well, I find Whispersync for Kindle to be absolutely irreplaceable.
I have a 40 minute drive to work each way, and I find audiobooks the best way to pass the time. At night if I want to read the same book from my drive, Kindle picks up exactly where I stopped listening. And does the reverse the next morning when I get in the car.
If any else is doing this, I am unaware. But it's AWESOME.
My main complaint is Amazon has discontinued Kindle devices with physical page turn buttons. Whoever made that decision should be fired.
Ah, that’s a very valid use case. I sadly don’t read as much as I’d like to (I only have a couple dozen books to my name, though I’m in my mid 20s.) I can see storage becoming an issue though if one owns hundreds, if not thousands, of books. Not a bad problem to have I suppose!
Other commenters gave good reasons, and here are a few more:
- If you like long books, an e-reader is much lighter than a tome. Not only more portable, but also easier to hold when reading.
- When lying down you don't have to fight the cover 50% of the time. Easy to read one-handed too.
- The new ones are water-resistant.
- You can have multiple books available, in case you switch it up or just finish them quickly.
- Search feature.
- Built-in bookmark.
- Time estimates until end-of-chapter and end-of-book.
- The e-ink screen doesn't feel like a screen. Not really a plus on top of paper books, but just because you mentioned.
I still read physical books when they're gifted or the medium requires it (House of Leaves being the latest example), but otherwise I'm 100% on e-readers. Previously Kindle Paperwhite 6th Gen, and since a few weeks, Kobo Clara BW.
They are very practical for travelling. I love reading physical books, but also read fast and love reading 3-4 books at a time. An e-reader is basically half the weight of 1 book compared to lugging 3 or 4 books in a carry-on.
Looking up words on the fly by just holding your finger on them.
If the book is not written in your native language or you like to read books with unusual vocabulary (e.g. historical books), it's an absolute delight. So far, a concise dictionary like Oxford has worked the best for me, while Wiktionary or similar always came short.
The other is heft and handiness. If you read anything that is larger than a small notebook, an e-book is much more practical. You also don't have to hold it open all the time.
For me:
- Easier access to books in other languages or out of print
- Quick access to a dictionary
- Backlight for reading in bed or in the evening
- Pocketability
- Way cheaper if you read a lot of public domain books (or have a parrot sitting on your shoulder)
That said, I have a jailbroken Kindle, but I am not giving a cent to Amazon. Should it break I'd just get a Kobo.
I share a bed with my wife and I like to read past when she goes to sleep. It's really nice to be able to read in bed with a frontlit device without having to bother with whether I'll accidentally flash my nightlight on her face if I move.
Also, here in Canada Kobos are extremely well integrated with library systems. It's a minor advantage generally, but during covid when libraries were physically closed it was a lifesaver. I'm sure I'd feel differently if I read less, but I read between 60 and 100 books most years so this is a big deal for me.
One of the last physical books I owned was The Three-Body Problem trilogy in a single volume. It was massive, heavy and honestly beautiful. I loved it.
Then I switched to the Kobo Libra Colour. The weight and portability make a huge difference. Having my entire library with me means I am no longer stuck with whatever I decided to bring before leaving home.
The color display is not amazing, but it is good enough for comics. I have been reading things like Attack on Titan and Spider-Man on it. Reading tech books has been great too, especially those with graphs and images.
Text size control is great for anyone with less than perfect vision. I tend to like reading dense non-fiction and the world seems to think that requires itty bitty text.
- Built-in dictionary
- Being able to read anywhere, even when light is not available (on a taxi, for example)
- Can fit it in my pocket
- Less annoying to read while lying down in bed, and the page is automatically marked when I fall asleep
- Adjustable typeface and font size
I mostly use my Kindle to read books from my local library's digital catalog. The Libby app hooks into many (all?) US library systems, so I use my phone to check out a book and it's available immediately to download. This is hugely convenient and feels magical since it doesn't cost anything.
If you use something like an iPad, you can also do all your reading on one device - substack, blogs, books, newsletters, audiobooks etc. You can also just continue reading on your phone at any time if you end up in line, in transit etc. which helps me read more.
Ctrl+F. Highlighting, notes, and bookmarks with the ability to hide them. Reading in a dark room. Adjustable font size. Slim size (that's related to portability but I can also read an 800 page book in my bed without getting my arms tired).
I previously worked at Uber and there were constantly internal complaints that went unheard regarding the enshittification of the UI. Since Uber really hasn't had much innovation going on in the last few years, (imo) frontend teams are forced to justify their existence/employment by adding changes to the UI that look great on paper but in practice are not.
As for all the associated bugs, it's inexcusable and I'm still unsure how most of them even get by QA. Engineering culture there has gone downhill; I saw the majority of great engineers leave during my tenure after being fed up with the endless cronyism + promo-project culture.
The freedoms afforded by obnoxious wealth far outweigh the loss of anonymity. These folks could buy an entire franchise of pizzerias on a whim and have them transported to a chain of private islands in the Pacific.
The myth of the tortured life of the rich and famous is a joke.
Feels like the world that he created by hoarding vast sums of wealth, and limiting people's free speech, and cutting social safety net programs that put more and more people at risk as the world becomes less and less stable.
I would much rather have lived in the world where he could walk into a pizza place without security and fear. But I also would much rather have lived in the world where people had healthcare and they didn't have to fight companies like UHC tooth and nail to avoid getting their claims denied at every turn.
And the stability of this all comes from trust in Government regulation. Which he gutted, when he gutted the programs that were targeting him for committing fraud.
> I think I’m okay with there being some remaining consequences for things you do to other people,
I would rather live in the world where they hadn't done those things to other people. Not that I would rather people forgive them and let them into a pizza shop. It's a pizza shop, who cares, they have a million other ways to get pizza if they want it. Ostracism is the last response we have for the wealthy doing unacceptable things.
I suspect that Google is working on improving their models for coding behind the scenes. Hopefully they release something soon to compete with Codex and CC. To be candid, I use CC, but have not tried out Codex.
I am not condoning violence, but claiming it is not a politically effective tactic is disingenuous. I get that columnists are trying to cover their asses, but still.
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