I hear ya. I was more aiming at the idea that every new tech, no matter how transformative and later obvious, is not obvious nor even necessarily desirable to the population when it is introduced.
Tech needs explanation and even inducement to become popular, whereas useless tech like VR can't gain ground no matter how much it's demonstrated and hawked.
I just finished a long RV trip and I can tell you it's hard to underestimate the importance of internet access (which also means Wi-Fi calling and access to maps and weather) across our entire, enormous nation.
It's important not only for individuals but even more for businesses. Despite cell phone company ads with handsome celebrities in the desert, cell phones actually do not work in many places. But people do need to live and work in those places.
If we can get internet from the sky, it's hard to justify digging up the earth with cables for the same thing.
I realize Space X "pollutes" space and astronomy is also important, but it's not more important than communications and information for people on earth.
It's fascinating to think that sound recording was so new it had to be explained. People needed examples of what someone would record or play back and why.
Every new technology goes through a period like this.
Who will write the tool that scores HN threads by the number of information-carrying posts versus those that are completely irrelevant, off topic, personal rants, ad hominem, etc?
I'd bet that after a certain level of attention, the majority of comments are of that no useful information kind.
Just yesterday, someone on LinkedIn wanted to improve her vibe-coded software, which she plans to charge money for.
I recommended an article of mine with a 34 minute read time. When she saw that in the header, she submitted my article to an AI for summary and complained that she wasn't going to spend 34 minutes (on learning programming).
I don't think this or the other competitor announced last year will ever ship, or if they do, they'll quickly go out of business. There's no real product there.
This is terrific advice and more relevant than ever in the gaming industry, where Xbox is bleeding studios and employees, but Nintendo just gave everyone a 10% raise.
This article makes no sense. First, it claims that the Strait is in Omani water, then says it's both Iran's and Oman's. (Oman has a tiny bit of coastline in the area; Iran is enormous.)
But most absurd is the idea that Iran could not enforce tolls simply because there is no narrow toll gate. Did the author not watch the present conflict? Iran doesn't need a narrow entryway to tell who is in the Strait, nor do they need a complicated setup to simply shoot at ships from their very long and high coastline.
If insurers believe the ships they cover will be targets, those ships won't be transiting. It's quite simple.
Yes, it's a very different environment from the state-run Yugo company that was a product of socialism and never could compete successfully in the market. That's not the situation for Mr. Bezos.
It seems unlikely they'll be like the Yugo. That car was produced in a low quality factory. This is a modern product from Jeff Bezos that has fewer parts, not just cheap, poorly made parts. Yugo was Yugoslavia's only car manufacturer. Slate competes with all the other US brands so it can't just be total garbage going in. That wouldn't make sense.
People in Texas have driven to El Paso to buy Chinese EVs from Juárez, México just over the border and politicians here are trying to explicitly outlaw that, too.
https://davidbethune.com