If you don't have the money, you don't have the money. IMHO I'd rather have people without the means pirate books rather than go without. (Though the library is usually an option.)
But if you do have the means, drop the author some bucks for their work. And I can assure you, it's a lot of work. My tip jar doesn't get a lot of action, but when it does, I'm very appreciative. Here's someone who appreciated the work enough to drop me a few dollars for my labors when they didn't even have to.
The above is another example I appreciate: the authors charge for physical copies and complete documents but generally make the work content available for free. I've bought a physical copy in that case because I really valued the work.
What I am hearing is that while you like to read, you do not feel like authors bring enough value to the table for you to actually reward them for their work.
I much prefer reading on paper, something about screens never allow me to get into a deeper state that reading books take me to.
I read a lot on my old Kindles, had a gen 1 and gen 2, it was easier than on a computer but still not the same experience as a book. Years later I had read many books on Kindle that I'd mention to people and... I could never let them borrow them, having physical copies also lets you share your favourite books to people you like.
I agree with the cognitive premise unfortunately. But even so, I start to speculate about solving this by DIY book printing, or advances in digital reading technology (mostly I'm interested in the latter, for example, means of "spatializing" the flat screen experience, and reducing latency to a minimum)
Reminds me of how startups now will change their social proof marquee on the landing page from actual testimonials, to "trusted by XYZ", to just one composed of company logos (with the level of corporate engagement to be imagined up by the viewer)
People salivate so hard at the thought of the high level of automation promised that they're willing to do away with privacy altogether and live in Data Communism.
My thinking is, this will increase the demand for backup and other resilience solutions.
> People salivate so hard at the thought of the high level of automation promised that they're willing to do away with privacy altogether and live in Data Communism.
‘At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production, or this may express the same thing in legal terms - with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetter. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation leads sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.’
This is awesome! In the past I would use the promise of starlink or other LEO internet as a tiebreaker for booking flights and was disappointed a few times (as clearly not all of the airframes for an airline have the capability)
I don't know much about UL but I can say that FCC certification (also technically required) for electronics can range from about $3k to something like $30k depending on what you're doing.
($3k would be for "unintentional radiator" device, i.e., not supposed to be a radio, $30k would be for "intentional radiator" device, i.e., supposed to be a radio)
FCC ensures a product doesn't cause radio interference, while UL ensures the product is safe to use and won't cause fires or electric shocks. For DIY, your primary concern is UL certification.
Because of customs product import rules, that FCC stamp is often not optional. Now if it was a dodgy seller, the stamp will not match the physical devices on rare occasion. =3
That roughly lines up with what we paid* to get CE and safety stuff done for a small battery-powered product with a radio on the EU market (primarily in the UK).
*Testing and tweaking and then sign-off in grown-up labs.
I feel like a lot of these types of apps could just be spreadsheets. Maybe a "smart" spreadsheet like Grist[0] executing Python code. Am I off-base there?
Probably right. My brain is probably stuck in old-man spreadsheet land and I did not explore any new horizons that might have obviated micasa. That said, I also didn't want to invest a bunch of time in developing a domain specific app using spreadsheets as the API, I wanted to invest a bunch of time developing a domain specific app using AI. Might end up being a choice I regret!
That's all fair. It is a cool piece of work nonetheless.
For example I am thinking, what if I wanted to hook up my micasa instance to some other arbitrary self-hosted service? If it's an App that means bespoke code, with a spreadsheet stack it is trivial.
I agree. While I really like the idea of being able to query some of this data, it's another system to maintain. I have a system where I use a calendar, physical folder, and notes/folder in the cloud. Call me lazy.
I will say that I am slowly becoming a convert to 'talk to data' approach. Still, it is not without its flaws. At the end of the day, it still requires the user to update stuff and, from experience, this is where I fail and render all those project apps useless..for me specifically.
It sucks, because it sounds like what I really need is for someone to track it for me so that i can just review it if needed.
Familiar relationships always come out of a sense of shared responsibility and utility, not out of a "secular" desire to "make friends", the way I see it.
So, live vigorously in a way that benefits from social relationships and they will necessarily come.
Be useful to others and they often return the favor.
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