2
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magicloop
Joined 508 karma
I am interested in all things related to Apple technologies. Software Engineer, Hacker, Author. He/him.
- The real game the current administration is playing is to land on Mars before their current term expires. This mirrors the political, prestige, and technology triumph of the Kennedy administration. This is why the BBB Bill refocussed on the Mars mission despite having cuts.
What is being cut is otherwise a symptom of the budget deficit (7%) and the fact that politically they cut areas where there are not republican votes, as politicians obviously try to maintain their voter base as a consideration in their decisions.
Note historically a criticism of the original lunar mission was that USA diverted funds from hospitals and other public programs to fund the mission. So some were bitter despite the triumph.
It goes back to the fundamental conundrum. You have a back of corn. Do you plant the corn, or eat the corn? If AI delivers for America (planting the corn) and USA lands on Mars, these 4k NASA employees will not dwell in the public imagination despite our respect for their commitment, skill and service.
- I think this is a brilliant talk and truly captures the "zeitgeist" of our times. He sees the emergent patterns arising as software creation is changing.
I am writing a hobby app at the moment and I am thinking about its architecture in a new way now. I am making all my model structures comprehensible so that LLMs can see the inside semantics of my app. I merely provide a human friendly GUI over the top to avoid the linear wall-of-text problem you get when you want to do something complex via a chat interface.
We need to meet LLMs in the middle ground to leverage the best of our contributions - traditional code, partially autonomous AI, and crafted UI/UX.
Part of, but not all of, programming is "prompting well". It goes along with understanding the imperative aspects, developing a nose for code smells, and the judgement for good UI/UX.
I find our current times both scary and exciting.
- My listening to such billionaires explains a different attitude.
Small investors, and medium investors hate market turbulence for sure. But when you are a billionaire, you can easily profit from short term uncertainty. For example, Chamath recently disclosed a (potentially large) Credit Default Swap position (meaning he makes huge upside if USA debt position deteriorates). But he was the same person deeply concerned about USA long term debt. He is a well connected person to the executive branch.
The reason is that if you are a billionaire (tied to the USA financial system) then you can't escape the system when the entire system falls due to (God forbid) a collapse of the USA financial system in 10 years time. It is like they are the dinosaurs worried about a Meteor strike, but not worried about tigers and snakes (that can't hurt them).
- It is a sound analysis but I think there are other non-legal factors at play.
If the president tries to do X, then the lawyers block X, then in political game theory the president "wins" in the eyes of the electorate because the president can argue "my plan was perfect, the execution failed due to the opposition, so I am not accountable to what has now happened".
The left might want to see a disaster play out to capitalize in the mid-term elections, laying the accountability directly on the president. The right might not have freedom of action because they fear a well-funded challenger for their seat.
In am interested in other people's opinions and ideas in this area. I agree it is too little discussed and analyzed. Please share your insights!
- Sadly this is not the case in relation to EU laws.
In the US system of law, it is based on codified "rules". If you follow the letter of the rules you are fine - no fines.
The system of regulation at play here is the EU digital markets act. These laws are based on the effect of your actions, not the specific actions you undertake.
If the effect of the steps you take produce unacceptable outcomes, you pay fines even if you follow the requirements. The converse applies as well. If you ignore the rules but the outcome is in the spirit of the laws, then no fine.
The idea is to avoid malicious compliance but the cost of this is ambiguity in interpretation and also the market response to your actions might be genuinely surprising.
Here is a technical example to highlight the problem:
Apple were asked that you should allow independent browser technology implementations. They did this (to allow Google's technology to be employed as an example). But due to practical complexity they could not make progressive web apps work on iPhone (since they would need to route through the API which can be provided by Google's browser technology). So to comply with the rules, Apple disabled full screen PWAs and instead allowed them instead the web view area inside a browser, not full screen like a native app is experienced.
The EU regulatory body said revert that, and allow PWAs despite their own rules being then violated (as it would be using only Apple's browser technology) because the effect of allowing PWAs is a competitive marketplace for native app alternatives (web apps).
- I'd like to expand out why I hold this belief.
The political cohort behind the president is roughly in two halves. The first half are the original MAGA crowd (looking out for the working class, pro-liberty, anti-woke, etc.). The second half are the billionaire crowd.
The second group are active on pod casts, on Twitter/X, and are partly represented in government (directly or as advisors). An easy way to follow up on these people is to watch the All In Podcast or their related social media connections.
What these folks have said for a long time is that if USA stay on the same path, the USA goes broke after 10 years. So if you have long term investment in the USA, you lose your fortune in 10+ years.
This is the key motivation for their involvement in the current executive branch of government. This is why the DOGE program is so well supported by them.
If you lose the battle to reduce the 10-year Treasury yield, you lose the billionaires because they stand to make meaningful losses on a 10 year horizon.
I recognize the plight of the common citizen here; they are the plurality. But the big political levers come from these billionaires (absent a grass roots supported leader in the wings).
- I agree it's classic brinksmanship and the tariff views he has are genuine and long held. But his numerous signals to the Fed to ask to lower interest rates and the commitment to DOGE (which has the effect of lowering yields) is another strand in his thinking. The two are in conflict causing the flip-flop effect in short term policy.
- "It’s the T-bills wot dun it."
That’s my read on why the U.S. just paused the global tariff hike to 10%.
From the beginning, I’ve believed the executive branch's real goal was to push down the yield on the 10-year Treasury. Why? Because Uncle Sam has to refinance a mountain of debt this year, and the cost of that depends heavily on Treasury yields — especially the 10-year. That’s the rate that sets the tone for everything from mortgages to corporate borrowing.
So they tried to spook markets. Introduce global tariffs. Stir up uncertainty. And it worked—at first. Yields dipped. Traders moved to Treasuries as a typical flight-to-safety.
But then something flipped.
Instead of being seen as a safe haven, U.S. debt itself started to look shaky. Maybe it was the deficit outlook, maybe the global response to tariffs — but whatever it was, yields started climbing. Fast.
At that point, the strategy backfired. The executive branch had no choice but to walk it back. So they paused the tariffs.
Because when your national budget depends on cheap debt, you can't afford a crisis of confidence in your bonds.
- I was studying the code they posted on GitHub. One line of attack is to study the bugs/workarounds in the code.
For example, https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Aapple%2Fsecurity-pcc%20rd..., lists out all references to `rdar` which is a link schema for Apple's bug management system.
Also, it is clear that the code is cross platform (it references iOS and macOS). So the code here gives clues as to the security operation of iOS as well in case you wanted to do iOS security research.
It is lovely to see the middleware here written in Swift. It is quite chunky. Reading all that XPC code gives me the shivers (as I've personal experience with how tricky that can get).
Overall it is a very interesting offering. I wish I had two weeks to burn through the details... [I am the author of The Road to Zero, and iOS Crash Dump Analysis].
- To quote Schopenhauer (English translation): ``` But space and time are not only, each for itself, presupposed by matter, but a union of the two constitutes its essence, for this, as we have seen, consists in action, i.e., in causation ```
That's the kind of thinking that could help Einstein formulate an idea of "spacetime"
- Those problems of unaffordability of homes is a symptomatic effect of an earlier problem. During COVID-19, facing possible catastrophe in the Economy, Trump presidency pumped money into the US economy. The Biden presidency continued this (despite no indicator of recession). There is a 7% gap between Federal income and expenditure, and this drives up the interest rates, making home ownership less affordable. "Across the aisle" there is no appetite to raise taxes or cut spending so the problem will only get worse. Since the dollar is a global reserve currency, any printing of money is diluted across the global demand for dollars. So the reckoning will come quite late (in contrast with Greece who had to be bailed out following a similar trajectory). But the reckoning will come. Unless spectacular success in productivity arises from AI (which cannot be discounted - the US is a leader here), there will be a crunch where savage cuts and bail outs are needed.
Note US GDP looks great until you realise that it is in dollars whose nominal purchasing power is diminishing. There is no better was of seeing this than in the price of housing.
- What has happened here is all about the personalities involved, not a business strategy, not a legal strategy.
It is "Forming, Storming, Norming, ... " (Tuckman's stages of group development)
Forming = setting up the technical and business solution for DMA
Storming = arguing due to the newly experienced dynamics of power/control
Norming = CEO stepping in the get a resolved balance in what to do next
Phil Schiller would have been the point man on the business solution (you can hear his tone of voice in the News communications and now see his private messaging as released by Sweeney).
The regulator involvement would have gone via the CEO route, who would have had to resolve the conflict with his deputised point man (Phil).
Companies are just collections of people. Maybe they share world view or a values system, but they are still just people. So human psychology is a relevant (and I argue the most significant) factor coming into play here.
If there was a market logic, I think it would be that they'd prefer the alternative marketplace provider be someone like Amazon, and then have Fortnite be an app in that store. So the commercial disputes then are deflected away from Apple/Epic animosity.
The original business case for 3G wireless networking was "Girls-Games-Gambling". The business case for alternative app marketplaces is a similar content argument "Games-Gambling&Crypto-Porn". Maybe this is part of what is keeping Meta/Amazon/Google away. Those folks can swallow a Core Tech Fee (although would be a significant friction point for sure).
I think the fundamental root problem here is EC are trying to lower prices to businesses by attempting to foster competition which might lower prices. But the actual solution is to directly mandate lower prices, and keep the gatekeepers with their current control points and systems. In other words, consider App Store commissions as actual Taxes. And we know from history that "taxes without representation" lead to revolution.
- Very insightful - I didn't know about Section 174.
I feel sorry for the overseas labour that a US company startup would be now considering stopping for tax reasons. But I suppose they needed that 15 year amortisation clause (compared to 5 years for a US employee) to stop a flight-to-overseas labour effect of Section 174 (which is presumably 1/3 cheaper).
The framing I see it as is by comparison with the Gold Rush. In those times some made it big (finding Gold) but most of the (reliable) money was made by selling pick-axes.
Here the US is moving from a model where the successful startups cash out resulting in everyone getting paid: e.g. 40% California tax income comes from exits, to being one where the US government takes smaller cuts from medium to failing startups (due to gaining tax revenue of those companies making revenue in their first few years). The drawback is that fewer startups incubate long enough to have a chance of cashing out big.
Note also paying tax as an employee has a better fiscal multiplier to the economy than the owners paying a tax bill. (You buy products and services with your salary more so than wealthy owners on a proportionate basis.)
I find this all quite surprising for the US government, and US innovation culture.
- All tech companies I've been at have had this challenge of churn.
As an engineer, the deeper the experience in a field, the more business value you can create (all else being equal). So when you switch speciality, value creation is going to take a hit. Some skills carry across directly, others take months/years to acquire.
This is why companies can simultaneously be hiring teams and firing teams at the same time.
If the team is doing something critical for the business strategy, they need to be on-point straight off the bat. That normally is achieved by buying start-ups or doing deep partnerships. (MSFT + OpenAI comes to mind).
- I think that is 2/3 of the story. The other 1/3 is the "patch" workflow.
In linux kernel development, it is all about sending patch sequences to a mailing list, comprising well-crafted logical steps. Then the maintainer applies the changes. This side-steps the rewrite merge history problem.
This is, I argue, what the default workflow was supposed to be, as the workflow came out of the LKML working practices in developing git.
The way I see it from a project scaling perspective, the patch based workflow is the most scaleable. Written another way: patches > rebase > merge
I think it also gives the best change history, again patches > rebase > merge
Pull Requests were really a GitHub thing. I like them. I wish people made the best out of them. When they do the atomic change to the trunk, it is worthwhile using a hand-crafted meaningful message explaining the goals, and reasons for making the change, together with a terse heading sentence ahead of the detail. Why many people advocate for rebasing for clean history, but leave a trash default-created PR merge commit message has always puzzled me.
- Well, striking language indeed.
But.. what are the responsibilities of the board that may be hindered? I studied https://openai.com/our-structure
One tantalising statement in there is that AGI-level system is not bound by licensing agreements that a sub-AGI system would be (ostensibly to Microsoft).
This phase-shift places a pressure on management to not declare reaching a AGI level threshold. But have they?
Of course, it could be an ordinary everyday scandal but given how well they are doing, I'd imagine censure/sanctions would be how that is handled.
- 9to5Mac.com are reporting that Apple are going to support RCS messaging soon: > Later next year, we will be adding support for RCS Universal Profile, the standard as currently published by the GSM Association. We believe RCS Universal Profile will offer a better interoperability experience when compared to SMS or MMS. This will work alongside iMessage, which will continue to be the best and most secure messaging experience for Apple users.
I'm curious what people think the game plan and business dynamics is for this decision?
- It is the intensity of distraction that creates the gap for the serenity of concentration: -
One way to "survive" is to logically separate the work into two different workflows. The "interrupt" workflow is where you are constantly doing trivial things, odd bits of admin, forms, chatting, and interacting in meetings. The trick is to deliberately cram as much of your interrupt-related work into the same half-day segment. The other workflow, the "deep work" workflow is where you do the design and complex coding work. You allocate such periods in 3 hour segments.
For example you could do the morning in the interrupt workflow, the first part of the afternoon in the deep work workflow, and then end the day with interruptions.
- It's about Fatima.
The government was mocked for a "tone deaf" campaign to hire from a diverse workforce and re-skill in Cyber. So when a "senior" job was advertised in Cyber, the urge to mock brewed up as seen on social media.
It is not new that government jobs bear modest salaries, nor that the inflated titles that are given to employees are not a fair reflection of the duties that they hold.
https://www.dazeddigital.com/politics/article/50747/1/a-brie...
https://www.diyphotography.net/photographer-speaks-up-after-...
- I have great respect for your current work and assurances on the business model. But what you are asserting is only _currently_ in your gift.
If you keep controlling equity stakes in the business and don't need to raise significant outside investment it will work out as per your business model.
If you get into enterprise selling, you'll need a sales workforce and significant cost of Sales/Goods/Administration. If you want only organic growth, you'll be ok. But what will happen is that investment from, or selling to a large corporate, will turbo boost such sales; the temptation proves irresistible to many. If you are in a land-grab dynamics with other companies, growth may actually mean survival.
There is a scalability tier above the best subscription businesses, which is mass-market consumer adoption. The twitter experience demonstrates this. The ad revenue across billions outweighs a tidy subscription revenue from a small highly engaged subscription crowd. Any significant co-investor will find the lure of this irresistible. If you gain private equity investors, you will become ad based with high probability.
I welcome your contribution to the field of messaging apps and wish you well. I hope that this can inform your judgements about business models going forwards. If you think this is incorrect, please follow up with your alternative thoughts.
- At the education stage, it is better to optimise for core learning/theory (e.g. mathematical foundations), with a bit of practical stuff thrown in, and then as you go further along, introduce longer projects (more practical work e.g Network Programming) and at the end of the education have "enough" practical experience to make the transition to work (the majority taking this path) where you continue to build the practical experience.
Learning more theory later on is still possible but those are more like financial investments that give lower yields over longer time periods. So they are best done "early" in your personal development.
In terms of interviewing interns, just find out what they do know, and judge the best one on a balance of talent, knowledge and people skills. They will do you proud. No need to have a set expectation against specific skills unless that is the core domain they'll be working on.
Also I notice it when the LLMs are offline. It feels a bit like when the internet connect fails. You remember the old days of lower productivity.
Of course, there is a lot of junk/silly ways to approach these tools but all tools are just a lever, and need judgement/skill to use them well.