There's something very beautiful about the attention to detail and forethought that has gone into rooms like this.
The wonderful combination of beauty through a clear focus on functionality, supported by just enough of a sense of majesty to lift the whole space beyond pure functionality makes it a little more special.
This is probably a place that was always considered at least somewhat beautiful given its strong design, but more generally speaking I find it really interesting seeing how functional ~1930-1970s era industrial units like this have kinda become fascinating and (in their own way) beautiful places in the eyes of so many (me included).
I often wonder how people in the future will look back at our current humdrum infrastructure and what they might think of it. No doubt there'll be just as much nostalgia and fascination in some quarters, but i have to admit it's a little hard at times for me to see what elements of modern infrastructure will become the focal point of curious minds in, say, the 2050s.
That said, I did visit a museum last year that had some pylon insulators and some other old 1990s electric-grid equipment and I found it kinda interesting and beautiful in its own way so what do I know?!
Definitely an art deco feel to the interior when I disregarded later model telephones and apparatus. Poirot himself would waddle in and be right at home.
The photography is also beautifully done. Although mid-century and earlier industrial spaces are usually beautiful on their own, the photography really highlights that. I highly doubt I would be able to capture it the way this photographer has.
The iPhone came about 6 years after the iPod, which itself was wildly successful so certainly Apple was nowhere near bankruptcy when the iPhone launched.
They also weren't on the brink of bankruptcy when they made the iPod either - the original iPod launched in 2001 which was ~4 years after the Microsoft investment you mention (that happened in 1997).
Apple actually launched the highly successful iMac (the colourful ones) back in 1998, and it was arguably the success of that which restored Apple to having good profitable. I.e. it was already well on the 'up' by the time the iPod launched and propelled them to even greater financial success.
Can't speak for everyone but in my experience using public toilets (predominantly UK, pubs and train stations):
* there's not always a properly functioning seat / seat at all
* the seat is not always dry
* the cubicles do not always have a functioning lock
* the bowl is not always 'clear'...for reasons probably best left unexplored, people seem to choose public toilets as a place to carry out the most incomprehensible and unimaginable of all bowel movements. I've been greeted with bowls that let's just say would be benefit being assessed by a trained professional
Public toilets are also often pretty grim places in general due to the smells, sounds and general lack of hygiene/cleanliness.
All that said...IF the toilets look in decent repair I personally will use the cubicle and sit down, but it's probably less than 30% of toilets that feel like that's an option.
Also just to say I am someone who always sits to pee whenever at home/in a person's home and i'm not someone who anyone would ever call a germaphobe, so I do generally choose to sit rather than stand.
> "ai" companies are simply burning our cultural context ...
Most developed countries have a 'legal deposit' system with a national archive/national library that requires publishers to send a copy of their works to them. They've existed in some form for centuries in some countries.
> Another example is used car sales. Before the internet it was local and required work to find cars for sale.
Certainly in the UK there were plenty of established options pre 'internet' to make finding cars easier.
Physical weekly magazines like Autotrader existed prior to the internet which had a small photo of the car a brief description and key details and asking price. People also used magazines like Parkers Guide to estimate the valuation of their/prospective cars based on mileage/condition etc.(Kelly blue book I think is equivalent in the US?...based on sitcom knowledge)
There were local used car garages too of course, but many of those also had their cars listed for sale in autotrader listed as 'trade' sale rather than 'private'. Or they'd be in the local newspaper on a set day of the week (where I was - Wednesday had a special 10+ page pull out of 'house listings', can't remember what day cars were but same happened)>
I know people travelled very long distance to buy cars using autotrader because my dad made an amount of side-money in the 1980s and 1990s from it. typically he'd buy a used (often damaged, 'no MOT') car, repair it, run it for a few months, sell it for a profit and repeating the process. He went all over the country to buy cars and he sold his cars privately to people from all over.
Also larger used car retailers and approved-used car garages have long since moved stock around their locations to support sales and used to have similar in-house magazines/brochures that showed all their available stock.
You lament the 'hustlers' scouring FB but arguably that's a much less problem than the risks pre-internet whereby local car garages could rip off local consumers because those customers quite probably only a limited field of reference to understand the value / worth of a car and so could easily be sold something for way more than it's true worth due to lack of comparable data. One of the biggest benefits of the online world is you can quickly see what is a 'normal' price for an item and so it's a little harder for people to be completely ripped off (though of course it still happens, savviness as a consumer takes a bit of work/time and a willingness to shop-around/do research).
Except now the modern car flippers have so much data on prices thanks to the internet that they know exactly what cars to buy and how much profit they could make. So it becomes much easier to do, making it more prevalent, and causing prices to rise.
> The reason we have declining birth rates is phones
US Live births per 1000 people from Macrotrends:
* 1960 - 22.70
* 1970 - 16.83
* 1980 - 14.99
* 1990 - 15.57
* 2000 - 14.18
* 2010 - 13.31
* 2020 - 11.99
* 2026 - 11.98
In the 30 years 1960 - 1990 which predate widespread adoption of mobile phones, we see a drop of ~7 live births per 1000 people.
In the 35 years since then (during which mobile phones have become ubiquitous) it has dropped by a further 3.5 live births per 1000 which is half the prior reduction.
If we look at US fertility rates the situation is even more dramatic. Births per woman:
* 1960 - 3.44
* 1970 - 2.34
* 1980 - 1.79
* 1990 - 1.96
* 2000 - 2.01
* 2010 - 1.98
* 2020 - 1.78
* 2026 - 1.79
The 30 years from 1960-1990 see a drop of almost 1.5 vs. a drop of about 0.2 in the 35 years since.
All of which is to say that the trend for declining birth rates predates mobile phone adoption, the biggest declines came prior to mobile phones being in widespread use. I've not researched the matter but my understanding is the primary drives in declining birth-rates are A) widespread availability of reliable birth control (the pill) and B)population wealth increases which tend to correlate quite strongly with the number of children a person has.
I don't discount phones having at least some impact, but seems highly unlikely that it's 'the' reason.
It starts with access to tv, movies, leisure travel, and disposable income.
These things take you out of the evolutionary algorithm. Boredom, uncertainty, low dopamine, mind not preoccupied = having children.
We identified this trend already in DINKs, it just turns out biology's adversarial algorithm is far more widespread than just that one demographic pattern.
> If everyone is using LLMs then nobody has advantage
LLMs are a tool like any other - and like any tool there will be people who are better at utilising the tool to achieve an outcome than other users of the tool.
Those differences typically come down to a combination of experience, in-depth understanding of your subject/objective and an awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of the tool.
TBH the rise of LLMs reminds me a lot of the era when google search emerged. People's ability to utilise a search engine to achieve their aims was massively varied.
* Some people were absolutely useless - they struggled to use a search engine to find anything beyond the most basic of things.
* Others were ok - they'd be able to dig a little deeper, they knew a few of the tricks of the searching trade and they had a bit of an understanding of where to look/how to look for something obscure.
* Some were good - they knew all the key search constraints, they had a good understanding around how data is structured and what keywords and approaches to use when to get to the thing they need
* and some had 'google fu' - those people seemed to have a god-like ability to navigate the internet to find the most obscure things in a matter of seconds.
LLMs are different to search engines but their rise shares many similarities to them - they are changing the rules of the game in a monumental way; they have fundamentally reduced the barriers to entry in many fields.
The skills that made someone valuable in a pre LLM world do still matter, but IMO we're currently starting to go through a major change where the people who learn how to best utilise LLMs within their field will find themselves leapfrogging people with stronger skills who obstinately seek to avoid using the new tools becoming available to them.
> But car beeps generally give no clue what they're beeping about.
Can't speak to all vehicles, but my VW ID3 clearly indicates what the issue is on the dashboard.
So if it's the lane-keeping assist it highlights which lane(s) it is monitoring and it provides a written prompt on screen (e.g. "drive in the centre of the lane") if it's not happy.
If the speed limiter is on it shows the current signed speed limit in the dashboard and it flashes that speed limit if I am driving over the speed limit.
If the car believes I am not concentrating on the road and instead interacting too much with the touch-screen it puts a large warning in the middle of the touchscreen to pay attention to the road and prevents me using the infotainment system for a few second.
I'd be surprised if most other modern/new cars didn't also include instrument display feedback like this alongside audible warnings.
You’d be surprised. A family member bought a 2025 utilitarian car (Dacia). It’s the one on the newer platform (Clio 6) so they can implement all the beeping mandated by law.
The car beeps exactly the same way whatever the reason so you can’t tell why. It even beeps when it thinks the speed limit has changed (up or down)… it’s infuriating to drive this car, there is a beep about something every minute or two. You can’t even tell what it’s beeping about.
Luckily there is a shortcut button near the dash that you can press to disable all these idiotic beeps. You have to do it every time you restart the car. It does make it feel like all these beeps are pointless since you can’t tell what they’re about and press the button to disable them all as soon as you start the car anyway…
That does sound pretty poor, surprised it's not mandated that there needs to be an onscreen warning as well, not just an unexplained beep.
For my experience i've found the safety features helpful and don't mind them. I turn off the audible warning but the onscreen warnings are helpful nudges/reminders.
The lane-assist bit I leave on and whilst I do occasionally have to 'wrestle' with the car a little in some scenarios, it doesn't ever feel like I lose control I just have to overcome a little bit more resistance when the system is concerned about me departing the lane inadvertently. For me that's not really a problem, but I do see how others might find it frustrating.
In my mind, 'tinkering for fun and knowledge' was never meant to be profitable - if you're tinkering with the express aim of making a profit i'm not sure you're really 'tinkering' so much as you're trying to create a product/service/output for someone else to pay for?
There's absolutely nothing wrong with doing that - I'm just not sure the 'ethos' of tinkering has anything to do with trying to make money and is usually reserved for describing someone playing about with something for their own enjoyment/fun with no desire to make money.
Now, of course some people did find that their tinkerings were able to make them money, but I think at its base it's a term I'd tend to say implies doing something for fun/for themselves, rather than doing it for profit?
In my experience there's still plenty of people out there tinkering just for their own personal satisfaction, but of course there's almost certain a whole load more people out there 'tinkering' to try make a profit.
Agreed, I'd say tinkering for profit has become the defacto optimization and tinkering for its own sake is less fashionable because it commands no attention. and everyone is obsessed with the modern currency: attention.
To be clear, I'm seeing this as an observed phenomenon, not that everyone made up their mind that they hate tinkering and love money. I just think it's getting really really hard to exist in the world as a normal person when the entire human collective is getting pumped commercialized hyper-media from all angles at all times now 100X'd by genAI bots. It's really exhausting and so you either opt-in to the game, monetize your now AI side-hustle to pay the rent, or opt-out and live in the woods. and get packages delivered by Amazon. heh.
> Rampant use of AI for cheating is not at all incompatible with negative opinions of AI.
Possibly. Either way it (for me at least) neatly highlights why AI will succeed.
The students you talk about don't abstain from AI use entirely - they utilise AI for things they consider 'unworthy' of their attention/effort.
That is precisely the market AI will capture first - the tasks and processes that people (in general) have to do but don't really have any passion/interest in doing and for which perfection isn't critical.
And what may surprise many people in this thread (given its flow so far)...there are a whole heap of things that you and I care about, that 10s if not 100s of millions of other people consider 'unworthy' of their attention/effort and for which they will happily make do with a 'sub par' AI experience if it's cheaper, easier, more convenient.
The wonderful combination of beauty through a clear focus on functionality, supported by just enough of a sense of majesty to lift the whole space beyond pure functionality makes it a little more special.
This is probably a place that was always considered at least somewhat beautiful given its strong design, but more generally speaking I find it really interesting seeing how functional ~1930-1970s era industrial units like this have kinda become fascinating and (in their own way) beautiful places in the eyes of so many (me included).
I often wonder how people in the future will look back at our current humdrum infrastructure and what they might think of it. No doubt there'll be just as much nostalgia and fascination in some quarters, but i have to admit it's a little hard at times for me to see what elements of modern infrastructure will become the focal point of curious minds in, say, the 2050s.
That said, I did visit a museum last year that had some pylon insulators and some other old 1990s electric-grid equipment and I found it kinda interesting and beautiful in its own way so what do I know?!
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