> The key point here (and biggest advantage of Japanese cities) is that nearly every building is mixed-use by default,
Also, Japan generally has good mass transit throughout their cities, which essentially doesn't exist in the US. Less mass transit -> more cars -> need for parking -> larger buildings with setbacks to include parking -> less density -> less mass transit... Land use and transportation systems in the US have been co-evolved to the present sub-optimal state we have now.
This is a big misconception. The core neighborhoods of the big Japanese cities are dense, mixed-use, and have good mass transit. But as soon as you move a bit further away, they degenerate into endless urban sprawl like American cities. I know because I live in a small Japanese city, and it is just box stores, small detached houses, and two-story apartments.
> they degenerate into endless urban sprawl like American cities.
I will note, I have not lived in Japan. I'm just going by what I've seen hopping in street view on a lot of the smaller towns. Please do correct me if I'm wrong.
While yes, the small towns are way more sprawlly than the big cities in Japan. However, what I've seen doesn't even come close to how spread out things are in much of the US. Can you point to any place that looks like this[0] in Japan? Note, that is an "urban" area, not rural.
Sure, far more people get around by car. Transit access falls off considerably. Big box stores have actual parking lots. But I don't see parking lots like this[1] common when browsing around on Google Maps.
If anything, a lot of these sprawling small towns are far more dense and walkable than what even "dense" US cities are! A lot of the streets I'm seeing making up a lot of these towns are a good bit narrower than what most neighborhood residential streets I've lived on here in the US.
Feel free to show me parts of Japan I'm missing though. Maybe it exists and I haven't seen it yet, I did just kind of hop between a dozen or so small towns all over Japan.
There is a lot of idiocy/stubbornness among middle managers. I worked for a large consulting firm for a few years and would see hiring managers pass by candidates with good aptitude whom they could’ve trained in 4-6 weeks. Instead, they had the position open for several months waiting for someone who knew the exact technologies they were using and still didn’t find anyone in some cases. Seemed to me that the middle managers need more tolerance for non-billable time. But when everyone is incentivized to meet quarterly goals, this is what you get.
Yeah, but MCP provides a convenient layer of indirection where I can sandbox my app, allowing only files within a given directory tree (i.e., project workspace) to be read from/written to using my tools. How do I accomplish this when allowing an agent to call
my tools directly?
Since macOS went to a yearly cadence, I usually upgrade during Christmas break, this allows for a couple of point releases to work out the kinks. I won’t be upgrading this year. I hope macOS 27 fixes this abomination. Otherwise, this 30+ year Mac user will be moving on…
You would do well to avoid 26. I upgraded to be a Guinea Pig for a few colleagues and I regret it. Things like apps and scripts work in the technical sense, but it is worse because the myriad of graphical and interactive issues.
I know, the repairability isn’t great, and they’re not upgradable at all. macOS can be annoying and restrictive. But life is short, so I just buy MacBook Pros. I wasted too many hours in my 20s getting Linux to work on the desktop (not to mention a laptop).
There's no way that Apple pays spot. They will have contracts directly with the manufacturers, guaranteeing them a given supply at a given price. Their whole business kinda depends on it.
Sure, but eventually the contracts will be renewed at possibly a much higher price. It depends on the details of the agreement whether the price is adjusted based on market price periodically too.
If I have a potato field, the cost to me of a potato is whatever equipment and labor it takes to farm one, divided by the yield of potatoes.
If there's suddenly a potato famine, then the cost to other people who don't have a potato field is however much they are willing to pay to avoid starving.
Apple doesn't have a potato field, but what they do have is a ton of negotiating power, market share, and enduring relationships with the manufacturers.
There's also the implicit threat when negotiating with Apple that they might enter your market if you fuck around with them. If Apple perceived DRAM/NAND prices to be a significant threat to their carefully curated pricing structure, they might decide that they need to vertically integrate.
Also, Japan generally has good mass transit throughout their cities, which essentially doesn't exist in the US. Less mass transit -> more cars -> need for parking -> larger buildings with setbacks to include parking -> less density -> less mass transit... Land use and transportation systems in the US have been co-evolved to the present sub-optimal state we have now.
reply