We had a classic-style remote for the Xbox One, which was the one that represented the media Center push from Microsoft.
(A) we had to buy it separately, which presumably very few people did
(B) it did not seem to make us any more likely to use the Xbox for non-game stuff
I’m not sure why it didn’t work.
Perhaps the inconvenience of the boot up time of the console itself
I’d also point to the tiles-based interface. This apparently won awards but I hated it
Conversely we have a controller for our Apple TV (also bought separately) and we never play games on it
So I think the overall emphasis of the UI being either optimized for TV or optimized for games might make a big difference. A few seconds here and there
Xbox One was neither particularly well geared for games or TV as I recall.
Also, IIRC, you had to get Xbox Gold in order to get any apps. So you had to pay $8 a month or whatever in order to have the privilege of using the Netflix app, which you are already paying $8 a month for.
Meanwhile on your smart TV the app is installed for free.
I mean, that's a sucky situation regardless, but the wires being overpriced make it worse. They're basically exploiting their local monopoly (or quasi-monopoly).
Are they? or are they paying a fortune in rent due to the local monopoly on real estate, and charging what's required to make normal profits?
(The testable prediction here is that I don't expect having 3 electronics stores in the same airport would lower prices - the location is the source of the price hike, not there being a limited store selection)
Isn't this the other side of the causal decision theory argument? Yes, paying extortionary/monopoly prices may be optimal for an individual in a given instance, but being the kind of person who only pays what things *should* cost will prevent the extortionary practices in the first place, at least if enough people do it.
Of course, this completely backfires if people incorrectly judge what things "should" cost, and set the amount too low. That's when we don't get to have nice things.
On the drug prices study: if indeed it "proves" that money yields more utility in pharmaceutical company budgets than in people's pockets, then shouldn't we be raising taxes and donating the proceeds to Pfizer?
Regarding pharma pricing, if I ran the zoo I would do one of two things (preferably #1):
1. To allow a drug to be sold in the US, in any other country in which it is sold must be priced at the US price times the ratio of per-capita GDP to the US per-capita GDP. So very cheap in, say, Haiti, but even more costly than here in Switzerland.
2. Like #1 but instead of mandating pricing require the label to say “Research paid for by the citizens of the USA.”
The bookstore/coffeeshop thing seems like an argument for greater concentration in real estate ownership. If I own 10 city blocks of mixed retail and residential, I can charge less rent to the high amenity retail and make the money back in increased rents from the residences and low amenity retail. Argument for new charter cities or more use of eminent domain to make it easier for developers to assemble contiguous blocks.
No opinion on the specific NYC policy, but I suspect the food delivery services are bad on net. In the eternal war between id and ego, it seems that technology is continually finding new ways to give an edge to the id, allowing us to engage in “voluntary” transactions that we would not endorse if we were wiser, more rational, and more long-term in our thinking.
I had a 6-month period where I was ordering from the delivery services every day. I gained a lot of weight and put a surprising amount of debt on my credit card. In retrospect, I would have been much better off if the option hadn’t existed. I suspect that cases like mine are more common than libertarian types would expect.
People will get very passionate about this, but it’s hard to imagine a use case for restaurant delivery services that isn’t covered by actual restaurants + grocery delivery.
I’ve gone a good 20 years now without ever having food delivered and it’s just fine. If i were disabled or had trouble leaving home, grocery delivery would cover it.
I think you're underestimating how much being disabled affects your ability to cook those groceries, as much as your ability to go to the store to buy them.
I do agree that food delivery probably shouldn't be a routine thing for most people, but it's basically the same principle as going to a restaurant, just more expensive - I'm not sure why you privilege dine-in restaurants over delivery.
A model that says that good official economic data favors the incumbent in a Presidential election isn't "bonkers." It may not be the best model for 2024, but 2024 is very difficult to model. This year, I would use the gamer's cliche: the winner will be the player who makes the next-to-last mistake.
Twitter’s « For You » is consistently more interesting than « Following » for me. It also helps me discover new accounts. I think this is because i currently follow too few accounts and probably less than Zvi does. Generally « For You » is probably more useful for those who are new to twitter or rarely log on.
If you're going to put DS9 on the list (which, to be clear, I agree is a great show), I think it behooves you to include its also-great contemporary Babylon 5.
I think it doesn't do a good enough job at the type of things normies care about a lot more than we do, to make me able to defend it at Top 50 level. I tried to get my wife to watch it with me, and that really, really didn't work (whereas DS9 did). But I do recommend it to those who can handle that.
Alas. I would have hoped that that at least the Londo / G'Kar dynamic would be relatable to anyone. Top-drawer performances from Jurasik and and Katsulas. I guess I can see the Shadows / Vorlons / Psi-corps / Minbari stuff being more poorly received (and far too central to ignore), though.
The first season of Babylon 5 is a little uneven, whereas seasons 2-4 are rock solid. If I were introducing the show to someone who I didn't already know was going to love it I would start with season 2 (once they are hooked you can always go back and watch season 1).
Not sure whether the residency chokepoint is with the hospitals under current conditions. My hospital has been establishing and expanding residency programs despite the unpopularity of this move because it is apparently quite lucrative (I assume due to subsidy, but haven’t checked).
Residents slow everything down and occasionally cause complications, especially in surgical fields. Some attendings find that worth it on balance (residents do a lot of the tedious work, some people like teaching, the most complicated cases are almost always directed to academic centers and residents are part of the package). But attendings who feel that way are already working at academic hospitals because that’s what they wanted. We’re an otherwise non-academic hospital, which selects for people who do not feel that way.
For my department it’s even worse - they’re not our residents, so they don’t do any unpleasant work to make up for slowing things down. But I happen to know that introducing residents was bitterly opposed by most of the surgeons as well.
we have a very similar taste in TV given the things you disclosed in the post (including us being close in why we didn't watch Better Call Saul and Sopranos both!), so I'm sure you'll love this one
It's british mini-ish-series (two seasons, 6 episodes each), was one of the first shows for some actors who got popular for other shows/movies later, has absolutely amazing plot (even though it got canceled the story is perfectly concluded in season 2), beautifully written characters, looks like it's filmed on instagram filters, has framing like anime from Shaft studio (iykyk), smart and kickass.
It also has one of the rarest dynamics in media "people who know each other from pseudonymous group chat/forum really well meet for the first time, hilarity ensues" which you also should enjoy. It also showed some things about our world during pandemic so well the Amazon remake (released in 2020 during peak covid) (and which also suck, avoid at all costs) had to tell the viewer each episode that conspiracy in the show isn't related to current events at all.
Give it a chance, it's amazing, underrated, unknown in its obscurity and an absolute hidden gem.
The paper on agenda setting seems to be almost a rewrite of Charles Plott’s work, particularly “Committee Karate”. Maybe I am misremembering a bit combined with not having read the full new paper yet. Still, seems a bit of a reheat.
"As noted above, I will continue to cover modeling and prediction markets, and tracking how the candidates relate to AI, and continue doing my best to avoid otherwise covering the election. You’ll get enough of that without me."
I cannot adequately express how much I appreciate this.
Use a laptop in a cafe if the cafe is fine with it. The one I go to, the owner unprompted specifically told me I could work from there. She does too, at her main job. Where I used to live, I’d do the same at a cafe where the staff encouraged coworking. Back in Berkeley, People’s Cafe was mostly students working on projects or homework together.
Other places don’t have WiFi and power plugs or ask that people don’t work from there. That’s great too. The important thing is to be honest about your business instead of getting passive aggressive, which is somewhat common.
What’s lame is trying to make this a cultural issue instead of resolving it at the individual and business level.
Regarding the graphic about the best TV shows--what are the icons in the top row meant to indicate?
They're different rating sources. I know what some of them are but not all of them.
Ah, yeah now that I look at it more closely, that makes sense. Thanks.
We had a classic-style remote for the Xbox One, which was the one that represented the media Center push from Microsoft.
(A) we had to buy it separately, which presumably very few people did
(B) it did not seem to make us any more likely to use the Xbox for non-game stuff
I’m not sure why it didn’t work.
Perhaps the inconvenience of the boot up time of the console itself
I’d also point to the tiles-based interface. This apparently won awards but I hated it
Conversely we have a controller for our Apple TV (also bought separately) and we never play games on it
So I think the overall emphasis of the UI being either optimized for TV or optimized for games might make a big difference. A few seconds here and there
Xbox One was neither particularly well geared for games or TV as I recall.
Also, IIRC, you had to get Xbox Gold in order to get any apps. So you had to pay $8 a month or whatever in order to have the privilege of using the Netflix app, which you are already paying $8 a month for.
Meanwhile on your smart TV the app is installed for free.
Podcast episode now live for this post on the Don't Worry About the Vase Podcast Feed!
https://open.substack.com/pub/dwatvpodcast/p/monthly-roundup-20-july-2024
> It is at core the same issue as not wanting to buy overpriced wires at the airport.
Why would you want to buy them in the airport? You can just... buy them elsewhere in advance and bring with you?
Yes, if you know that now. You buy at the airport when you broke/forgot/lost your wire and suddenly you have an urgent need.
I mean, that's a sucky situation regardless, but the wires being overpriced make it worse. They're basically exploiting their local monopoly (or quasi-monopoly).
Are they? or are they paying a fortune in rent due to the local monopoly on real estate, and charging what's required to make normal profits?
(The testable prediction here is that I don't expect having 3 electronics stores in the same airport would lower prices - the location is the source of the price hike, not there being a limited store selection)
I think it's quite likely both.
(Also, yay, first time you actually reacted to a comment of mine!)
Isn't this the other side of the causal decision theory argument? Yes, paying extortionary/monopoly prices may be optimal for an individual in a given instance, but being the kind of person who only pays what things *should* cost will prevent the extortionary practices in the first place, at least if enough people do it.
Of course, this completely backfires if people incorrectly judge what things "should" cost, and set the amount too low. That's when we don't get to have nice things.
On the drug prices study: if indeed it "proves" that money yields more utility in pharmaceutical company budgets than in people's pockets, then shouldn't we be raising taxes and donating the proceeds to Pfizer?
Regarding pharma pricing, if I ran the zoo I would do one of two things (preferably #1):
1. To allow a drug to be sold in the US, in any other country in which it is sold must be priced at the US price times the ratio of per-capita GDP to the US per-capita GDP. So very cheap in, say, Haiti, but even more costly than here in Switzerland.
2. Like #1 but instead of mandating pricing require the label to say “Research paid for by the citizens of the USA.”
Note on PlayStation as a media centre, you can get a PlayStation media remote that operates exactly like the way you want it to.
https://www.playstation.com/en-us/accessories/media-remote/
Neat, forgot about that. Strongly considering trying it out given good risk-reward ratio.
The bookstore/coffeeshop thing seems like an argument for greater concentration in real estate ownership. If I own 10 city blocks of mixed retail and residential, I can charge less rent to the high amenity retail and make the money back in increased rents from the residences and low amenity retail. Argument for new charter cities or more use of eminent domain to make it easier for developers to assemble contiguous blocks.
No opinion on the specific NYC policy, but I suspect the food delivery services are bad on net. In the eternal war between id and ego, it seems that technology is continually finding new ways to give an edge to the id, allowing us to engage in “voluntary” transactions that we would not endorse if we were wiser, more rational, and more long-term in our thinking.
I had a 6-month period where I was ordering from the delivery services every day. I gained a lot of weight and put a surprising amount of debt on my credit card. In retrospect, I would have been much better off if the option hadn’t existed. I suspect that cases like mine are more common than libertarian types would expect.
People will get very passionate about this, but it’s hard to imagine a use case for restaurant delivery services that isn’t covered by actual restaurants + grocery delivery.
I’ve gone a good 20 years now without ever having food delivered and it’s just fine. If i were disabled or had trouble leaving home, grocery delivery would cover it.
I think you're underestimating how much being disabled affects your ability to cook those groceries, as much as your ability to go to the store to buy them.
I do agree that food delivery probably shouldn't be a routine thing for most people, but it's basically the same principle as going to a restaurant, just more expensive - I'm not sure why you privilege dine-in restaurants over delivery.
A model that says that good official economic data favors the incumbent in a Presidential election isn't "bonkers." It may not be the best model for 2024, but 2024 is very difficult to model. This year, I would use the gamer's cliche: the winner will be the player who makes the next-to-last mistake.
Twitter’s « For You » is consistently more interesting than « Following » for me. It also helps me discover new accounts. I think this is because i currently follow too few accounts and probably less than Zvi does. Generally « For You » is probably more useful for those who are new to twitter or rarely log on.
I would add: Those who are VERY VERY careful when they do and don't interact...
If you're going to put DS9 on the list (which, to be clear, I agree is a great show), I think it behooves you to include its also-great contemporary Babylon 5.
I think it doesn't do a good enough job at the type of things normies care about a lot more than we do, to make me able to defend it at Top 50 level. I tried to get my wife to watch it with me, and that really, really didn't work (whereas DS9 did). But I do recommend it to those who can handle that.
Alas. I would have hoped that that at least the Londo / G'Kar dynamic would be relatable to anyone. Top-drawer performances from Jurasik and and Katsulas. I guess I can see the Shadows / Vorlons / Psi-corps / Minbari stuff being more poorly received (and far too central to ignore), though.
The first season of Babylon 5 is a little uneven, whereas seasons 2-4 are rock solid. If I were introducing the show to someone who I didn't already know was going to love it I would start with season 2 (once they are hooked you can always go back and watch season 1).
Not sure whether the residency chokepoint is with the hospitals under current conditions. My hospital has been establishing and expanding residency programs despite the unpopularity of this move because it is apparently quite lucrative (I assume due to subsidy, but haven’t checked).
Why the unpopularity?
Residents slow everything down and occasionally cause complications, especially in surgical fields. Some attendings find that worth it on balance (residents do a lot of the tedious work, some people like teaching, the most complicated cases are almost always directed to academic centers and residents are part of the package). But attendings who feel that way are already working at academic hospitals because that’s what they wanted. We’re an otherwise non-academic hospital, which selects for people who do not feel that way.
For my department it’s even worse - they’re not our residents, so they don’t do any unpleasant work to make up for slowing things down. But I happen to know that introducing residents was bitterly opposed by most of the surgeons as well.
okay, Zvi, i absolutely have to shill you my favorite TV shows in the whole world
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/utopia_2013
we have a very similar taste in TV given the things you disclosed in the post (including us being close in why we didn't watch Better Call Saul and Sopranos both!), so I'm sure you'll love this one
It's british mini-ish-series (two seasons, 6 episodes each), was one of the first shows for some actors who got popular for other shows/movies later, has absolutely amazing plot (even though it got canceled the story is perfectly concluded in season 2), beautifully written characters, looks like it's filmed on instagram filters, has framing like anime from Shaft studio (iykyk), smart and kickass.
It also has one of the rarest dynamics in media "people who know each other from pseudonymous group chat/forum really well meet for the first time, hilarity ensues" which you also should enjoy. It also showed some things about our world during pandemic so well the Amazon remake (released in 2020 during peak covid) (and which also suck, avoid at all costs) had to tell the viewer each episode that conspiracy in the show isn't related to current events at all.
Give it a chance, it's amazing, underrated, unknown in its obscurity and an absolute hidden gem.
The paper on agenda setting seems to be almost a rewrite of Charles Plott’s work, particularly “Committee Karate”. Maybe I am misremembering a bit combined with not having read the full new paper yet. Still, seems a bit of a reheat.
"As noted above, I will continue to cover modeling and prediction markets, and tracking how the candidates relate to AI, and continue doing my best to avoid otherwise covering the election. You’ll get enough of that without me."
I cannot adequately express how much I appreciate this.
Use a laptop in a cafe if the cafe is fine with it. The one I go to, the owner unprompted specifically told me I could work from there. She does too, at her main job. Where I used to live, I’d do the same at a cafe where the staff encouraged coworking. Back in Berkeley, People’s Cafe was mostly students working on projects or homework together.
Other places don’t have WiFi and power plugs or ask that people don’t work from there. That’s great too. The important thing is to be honest about your business instead of getting passive aggressive, which is somewhat common.
What’s lame is trying to make this a cultural issue instead of resolving it at the individual and business level.