Yeah, I agree. This sentiment is weird to me. As a counterpoint, look at Ben and Jerry's ice cream from the 1990s. It was such a cool brand back in the day, and made delicious high-fat ice cream. (I know, I know: They sold out. But I am talking about before the sell-out.) Also, look at Chobani Yogurt in this generation. Amazing product and stellar brand.
> Nike couldn't be the global brand it was today if it directly managed all its factories.
This is a weird statement to me. Replace "Nike" with "Intel". Intel manages all of its factories and is a global brand. (Yes, I know they recently outsourced some chip manuf to TSMC, but Intel was surely a global brand in the 1990s.) I don't get it. What am I missing?
Intel is definitely the exception. For most companies, like Nike or Apple to take two, they in-house design work, but then contract out manufacturing to external companies, who often themselves subcontract out work further.
I'm speculating now, but it seems really likely if that type of distributed supply chain didn't exist, we'd see a closer coupling of design and manufacturing (at an extreme end factories designing and producing their own product).
That outsourcing of manufacturing has let US companies like Nike and Apple stay dominant in the design field, despite almost all their manufacturing being carried out by Asian companies.
Ultimately the global economy is very complicated, but a lot of it is predicated on that design/manufacturing split, which is only enabled by distributed manufacturing contracted out by brands.
I'm not trying to argue any of this is good/bad, but just that the concept of a 'brand' plays a huge function in determining what the world economy looks like, and isn't an empty concept.
It's true that branding gains importance as a differentiator when the product moves towards being a commodity or if its innovation has reached its peak . But I disagree that it's always the driving factor for how a company is structured.
There are some industries where the franchise model is most dominant (eg fast food chains) and some others where tight control over the value chain is the norm (eg apple). And funnily enough, one of the distinctive differentiators those luxury swiss watchmakers have, is: "We make every part ourselves. Everything is manufactured in Switzerland.". Then you have the OG multinational companies like P&G or Unilever, where branding definitely plays an important role but a lot of their brands are regional so it's yet another structure.
I really think it's mainly the specific industry and geopolitics that shape supply chains and not the branding.
> I'm speculating now, but it seems really likely if that type of distributed supply chain didn't exist, we'd see a closer coupling of design and manufacturing (at an extreme end factories designing and producing their own product).
It's an interesting question. I think it's safe to say that the main driver to outsource manufacturing was cost. But nowadays companies also benefit from things like reduced accountability. Even if we assume every part of the supply chain could be done within the US, wouldn't companies like Apple still eventually outsource the ugly parts of the supply chain to some third party within the US? Simply for the appearances.
I agree with your opening paragraph -- hot take! What would be more interesting, would be to see humanoid robots un/packing and moving boxes in their warehouses. That to me seems like one of the first logical places to deploy humanoid robots to replace (or assist) human workers.
Assume that later models of the 747 were managed in Excel. No trolling: What is wrong with that? You can write insanely powerful software using (1) formulas on the sheet (which are essentially functional programming) and (2) imperative logic in VBA (HTTP calls, database calls, file system, etc.). For years, I used this model and wrote pretty powerful software. Sometimes, I miss it for the encapsulated system. These days, in "biz dev" (internal software), it seems like the Excel model was replaced with an Electron front-end (HTML/CSS/JS) with Java back-end.
Because you can't define a named custom formula by composing the built-ins. So every cell is just the same copy-pasted formula string. When you need to change something, you have to change it everywhere and pray that you didn't miss one usage.
I can't count how many times I found a bug in a spreadsheet because someone (who might be me) missed one or two instances.
Yes, you can define your own named custom formulas in Excel.
I prefer to do it with VBA code because I find it easier to manage, but it's also possible without VBA using just the built-ins in the spreadsheet directly.
There's nothing particularly wrong with it, Excel works great. But almost any complex Excel file is riddled with obscure bugs and the nature of the tool makes it impractical to apply some of the most effective quality control techniques. Like you can't easily do code reviews or write an automated test suite.
I second this! Excel is a front end everybody knows and everybody can run. I always got laughed at when I say the biggest competitor of small apps (things like gym diary, meal planner etc.) is excel. Now that it even support python…
> I would be interested in doing some reverse engineering work to contribute to the Asahi Linux project for the M-chips if this was a cheap option to attain one.
Why don't you buy a used M1 from eBay? You can probably get one for less than 500 USD.
This reaction is interesting to me. In many jurisdictions around the world, police are required to call off a chase if it is deemed unsafe for any reason.
In what world do you think it is OK for a 12-year-old boy riding an e-scooter to die after being chased by police? Before you respond: Ask yourself how you would react if it was your son (or close relative). Any parent would devasted.
I don't participate in clan mentality, where every tragedy has to be blamed on an outsider. An accident is tragic, it doesn't make it any less tragic that it was the kid's own fault. Or if you can't stand not having somebody else to blame, it's clearly the parent's fault.
To be clear, when the OP wrote "Japan has bicycles with license plates", it is important to clarify the term "bicycle". It would more accurate to say "motorized bicycle". If you ride something that looks like a bicycle where you can power it only with a throttle button (no pedalling required), then it requires a license plate, at least in Tokyo. Explanation here: https://www.city.inagi.tokyo.jp/en/kurashi/zeikin/1002693/10...
Also, you can ask Google AI for more sources and info using this prompt:
> I used an e-bike (without a licence plate) last week in Tokyo.
Did you (1) need to pedal to get assistance, or (2) could you get power with a throttle button only? If #2, then you were breaking the law. It seems like police are not yet enforcing. In neighborhoods with a lot of "night life", I see this often with host-looking dudes. I expect 6-12 months after the law is activated, police will begin to crack down. (This is a pretty normal pattern when introducing new traffics laws in Japan.)
> I would also describe Jordan, Oman, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia as cohesive societies.
I don’t know much about the region; is it incorrect to say that the nations you listed (excepting Jordan) are collections of fiefdoms with a relatively weak central power? To OP’s point, that is not how I view Iran
Emiratis would describe themselves as a cohesive nation of Emiratis living under seven different Emirs. (There are many YouTube videos about it.) Emiratis from different Emirs do not view themselves as from different ethnicities/tribes/nations.
BTW -- My original post forgot to mention Kuwait as a cohesive nation.
You raise a lot of good points here. Another unconfortable truth: Russia is withstanding the sanctions way better than anyone expected. I don't think that they can sustain it forever, but I do think they can make it (at least) another 2-3 years.
> I prefer assassinations of leaders in wars over deaths of soldiers and especially civilians.
To me, this argument doesn't hold water. Think about some counterexamples: (1) Netanyahu and Gaza. Surely, 100K+ civilians died as a result of that war. (2) Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Vietnam. A staggering number of civilians died in that war. (3) GW Bush in Afghanistan and Iraq/2.
My guess: All of those leaders are responsible for more innocent civilian deaths in each conflict than Khamenei's entire reign.
To me, I am very conflicted about the assassination of Khamenei. Yeah, he did a bunch of bad stuff and was very destabilising in the region, but I need to draw the line at assassination. It was unnecessary. It is a slippery slope.
It was a criticism of the three wars you mentioned. I think a quick victory would have limited civilian deaths in all those situations.
Except the first one, because the goal of that war was killing the civilians. They could have assassinated Hamas leaders just as easily, but then there would be no reason to bomb all those hospitals and children.
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