California has the worst roads of any state I've driven in. San Fran and San Jose, rank among the top 10 in the country of the worst roads. Whatever they are using it for, isn't for road maintenance.
Agreed. Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Washington, Florida..... visited all of them in the last 12 months during various seasons.... they ALL have significantly better roads than California. HOW!!!!!! HOW!
California has the second highest total lane miles by state[0] and it has the highest number of registered vehicles of any state, by a big margin.[1]
Being a such a populous big state with only tiny, regional public transportation systems means everyone and their cousin drives everywhere, all the time. That's how.
I've lived in California for 30+ years now and what I've observed is that we spend huge amounts of money on infrastructure and a lot of the spend seems to be absolute waste. For example, there is no realistic reason for high speed rail to cost what it does per mile; I am certain that a very close inspection of the process would uncover huge amounts of waste, padding, and theft. On top of that, people have been able to limit development using enivronmental rules and other legal methods to slow down things that are truly needed.
I'm sure somebody has written a book already about how ostensibly wealthy societies can fail at basic infrastructure that they previously mastered, driven by greed and complacency and other socioeconomic factors. I think this has happened over and over again (Rome, and many other societies).
> I'm sure somebody has written a book already about how ostensibly wealthy societies can fail at basic infrastructure that they previously mastered, driven by greed and complacency and other socioeconomic factors.
This is par for the course. We've had the gulf of tonkin incident, and weapons of mass destruction. The difference is now we have more information, so it only looks like it's gotten worse.
I bought a t-mobile g1 the first android phone. At the time my school's wifi needed you to log in every time you joined the network. I wrote an app that logged you in automatically. Solved a need I had, I then put in in the app store for $0.99 and sold a few hundred.
I went to a small company career fair for the free lunch. When they saw I had an app in the app store, I had immediate interest and got an internship.
Close enough to the regular 30% Apple tax. Plus a 6% cherry on top — because Google has enough to spend; especially since search is their core business.
Ads are their core business today. Search is only there to serve more ads. Google stopped being a search company when they bought/merged with double click.
Google without ads is an unprofitable company that constantly makes bad technology bets and cancels projects more often than they release anything useful.
They're making money hand over fist right now, and they still have startup-esque growth rates, so they don't need to be tough negotiators. When Google's revenue and growth flattens, you'll see the toughness come in
It's not a negotiation. It's google paying whatever sky-high sum apple demands, because google and their shitty search engine are toast the moment it's no longer the default.
And in court. It wouldn't be surprising to me if they lost to Epic after Apple won, despite actually already allowing sideloading and alternative app stores.
Goes along with the "don't be evil" mantra. They started as pure tech and found a money geyser, no reason to upset the applecart when they're already making out like bandits.
A big centralized government bank is not somehow going to be magically better than multiple commercial banks. At best it would be equally bad but more likely it will be worse than the dmv and irs put together. Going to the bank will be like doing your taxes. Maybe it would be so bad that it would solve this problem because people would have cash.
Yeah the point of government services like a central bank or a public healthcare option or what have you is that they provide a floor of "this is the worst service/bargain you can possibly get", and then the private sector needs to compete against it (sometimes by dishonestly implying they have a better product when their product is worse, but that's its own can of worms).
For basic necessities to modern life, there needs to be a state provided minimum quantity of access, so that you can't be screwed over by corporations just deciding you aren't profitable enough, or cornering the market and price gouging, etc.
I think the state ought to fund such minimum services, but should under no circumstances be permitted to provide them directly. Quality has a hard time competing with free, especially for the poor. If you can only afford the government free solution and they wrong you, your options for seeking redress will be much more limited than if the government gave you a voucher for a privately provided service.
I’m most productive when I’m having fun. There’s always going to be not fun shit. Is on you to find the fun and on the employer to make it possible. Otherwise I’m unable to give my best.
