When I first heard about it I knew it was going to be some sort of "public" AI, which makes it a no-go for me for work stuff.
I do daily drive it for work, though, and have found the tab management to be really great. I know I can emulate some of the features with other add-ons in Firefox, but it's more elegant in Arc.
Glad to see a company thinking somewhat fresh in this space.
Bitwarden is not perfect, but calling `pass` "easy" is comical - especially for those of us sharing passwords with far less technical family members - and 1Password has a very opinionated UI that seems to get more in the way than anything. I find Bitwarden to strike a good balance between security, price, and design.
That said, I do share in the concern about the funding and exec changes.
As much as I hate what Google has done with Chrome and I choose not to use it, the comparisons to the IE6-8 dominance are even more acute when you consider that Chrome is also successful in the enterprise due to its support for both typical group policy/Mobile Device Management configuration as well as its integration into Google Workspace.
Edit: I had initially said “dominant” in the enterprise, but I imagine that title still goes to Edge?
It would be impressive if it wasn’t so depressing and gross.
Respectfully, it is not, unless you mean that as heavily backhanded. It seems as if Maciej has mostly abandoned any form of customer assistance or help, even for those who've paid money to him.
I'm more interested in the long-term psychological effects of sleep training and how it affects a child's perception of "secure attachment" [1]. We sleep trained our oldest and did not our youngest and their personalities couldn't be more different. Of course, this may be entirely unrelated, but it's still something my wife and I have wondered about as we've learned more about it.
The same happens regularly without sleep training too, so ymmv obviously.
One thing I will note - if the kid doesn’t sleep and wakes up
the adults for years, that impact pretty clearly ruins the adults, and has severe impacts on the kids too.
It's important to understand that the attachment theory was developed to explain why children of drug addicts are so messed up. It was then expanded to children who suffered other kinds of abuse.
When you try to expand attachment theory to try to understand healthy kids in non abusive situations the effect size is usually smaller than the experimental noise.
>attachment theory was developed to explain why children of drug addicts are so messed up
Citation? As far as I know, the roots of Attachment Theory are in the World War II work of John Bowlby, investigating the effects of children separated from their parents when major cities were evacuated during the Blitz.
It is much later that the association of insecure attachment and addiction was scrutinized.
It's hard for children not to be very different from their siblings - after all, your oldest one spent their first N years with just you and your partner; the younger one spends that time with you, your partner, and their older sibling.
It's something I fully realized only recently, once I spotted my younger daughter sprinting for toys her sister played with, moments after the latter left for kindergarten, and repeating the exact same kind of play she saw her sister do - which was mostly 3 y.o.-level creative reinterpretation and misuse of toys. After that, I started to pay more attention, and noticed that our younger daughter repeats just as many behaviors of her sister as she does of my wife's and mine.
The OP overview did mention some studies. (The OP overview is a really good model for a popularly-accessible summary of research on a complex topic! it lists so much stuff!)
I'm not saying this necessarily should eliminate all worry you have about attachment (personally sleep-training seems like a bad idea to me too; I'm not a parent however), but as far as what research is available, from the OP:
> Of the few studies that have looked at the short- to longer-term outcomes of sleep training, none have found an effect on a baby's attachment or mental health. Hiscock's study, for example, the largest and longest longitudinal study done on sleep training, found sleep-trained children were no more likely to be insecurely attached to their caregiver at six years of age than their peers. (Experts like Hiscock say they aren't aware of any studies that look at potential long-term effects of cold-turkey cry-it-out, just at modified extinction. They also examined healthy babies at least six months old. So these findings aren't necessarily applicable to infants trained at younger ages, or in other ways.)
> Like other longitudinal studies, Hiscock's lost touch with a number of families when it was time for the final follow-up: 101 of the original 326. That means it is theoretically possible that the sleep training did affect some children in either a negative or positive way long-term, but that their experiences weren't captured. It's more likely, though, that any effects of a single intervention simply "washed out" after six years, says Hiscock.
I am also interested. Buried in the article is a note that by age 6 there was no appreciable difference in children with sleep interventions and without.
While this article shreds a lot of studies on sleep training, it goes on to cite a lot of others without evidence of equally scrutiny, so who knows.
I think the point the previous poster was trying to make is that people have wildly different personalities, and that any observation with a sample size of 2 is basically useless to draw any conclusions from.
I'll also add that different people respond very different to things; maybe for some babies sleep training might have long-term effects, and for some it doesn't. Certainly if I look at my own shitty childhood, me and my brother responded quite differently. He was affected much less than I was.
Sort of. We initially fed our cat on demand, but at some point switched to feeding it at set times during the day. The cat adjusted to that, and suddenly all his daily activities - including playing and sleeping - started following a consistent schedule.
Not the OP and not sleep training, no need for that, but I did manage to poopy-train our cat, meaning he only takes a poo when we are awake. The same goes for when we are eating, he's not taking any poo during those times, either.
Pretty smart cat, if you ask me, he also managed to teach our dog to play certain kind of games between the two of them.
We didn't sleep train our oldest, but we did our other three. All of them are very different people (ages 5-13). Every kid is different, and I don't think you can attribute it exclusively (or even primarily) to any one thing most of the time.
Oh come, there's like a billion variables in kids' personalities. My kids couldn't be more different from one another and we pretty much did all the same stuff with them.
I've gone years without social media at a time and now I've finally learned to just balance it better.
- On Facebook, I heavily scrutinize the friends I accept and use the "hide" button judiciously. I also only check it about once a week, max. I do find value in Facebook groups and Facebook's event scheduling features. As someone else mentioned, I wish there was a way to tune Facebook to a more community-driven view than whatever trash they want you to see to drive max "engagement" (see: conflict).
- On Instagram, I just don't see much value in it. I have the account so I can authenticate when I need to.
- TikTok, I just enjoy. The interesting thing is the "social" aspect of TikTok is off-platform for me - I generally share TikToks via text message or show my phone in person. I am a little creeped out by how addictive it is, but for right now I'm ok with it.
- Twitter, I see value in as a news site but the social aspect just never caught on for me. It all feels very "extroverted".
I do agree with the idea that, largely, social media is toxic and we'd be better off without it. But that could also be said about much of the Internet and mainstream media at this point.
Surely someone here knows better than me, but it seems Google's dominance in this space is not due to pure mapping data (although that also seems to be the best in the world) - it's due to the massive amounts of data the join in with the mapping data to provide real-time road closure and traffic information as well as what the "best route" is.
Apple Maps has taken me some really strange routes (I live in a rural area) while Google consistently picks the route you'd expect.
I've been hoping for a Google alternative because their monopoly on mapping that leads to further data collection is terrifying, but I'm bearish on the idea of pure mapping data being it.
in my experience they both take dumb routes. I still long for options like avoiding left hand turns (especially unprotected turns), very short merges (frequently end up with silly routes that have you cross four lanes of heavy traffic). The other issue I have is everyone seems to over-optimize the travel time. I don't care if taking a different route could save me two minutes. If it's nothing but stop lights thats not helpful. Tesla has a neat feature where you can tell it how many minutes an alternative route needs to save before it suggests it. Obviously if a route is going to save me 20 minutes then sure, thats probably worth it.
The other thing that I've been thinking about is how dangerous these directions can be in areas that get bad weather. I've had both Apple and Google try to direct me to take a very steep hill when it's icy out instead of taking the treated highway that would add five minutes to the drive. They need better understanding of road surfaces and weather.
> Google consistently picks the route you'd expect.
This definitely isn't my experience. For me, Google consistently picks more dangerous routes even if they offer little to no time savings. The app consistently tries to kill me by doing things like routing me through crazy 5-way intersections when it could just as easily send me one street over for no additional time cost.
Most big cities publish data on their most dangerous intersections, so it's not like it should be an especially hard problem to fix.
Published data is a catch-22. Dangerous intersections may look worse than other options simply due to the fact that they're more heavily used. In my area, I have 3 different options to get to the same location:
1. Take the most western-route to a traffic light, make a right, and then another right into the destination.
2. Take a more slightly eastern single-lane back road that puts me right out at the destination with still an immediate right onto the main road before getting there (danger factor in the single-lane aspect)
3. Take the most eastern route, make an unprotected left turn onto the main highway (often having to use the center median lane as a buffer for space), and then make another unprotected left into the destination.
Option 1 would show the most published crash data since it's a traffic-light intersection and is most busy by default, while I'd argue that it's also still the safest.
Yup. Google tries to get me to make a left turn from a stop sign across 4 lanes of main street suburban traffic rather than waiting at the traffic light one block north - a light that that also backs traffic up past the stop sign when the main street traffic flow stops. I wrote them a couple of times a few years back, but I've learned to ignore the directions.
I imagine the algorithm that Google is using to send you to that route is simply that other users before you that have used that route have progressed quicker than others that used the "safe" one.
To your point, Logan Airport in Boston is a pain to drive to, except there is a freeway that goes directly there. However, Google Maps directions starting north of Boston (Bedford area, for example) will drive you through the industrial port area where roads are not well paved, painted, or marked, all to save 1m of travel time. Apple Maps puts you on the freeway as expected (this was my experience pre-pandemic).
On the flip side, Apple Maps has led me to closed roads and routes that don't actually exist, while Google Maps has never done that.
No one solution will be perfect, as they don't have exactly the same goals.
Where I live, Google maps like to suggest this one comically evil route that takes you across 3 lanes of traffic, through a "roundabout" then across the 3 lanes of opposing traffic. On a highway. While yes, the "roundabout" does exist, its there for only two reasons: for emergency vehicles to idle in and for routing traffic when the segment of highway beyond is closed.
Two big factors were that Google made itself an early mover in this space, and it made the product available for free.
In the world before Google Maps, maps were frightfully expensive, or tremendously outdated.
I worked for a company that subscribed to a digital mapping service. We paid large sums of money each year for the right to use the maps. In addition to having a dedicated terminal, we even had a full-time staffer whose job was to touch up the generated maps for our purposes.
Then Google bought Keyhole, and made all of its treasures available to the public for free.
It's like someone opened a bakery and gave away bread for free until all the other bakeries went out of business. A business model that drug dealers sometimes use.
Then the remaining Google bakery decided that the way it would make money from its bread monopoly is to collect personal data on everyone who eats bread, while pretending that the bread is available at no cost.
Adding an anecdatum here to match a sibling -- Google maps has become a bit of a joke in my family. It consistently does everything it can to avoid putting us on major highways despite not having that option checked. It has taken us on crazy back-country roads constant going 25mph in deer season in pitch black to save us 1 minute rather than putting us on the highway. If we get back on the highway, it just tries to route us back onto the country road as soon as physically possible.
Apple Maps may have less data and thus not always be up to date, but in the 6 months we've been using it since I got a new iPhone, it has never once steered us on a path we didn't expect. Every time we get in the car we can choose to use my phone or my wife's and we always pick mine for that reason.
Google made a change a while back to offer the most energy efficient ("greenest") route. Maybe a frontage road at 40mph burns less fuel than 75mph on the interstate?
The big thing I'd ask on that is "How much time did the really strange routes cost you?" Because in the real world, a route being "strange" is often somewhat irrelevant if your goal is to get from point A to point B.
Apple Maps is so much closer to feature/quality parity to Google Maps than most people realize because of the negative publicity surrounding its launch.
A whole lot of people on iPhones just don't use Apple Maps for that reason but I think it's easily the preferable choice of the two.
I think the overall design of the UI is smoother, simpler, and better. One example where Google is behind: you can't add the Transit overlay and use 3D at the same time. Google's 3D building view is cluttered and can't be seen zoomed out as much as in Apple Maps.
When you zoom and scroll around in Apple Maps, it consistently has higher framerates and less stutters than Google.
I also love the quality and performance of Look Around, despite it not being as comprehensive as Street View.
Yeah, Google naturally does have heaps of data. But it's mobile device data. It's really hard for them to figure out when people are in cars, buses, bikes, etc. Did you ever see the artist that created "red traffic jams" on google maps by using 100 phones in a kiddy trailer?
TOmTom's mentioned it a bit over the years, having something like 600 million connected devices. Every satnav, car with their maps in, reports traffic data back. Majority cars on the road use TT traffic data I think.
As for routing algos, they vary a lot and the map isnt entirely responsible for how effective they are.
There definitely needs to be an alternate to google, you're right there. Data is the start, hopefully with this news, it consolidates the competition, so its everyone vs google. not just google versus an uncoordinated mass
> It's really hard for them to figure out when people are in cars, buses, bikes, etc. Did you ever see the artist that created "red traffic jams" on google maps by using 100 phones in a kiddy trailer?
I don't think it's got much to do with the map data being hard to figure at as much as "carrying 100 phones set to a car trip up and down the road in a hand pulled wagon for an hour" being an irrelevant thing to worry about. 100 people aren't going to be driving on top of each other with the directions accidentally set to walk very often and outside of that kind of use case the data is going to be extraordinarily accurate.
Business Profiles on Google Maps drives the monopoly.
If you want your business found on Google Maps, you need to provide the address, hours, etc. This is one of the first things you do when you open a business, even if you don't have a website.
Not many people bother to add the same to OpenStreetMap and that's why everyone uses Google over OSM to search for businesses.
Well, when I registered an LLC in the US, Google mailed me a postcard to confirm my address, and third-party providers begin calling to help "claim my Google listing". So they've really created an ecosystem that you immediately become part of rather than something you have to seek out. Edit: I also completely agree that this is what drives the monopoly.
Apple Maps in the areas I've lived in has been just as good (and bad) in routing and real time info. That wasn't always true but in the last few years it certainly is. With Google Maps declining into ad placements (for things I'll never go to at that) and Apple Maps continuing to get better the choice has been pretty easy lately.
I use osmand and have no issues with it. Haven't needed Google maps in some years so some of it might be people just don't know about the alternatives.
I have had several issues with my personal .me domain. I’ve attributed it to poorly configured systems that consider it risky simply because it’s the TLD for Montenegro - despite it having millions of registrations for other legitimate purposes.
Hmm, I’m currently using a me TLD and I don't think I’m having trouble. But I’m on a good host and all my dmarc etc is set right. Give yourself a check with https://www.learndmarc.com/
Yeah, I have SPF, DKIM, and a strict DMARC policy all configured for Fastmail, but some hosts just refuse to pass the mail. It's pretty random and sporadic, but it happens. I've also had some web forms refuse to recognize it as a valid email address.
A long time ago my fastmail.us didn't get accepted in places but I can't say I've had problems with that in recent years. Never had a issue with my me, I think people are well aware of the new tlds now.
As an extra bit of authenticity I've been smime signing my sent mail. Not encrypting, just signed. I figure that something no spamer is going to do and I’m hoping any spam filter will look at and pass it. Assuming they don't ignore it and make it a waste of time.
Obsidian works perfectly fine with iCloud Drive if you're bought into the Apple ecosystem. It also works well with Google Drive, but that doesn't play well with iOS.
I just started using Duplicati last week as my backup for ~900GB worth of photos, music, and other assorted data in an Ubuntu RAID1 array to Backblaze B2. I noticed it was a little sketchy when I poked at it (i.e. pausing the backup), but didn't realize it was so unstable. The initial backup did finish.
I do daily drive it for work, though, and have found the tab management to be really great. I know I can emulate some of the features with other add-ons in Firefox, but it's more elegant in Arc.
Glad to see a company thinking somewhat fresh in this space.