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The cost of a new ladder fire truck

2023-06-05

I'm not sure why this caught my eye, but it did. Our local city just agreed to purchase a new ladder fire truck, a steal at just $1,449,853.

I'm not sure if I would've predicted more or less.

The Stack Fallacy

2023-06-03

By Anush Sharma. There's a lot of good stuff in here that I'll just quote directly:

Stack fallacy is the mistaken belief that it is trivial to build the layer above yours.

Database companies believe that SaaS apps are “just a database app” — this gives them false confidence that they can easily build, compete and win in this new market.

In a surprising way, it is far easier to innovate down the stack than up the stack. The reason for this is that you are yourself a natural customer of the lower layers. Apple knew what it wanted from an ideal future microprocessor. It did not have the skills necessary to build it, but the customer needs were well understood. Technical skills can be bought/acquired, whereas it is very hard to buy a deep understanding of market needs.

Product management is the art of knowing what to build. The stack fallacy provides insights into why companies keep failing at the obvious things —  things so close to their reach that they can surely build. The answer may be that the what is 100 times more important than the how.

Switzerland has a navy?

2023-06-02

Apparently so, although it used to be bigger.

the Swiss flag currently flies on only 14 ocean vessels, well down from the 50 ships in 2017. In that year, an embarrassing shipping fraud cost the taxpayer CHF215 million ($237 million), forcing a rethink of maritime strategy.

via SwissInfo.ch

US marriage rates

2023-05-24

pew_marriage_rates.jpeg

Amazing statistics from Pew. In 1980 63% of 25 year olds were married and 39% had children at home!

I'm agnostic to whether or not this is a good or a bad change, but I'm amazed at how different it is.