As an iPhone user I much prefer any payment to go through apple payment UI, it’s just safer and hassle free, I don’t need to worry about scammy payment traps.

As a developer I can see the financial reasoning behind implementing third party payment methods.

I think focusing on the syntax level is a bit superficial. While Ruby (especially in the context of RoR) lends itself very well to making DSLs and making abstractions, and thus writing superficially good looking, concise, easy to follow (on a syntax level) application code, it really breaks down when the abstraction does not work perfectly the way you want it.

If you have debugged a Rails app and tried to find where in the 10 level call stack a side effect is introduced, knowing that at each level a 'method_missing' could've changed things, and thus you're really looking at a non-linear call stack since each function call can branch out, you'll know the beautiful looking syntax is not free and in fact very costly.

And don't get me started on poorly documented (if any) CoC (black magic)..

I think the syntax is very important. It is the aesthetics of a wood floor versus a vinyl floor. Sure, both may get it done, but clean and beautiful syntax that resonants with your brain makes the job more delightful.

> And don't get me started on poorly documented (if any) CoC (black magic)..

I have never liked the idea of (framework-enforced) CoC.

First of all, RoR isn't as CoC as it claims; many things can be configured, which defeats the purpose entirely, and all that remains is the a CoC philosophy.

If Rails would actually enforce CoC, it'd be too restrictive to build anything new with it, so true framework-enforced CoC is not really viable in the real world.

So what people really mean when they say is "Convention over Configuration" they really just mean that the framework doesn't generate a default configuration, but instead the defaults are all encoded within the framework code and its documentation. This is bad. The only benefit is that an empty project looks less cluttered, but that is really only an aesthetic advantage to draw in new users.

The downside is that the project loses documentation. Ideally, I want to jump into a new project, open a config file and be able to have a look at all of its configurations. In Rails I can't do this; I have to either memorize or look up the defaults and then check if they're changed in the current project.

Ultimately, its idea of CoC makes rails easier for starters to get into, but a total pain for people who don't care to get into it and just want to make some specific change and for anyone with a specific goal in mind that doesn't align neatly with how the framework thinks you should do things.

I agree with you on the comment about abstractions, but I think I would rather have Rails with esoteric code than something less "conventional" with esoteric code.

yeah, esoteric is bad, whether Rails or others. But that's just my impression with Rails, and I'm much more comfortable using other less magical libraries. I guess Ruby is just too good at making abstractions, and I tend to believe that 'making and using abstractions feel great and productive, unless it's made by others'

CoC means many things. What do you use it to mean here?

Yeah, sorry for the abbreviation. I meant 'Convention over Configuration'

Probably "convention over configuration".

my best bet: Convention over Configuration (had to google tbh)

That would be a lot of mechanism to jam into the already (IMO) oversized case.

They failed because they were not able to adapt to the Chinese market/have any competitive advantage against alibaba or JD which is the point the article is trying to make. None of what you mentioned is alluded in the article.

My contention is that wouldn't matter. If they did adapt to the Chinese market and seriously started to eat market share from the likes of Alibaba I GUARANTEE you the rules would change to Amazon's disadvantage.

Nah, I doubt it. Just look at how successful Apple and Microsoft are in China.

Other brands too. You don’t see the government changing the laws so Li-Ning can beat Nike.

Apple and Microsoft both have products that don't have any Chinese equal. Competing with macOS or Windows is probably the hardest thing to do in the software world at the moment.

Or maybe pandaily was scared to say anything against China. Honestly, the fact that there was no talk about regulation in that article is a huge red flag. Why would China allow international companies to play in their turf when they eComm can generate 100s of billions of dollars of value for local companies (as it has)?

Well, then, I guess the author of the comment must disagree with the article.

Yeah, that’s what companies do : look at the stats. And as long as stats say it’s rare enough, it’s not that bad.

People are boycotting not because there’s a higher chance of being murdered/kidnapped with Didi, but that the company was unresponsive, did not have proper procedure/policy for vetting drivers, and took way too long to get even basic info about the suspect driver.

What the stats say here, higher or lower, is moot. Because the issue is that Didi does not give a shit about passenger safety.

> Because the issue is that Didi does not give a shit about passenger safety.

Didi intentionally setup the system this way to promote its rideshare as a hook up service for its drivers. When describing the service, its top management made it clear that such a service in which drivers and passengers are locked up in a moving car provides a "sexy scenario" and thus Didi must take the opportunity and try its best to promote such hook up experience.

It is not like Didi doesn't care much about passenger safety, Didi actively puts passenger into danger for its own financial gains and knowingly denied police intervention when its passenger was in danger.

That is insane. They deserve to go out of business.

I can't imagine that Lyft or Uber could have done something like this. But maybe I'm just too naive.

can you link a write-up about this?

if you google for the terms "滴滴 sexy" in which "滴滴" is the Chinese name of Didi, you get tons of reports.

I didn't speak clearly enough perhaps. It sounds like Didi could have prevented these murders. So, they should have, both morally and from a self interest perspective.

But when we look from outside in at the significance of this, it's nonetheless worth thinking of it in the context of its scale. That's not to justify anything, but merely to understand.

> Does anyone check every video afterwards to ensure that all the blocked content was indeed terrorist content?

They might not, but they could sample them to be statistically confident?

That’s called a phantom jam, happens right now on 101 with humans;) Won’t happen if only people don’t tailgate.

[offtopic]Yep. I'm usually in the "slow lane" bemidst truckers, amusing myself by watching the Giant Car Worm on the "fast lane".[/offtopic]

Actually, if everyone perfectly tailgated out of a rolling jam, then they'd all be fine. Instead you get people that let a large enough gap open for them to accelerate faster than the car in front, then they have to brake when they reach that lead car again. This slinky effect is what causes those rolling traffic jams and why they can break them by slow-rolling in from of the jam to force everyone to stop the slinky effect.

I imagine phantom jams will pretty much be a thing of the past once we reach a certain percentage of cars running auto-braking cruise control. Have there been studies on what that percentage is?

You have to characterize the control behavior to model whether the system will dampen its response or create a sustained or amplifying feedback loop as all the agents interact. These traffic jams are essentially standing waves propagating between agents.

You don't erase the standing wave by having everybody maintain a fixed following distance or mimicking the speed of their leader. You need to predict future changes and allow the space to contract to help smooth out the transient disruptions and slowly rebound without over-shooting. You want each following car to react less than the previous and have a weaker deceleration/acceleration curve.

Unfortunately, I have noticed increasingly absurd feedback loops in long distance routes here in CA. As a user of conventional cruise control, I can't help but notice how frequently I now have to intervene to adjust speeds in relatively light traffic conditions. On long drives like LA-SF via I-5, these yo-yo drivers are my new nemesis. I don't know if it is due to their use of adaptive cruise controls or a more basic loss of attention or self-awareness. For example, I see packs of cars with speeds oscillating between 55-80 MPH when conditions should easily allow a steady cruise at 75 MPH.

I’ve thought about this and and I think the best thing to do here is to relentlessly keep a long, safe distance from vehicles ahead. There are just things you can’t possibly see that the driver before you can.(a puppy/squirrel/whatever that he wants to avoid killing, you can’t possibly know). You can’t anticipate what a human will do here.

You also give yourself a buffer when vehicle ahead have an emergency stop - imagine there’s a truck behind you.

I guess what I’m saying is these ‘brake checks’ are welcome, even if they only serve to educate people.

Problem is everybody else have to behave similarly, otherwise other cards just take the place of that safe distance.

It might be annoying, but even if a few cars get in between you usually don't lose much by getting a safe distance again.

I second this.

There are three scenarios if I'm not overtaking:

1) I'm going faster than the vehicle in front. In this case, it doesn't matter if another vehicle pulls in between us because I'm about to overtake anyway.

2) I'm going slower than the vehicle in front. In this case, it doesn't matter if another vehicle pulls in between us because I'm falling back and the gap is ever-increasing.

3) I'm going approximately the same speed as the vehicle in front. In this case, there tend to be two ways a vehicle pulls inbetween us:

a- it's merging from an on-slip-road (on-ramp?), in which case this doesn't happen often, and I'll just fall back or overtake b- it's just overtaken me, then slotted into a gap that's too small for it anyway. If the car has overtaken me, it's mostly because it wants to go faster (in which case it will probably vacate the space again soon) or it wants to pull off (in which case it will definitely vacate the space again).

If I am overtaking, then yes, someone may pull into the gap, but I'm still overtaking the vehicle I want to get past.

If you stop worrying about going 2mph faster than another lane of traffic, then leaving a safe gap is mostly pretty easy and stress-free. It will only take you 15 minutes longer to drive 200 miles at 65 than at 70.

Here in the UK, where we drive on the left and overtaking is only allowed to the right of slower vehicles under normal conditions, there are some other variations:

c- a vehicle in the lane to your left that you were going to overtake has itself caught up with a slower vehicle and wants to pull out to overtake it, moving into the gap in front of you

d- a vehicle with an impatient driver is undertaking traffic (passing to the left of slower vehicles) and then moves into the gap in front of you.

The first of these is a normal situation, but still results in a vehicle moving into the space in front of you, sometimes without accelerating up to your speed first. Fortunately, it's usually easy to anticipate this situation, and many drivers will helpfully drop back a little to allow more space for the other vehicle to move out.

The second of these is a result of aggressive and probably illegal driving, and is more of a problem because the driver cutting in may well be going too fast, move out into a space that isn't really wide enough, and then brake suddenly.

Still, in my experience these don't cause much delay if you're allowing a sensible gap in front. I find people who try to keep closer to the car in front to deter others from pulling into "their" space seem to get far more upset about these situations than I do.

(also in the UK) Completely agree with your closing remark. By and large, by deciding to not care about stopping cars getting in front of me, it doesn't bother me when they do. Any delay is completely negligible.

When this happens to me on my commute, I find it incredibly hilarious. Sometimes I wave at the driver through their rear-view when we are inevitably stopped at the same stoplight not 2 minutes later.

I find myself on both sides of this equation, sometimes "what a waste, why did this guy bother passing?", and sometimes "Phew, finally in front of THAT person"(even if we are stopped at the same light, but I'm now in front).

Reminds me of the George Carlin line: "anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac"

Agree. In Europe, if you follow the recommended safety distance, you always have the time to brake if anything happens to the car in front of you. The problem is that people do not follow them.

Following the recommended safety distance (2-3 seconds of travel distance if I recall correctly) is quite difficult in moderate to heavy traffic.

If you leave a large enough gap with the car in front, then people will merge into that gap. If you then slow down to create a new gap - people will overtake and merge in again. You end up travelling slower than the rest of traffic, with people overtaking and merging, which creates dangers in itself.

> I think the best thing to do here is to relentlessly keep a long, safe distance from vehicles ahead.

In Germany, this is legally required. However, the safety distance is often abused by other vehicles when passing.

This is just generally good advice and always has been. Don't drive too closely to stop safely.

I wish I could go back to 10 :/