Mars, Inc is a private, family-owned company. Presumably they still like making money, but the stereotype of daily stock price obsessed CEO doesn't apply here as there is no traded stock.
Many years ago as a young developer I read Fielding's dissertation, Fowler's writings on the Richardson Maturity Model and even a book (don't remember the title) on the topic. Then I spent the next dozen years creating, reading, updating and deleting JSON APIs.
Problem Details (RFC 9457) are useful and have made an occasional appearance, but actual hypermedia driven APIs with custom media types seem to be non-existent outside of example blog posts. It's much more common to instead see APIs overload lesser-used HTTP status codes with their own domain-specific meanings. But if I'm being honest, this sort of protocol crime almost never caused an actual problem in practice.
The advocacy for "true REST" is missing a compelling argument and useful example of why it would actually be an improvement. Despite its prominence, for over 20 years almost nobody has used this approach. Why is that?
I do still have an aesthetic appreciation for "true REST", but in practice I find the fact that nobody uses it to be mainly useful in ending bikeshedding discussions. Once you understand your API isn't RESTful to begin with, there's no longer any point in arguing if 411 or 412 is the more RESTful status code to use when a user attempts to order a product without specifying a quantity. (Spoiler: neither is correct) You simply send a 400 with Problem Details and call it a day. Ironically, this indifference may make your API just a little bit more RESTful.
I had flashbacks to when I first started making web apps. I used to care so very much about this. I haven’t thought about capital REST in years.
Edit: a few minutes after I wrote that I had the thought, what if this is someone else’s arc with AI code. A lot of people seem to care a whole awful lot right now. A decade time horizon is interesting to think about.
> I do still have an aesthetic appreciation for "true REST", but in practice I find the fact that nobody uses it to be mainly useful in ending bikeshedding discussions. Once you understand your API isn't RESTful to begin with, there's no longer any point in arguing if 411 or 412 is the more RESTful status code to use when a user attempts to order a product without specifying a quantity.
I think I have a fundamental objection to the idea that Fielding and Fielding alone got to decide what REST is. While there hasn't been any kind of formal counterproposal, in some sense REST is what we make of it. Re: http 400 codes, I think many of us really liked the general principle of "use http semantics!" and applied that to error codes as well. That's agreeing with the principle and extending it in new ways that we like and are "truer" to the principle, even if it wasn't intended.
In my mind this is sort of analogous to talking about the relationship between linux and unix. Linux is clearly not a genetic or copyright unix, but I've seen it said before that linux is the culmination of unix principles, in some cases extended beyond what was originally envisioned in ways that are innovative and genuine improvements (io_uring perhaps?).
The REST we have today - http semantics, specific error codes, etc - may be significantly different from what Fielding may have wanted, but IMO it implements the parts that really distinguish it from the RPC world of API architecture, and I think we're generally happy with that.
The author's case is not helped by fighting a strawman argument and backing it up with atypical examples of AI usage.
Those who favor human writing are looking for writing where the words are the product of a human mind rather than an LLM. The requirement for every character to be the product of a finger pressing a key is not something I've seen. Alternative input methods doesn't make a writing non-human. Spellcheck and probably even some amount of auto-complete are also generally considered to be fine. Anyone checking for keystrokes is using it as a proxy for human creation, not valuing the physical motion itself.
The pro-AI example is a writer spending hours tweaking a single AI output then later re-arranging and rewriting the piece before publishing. While this would probably still set off some AI-detectors, it does at least include some human effort. Presumably this effort will not be appreciated and readers will assume that the poster simply copied the response directly from their LLM of choice. It may seem a bit unfair to ignore the human effort in revising, but it's a reasonable assumption to make because almost nobody is using LLMs in this way.
Perhaps there's a reasonable amount of LLM use which would be considered a writing aid rather than a writing replacement, but the vast majority are simply mass producing slop so I sympathize with those who favor a blanket ban as a response.
Your example is an interesting one, as the Reagan administration is a broad topic with many books covering just a small slice. If you are solely interested in the foreign policy of Reagan, you could find books on Iran-Contra, SDI, Grenada, the American response to the Soviet-Afghan war, the Reykjavik Summit etc.
Wikipedia is a great resource and I use it a lot, but it is far from a complete solution for topics with any depth. If I read an article on a president, I'll get a brief overview of their administration as well as a few interesting facts and could probably answer a jeopardy question about them, but I would not claim a strong understanding.
I will agree that not every bit of information can be found in a book, but the ability to comprehend book-level arguments and ideas is critical. They are a necessary, but not sufficient component of learning.
Energy is more difficult to gauge, but the average American has over 5 hours of leisure time daily. When there was more of a time crunch in the past, Americans read more.
In 2021, Russia was the source of 52% of Germany's gas. Following the expansion of the Ukraine conflict in 2022 imports from Russia quickly dropped. The biggest suppliers of gas to Germany last year were Norway, Netherlands and Belgium. LNG from the United States and other countries has increased to 10% which is not nearly enough to replace the Russian imports. The phaseout was accomplished by drastically reducing overall gas usage.
This comes off as a quite dismissive and incurious take. Are you quite sure that of the ~500 million consumers who bought a pair, nobody considered utility and it was simply a fashion choice? Or is it more likely that some consumers judge the utility differently from you?
I happen to have a pair of airpod pro 2 and some Sony's (the airpods being a gift). Nothing about the airpods strikes me as being clearly superior, which is surprisingly rare for Apple products: they tend to all stand out in one way or another, whether that's essential to the experience or not (I have no use for an iPad, but I can tell a good display when I see one, I wouldn't keep a MacBook if one was gifted to me, but I can appreciate a good trackpad, …).
Airpods? I have nothing bad to say about them, but nothing good either (I rather take the Sony's with better NC and battery life on a flight, better audio quality and painless equalizer).
> Or is it more likely that some consumers judge the utility differently from you?
That's possibly the case, so help me, what I am missing?
The linked post on Take Take Take is interesting. Magnus Carlsen created a chess.com competitor and eventually sold it to chess.com and became a sponsor. While working as a sponsor he then created a new chess.com competitor.
I'm a Lichess patron and happy to see them get support, but I do feel a bit bad for chess.com in this case. Magnus is such a big figure in chess that organizations like FIDE and chess.com feel they have no choice but to accommodate his whims, but that doesn't come with any guarantees. I hope Lichess does not find themselves in a poor position if Magnus decides to "alter the deal".
Magnus has said multiple times in the past - through the predecessors he owned or was involved with that he is not involved in the business side much at all; he's mostly an investor and a promotional actor. Of course they didn't do this without his agreement. He's always been a fan of Lichess too and played lots of their tournaments.
> Magnus Carlsen, co-founder of Take Take Take, will not be actively promoting the platform at launch. With Take Take Take now offering a full play and learning experience, it enters territory that conflicts with his ambassador agreement with Chess.com. He remains a co-founder and the company's largest shareholder, and the team expects his involvement to resume once those contractual constraints change. For now, the product will have to speak for itself.
All large systems are inherently weak when one individual has an outsized influence on their outcomes. The solution is not to hope Magnus is altruistic, but to not allow Magnus (or any individual) to drive meaningful outcomes directly or through their combined influence/followings.
Magnus "drives meaningful outcomes" because he's really good at chess and members of the public enjoy watching him play, so various chess-related businesses will pay him money for sponsorship. How do you propose to "not allow him" that influence? Ban all use of people's names in marketing and products?
My commentary goes above and beyond just Magnus. Re: Magnus. Sponsorships are fine. Him making money is fine. He shouldn't be able to dictate the rules of the game or the platforms by which it is played. IMO.
He's not the first person to be "really good at chess".
It's a broad statement meant to mean "celebrities have too big of a platform and too much influence over the average joe".
Magnus doesn't "dictate the rules of the game or the platforms by which it is played", so I'm not sure what your point is.
You think Magnus should be forced to participate in chess events he doesn't enjoy / doesn't like the format of? Or you think organizations like FIDE or chess.com should be blocked from trying to entice Magnus to participate in their events?
Thank you being a rare sensible voice on this topic. The fanboyism of chess fans is insane these days. I get that the average age of chess fans these days is very low, probably 14 or so, but it’s still pretty annoying.
Unfortunately, this does not save you. The NYT has a paywall and still has this terrible experience, which caused me to unsubscribe. I remain subscribed to The Atlantic because while it still relies on advertising, the print version is at least readable.
The March 2026 issue has 12 ads across 109 pages including the back cover. Ads do not appear within an article. I even sometimes read the ads, because many are about new book releases. I opened the cover story (just one article!) of this issue within the mobile app and encountered 38 advertisements. The ads take up nearly half the screen and there is almost always one visible. These 38 instances were just the same four ads repeated many, many times.
This is just one issue of one publication, but it's representative of the broader problem the author discusses. I want to support good journalism and am willing to pay for good writers and articles but strategies that are so frustrating and disrespectful to the reader make it difficult.
It makes sense if you're looking at it from the perspective of a European investor. e.g. You start with 1000 EUR, convert and buy into an S&P500 fund, wait a year, sell and convert back to EUR.
Celsius and Fahrenheit doesn't work as an analogy because the rate does not change over time as it does with currencies.
I think it depends on whether you're planning on holding it in currency or using the currency to buy other things. Does the cost of material goods and services mostly stay the same in EUR, or does it somewhat follow the S&P? If more the latter, then converting to EUR is just a very temporary exchange and its nominal amount doesn't exactly matter.
> Does the cost of material goods and services mostly stay the same in EUR, or does it somewhat follow the S&P?
I don't understand this question, are you asking if material goods and services in Europe, which uses EUR, "somewhat" follows the S&P, a US stock market index?
If you have to hold USD to buy and sell USD products (as a European) it doesn't make sense to compare your SPY position vs EURUSD because you have to use those USD to buy something or pay some debt.
> If you have to hold USD to buy and sell USD products (as a European)
Approximately no individual does this. Some companies may hold some foreign currency reserves, but even there it is not _particularly_ common in most cases.
As a European, I have never, in 40 years, had any USD, except a small amount of paper currency. If I'm buying something made in the US, I'm probably buying from a local vendor, or else will convert on the fly. If I'm visiting the US, I'll convert on the fly (this is even cheap, now, thanks to neo-banks). I own a bunch of US equity, but indirectly via a euro-denominated global market index fund. This is fairly standard. In general it's only common for individuals to hold foreign currency where the local currency is particularly unstable.
> If you have to hold USD to buy and sell USD products (as a European)
Do people do this? Up until some months ago, I was heavily invested in some US companies, and I never actually held USD in my accounts at any point. I used EUR to buy those stocks, the conversion happening together with the purchase, and same thing when I sold them, I received EUR ultimately.
I know I could have another account in my bank with USD set to the currency, I just don't know why'd anyone would want to, when you can convert at the point of sale/purchase. Of course, if you're doing forex trading or whatever, that might make sense, but I don't think generally people hold USD to buy/sell US stocks, because you don't have to.
I mean, for retail investors outside the US, the question you're asking boils down to „does purchasing power parity follow popular US domestic market indices?“, to which the answer is a resounding no.
There may be some offset for goods imported from the US, but that's a minority of consumer goods globally, and even then, the purchase currency will usually still be the local fiat, and then the attractiveness of the US index fund still has to be weighed against the performance of non-US-based indices in that same local currency as opportunity cost.
> Does the cost of material goods and services mostly stay the same in EUR, or does it somewhat follow the S&P?
... Wait, why would you expect the price of goods to follow the valuation of, well, any market index, never mind one specific foreign market index? Like, I don't understand why you think that would happen. If anything, you'd expect a minor inverse relationship, at least on a global scale; rapid growth of cost of goods indicates inflation, which implies central bank tightening, which tends to depress stock values a bit.
Also an American investor, really; an American investor who'd pulled out of S&P and moved to Eurostoxx at the time would have made something like 40% in their local currency (about half of it due to the decline of the dollar).
