Line Go Up: Book Review of “The Cold Start Problem,” by Andrew Chen
I was recently hanging out with a buddy who, responding to my standby joke about how we must all be
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Two Things Making The Internet Unusable In 2023
The tech sector is trying to both expand the use of artificial intelligence while clinging on to the dying days of an epic business cycle. Both are contributing to making the internet, IoT, and any consumer product even remotely connected to the internet, increasingly unusable, increasingly resource-intensive, and increasingly frustrating.
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The Mom & Pop Stores Are Dead. Long Live The Mom & Pop Stores.
We’re constantly being told that the age of Amazon has arrived, and mom-and-pop hardware stores are dead, forever. There are elements of truth to this. But there is an eternal flame burning within the model of small, independent business– that is unlikely to ever be extinguished, no matter how big companies like Amazon or Home Depot may become.
Read MoreYear-End Wrap-Up: Handbuilt’s 2021 Reading List
2021 was, in many ways, even weirder than 2020. Was the pandemic finally over? Or was it just another series
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“Detroit: Become Livonia” – Mike Duggan
Detroit’s mayor has a vision for the city. It involves a lot of parking lots, and a lot of low-wage jobs. But there’s a better way.
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Amazon, Lifeline or Scourge For Retail-Starved, Rural Communities?
Amazon is committed to a money-losing strategy to try and cop rural market share. But it’s not exactly a great deal for consumers, either. Looking at some examples from Maine and an example from California, we can learn a bit about the challenges facing retail in rural communities as well as how Amazon is (maybe) thinking about this issue.
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Summer Breeze: Heat Pumps, Mini-Splits, and the Magic of Thermodynamics
Mini-splits are the coolest new thing. Literally. Here is a guide to how to figure out how to navigate the sea of product options based on a simple calculation.
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Webinar: Tech To Reduce Guesswork for Safer Streets
Traffic technology has improved by leaps and bounds in recent decades. While the ultimate solutions to ending traffic violence must come with better street designs and a reduced reliance on single-occupant automobiles, there are some interesting developments in technology that are allowing better modeling to understand driver behavior, intersection safety, and more. We learned about it from a webinar co-hosted by Canadian tech company Miovision.
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AliExpress: The New Amazon? Or, Close, But No Cigar?
An exhaustive review of AliExpress, the Chinese Amazon and the “foreign office” of global giant AliBaba.
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Trying To Bump Up Those Margins? Have You Considered… Stealing?
Amazon has a long and sordid history of stealing the designs of companies that sell on its platform– and making their products themselves, to be sold at a lower price. One company decided to troll them in response.
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