Gene Burrus

@johnondrasik Five for Fighting Billy Joel Rolling Stones Supertramp Earth Wind and Fire Steve Miller Band Clint Black Zack Brown Band Elton John Jerry Jeff Walker

Introduce yourself with 10 bands you've seen live: Billy Elton Queen Journey Page & Plant The Who Tori Amos Earth Wind & Fire Prince Paul The Cars

🚨New podcast launched: The Center Edge. Tech policy gets made in the center. The rhetoric lives at the edge. This show is about both. 👇Episode 1 with Chair @BrendanCarrFCC is out now —drones, routers, satellites, and evolving Republican approaches to leading the agency.

If you were against Obama’s third party settlement nonsense, this should outrage! “Hard-to-supervise slush funds aimed at financing well-connected political allies are exactly the sort of thing a populist presidency is supposed to end.”

This is a critical moment in the battle against the App Store empire to win freedom for all developers and consumers, and we'll continue the fight in every jurisdiction worldwide until competition is restored to digital stores and payment markets everywhere.

The problem with LA is the "Everything's Fine" people. These are people that came to LA after its heyday and during its decline after the financial crash of 2008. The more recent the transplant, the less they are aware of what Los Angeles used to be. They have no idea all the areas that used to be lively, or that there was a world class music and night life scene. If you mention there weren't homeless people shitting on the streets everywhere, they call you a MAGA fascist because unhoused people have rights too and Everything's Fine. If you mention entire neighborhoods like the Pacific Palisades did not burn down, they say you should not be blaming the mayor for the weather (which is controlled by global warming Republicans) and Everything's Fine. You can say it's really not normal for so many shops to be closed all over Los Angeles with empty storefronts, and they'll say something about equity and that Everything's Fine. The street vendors on sidewalks in front of KoreaTown restaurants that are shutting down? That's totally fine because that's LA culture (no it fucking isn't newbie). Crime? Everything's Fine. These theater kid transplants from Michigan say why are you complaining, move somewhere else. They don't know what they don't know. Then they drink a $20 Erewhon smoothie thinking that's the height of LA culture. Everything's Fine.

@OperationTytter @sandeepvaheesan @HalSinger Oh cmon. I think he should have passed an ordinance prohibiting surveillance pricing. That’s a good function of a city government. But there literally isn’t a single person in the Mayors office who has ever run a grocery store. I’m sure they’ll do a bang up job.

@geneburrus @sandeepvaheesan @HalSinger You can't really think that grocery stores haven't been fucking consumers over through surveillance pricing. A Kroger exec admitting to raising prices beyond the rate of inflation. There's room for them to bring down prices, they just don't want to because people are still paying

The complaints from private grocery store owners in the article are a good sign that a public rival could actually lower prices and improve quality and help NYC residents

@mattyglesias Proven to work! Seattle abandoned public safety downtown, and as a result real estate has become 50% cheaper since 2019. This is what we mean by evidence based solutions.

The synthesis is that George's most realistic plan to make the city cheaper is that she's gonna make crime higher.

@NathanJRobinson Yes, but a city government should deliver things like public safety, roads etc. Instead of focusing on delivering those things that a city government should deliver, he’s going to engineer a laughably collossal failure at something city government shouldn’t try to provide.

Mamdani knows the problem isn't with the concept of government, it's with the delivery. Bureaucracy is maddening. State repression is evil. We just need to build a public sector that delivers what it promises, so that people are relieved when they government is there to help.

Mamdani is right. Reagan was wrong. "I'm from the government and I'm here to help" is not "scary." What about if you're lost in a forest? What if your house is on fire? Public sector workers are incredibly useful in some of our most difficult situations. Government is good.

@jacobin @NathanJRobinson He is of course, going to prove Reagan right. He’s here to “help” people buy groceries. But he’s doing nothing to help drive down food costs. He (stupidly) picked the part of the food distribution chain (grocery stores) that is the least of the problems in driving up costs.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani mocks Ronald Reagan’s infamous quote. “I can think of nine words more terrifying than ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help…’” “I worked all day and can’t feed my family.”

Bill Maher: "The CEO was Apple was [in China with the U.S. delegation]. Very sweet moment when the CEO of Apple saw all the kids and he said, 'get back to work.'"

Tail cameras on aircraft are the best addition to in-flight entertainment for avgeek passengers. 📹: PegasusA4

@kausmickey As a resident of downtown Seattle (which is in a similar situation) who is sometimes lectured by non residents about how it’s not really bad or nothing needs to change, this rings so true. If you don’t live in it, it is hard to comprehend.

@kausmickey “It’s not a nice word to call someone who’s fallen into a bottomless abyss of hallucinations and thrashing self-destruction. But anyone living here knows exactly what he means. For anyone not living here, it’s nearly impossible to comprehend what has become of the place.”

"What Los Angeles Has Become" theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/05/…

@statelinx @joellthayer @SayreEvan They are being “punished” for failing to comply with competition laws all over the world. Obligations that come with great success. Success doesn’t buy immunity.

Punished for their success. I think they provide a unique advantage. I like their closed system. I don’t want slop or risky apps on their platform. It’s the reason I use their devices. But, yes, developers can go to Android. Just because people chose Apple, doesn’t entitle developers access to their platform without following the rules. I really don’t care if they have so many global users. We should only care about US users. But I appreciate the discussion even though it sounds motivated by special interests rent seeking.

In 2009, Apple welcomed developers to its platform with a catchy slogan: "There's an app for that." These days, Apple is kicking vibe coding apps off the App Store that threaten its moat. As @geneburrus explains, Apple's shift coincided with achieving gatekeeper power.

@statelinx @joellthayer @SayreEvan History says otherwise. If they were actually “closed”, no one would have purchased an iPhone. “There’s an app for that” has become: “well. Not for that and not if we want to extract money from that market” No different than Microsoft with Internet Explorer and Media Player.

@statelinx @joellthayer @SayreEvan I don’t think anyone on this thread is an Apple “hater”. But a few of us are not wearing Apple beer goggles. No one disputes they are a great company. (More of a Chinese one than American). But even (especially) great companies are not exempt from competition laws.

Android? And have they been declared a monopoly? Hundreds of the thousands of developers are currently offering apps on their platform. They aren’t competing with those developers. Maybe I see it differently because I’m not a hardcore Apple hater. I just don’t see it. It’s a great, American company providing awesome products and opportunities to their customers.

@statelinx @SayreEvan @geneburrus It's not just my take. It's the take of the U.S., E.U., and U.K. As for developers, they seem not think they can. I outline how some have described their experience here: law.stanford.edu/wp-content/upl…

@statelinx @joellthayer @SayreEvan yes they are a monopoly. and no, developers can't just go to another platform. Which platform would you suggest they go to in order to reach the 1.5 billion iPhone users in the world, most of whom don't own a second phone?

@joellthayer @SayreEvan @geneburrus So it’s your take they are a monopoly? Can’t developers go to another platform?

@LukeKIRO @KIRONewsradio @Mynorthwest "anymore"?? It never has worked.

"That does not work anymore..." Fmr Seattle City Council Pres about Katie Wilson's Harm Reduction approach to drugs and homelessness. Nelson also reacting to Wilson's budget, taxes on businesses, and more - only here on @KIRONewsradio @Mynorthwest