The web, as a platform, ecosystem, industry, and market, is in a very odd place.

• The platform is genuinely great. Bugs are inevitable – every non-trivial project will encounter an implementation bug in a major browser at some point – but the platform overall is in a good place with capabilities I wouldn’t have even dared to hope for a decade ago.
• The ecosystem is a disaster, a blighted nightmarish landscape of ill-conceived frameworks and packages, dominated by outdated ideas, bloated implementations, and a complete disconnect in multiple dimensions between outcomes, income, costs, and ROI – all built on broken or decaying systems. TypeScript just outright isn’t a good, sound, or stable programming language. Npm is a disaster waiting to happen and suffers from odd regressions (like search, currently). VS Code is a bloated surveillance system with coding tools bolted on. GitHub is just an LLM-slop injection vector at this point. It’s all fucking owned and controlled by Microsoft. You genuinely can’t trust any of your npm dependencies as any of them might turn on you in some way in a single update, some of them unintentionally through LLM-inspired malpractice.
• The industry is a mess. Layoffs continue. End-user outcomes and software quality in web apps have absolutely no effect on organisation decision-making. Web media is largely dependent on the ad market, which is almost certainly substantially driven by fraud or at least deceptive practices. Web media companies are also being starved of traffic by search engines switching wholesale to fabrication engines.
• The market is crap. Most Software-as-a-Service businesses are crap. They’re all dominated by the same disconnect between decisions and end-user outcomes. Oligopolies rule the roost. Want to start an independent ecommerce store? Shopify or WooCommerce are your only options, both run by people who outright seem irrational, each in their own way. Every product is adding extremely unreliable “AI” features but, what’s worse, is their existing core products are also deteriorating as the layoffs, inattention, and overuse of LLM-generated code take effect.

Already, this is looking quite shit, but it’s actually worse than you think – at least if you’re a regular coder in the industry.

Before the “AI” bubble hit, my work was generally divided into three groups:

• Freelance web dev. Mostly related to web-based reading, ebooks, or annotation and mostly from old contacts among those few who are still in business after the ebook bubble collapsed.
• Freelance training and education work. Much of it as a tech editor or reviewer. But also some writing and course design.
• Writing, such as sales for Out of the Software Crisis, and analysis.

My freelance web dev was always driven by the fact that not that many people have both expertise in ebook standards, reading-related issues, and annotation. as well as web development. I’ve never put much effort into getting other kinds of freelance web dev gigs from new contacts, so this part of my income has steadily been declining over the years.

The training and education work evaporated when the “AI” bubble began to inflate as the companies I had been working with either laid off all of my contacts, switched to “AI” solutions, or both. Ironically I didn’t notice initially because I was busy researching, writing, and publishing The Intelligence Illusion. I attempted to launch a web dev course of my own but that tanked because I was paying more attention to what interested me over what people in the industry needed. Also, my newsletter was entirely geared towards analysis and not web dev, so it wasn’t a great platform for launching anything resembling a web dev course.

Writing and analysis is what has occupied most of my attention over the past couple of years despite it generally not paying that well. Not nothing, but also not much, and definitely not proportional to the time I invested in the newsletter.

Even though the new US administration isn’t likely to allow effective anti-trust action to happen to Google, I still think that the funding environment for web browsers is likely to change.

The rationale for much of the existing funding for developing and maintaining web browsers – one of the more complex pieces of software today – is search engine income. Even if we assume that anti-trust penalties for Google end up only being a slap on the wrist, the “AI” bubble itself threatens that revenue stream.

• If the promises of the “AI” bubble pan out, search will get replaced by chatbots and the motivation to use “AI” income to fund browsers isn’t nearly as strong as that of search.
• If the promises don’t pan out, the fallout from the bubble will be so widespread and catastrophic that it’s likely the funding will peter out anyway.

Bad outcome either way.

The same dynamic applies to the web dev employment market.

One of the overt goals of the “AI” bubble is to replace software developers with automation:

• “Mark Zuckerberg says AI could soon do the work of Meta’s midlevel engineers”
• “AI agents mean Salesforce won’t hire software engineers in 2025, apparently”

That’s why we’re in the middle of the biggest wave of tech industry layoffs since the collapse of the dot-com bubble, despite there being a supersized funding bubble going on at the same time.

And again, we face bad outcomes either way:

• If the promises of automation pan out, at least in web development, “web developer” as a profession will shrink to a fraction of its current size.
• If they don’t pan out, the ensuing bubble pop is likely to be so catastrophic that the surviving companies will have to both lay off even more people and likely won’t have the resources to hire the people needed to “repair” their codebases after years of constant injections of LLM-garbage.

We’re damned if it succeeds; damned if it fails. Software developers are no longer a meaningful part of the upper echelons of the tech industry and no longer share in the upside.

The profession is about to reap the consequences of pretending to be superior to the cleaners and canteen staff, because it turns out employers really want to treat all workers equally badly.

My guess is that “big company web developer” as a target market will effectively dwindle into non-existence over the next few years. The only question is how fast. Whoever remains will be underfunded and underpaid.

Also, “web developer for web media companies”, seems similarly under threat because much of the web media industry is not going to survive the ongoing changes to search or even the mildest reckoning with ad industry dysfunction.

Even if neither happens, those industries are still likely to be precarious going forward. Uncertainty is likely to be constant.

All of which is to say that I’m unconvinced that putting much effort into building up my freelance web dev again will pay off as opportunities are fewer and the competition from tens of thousands of newly laid off devs will be intense.

It’s also the reason why, as Chris Ferdinandi points out, many web dev courses have outright priced themselves out of the market. We probably need different education and training options at different price points and business models.

The web itself has a few low-hanging fruit opportunities available, I think. Wordpress’s ongoing crisis, the ever more obvious dysfunction of using frameworks like next.js for web media sites, and the fact that many of the web’s recent platform additions remain underused means there’s an opportunity to do really interesting things for the web as a medium (as opposed to the web as a software platform). The web is still a major information medium in modern society.

(I really wish more browsers released support for showDirectoryPicker(). Local-only web apps where the user is just working with their own files, not a cloud whatever, would be a compelling alternative to both cloud-based SaaS web apps and subscription-based native apps.)

Likewise, the web as a software platform has mostly been about building Software-as-a-Service web apps. Local-first or even local-only web apps remain in a minority and are mostly overcomplicated research projects or overcomplicated early-stage startup projects.

I don’t think there are going to be many direct “pay me to work on this” freelance opportunities on either side of the web coin (medium versus platform) but there might be opportunities in helping others work on it, through courses, ebooks, blog posts, videos, and the like.

And, I think the balance has tipped for making things. Before the path of less risk was to build up freelancing, then consulting and education (courses, ebooks, writing, etc.), and finally making and selling software being the most risky, I’m starting to think that it’s now the other way around. Given how bad most of these services are and how expensive the rest have become, making software might be a slightly easier sell than before.

As long as you aren’t selling a subscription-based SaaS. Those are in a lot of trouble, I think.

My options:

1. Get more web dev freelancing. Not likely to work that well for reasons outlined above.
2. Full time web dev job in Iceland (remote opportunities are now much fewer than they used to be).
3. Figure out a way of doing web dev education that’s equitable and fair and works with the current state of the industry.
4. Focus on web media in some way. (Vague thoughts, but not as vague as they sound here.)
5. Focus on making local-first or local-only web apps that get sold under a more old-fashioned single payment model.
6. Get a job outside of web dev and tech, preferably one where the skills I have would still be useful.

The first is unlikely to work, although I wouldn’t say no to gigs if they come up.

The second is not particularly desirable as Icelandic tech seems to be all-in on React.

The third and fourth could be interesting, especially if I find a good way to combine them.

The fifth is very tempting but could be a big time sink.

The sixth is also not particularly desirable because I actually enjoy web dev proper. Although, that might be an instance of letting your passion and interests compromise your career.

We’ll see.

Most GenXers know the 1986 film The Highlander. In the movie, centuries-old immortals battle each other to the death by beheading. Upon denogginization, the immortal unlucky enough to lose his head experiences “The Quickening” as lightning bolts and hair-metal band pyro effects signal the immense transfer of power from the defeated immortal to the victor, who carries on the legacy of these legendary warriors. Oh, and there was an over-the-top Queen soundtrack as well.

There is no such drama (or Queen soundtrack) when enthusiast car legends pass away. Honda’s NSX moved on to the great Valhalla of iconic performance cars a few years ago, and no Quickening fireworks have appeared to herald The Next Great Honda. However, I do see a car in the lineup worthy of the glory, a true legend ready to inherit the power. Indeed, even its name evokes one of literature’s oldest and greatest heroes. I speak, of course, of the Odyssey minivan.

That’s a legend, you say? What about a Civic, or that new Prelude? Well, if that’s what you’re thinking, I can assume that you aren’t married and don’t have kids.

You’re Not Worthy … Are You?

Just like in The Highlander, sometimes those who inherit the legacy of a name or mystical power are undeserving of it. Other times, one who appears to be an unworthy recipient may surprise you. It’s happened before; Chrysler is a good example.

When the famous new-for-1968 Bullitt/General Lee Dodge Charger passed on in 1971, the next-generation car did a fair job in the face of the approaching Malaise at wearing the crown.

Sadly, the 1975 Charger was not mentored by Sean Connery in the ways of the immortals [Ed note: it’s another Highlander reference, you’re just going to have to watch it. It’s on Tubi! – Pete].  No, this Charger was just a rebadged Chrysler Cordoba twin.

Nobody would have expected the next Quickening to produce anything but another embarrassment when the Charger lightning bolts struck the meek little Dodge Omni 024 and put a 2.2 liter four under the hood. They were wrong: a hero was among us. With decent performance for the era, reasonable handling, and good looks the hotrod economy coupe that sprung to life did the Charger name proud; the Shelby Turbo version might not have beat a 426 Hemi in a straight line but could drive circles around that big old fuselage-bodied Charger great granddaddy.

Back to Honda, and the second incarnation of the NSX. The new model certainly lived up to the promise of the first. The original 1991 car was a technical tour de force and could match or beat more expensive rivals with its mere six cylinders, all while remaining perfectly daily-able – a feat no other supercar could claim. The 2017 NSX followed suit with a comfortable interior and an advanced hybrid drivetrain that complemented its twin-turbo V6 with three electric motors.

Sadly, it wasn’t the relative bargain that the first car was at the beginning of its life, and sales of the second-gen NSX were rather poor at only 2,908 cars during its brief four-year run. Like the original NSX after its price escalated through the 1990s, the 21st-century version was living in a rarified market where emotional aspects likely weighed heavily in buying decisions; the cache of an Italian or German badge will trounce the Honda’s mechanical brilliance for most buyers. After all, these are cars that many buyers want, but none need.

But what if, upon its death, the Honda NSX’s quickening transferred its high-tech lightning bolts and performance pyrotechnics to a vehicle many car buyers do actually need? What might that be? Here enters the Odyssey.

May The Best Van Win

There are more choices out there today for minivans than you might think for what is becoming such a niche category. Yes, I know some readers will tell me they’ve gotten 400,000 miles out of a Pacifica or a Hyundai, but realistically, if you want me to recommend something that can be driven into the ground and thrown away when your kids turn 22 then you have only the Toyota and Honda to consider. For a buying-because-you-have-to product, why not just do it once and be done with it?

For years, many manufacturers have been trying to make their minivans seem more like SUVs to attract buyers; Kia refuses to even call their Carnival a minivan, instead referring to it as an “MPV” like WuTang referenced in C.R.E.A.M. Nobody seems to try and make this type of family machine more fun or cool by improving its road-going prowess.

Matt recently wrote up a road trip he did in the latest Odyssey, and before I even read through it I knew he’d find the Honda to be essentially the driver’s choice of minivans. If you take one around the block and aren’t immediately sold by its unbeatable performance (for a non-EV van) and unmatched handling, that’s a good thing since you can then save money by looking at less expensive, not-as-well-built and flashier choices.

The Odyssey also dispenses with some of the more lavish features of its competitors like built-in vacuum cleaners; this minivan’s mission is clear. Surprisingly it doesn’t even offer two things that would seem to be mandatory options for a family people carrier: an all-wheel-drive or a hybrid version. Like Rocky’s coach said in the ads from the eighties, Honda likes to keep it simple, and it works.

What if it worked even better?

How About 100 Horsepower Per Passenger?

Plenty of other illustrators and websites have shown renderings of what a Honda “Type R” Odyssey might look like. It goes without saying that a few more horsepower and cool wheels wouldn’t hurt this minivan, but I’d like to take it even further. Naturally, we could do almost anything here in the fantasy world, but I want to imagine this “Type R” being at least partially feasible and work within the established limitations.

Like essentially all Odyssey models before, the architecture of the current version doesn’t really allow for things like a driveshaft to the rear wheels or battery space for electric options, so to add these things we’ll have to make some compromises.

Let’s take a look at the layout of the second-generation NSX again. There’s the ICE motor at the back (well, middle) with an integral electric motor in the transaxle for the rear wheels. Up front are two more electric motors, with separate battery packs and control units.

Now, in your mind, flip this whole business 180 degrees and you’ll see the plan for the Odyssey Type R. We want to turn the V6 sideways and the extreme 70-degree V block of the sports car won’t happen within the space we have available, but twin turbos certainly will. The NSX’s front electric motors can move to the rear of the van, and guess what: no driveshaft needed. When people asked for a “hybrid all-wheel-drive” Odyssey, this is absolutely not what they had in mind. Also, with a 478 horsepower gas engine, 47 electric horsepower up front and those two 41 horsepower motors on each rear wheel, we’ll have a 607 horsepower minivan to terrorize Costco parking lots with.

Sometimes we have to make concessions with performance cars, and the Odyssey is no exception. If you’re an Odyssey owner you’ll see on my schematic above that the batteries (the IPU, or Intelligent Power Unit) and control box (the PDU, or Power Drive Unit) are located in an area you might be stashing stuff in now. Honda was possibly the first minivan to offer the “pit” just inside the tailgate; a deep well with the main purpose of allowing the third row of seats to tumble in and create a flat floor.

It’s a trick feature many others have picked up on. In old movies “the pit” was usually where they would throw sacrifices, but here I think we’re going to need to sacrifice the actual pit itself to the cause by filling it with the batteries and control units. To me, it’s not make-it-or-break-it for the van; you could fold the backrests down or remove the seat entirely. You’d still have a third row. It wouldn’t be a minivan if it didn’t, would it?

Styling modifications are very NSX-like with the front grille, headlights, and lower side trim. There are cooling intakes for the rear motors and brakes, and I’ve flared the rear fenders ever so slightly, but it would still require extenders for the sliding door mechanisms to clear them. The subtle rear roof wing might even be functional, and the black-painted roof to hide the glass sunroof.

Here’s an animation to show the changes, and how I’m slamming this thing within an inch of its life. The front fascia, fenders, and rear quarter are new or modified; the hood is the same except for the vents but likely it would be a new lighter weight fiberglass or carbon fiber piece anyway:

How fast would this thing be? Well, the stock van like Matt drove with 280 horsepower from its 3.5-liter VTEC motor managed to get to sixty in 6.4 seconds (if you trust Car and Driver’s testing), so with something like twice that amount of power God only knows what sort of antics the Type-R Odyssey would be capable of (not to mention the instant torque of the electric motors). For the record, most 0 to 60 calculators I’ve used say just under four seconds.

I’m sure the resulting low-production-run Odyssey R would cost a pretty penny, but what’s not to love? It would almost certainly retail for less than the latest McLaren P-Whatever that nobody outside of a Cars and Coffee will give a shit about anyway. What would compete with this thing until the TRD Sienna would appear to make a pale attempt?

Hold Onto Your Sippy Cups

A supercar has to have only two seats? Who made that rule? Why do we think that way? My kid sometimes talks about how a “fixed mindset” is a bad thing (but I don’t think he was referring to seven-passenger vehicles lapping the ‘Ring). Besides, why should all of this advanced NSX Hybrid SH-AWD technology be reserved for a car that hardly anyone bought, and those that did buy likely just keep in a Carcoon hoping and praying that it will appreciate?

People dream about driving cross country in a two-seat sports machine with a supermodel partner by their side with The Perfectly Curated Playlist, but it’s probably not going to happen. You’re far more likely to make that trip with six people in a minivan and two nieces under age ten asking you to hit REPEAT on the CD player so they can hear 4 Non Blondes screaming HEY YAY YAY YAY one more time for three days straight. I did that twice a decade or so ago in a second-generation Odyssey, and by the end of the trip I absolutely didn’t want kids (it happened anyway) but I almost went out and bought a Honda minivan despite my then-childless state. These things are that good: is it any wonder this is the only minivan out there with a racing team?

The Next Greatest Honda is a title that needs to be placed on a deserving subject, and no other Honda product is more worthy of the Performance Quickening than the Odyssey. There can be only one …

You Asked For It: A Minivan Made Cooler And More Versatile At The Same Time – The Autopian

This Turbo Porsche Minivan That I Just Designed Would Have Been Perfect For ’80s Greed-Is-Good Families – The Autopian

Could Ford Make A More Affordable $40,000 Fun Van To Challenge Volkswagen? – The Autopian

We Need To Keep The Chevrolet Express Alive As The Last Traditional Full-Sized Van – The Autopian

The post The Fabled NSX Should Pass On Its Powers To The Ultimate Honda Odyssey HyperVan appeared first on The Autopian.

While driving is often thought of as an activity that requires both hands and feet, the fact is that not everyone can operate a pedal box. Thankfully, hand controls have been around for quite a while, but retrofitting them costs thousands of dollars, and if you want to buy a hand-controlled car off the shelf, it probably won’t be a sports car. Unless you live in Japan. Mazda offers customers in its home market a hand-controlled MX-5, and that’s worthy of a hell yeah.

Officially called a “Self-empowerment Driving Vehicle,” this variant of the MX-5 starts with an automatic sports car and then adapts it so that drivers don’t need to use the pedals at all. A lever on the center console controls throttle and braking, while an available additional button on the right side of the steering wheel lets the driver control manumatic mode gear selection using just their right hand.

There’s other optional equipment worth noting too. There’s an optional pad for the sill to make it easier to slide in and out of the driver’s seat (shown below), and if you want to go top-down in inclement weather and take a folding wheelchair with you, Mazda offers a wheelchair cover for the passenger seat that seems to accommodate a 22-inch chair just fine. Of course, there’s a chance larger ones won’t fit, but to some, a smaller chair might be a sacrifice worth making.

Best of all, you aren’t just capped to one version of the MX-5. Sure, this hand-controlled version must be had with an automatic transmission, but you can get either the classic soft-top or the retractable hardtop RF model with all of these mobility adaptations depending on what you prioritize in a sports car.

This obviously rules because everyone deserves the opportunity to drive a fun car. While North America has a number of companies that’ll fit hand controls to vehicles, there’s nothing quite like OEM integration or the ability to finance the cost of hand controls along with the car. Mazda’s adapted MX-5 appears to be a great way of making one of the most financially accessible sports cars on the market more physically accessible, and we’d love to see it in North America.

If you want to drive a sports car, you should be able to drive a sports car, because it’s an experience that rules. The feel of the road, the wind in your hair, it all adds up to some of the most fun you can have on four wheels. Requiring hand controls shouldn’t stop anyone from living their best sports car life. Well done, Mazda.

[Hat-tip to Niilo!]

(Photo credits: Mazda)

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Please send tips about cool car things to tips@theautopian.com. You could even win a prize!

The post Mazda Sells A Hand-Controlled MX-5 In Japan Because Everyone Should Be Able To Drive A Fun Car appeared first on The Autopian.

Fuel economy, ugh. It’s the most unsexy of all the car-number-things to care about, but since miles per gallon is really dollars per mile, we generally care a lot – especially when it comes to a daily driver. Thankfully, the government is pretty good about enforcing legislation that ensures manufacturers don’t give us numbers that are overly optimistic, and with a couple of miles wiggle-room per gallon depending on your lead or helium foot, most cars tend to deliver the efficiency claimed on the window sticker.

However, some cars may deliver significantly different results than the expected mpg numbers, if only based on the sample-of-one survey data generated by you or I and our individual test examples. Hopefully any discrepancies you’ve experienced were on the greater efficiency side of the fuel gauge, but these things can very much go either way.

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As for me, the car that surprised me the most, and pleasantly, was my Mustang GT. It’s the one genuinely high-performance car I’ve owned, which I purchased new in 2012 when the lure of the then-new Coyote V8 and its 412 horsepower (not to mention X-Plan pricing via my employer at the time) proved too much to resist. The official EPA fuel economy numbers were 17 city, 26 highway, and 20 mpg combined, but I was surprised to discover the GT could manage darn near 30mpg when my travels called for a long stretch of flat and straight driving across Texas, perhaps with a tailwind. As for my daily commute, well, I wasn’t exactly easy on the gas and so the Mustang wasn’t either, and I was happy if I got 15 miles out of a gallon. But hey, that was on me.

When it comes to gas guzzlers, I’d have to say the Jeep J10 Thriftside I drove in high school was probably the most surprisingly thirsty. Not that I (or my Dad, to whom it belonged) expected it to be some kind of economy machine, but the mere nine or ten miles its AMC 258ci inline-six managed to eke out of a gallon of gas seemed super low. I’m sure the truck’s short gearing (it sure felt short, anyway) and the extra rotating mass of the 4X4 system adding to the oomph required for each acceleration took a toll, and let’s not get started on aerodynamics, but man, that truck liked to drink.

Now it’s your turn: what car or truck have you owned that got way better (or worse) fuel economy than it should have?

The post What Car Or Truck Have You Owned That Got Way Better (or Worse) Fuel Economy Than It Should Have? appeared first on The Autopian.

When the folks at Exalted Funeral first pitched me on Land of Eem — the role-playing game equivalent of how the Muppets might play Dungeons & Dragons — I was immediately sold. To my pleasant surprise, the review copy held up its lofty, if whimsical, promise. Land of Eem is great in the same way the best cartoons are: wrapping serious themes in a goofy bow that rewards curiosity and social connections. With a big push for TTRPG clubs at schools and libraries, Land of Eem is a great game to bring to a table of players at any age.

Based on the middle grade graphic novel series, Rickety Stitch and the Gelatinous Goo by Eem writers Ben Costa and James Parks, the setting and mechanics of Land of Eem are targeted at players who favor story over combat, as well as younger audiences. The core rules will seem familiar to anyone who’s played D&D. There are base attributes (Vim, Vigor, Knack, and Knowhow) that influence skills, which modify skill checks. Instead of rolling a d20, however, the game utilizes the far superior (at least in this journalist’s humble opinion) d12. 

The character and party creation process, along with Land of Eem’s system for players to level up, is where the game truly diverges from its inspiration, D&D. This game is explicit about prioritizing and rewarding creativity, curiosity, and exploration, all while ensuring that the adventurers treat everything they come across as a person with thoughts and feelings — even if they end up having to fight them. 

Land of Eem has six classes that cater toward different styles of play, including the classic Bard and Knight-Errant, the exploring Dungeoneer, the supporting Loyal Chum, the magical Gnome, and (my personal favorite) the scoundrel-like Rascal. It also has 16 unique Folk (its term for species) which run the gamut of whimsical little guys. And yes, importantly, you can play a frog person or even a Muppet-looking humanoid. 

Character creation emphasizes that building out a well-rounded character with ideals, flaws, personal goals, and relationships to every other party member isn’t just going to make the game better — it’s how your character will level up. Taking from the tradition of story gaming, experience points aren’t gained through killing monsters, but acting on your character traits, developing relationships, meeting new NPCs and exploring new parts of the world. 

While all that is needed for the game is the core rulebook (and character sheets which are available for download online) the full Land of Eem set contains a hefty 500-page setting guide, a bestiary, and a hexcrawl map of Eem that give GMs a vast world to put in front of players. The setting guide is brimming with scenarios that would slot perfectly into a Saturday morning cartoon slot, with depth and care that prioritizes the people who already live there. If you’ve been looking for a lighter, story-focused fantasy game to play with the whole family (or even just your friend who loves Adventure Time) this is the game for you.

The Land of Eem Core Rulebook is available for pre-order for $40 at Exalted Funeral, with expected delivery in February. A quickstart guide is available now.

Land of Eem is available now from Exalted Funeral. The game was previewed using retail product provided by Exalted Funeral. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.

Tyler Wilde / PC Gamer:
Tim Sweeney says Big Tech leaders, who used to pretend to be Democrats, are now pretending to be Republicans to skirt antitrust laws and “crush competitors”  —  The Trump administration is expected to be softer on antitrust cases, which as we know are one of Sweeney's major pursuits.