Everything you've said lines up with exactly what the author said. Carbon fiber bikes are made for and good for racing. If you're not actually racing you probably want to be on something more durable. It's almost like you just read the (intentionally sensationalised) headline..
I'm very familiar with the author, he's of this new breed (see theradavist also) of look how relaxed and cool we are, no one needs carbon, see it's overpriced and stuff man. Meanwhile they're pedaling $15k custom manufacture titanium.
He's been writing as long as I've been riding as an adult (15 years or so). I'm not sure how "new" the breed is, but a lot of these folks pushing comfy tire frame bag relaxed cycling are the now middle-aged former fixed gear hipsters of days of yore. I might count myself among them.
Personally I was a co-op rat around the Great Recession learning how to build bikes from parts, and in the process realizing that you can build a nice riding bike from 50-60 year old parts. You don't have to spend a fortune on Di2 and carbon.
Now these folks are in more prestigious positions and the industry is paying attention to the demographic. We get companies like Crust and Velo-Orange and Riv selling us bikes based on how we actually ride (or like to think we do).
I also race, but I race on a modest steel bike and only for the love of the sport, not because I'm a top tier competitive athlete.
The last place I worked at had some serious issues going on internally. A couple hundred people but a basically non functioning HR department. People being yelled at by managers without repercussion. Also just bad engineering culture - top down directives that didn't make sense to be spending time on.
About once a month there'd be an extremely negative review show up on glassdoor highlighting what it was actually like. Directors go into crisis mode then a few days later the review is gone. Apparently if you pay Glassdoor you can have reviews removed by just telling them it's not factual. So unfortunately it just can't be trusted.
Nowadays I talk to someone that works there off the record, outside of the interview process. Ideally a friend of a friend.
I had exactly the same experience coming to SF from NYC. I took taxis in NYC every once in a while, the only bad experience was on new years eve where everybody turns their lights off and operates without the meter. After moving to SF I had such poor experiences with taxis that when I raised it with a friend they exclaimed oh, nobody uses taxis here they're awful - use uber (I now use Lyft regularly).
Some of those experiences include:
- very obviously driving me around the block after I asked to be dropped off at a particular location. The driver refused to let me out when I asked
- driver refused to drive me with a "I don't want to go that way"
- two drivers claimed their card machines didn't work and insisted on cash, the second tried it even after I asked before the ride if paying by card was okay
I've tested this using both a galaxy S2 and S3. On the S2 the above page is safe and triggers the exploit to view the IMEI. On the S3 it launches the dialler however, the dialler is empty and does not display the IMEI.
After investigating further, the S3 does not launch codes that begin with * # but will trigger the factory reset code which is in the format of * 1234 * 1234 #
Edit: Those with an S3 can confirm this by visiting http://no.tl/s.html in which I've embedded * 1234 * 1234 # (which is not the reset code, but is the same format)
