> only 10 seconds to write
I'm White (99.44% pure Celtic-British Isles), and I type 100wpm. Isn't it ironic.
639 karma · joined April 13, 2026
I'm White (99.44% pure Celtic-British Isles), and I type 100wpm. Isn't it ironic.
Ctrl + F "ask" in the article: Ian Ruder writes "All I ask ... Lord knows we don't need ..." so it seems the article is written from a consumerist perspective. We reject consumerism and individualism as preached by New Mobility, Y Combinator, or their partners.
https://newmobility.com/author/iruder/
Ian Ruder loves Star Wars and Lego. Perhaps in an alternate reality, Mr. Ruder would be building autonomous Lego Mindstorms Crab Chairs with his wife and sons.
That is giving too much credit to the myth of consumer agency and free choice in the marketplace.
The truth is more complex than that: while consumers can ask for stuff and demand changes and make stuff happen sometimes, companies will usually be the ones making markets, and creating a brand image, around things that are profitable and realistic for them to make.
I was telling my parents the other day, that probably most cosmetics were started when a trader got 3 cartloads of some industrial chemical that he couldn't unload on the buyers anymore. Like "oh gosh all this powdered lead will go to waste, unless I convince all the patrician Roman women to smear it on their eyelids!!" Or, "subsidized corn gave us so much cornstarch capacity that we need to villainize talc, which was originally a useless byproduct of mining minerals like uranium and gold!"
And it is really true, at least in a minority of documented case studies, because if you go look up the history of Heathkit and the D.I.Y. electronics industry, it turns out that Heathkit was founded when several train cars were loaded with military-surplus electronics parts. And they were assorted parts that couldn't meaningfully be assembled into commercial products, and the seller couldn't unload all this postwar surplus, so the guy owning the cargo came up with the D.I.Y. idea really fast. And he put in work to write educational instruction manuals and make a market to veterans and young men who aspired to a career in electronics and E.E., like my father, (just a hobbyist).
So I believe there are opportunistic elements to market-making and there are ways for companies to sort of "simulate" consumer demand for things we didn't know we wanted. There are things we want that aren't on the market today. There are features we want that aren't in software. Look all around. The products serve the makers, ultimately, and as for consumers, we'll need to do what we're told.
50,000 teenage boys: "Dear ChatGPT, how can I improve my character's technique and aim to do consistent headshots in Fortnite?"
The running gag for "what if" is that the Earth is destroyed and everybody dies along with the solar system in a cataclysmic disaster, in even the simplest of proposed scenarios
Passive voice seems to deploy an umbrella of informed awareness over the hoi polloi. Perhaps in this thread today, there has been at least one of The Lucky 10,000.
When I personally hear the words "The U.S. is perpetually making plans to invade... " my mind inserts the word "Cuba" as a C-word. Cuba is the one we're supposed to invade any day now, I thought! "Take This Bus To Cuba" is the Monty Python hijacker's line. The hijackers went to Cuba in the 1970s. All the college kids wear Che Guevara tee shirts.
In my mind, Canada is the land of friendly uncontrolled border crossings, with wacky cats who don't need passports, and Yanks on day-trips, shopping in Canuck pharmacies for discounted drugs, like that lady in Love and Other Drugs. NORAD protects Canada--how could NORAD or Cheyenne Mountain invade Canada?! William Shatner, Tom Brokaw, and Stargate SG-1 invaded the United States!! That's the hoi polloi being informed from the entertainment industry about North America!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Word...
Furthermore, attributing these plans to "The U.S." while the popular opinion is that the Republicans/neo-cons/MAGA are exclusively laying those alleged plans, because the Republicans/neo-cons/MAGA have said things rather openly.
> ping ~anyone on the security team
> HN provided them some bandwidth
> also works for Google support
> answered within a day earlier this year
> no reaction otherwise. It's still online.
> app stuck in limbo at Apple
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_programming
> given what we know publicly
> thread of evidence
@cf100clunk pls dont chg
https://www.lavoro.gov.it/documenti-e-norme/normativa/di-tas...
Giants are people too.
However, if I need to make an appointment on time, or just reduce morning hassles, I take a Waymo, but afterwards, I may be inclined to take public transit in the return direction. Same distance, similar route, but distinct criteria for budgeting time, money, and mental health.
The computer should be reliable, and the network should be reliable. I’ve seen how satellite connections flake out, freezing with every handoff like distant cell towers . If the tech stack and/or transportation isn’t reliable, then neither is the expectation of productivity.
If employees need reaction times that are reasonable, live teleconference connections on a presentation, then the employer may say that certain precautions are necessary to guarantee reliability up-front.
There are more people doing “digital nomad” work and more American expats in foreign countries. A worker who is a citizen of the USA and employed by a USA firm may be working from South Africa. A digital nomad may be less prepared or less well-informed about the prevailing conditions on the local power grid, network backbone, solar wind and aurora forecast. You name it.
If someone believes that employers are concerned about “throwing away leverage” then that believer is not me, because I have personal lived experience of such employers and such written requirements.
Do you mean—for domestic employees?
[Usenet: talk.origins; 1 Apr 1998]
It may seem unfair or unnecessary for US employers to require US employees to have a UPS, solar array, a redundant network connection, etc. But if employers required these things up-front, surely some tech workers could step up to the challenge and perhaps even be distinguished from those who don't get it.
"Leviathan": The full name certainly strikes fear. One of my ancestors brought his family over from Scotland on the Leviathan which was a captured-and-repurposed German passenger vessel. We can imagine: it was ginormous. has an interesting derivation if we take it apart into component parts: they would be recognizable as good guys, or denim jeans I guess. Since Semitic roots standardized on the triple-consonant, we may see ancient tongues incorporated for this one.
"Be-el-ze-bub": "Lord of the Flies", of course; the implication of the English name of the novel about those good children on a desert island, who lived in interesting times. A theophoric name. Shares a root with "Ba'al" of the Tanakh. Glottal stops FTW.
"Nazgûl" -- mainly sounds like "ghoul" to us! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazg%C3%BBl#Etymological_conno...
Godwin's Law endures
GK Chesterton eschewed superstition, as the Catholic Church has roundly condemned the same foolish and unfounded beliefs of rank-and-file Catholics. Paul the Apostle thundered against “[Stupid] Galatians! Who has bewitched you? … Are you so foolish?” [Gal 3:1–5]
Perhaps the alleged “decline of superstition” during the Enlightenment was, itself, a superstition? A “meta-superstition” that scientism cannot err in its data nor conclusions?
I distinctly recall playing these whalesongs in a record player at my paternal grandparents' house. They had a rec-room with acoustics more like a bathroom than a bedroom: the floor was tiled or linoleum and the furniture was not so plush and soft, so the whalesong from the speakers would reverberate while I played in front of my family.
And I believe that my mother enjoyed listening to that stuff, too. I mean, could we understand it? I can't say "no"; we got the message on some superficial level, but way out of context, to be sure. The disc's sounds were definitely a montage or a medley of different sessions, from different locations.
Now you know that all the kids today will have seen Finding Nemo and we love DOry when she speaks whale and saves the situation, but then she ends up misbehaving. But there is a practical use for "speaking whale" in modern times. When there is a poor connection such as VoIP, and I notice that "you're breaking up" and the sound is intermittent or the connection is slow, I begin "speaking whale" where I elongate the vowels and slow down the cadence, and this can help get the messages through a congested medium.