553 karma · joined November 11, 2013
That said, I'm doing the job switch thing anyway; not to get more money, but because I've grown to hate my career and am hoping to switch into a more creatively fulfilling one. If I can find such a job with a larger paycheck, of course I'll take it; but I'm also willing to take such a job with a pay cut if that's what's available to me in the new industry.
100%
> The demand for college also has to go way down to make it more affordable, save for maybe an act on the government's part. Learning for learnings sake is great, but not $50k great.
An act on the government's part, or less predatory institutions. Maybe both. But it's absolutely needed. Reducing demand for education because of finances is terrible.
If we just mean "is it as good at physics and math problems as an average high school student", then probably, yeah. But the fine-tuning means it's likely less generalizable than the base PaLM model would be, and I'd argue any AI that's truly "as smart as a human" would need to be generalizable. Because there are so many ways to measure intelligence, we'd need to account for them all to do a direct comparison to human "intelligence".
So while this is certainly impressive, to me it's less impressive than more general LLMs including the base PaLM model itself.
That said, since university is privatized, it's expensive, which sucks for society. So it's definitely going to be a consideration of whether it's affordable to learn or not.
TL;DR: I don't care about making "as much money as possible". I only care about making enough money to survive comfortably and help others when I can, which I'm already doing. In fact, I'm currently working towards switching careers, and in the process I'm more than willing to take a pay cut if the new job is more fulfilling; I can afford to.
Well, sure. But that's what's happening here: experts in multiple fields of medicine, epidemiology, etc. formed a consensus about what will help reduce the spread of a lethal disease. It's not just a single area of expertise, or a single group of people.
> 2) There are a lot of questions still around COVID itself and how it affects the human body that we are still learning. Things like long-COVID, certain attack vectors of the spike protein COVID uses, why COVID affects people the way that it does when it comes to severity of symptoms, etc. All of these are questions that effect how a vaccine should be made.
Do those questions affect how a vaccine should be made? We may not know the mechanism of action for every symptom and long-term effect of COVID, but we know enough about how it infects cells to know the spike protein is important, and therefore a strong target for a vaccine. And beyond that, we've tested these vaccines and shown they're effective. Could there be a more effective target? Sure. But the goal isn't "wait until we have found the best possible vaccine and let people continue dying en masse until then"; science is iterative. An effective vaccine is always better than none, even if we're waiting to find a better one.
> Beyond that, for the vaccine itself I tend to look at questions like was there enough initial testing given the shortened time frame of both knowing the disease and the time to develop the vaccine, questioning the methodology and how the initial trials were handled in the development phases...
Yes, there was. There was the same amount of testing as with any other vaccine. Partly because mRNA vaccines in general have been in testing for many years before COVID hit, and partly because of the pandemic itself. A large amount of time in most studies comes from seeking funding, approval, and test subjects. With the pandemic, there was no lack of test subjects, and emergency funding and approvals meant no waiting for those, either. The reason it was "so fast" is because of parallelized testing, faster-than-usual red tape, and a sudden large pool of subjects. It in no way reduced the validity of the tests.
> does the body treat these RNA fragments differently after they have broken up...
If it did, then we'd all be fucked from the start, because the constituent parts of mRNA are identical across all species, including our own mRNA. If the human body reacted negatively to metabolized mRNA, then our own DNA transcription would cause problems. But you don't even have to trust the logic of it: as I said, mRNA vaccines have been in testing and development for many years, and the testing shows they're safe.
> is producing the spike protein (which has it's own dangers beyond COVID on the body) the best option for protecting against the disease or is there another vector that would prove to be more effective...
As I mentioned above, if we wait for the "most effective" option before taking any action, millions more people die than necessary. We don't need to wait for "most effective"; we act on the current most effective options we have as long as they're shown to be safe. Which they are. Yes, there are possible negative reactions to the spike protein, but literally nothing in medicine is side-effect free. The question isn't "is it free of any possible negative reactions?", it's a risk-benefit analysis: "Multiply the dangers of the side effects by their prevalence, and then multiple the dangers of COVID by its prevalence, compare the two, and choose the better option." That's how all medical treatment -- and really, all decisions in general -- work.
> does the body suffer from having an increased protein development response at the injection site, etc.
Not sure what you mean by this. What does "increased protein development response" mean? If you're asking whether the body suffers from making extra proteins in general, then on the empirical front, as I said, safety testing hasn't shown that to be the case. And on the logical side, the amount of proteins a cell or tissue produces changes constantly based on internal and external factors, so if "more proteins here" was dangerous, it's another case of "we'd all be screwed because our bodies do this naturally all the time".
> Even now, we are discovering more effective ways to treat the disease and I would image the next 5 years or so will yield treatments that potentially reveal how the vaccine was a stop-gap measure and that there are likely better ways to treat this disease.
See above. A stop-gap measure is better than no measure at all when the alternative is an increased amount of death.
So on the one hand, expecting a six-figure job out of the gate is ridiculously naive.
On the other hand, over the past few months, I've gotten more and more tired of the very idea of money. Everything from "do you deserve to enjoy yourself?" down to "do you even deserve to live?" (and everything in between) is decided by how much money other people are willing to give you, meaning employers have a massive, slavery-like chokehold on employees. Meanwhile, most people don't even understand what fiat money is, but they're greedy about wanting it because under a certain amount, you suffer and die. Literally. Which only happens... because other people are greedy about money, too, for the same reasons. It's a vicious cycle. (BTW, the answer to "what is fiat money?" is "anything that represents a promise to complete a trade". That's all, it's just promises, but we treat it like it's a deity that we must worship lest it send its wrath upon us and kill us.)
Anyway, rant over for now.
In your case, where you want to start your own company, those are some grand ambitions. Be ready for disappointment, as that's not a path that works out for most people. But my boss's advice still applies to you: keep your day job and push through it while you work on building the infrastructure for your own company. Only once your company becomes profitable enough to pay the bills should you quit your day job. Because unfortunately, we live in a society that threatens everyone with homelessness, starvation, and death if the things that fulfill them are not producing something other people want enough of.
Copyright was always meant to be a protection against credit theft and others profiting by reproducing your work without your permission. It has largely become a capitalistic troll playground where "you've used my work anywhere" and "this seems kind of like my work" are treated as grounds for legal action. And that's messed up.
2) I wonder what evidence you think is missing from the safety and efficacy testing of COVID vaccines, which you don't think is missing from the safety and efficacy studies of abstaining from drunk driving? And what evidence would you need before you'd consider them "equally understood"?
How dangerous does "not doing the thing" need to be to the people around those making the decision before it should be forced? Obviously there is a limit -- for instance, we all agree that deciding not to change your plans to drive home when you get shit-faced is and should be illegal -- so where does that limit occur, and why there?
I could be wrong, though.
It's awful. A good rule of thumb for waiters/waitresses is 15% minimum tip unless they're awful, 18% if they're good, 20% if they're amazing. The idea being that larger bills usually mean more food and/or more work for them. But for delivery drivers, in my opinion, it's the same amount of work whether I order $10 or $40 in food, especially if that amount is artificially inflated by app service fees, so I give all my app delivery drivers the same tip.
I've done the math before and it's ridiculous that a tipped employee, due to a lower minimum wage, can literally be starving in poverty while employed, with no regulations preventing that. Our country needs to fix its regulations in this area, but until it does, employers should be offsetting the problem, not customers. Or, hell, if they really can't bring themselves to pay their employees fairly, they should at least offset the tip amount by lowering the service fees. The other day, I ordered two subs. Two sandwiches, nothing more, not even any sides or drinks. It was $40 with a $3 tip. Literally more than double the price of the food.
What I'm saying is, I tip because I understand there's a problem, but I don't overtip because I also understand it's the employers' responsibility (if the government won't handle it) to deal with the problem on behalf of their employees, not the customers'.
I've never used Godot, though I've heard lots about it. Interesting that this article only mentions Godot as an alternative; my experience is with Game Maker Studio, which over the years has become more and more capable and professional. Some majorly popular games were made with it (e.g. Undertale, Deltarune, and Will You Snail? come to mind). I would consider that a viable alternative to the 2Us as well... but I guess I'm biased, since a company hiring a GM:S dev would be my dream job given my experience with it :D