Will_Parker

> SQL

And, not to put too fine a point on it, being extremely proficient will give you a massive competitive edge in the industry.

I also think a lot of programmers could get a sort of enlightenment by getting very proficient in SQL. (To the point where you can do general programming in it using recursive CTEs if you have to, even though probably impractical for real use cases.)

What's your plausible scientific reason that blocking droplets doesn't reduce the chance of spreading the virus? My prior is, it does, based on my experience of the mask getting wet when talking.

So how does it not work? I talk, mask gets wet. Doesn't it mean it's blocking some of the droplets from spraying out? Why not?

> You cannot win against true believers

I'm a true believer in the drug's seventy year safety record when given as a prophylactic for malaria prevention millions of times and over the counter in many places.

> In some cases, for some people, wearing a mask can be neutral or even net-negative.

If you don't wear it on your face.

> There is no scientific evidence they are effective in reducing the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission

It's a disease spread by exhaled droplets. How the heck could masks _not_ work? Why has common sense, as an acceptable way to obtain knowledge, died in the general public?

In terms of purity, sure, but pragmatically, meh. You do need to round to cents in ui and after every calculation though. Exercise: how large do amounts need to be before losing a penny?

I used to evangelize integer cents but then I worked on a few systems with floats and the world didn't fall over.

> In my experience it always ends up a jumble where indentation is screwed up and no particular tab setting makes things right.

Consider linting tools in your build.

Fair enough, but nothing about eating 50kg of meat per person per year suggests not treating it as primary or essential.

> The US in particular is wedded to the notion that meat is essential and primary food, and it set up its entire agriculture industry to making that cheap

Nothing is particular about the US here, humans are omnivores whose optimal diet for health contains both meat and plants.

Numbers like 8088 vs 80286 vs 80386DX vs 80386SX (which was basically a 286 iirc) were confusing to people back then too. :) Then you had the 486SX and DX and Cyrix introducing things like the 486DLC...

> The immediate retort is that John Deere's approach is maximally profitable-- but is it?

If your profit has to come from sales, but a lot of theirs comes from locking you into a maintenance profit, isn't this a big problem, when they can lower their sale prices much lower than yours?

See what happened when printer manufacturers figured out it was more profitable to sell you ink than printers, even taking a loss on the first sale. They all had to do it once one did. Everyone knew the printers were getting cheap and terrible, but still very few wanted to pay 2x as much on the initial purchase.

With games and other software as well, we see more and more monetizing with ads, DLC and subscriptions, even though most gamers would probably say this had made games worse overall.

Some of them are complicated crud web apps.

Consciousness :trollface:

> We only need one set of gendered pronouns

Which set do you think would suffice?

> So, why are you troubled that you can't debate this particular thing, when I'm sure there are things you shouldn't debate about your colleagues?

I'm troubled by the top-down nature of what is decided to be beyond debate vs not: it feels like it is leading to a scary kind of authoritarianism I don't want.

For fun, I'll throw you a specific plausible hypothetical. If an app has a gender identity field, and a user enters "Apache Helicopter", should this be treated as valid data or not?

I'm not interested in debating it here, because it could damage my career, which is my point.

In fact, even debating whether I should be able to debate it could damage my career. I believe this widespread use of silencing tactics, by implicit threat, has gone too far.

I'm saying the establishment, including tech, doesn't permit open critical discussion on the topic of gender.

And any sort of diversion from that approved narrative, like suggesting that some of this is going a little too far, will make you a pariah in the industry. This is what I'm getting in, in questioning how much "the establishment" allows vigorous debate.

> the establishment only permits fervent discussion about gender and skin color.

Do they? Try making a case that we don't need more than two sets of gendered pronouns in your tech job.

> a single metric for adversity is completely ridiculous

What about a single metric for scholastic aptitude, though? :)

The trouble is, making sacrifices for yourself, as a voluntary moral choice, and just expecting other people to do the same is not going to be a successful strategy, because you're up against human nature itself.

Any pragmatic strategy to reduce the impact of climate change must start with international cooperation. From the point of view of the USA, this must start with a new administration. Then, with this cooperation we could find actions not strictly rooted in dreamy idealism, including enforcing the changes in lifestyle you mention at scale. (Through agreements, tariffs, etc.) A real global strategy also needs to involve some very bitter pills and compromises, e.g. taking a fresh look at nuclear, geoengineering research, and having the hard conversations about global population growth in emerging countries, and what people will do in the vast regions of the world which won't be habitable for much longer.

Any other strategy is just wishful thinking, and avoiding the cold hard facts. And the facts on this will catch up. All the trees you can plant or the most frugal lifestyle you are capable of will make precisely zero difference if it isn't based on global cooperation. Andrew Yang in the most recent democratic debate was right: a lot of the damage is already done and some of the discussion needs to be about how we can move to higher ground.

From https://skepticalscience.com/animal-agriculture-meat-global-...

"Animal agriculture is responsible for 13–18% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions globally, and less in developed countries (e.g. 3% in the USA). Fossil fuel combustion for energy and transportation is responsible for approximately 64% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions globally, and more in developed countries (e.g. 80% in the USA)."

I think in the USA, it would be more productive to address the 80% as higher priority than reducing the 3%. I think this veganism initiative is also more driven by morality and political partisanship than by an effort to find a realistic and practical solution to GHG emissions. And this can backfire: I believe that a reason why nearly half the country will not even openly admit there is a problem, is because they fear the consequences of political over-reaction more than the problem itself.

Some things become clearer once you understand: a lot of people who say "X is invalid" really mean "We are better off not talking about X".

It depends on whether you have the technical prowess of Jonathan Blow or not? He was able to create game aspects in custom engines that would have been impossible otherwise. E.g. low level sound control in Braid, some amazing use of lighting and reflection in The Witness.

> Where I think it tends to fall down for a modern listener (assuming good recordings, which is not a good assumption) is that it mostly dates from a pre-recording period, so it tends to draw out all of its ideas because it expects the listener can't just rewind and listen to the last few minutes again, and this is the only such music they may hear this month; in modern times this results in a lot of pieces overstaying their welcome. Sometimes by a lot.

What a great point, I hadn't considered this before though it's completely obvious. A lot of fans of classical music though (like myself) still prefer a live performance, where I certainly don't mind hearing a da capo of Beethoven's Fifth at all!

> It's fun shifting the blame.

I don't think blame is a useful concept at all. The question is, within the complex world of economics and politics, starting from the point we are at today, what would a pragmatic solution look like, that is actually possible?

It is far from obvious that the best solution is to make local sacrifices, then hoping the world will follow. It might be that we all (in the world) need to agree to make sacrifices together first, put some rules and treaties in place, and then start improving together in coordination.

It sounds so Machiavellian but, if we are already making the economic sacrifices (that other countries aren't, but would like us to), I wonder if we aren't even losing potential bargaining power in coordinating globally?

How do you decide the baseline emissions for the tax and tariffs, internationally? China emits about half the carbon as the USA, per capita. So is the USA willing to pay tax to China unidirectionally, until we get to their level? Does China need to keep their current per capita levels to avoid extra tariffs?

How, roughly, could this work politically at a global level, in a way that also works within the politics of each individual country?

So, breed a future full of inconsiderate people, I guess? If there's one best point thoughtful conservatives have, it's that for a sustainable planet, we need to value good people producing and raising the next generation.

The inability to understand this (ending in antinatalism at the extreme) is perhaps the root of my problems with the left side of politics. It's hard to get behind a side that is mathematically predestined to disappear completely.