al_be_back

recruiters are basically agents, similar to realtors in real estate market - don't reveal your budget, you're not buying the 'PRICE', you're buying property (with it's features, relationships to area, market etc).

Likewise, your salary is the 'PRICE', but they're getting YOU - so you focus on selling YOU: your experience, your abilities, your 'value add' etc, right to the end. then place your SALARY (your price, plus other perks [training etc]).

Sadly, but true enough, the process is mostly about perception of value, and perception (emphasis on interpretation) is 'workable/pliable' thus hackable (not trivial):

- directly via training/brokers [books, OP etc]

- via networks such as referrals/clubs/accreditation/alumni/nepotism [happens]

- indirectly via social/personal/political/weather factors

Worth reading books on Negotiation, the field is as old as humanity.

p.s. for the avoidance of doubt, i'm neither saying 'workers are like buildings', nor mean 'hack' pejoratively :)

I don't much about gr[a|e]ybeards or being old, but emacs is legendary, still use it along side my main ide.

Tempted by the 29% discount on the book, Mastering Emacs is a well-polished emacs blog

I'm sure you can config your beard to be gray in your 20s dude, you've managed with emacs for 3-years!

very smart move!

clearly aimed at big business/enterprise customers, python's ecosystem of scientific & statistical libraries is massive

not so long ago they introduced Office Scripts and Power Automate, in essence coding macros in TypeScript (rather than VBA), again only for business/enterprise license users though.

>> "Life is already difficult enough. Consider going into it on an empty stomach"

the model is all over the place, there's no sensible link between first and second sentence, even if it were about a typical Restaurant, let alone a food bank.

personally, the 'cannot miss' part as tourist spot, doesn't ring alarm bells, since tourist are in spending-mood when on holiday, and seeking new experiences - every little helps.

It may be raising eyebrows because of a socio-psychological effect , such as caused by shame or embarrassment linked to such display of poverty.

>> to me the most interesting part was everyone talking about potential consequences

no need for a science paper for that, they should've written science fiction or created an educational documentary.

>> If Tesla makes a mistake in their autopilot software, people might die.

In this case, a good "Testing on Production" rule would be to not let customers test your software, period.

There's plenty of land and resources to construct towns and cities that simulate real-life commute very accurately.

In the case of self-driving (or even autopilot), you're not really testing a feature, you're researching a new product, they difference is vast.

unless you buy an off-the-shelf product/solution, you're in effect buying a service of some sort and the low-level/technical implementation is just detail (coding, plumbing, rebuilding car engine etc).

p.s. to me the OP read like a Cover Letter for a job application :)

science has advanced enormously since the 1800s. little home-made labs can't compete with billion-dollar research institutes in the hard-sciences.

these guys claimed big, but their equipment couldn't generate temperatures above 127C (Celsius), basically just a bit more than a tea kettle.

they seem to lack the hardware, and super-computing power required to model and simulate the molecular dynamics.

interesting project, for fun yes, but it seems it's based on an outdated assumption that 'thoughts are determined by language' [1] a sort of buy-one-get-one free.

However, human languages haven't been widely adopted with much success when designed/created top-down. Even more advanced and well developed languages such as Esperanto, haven't take off, though more widely adopted.

Personally I agree with Prof Steven Pinker, that Language is an Instinct, and that it evolves in communities, in stages, such as 'pidgin -> creole -> first/native language', most importantly developed & fortified by children.

The human brain has capacity for storing, processing and remembering tens of thousands of words, example [2]:

- 13K words for an average 3-year-old

- 60K words on average by the time they graduate from high-school

- a 3-year-old is likely to remember a new word casually mentioned in a conversation for up to 5 weeks

you may save in storage at the expense of processing, orchestrating, learning, and rather crucially accessibility. Except for fun, it's kinda pointless otherwise.

[1] Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic determinism "that people's thoughts are determined by the categories made avail- able by their language, and its weaker version, linguistic relativity, stating that differences among languages cause differences in the thoughts of their speakers".

[2] Language Instinct, Steven Pinker

as I said earlier "6 years passed" since 2017 and the arrival of A.I. is causing authors (to say the least) real concern. the industry/ecosystem around X is enough to change to affect those associated with X.

you offered a "pet theory" (as you say) further up, but not much by way of proof that their fear is irrational.

i think we've reached in impasse here, the points are re-cycling.

the output varies wildly ... i'd check again after a few days/weeks and see how it varies. it could be very well be a fluke.

>> Basically, the way the service used this data

it's not about the past (2017...), the authors are concerned about how the dataset could be or is likely to be used from now on.

many tech projects these days have or are thinking about integrating third-party A.I. providers in their services, either to harness the power of their large datasets or their large user-base. I think it's great if authors/users opt-in to this, but likewise I agree with those that want out (opt-out).

>> I called it "fear" because there was no strong argument on the authors' side as to why this tool is bad

their argument doesn't have to be a peer-reviewed journal, it suffices to say "i don't want my books in your dataset"

>> I called it "illogical" because I think that it's no coincidence that this controversy only came up now, in 2023. Back in 2017 and onward, the existence of this tool didn't appear to generate pushback ...

6 years have passed since 2017, life moves on, it's natural for things to change e.g: the project's code, updating servers, partnerships, emergence of third-party tools/libs/services etc etc.

>> had no conceivable way of threatening the original authors, financially or otherwise

how so? what's inconceivable about it?

>> seemed to hinge entirely on the irrational fear

how are the authors "fearing without reason" or "illogically fearing" ?

I think it's wise to take the concerns of the creative community seriously - after all their "labor of love" [1] matters immensely, without it LLMs are useless.

matters not how much the coder "loved" the project, or did yoga, or that they've not made money for years, after all most book authors aren't exactly raking in the money either.

also like many thinks in life, some tools/projects/startups etc just stop being needed/used and new ones/competitors take over. there's nothing to say that since tool X is using A.I. therefore it has to be adopted by one and all; smiles all around.

google has 'right to be forgotten', also looking into 'machine unlearning' and it's common for platforms to honor user's request to remove their data / close their account.

[1] From OP: destroying what had been a clear labor of love and a useful project

no - else i'd have typed google/android :)

the OS wars haven't been conclusive.

Windows had the lead until about 15yrs ago when suddenly iPhone arrived and it propelled apple/Mac (and by association Linux) back into the game.

in recent years the rise in popularity of CLI, microservices (APIs for everything) and remote working/collaborating is indicative of a market shift, away from monolithic, centralized systems and providers (Cloud aside).

Security + Privacy are more so becoming inseparable, for users all around (private, business, orgs, gov).

I particularly like their concept of user-space servers and translators [1] [2]

[1] A translator is simply a normal program acting as an object server and participating in the Hurd's distributed virtual file system.

[2] https://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd/documentation/transla...

perhaps also include in the ToC "retro unixporn" - don't be shy, prudes don't play with arch linux, neovim and i3 window manager :P

some good info/instructions - liked the virtualbox guide.

The worlds is full of problems, no shortages there, the evolution engine is still churning.

however, the problems occur with what is meant by "big" [more quantitative, utilizing science + engineering] or "important" [more qualitative, utilizing humanities].

without a common framework of tools, standards and ways it's hard-to-impossible to agree on the existence of 'the problem' and/or how 'big/important' it is.

darn it, I was hopping to find out, but in fact the OP it's a review of 5 novels. never mind

Well, Maps is as much ado about Mapping, as Smart Phones about Phoning, or social networks about socializing etc. Most popular apps/services are about forming a community around "X" subject, with the aim of selling/advertising services around "X,Y,Z"

From experience, I know many people & businesses that use maps mostly for Business Intelligence, if you're Renting property of Buying property/businesses/real estate, Google maps has data up to 2008 (street view). Couple that with Satellite data, reviews, user-generated photos etc, and you've got a treasure trove.

Yes, the map UI is "busy" but I think we've evolved as users too. All google need to do now is work a way to Verify/Trust info around Pins/Comments etc, and they've revenue sorted.

Yesterday, the gov in Nigeria suspended similar operation [1] for privacy concerns, would be interesting to see if Argentina follows suit.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-66383325

IF a Gov subcontracts a company to design + impl a system, they as Customer (if you like) have the right to request specifics; maintenance & integration with the wider ecosystem is a massive concern in this case. That's not "legislation" though.

the telco industry failed terribly to innovate around the phone-line and the mobile-line.

phone line: hoisted for internet services, then customers dumped it mobile line: being hoisted for internet services, customers will soon dump them too

biggest issue: privacy & security - it's a spammers, scammers paradise.

fines won't fix the underlying issues (telco)

Yes [however] you could using props like <input inputmode='none'> or <input readonly='readonly'> and that prevents the device's virtual keyboard from opening 'onfocus'. however, that's not practical, if you want to type/enter data into it during that session.

That could be "one" env provider/integrator. You'd have: - Repo Providers [Guthub, Azure, GitLab etc] - Environment Providers [Azure, AWS, Google Cloud, GitHub Codespace etc] - Code Generation providers [openai etc] - Other providers ...

>> which lost $42 million over 6 months and had just laid off 10% of its employees

most tech companies lay offs have been around 10% mark - and it started before general public's orgasmic-adoption of A.I.

like all platforms, Stack Overfloow, overflowed their market. layoffs and restructuring is a way to address that.

if you account the rise of "tech streaming" platforms like youtube, twitch, and elearning orgs like udemy etc, it's no surprise that students & professionals choose alternatives to Stack.

low accuracy is certainly a good reason to drop a project, especially when dealing with small text (<1000 chars), this is where most social media post/mini-blogs fall under.

bigger text e.g. reports, thesis etc are probably easier & cheaper to verify by humans, with help of A.I. tools (ref checking, searching...)

use @media to do what in this case? to not display the virtual keyboard on input.onfocus?

For now it's best as an IDE for repo (github, azure) code.

But I guess it won't be long before they (microsoft) make virtual envs available on Azure, so you can Run and Debug. That would kick a storm in the Dev world.