alexanderdmitri

General public conflates him with Assange, who had his own flurry of press recently.

Conjecture is silly when there's good data to be had.

The number one cause of bankruptcy in the United States:

> "medical expenses"[0]

The average amount charged for an ER visit in the United States:

> between 2008 and 2017, the average price of hospital ER visits rose 135 percent, from $393 to $924[1]

The cost of an ambulance ride in the United States:

> $164/mile[2]

And make sure to compound the monetary cost with the cost of people avoiding medical care out of fear and unknowns surrounding the actual monetary cost.

[0] take your pick of any study done by anyone

[1] https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/average-cost-o...

[2] https://www.consumerreports.org/consumerist/164-per-mile-sur...

Maybe he meant the conscious mind we experience abstractly and is somehow hosted in / by the brain.

In which case, sure, it makes sense that each thought blocks the main thread and that's why thought-loops are particularly annoying.

In terms of I/O though, I certainly try to optimize the main thread with concurrent patterns when the input queue gets hit with high traffic. Even if I'm recurrently mulling over something for days, hoping for a break-through or insight or whatever, it's not like I'm incapacitated and can't perform / prioritize other thoughtful tasks on the event loop.

Our first born came with a $42k bill. Hospital and doctor said we were covered by our insurance pre-auth, but come bill time apparently pre-auth was null and void b/c it was requisite on a negotiation that fell through. Each side had a different story and their representatives acted absolutely helpless.

We were broke at the time we found out about the pregnancy and memories of the first two years of my boy's life are largely dominated by this kafka-esque nightmare that took time and security away from our family life. I refused to pay a cent until what we were told was honored, my thinking being any sort of payment may legitimize it.

Eventually I didn't hear back from the hospital about our latest contestation for two months after confirming their receipt of the documentation (about a four hour process each submission, always new fax numbers, life-wasting hold times to confirm receipt of said documentation, transfers to other agents and departments, then a promise of giving a decision in a few weeks, often just reprinting the last non-descript document they used in the previous round without any real detail). Decided to just do nothing and ignore it as long as I didn't get contacted again and got everything ready to go to court if someone ever decided to pursue it against us again. The documentation I've been holding from the ordeal is 60 pounds of paper.

I still have no idea what the true status is, but it hasn't shown up on credit checks and our boy is now 5 years old.

I could not find anyone in various governmental institutions to even look into the matter and the lawyers I talked to said the outlook of winning was grim and would have cost a lot of money on top of that to even pursue it. Our insurance company [Anthem] posted a $17 billion profit that year. The hospital had the highest gross profit of any hospital in our city and the surrounding area at $80.4 million declared. Both entities make so much money they give away individual debts amounting in the tens of thousands of dollars for pennies (maybe ours included?).

It's an absolutely depraved system and my point is maybe be careful showing good faith to an entity trying to screw you lest it be taken as consent.

The lectures I best remember are the ones I took notes in. Every now and then again, I like to flip through old notebooks and the feel of those moments come back, the general atmosphere created by the professor, the subject, the feel of the class, the turning of the season, that visceral sense of having been alive in another time and space and I'm very glad to have left a record.

Except the algorithm being gamed can change suddenly, drastically and without the gamer's knowledge.

When such changes occur, the gamer will be docked until they can reverse-engineer the new algorithm. There's also the risk that all their previous inputs "gaming" the system might be reconsumed to terrible results as well, effectively rewriting their historical performance disasterously.

As always, those with the social standing and power to have insider knowledge or guidance will be in the best position to profit off such systems.

I wonder if you're referring to his talk at ChasmWare '16?

If so I remember that being a thing (potential licensing issues with the megacorp subsidiary that bottled it) so we dumped the bottle and filled it with tap to be on the safe side. Technically he didn't pay a dime and in the end it was us paying the company for the bottle and the venue (not Richard) who swallows the cost of the water and it's delivery as a utility.

At the time I was of the opinion we over-thought it a bit and involving a $100/hr lawyer was crazy. Turns out my manager was right when she said "Alexander Dmitri, I say this to you: Never under-estimate the people who might try to call this ridiculous stuff out to detract. The haters must be met with diligence."

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Season 3 was a major drop off from the quality of the first two seasons.

I can't even remember if I finished the third season now that I think about it ...

"I'm not a robot, I like carbohydrates, oxygen and Amazon just like you," strikes me as at least suspicious ...

Eh, evolution is a pretty nifty mix of oo class extensions, recursion, brute-force and bias weightings.

I'd wager Gawsh made the best system S/He could given product constraints (completely unfocused if you ask me [which I know no one did]) and the real need to deliver (take it easy over there Leibniz, the world is still crap as evidenced everywhere).

Anyway, can't knock it 'til you've built it.

This is an interesting article: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-most-speci...

I can see Turing tests becoming ever more useful (and annoying) going forward.

This is a rather cryptic comment.

Are you saying there's some sort of group or club where you pay 15 cents for a mask and then put it on to get well-acquainted to psycologically aberrant individuals from a comfortable distance before they go prison?

Python limits the stack to a 1000 and a series of recursive calls hitting that ceiling will throw a `RecursionError`.

+1 for the money, sex and progeny checklist

10-4, thank you!

Mocking inputs from APIs is actually great if someone besides the original developer picks up the codebase, whether from a system or even down to isolated function stubs. This is because it gives insight into the expected inputs the original developer(s) had been expecting and can elucidate the source under test.

Integration tests fill the hole you're pointing out. You can even have integration tests designed to validate the mock inputs in many cases.

How does Hy manage recursion given the limitations there in Python?

My understanding is that finger printing relies on gleaning data about the underlying os and hardware. I'd think using a browser in a fresh VM may offer more security security in this case.

Reminds me of the time I decided to try kanban to start moving forward on tasks I procrastinate on or have trouble starting.

Of course, to make sure it was efficient enough to be helpful it had to be a configurable terminal app I could quickly update and review via cli and abundant io flags/options.

It also made sense to write it in Scheme because I had been thinking I wanted to try Lisp earlier that day.

Fast-forward three weeks and I find myself hopelessly trying to refactor this strangely ugly-beautiful ascii-art themed effort tracker run by an abomination of labrynthine "functional" source and realize (maybe just finally admit to myself) it was all an excuse to avoid all that shit I'd convinced myself I was going to acheive by kanbanning in the first place.

The best part is I regret nothing!

I'd definitely be interested in knowing what His take on error handling is.

Someone once pointed out to me I had a tendency to momentarily scowl when complimented and then pretend I hadn't heard it.

Made sense because compliments made me feel weird, even though I freely gave them out.

Since then I've trained myself to smile, make eye-contact and say "Thank you, I accept your compliment with confidence," before returning to the matter at hand.

If your incentives are aligned w/firefighting as opposed to fire prevention b/c management is not motivating and rewarding the extra work that goes into avoiding these scenarios in the first place, you're encouraging fire.

There are probably a fair amount of code reviews where constructive feedback is needed but not given because the reviewer adhered to the old addage "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."

Tact takes effort and discipline, just like programming. To draw an analogy, maybe it's like when a dev foresees a bug but can't figure a good way to address it (or isn't motivated to address it, or doesn't have the confidence, isn't fully convinced it's really an issue, &c) decides to turn a blind eye and figures it'll get resolved further down the line if it becomes a serious problem.

Or a view. Most likely a controller.

Then again, bad drivers often make themselves known on the road and you can give them wide berth when recognized (granted, not always possible). Watching for the warning signs of a bad / reckless / distracted drivers quickly became an almost unconscious habit for me.

A machine suddenly hitting a bug is whole new ball game though. I guess over time maybe you could build up a sense of where machines have trouble driving and adjust accordingly.

What they pay everyone else and what companies generally pay for the position would be on the table too, so you'd have leverage too right?

Market transparency is good!

10 years ago I would have thought it unthinkable a Windows machine would be sending data behind the scenes about me to a remote server.

This privacy policy[1] is insane:

> Together, diagnostics and feedback are how you and your Windows 10 device tell Microsoft what's really going on. As you use Windows, we collect diagnostic information, and to make sure we're listening to you, our customer, we've also built ways for you to send us feedback anytime, and at specific times, like when Windows 10 asks you a question about how something is working for you.

> There are two levels of diagnostic data: Basic and Full. [...] This data is transmitted to Microsoft and stored with one or more unique identifiers that can help us recognize an individual user on an individual device and understand the device's service issues and use patterns.

> Specific data items collected in Windows diagnostics are subject to change to give Microsoft flexibility to collect the data needed for the purposes described. For example, to ensure Microsoft can troubleshoot the latest performance issue impacting users’ computing experience or update a Windows 10 device that is new to the market, Microsoft may need to collect data items that were not collected previously. For detailed info about the data that Microsoft collects at the Basic level, see Basic level Windows diagnostic events and fields. For more info about the data that Microsoft collects at the Full level, see Diagnostic data for full level.

> We use the Basic level of diagnostic data to improve Windows. We use the Full level of diagnostic data to improve Windows and related products and services.

> Some of the data described above may not be collected from your device even if your Diagnostic data setting is set to Full. Microsoft minimizes the volume of data we collect from all devices by collecting some of the data at the Full level from only a small percentage of devices (sample). By running the Diagnostic Data Viewer tool (available on newer versions of Windows), you can see an icon which indicates whether your device is part of a sample and also which specific data is collected from your device. Instructions for how to download the Diagnostic Data Viewer tool can be found at Start > Settings > Privacy > Diagnostics & feedback.

> You can view diagnostic data for your device in real time by using the Diagnostic Data Viewer. Note that you will only be able to view data that is available while the Diagnostic Data Viewer is running. The Diagnostic Data Viewer does not allow you to view your diagnostic data history.

If you click the feedback panel on the right edge, you get sent to another Microsoft privacy policy[2]:

> We also use the data to operate our business, which includes analyzing our performance, meeting our legal obligations, developing our workforce, and doing research. In carrying out these purposes, we combine data we collect from different contexts (for example, from your use of two Microsoft products) or obtain from third parties to give you a more seamless, consistent, and personalized experience, to make informed business decisions, and for other legitimate purposes.

> We share your personal data with your consent or to complete any transaction or provide any product you have requested or authorized. We also share data with Microsoft-controlled affiliates and subsidiaries; with vendors working on our behalf; when required by law or to respond to legal process; to protect our customers; to protect lives; to maintain the security of our products; and to protect the rights and property of Microsoft and its customers.

> You can also make choices about the collection and use of your data by Microsoft. You can control your personal data that Microsoft has obtained, and exercise your data protection rights, by contacting Microsoft or using various tools we provide. In some cases, your ability to access or control your personal data will be limited, as required or permitted by applicable law.

1. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4468236/diagnostics...

2. https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-US/privacystatement

[edited to give excerpts from the second privacy I encountered trying to provide feedback to the first one!]

They could present value if their product works across cloud-providers (not familiar with their business model, but IAM is generally regarded as one of the biggest ways you can get locked into AWS).

Lawyers are notorious for being mercenaries for hire. The most successful firms contract with corporations that take advantage of the law to their gain and society's detriment.

Medical doctors work for an industry that bankrupts sick people for being sick and and a huge number (if not a majority) of practicing doctors can be implicated in the opioid epidemic that has killed thousands and ruined countless lives.

Ethical contracts usually just lead to more politics imo. At the end of the day, we all bow to money in one way or another (some are just willing to bow lower than others).

Maybe we should stop pretending a profession can somehow make a person better than someone else in some sort of meta/ethical way.

Addendum: Personally I wish the law were more open to allowing people to defend themselves. A few years ago I went to court to defend myself in what I was sure was a simple misunderstanding in traffic court. Halfway through my second sentence (not in the legal sense), the judge interrupted me. Then the police officer tried to explain what he put in the ticket may not have been comprehensive. The judge cut him off too and decided it was in my best interest to "learn a lesson" and found me guilty of a violation I was not guilty of. The lesson I learned was if I had paid a lawyer $500 I would have gotten an honest hearing. I don't see the ethics or standards in that.