bad-joke

This is why some strains of socialism advocate a regulated market wherein businesses can freely experiment, then the optimal path is nationalized.

Free market or centralized economy, at the end of the day someone is making an executive decision about how resources are allocated. Whether you believe that executive person (or committee) should be acting in the best interests of the public or a group of shareholders is a matter of principle, not logistics.

I don't mean to detract from the scientific discussion, but would like to note that this is a wonderful example of the "submarine piece" as described by Paul Graham:

http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html

This type of "seeking" behavior is easier to justify when you can afford to take more risks. Consider the stock market adage "Never invest what you can't afford to lose."

If wealth was evenly divided in the US, each household would have $760,000 [1]. Assuming a person spends $16,436 on taxi rides per year (instead of buying a new car every year), that would be 2% of their income, not 40%.

[2]https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/yellen20141...

The Volkswagen emissions scandal demonstrated that mitigating effects will be circumvented given the presence of a profit motive. Rather than construct an elaborate and exploitable maze of incentives, perhaps it would be simpler to remove the profit motive.

As the linked article mentions, The Dispossessed was inspired by the works of Peter Kropotkin, the prominent anarcho-communist.

You can absolutely compare the real with a fantasy. That's how innovation happens.

>Would the people who chose employment through them as a preferable choice to other options (or unemployment) agree with you?

It's not just about them. These drivers are effectively working for 50% of what other drivers are making. This drives down the median wage for all other drivers, because more middle men will be able to step in and outcompete independent drivers. Overall, you get more people working longer hours for less compensation.

To what end? Who really benefits from this trend?

Are you looking for anecdotes or data?

What conclusion are you hoping to reach here?

I have to agree here about motivation being an important factor. When I injured myself running, I tried experimenting with a few other types of cardio (cycling, swimming, rowing, stairmaster, etc.) but they were all miserable experiences compared to running. It was beyond frustrating and the only thing that kept me going was the anticipation of running again.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, several of my coworkers lift weights exclusively and can't believe I prefer running. It bores them out of their minds.

I have to wonder if many people don't exercise because they find it boring and unsatisfying, not because it's difficult.

> You can't get passion for a subject by dedicating a majority of your daily hours on it? Seems like that could be the very definition of passion.

I've been wondering this myself lately too. What's the difference between someone who spends 100 hours doing something with rigorous discipline because they're trying to cultivate a passion, and someone who spends 100 hours doing something because they're passionate about it? Warm fuzzy feelings?

I was part of a caving group for a while. Very interesting and friendly subculture. Mine had some overlap with hikers and a few were trained for rescue.

I recommend finding one in your area if you can (not all areas are great for caves unfortunately) and are up for some unique experiences.

Related: Saturnalia, the Roman holiday that predated Christmas. Slaves and masters switched some of their roles and duties for the duration, everyone got drunk, and many gifts were exchanged.

Like the medieval version of April Fool's Day, Saturnalia revelers would appoint a chief fool, the Saturnalicius princeps, whose commands had to be obeyed, no matter how silly.

> They are usually complicated situations generated by organic and uncontrolled growth in codebase complexity that lead to horrible scenarios requiring a lot of brain power to solve.

Agreed. The deeper I get into the software field, the more it feels like choreography.

"Say little and do much." - Pirkei Avot

Just curious: why is this program not recommended for people using a pacemaker?

Former smoker here.

One good thing is the ritual. I never thought of it as "brainless" before but that's a great way of putting it. Smoking is relaxing because you turn off your brain and go through the prescribed motions. When you finish the last motion you go back to life. It's not really relaxing in the chemically induced way (in fact smoking increases anxiety), it's more like meditation. You're allowing yourself to take a break from life for a few minutes. In fact, you're really being /given permission/ to take a break by the external mandate of addiction cravings. You can use this time to reflect, strike up a conversation, examine your surroundings, whatever you want.

Another good thing is bonding with smokers. It's a shared activity. The act of smoking serves as either punctuation for a conversation, or the background noise that substitutes conversation. A cigarette can be a prop used for emphasis. Bumming a cigarette is a sort of friendly offering. Most importantly, misery loves company. All smokers know they're addicted. When you smoke with someone else, you're acknowledging each other's weakness and demonstrating acceptance. That's one of the main reasons being a smoker is like being in a big, secret club. It's very romantic.

I haven't smoked in a very long time, and I realize now that it was a really stupid and damaging habit, but I do miss parts of it. I've promised myself that I can take up pipe-smoking as a reward for surviving into elderly age.

Here is my go-to motivator for getting in at least 30 minutes of exercise per day:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurobiological_effects_of_phy...

It takes a few months for the flashy effects to kick in but you get a grab bag of other goodies in the meantime. I know some people who schedule morning time because they feel energized during the day, and another who does it after work to unwind.

Me? I just like having an excuse to take hot showers at lunchtime :)

Very cool! Why does it stop at 10,000?

I really enjoyed reading this. It's informative, fun, and has a refreshingly honest tone. Too often, stories passed around by computer scientists entail clever solutions and elegant insight striking the protagonist like lightning in the hour of need. Rarely does the programmer express regret, make self-corrections, and confront fear and doubt along the way:

>I should have written beautiful code from the beginning, but because I needed to learn by writing a working code, the rewriting was unavoidable.

>I should probably change my mind to implement all the features from end to end. I may find it fun as I'm approaching the goal. Sometimes, I have to write more code than I want to write in order to achieve a goal.

>In a tough situation like this, I probably should recall the fact that the compiler was just in one file, to see how much progress I've made in a month. It just reads an integer with scanf() and prints it out with printf(). Really, I made so much progress in one month. Yeah, I think I can do this.

Weirdly, the light is what surprises me the most. I always thought the surface of Pluto was cloaked in eternal night because the sun is so far away. Turns out high noon on Pluto is more or less as bright as twilight on Earth!

Check your local "Pluto time" here: http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/plutotime/