brlewis

That's different. The average "gambler" in the stock exchange comes out ahead.

It's also arguably worse. It adds a conflict of interest that the "numbers game" never had. The same government that is responsible for providing an education that makes people resistant to the lottery has an interest in people being vulnerable to the lottery.

Maybe the quote I used was too long. I'll shorten it to just the part that shows it's more than a single case, and add caps to emphasize it was more than ONE exception.

>>"so I guess these guys have just NEVER hung out with ANY athletes?" Turns out it ISN'T THAT ABNORMAL FOR THEM to like cool and nerdy stuff.

> How come I know exactly where this essay is going?

This is the question I've been thinking as I've checked back in on comments here a few times this morning. Why do so many people "know" that this essay is all about aggrandizing pg's own intellect or that of startup founders, when it's almost entirely composed of two parts: (1) discussion on when independent thinking is and isn't valuable, and (2) advice on cultivating independent thinking? Where does this impression come from?

There's always some negativity toward any widely-read essay, but there seems to be a higher quantity with this one, making me think there's something actually wrong with it. My hypothesis is that its presentation is too neatly wrapped. This essay espouses curiosity, but does not model it. It comes across as having all the answers. This is especially true of the brief part that confidently explains the lack of negative reaction to another essay, with no details of how such confidence was arrived at.

This is too bad. I'd like for this essay to have engendered more discussion on cultivating independent thinking, and less discussion about pg's mindset.

>> The MMA guy was apparently like "so I guess these guys have just never hung out with any athletes?" Turns out it isn't that abnormal for them to like cool and nerdy stuff.

> "black swans" is not only about swans. There can be sports-types who also like intellectual activity

The gp's experience taught that such sports-types are not black swans. It's not just that the stereotype had exceptions; it's that the stereotype wasn't even accurate at low granularity.

It seems different to me, because on subreddits plagued by self promotion, nobody will ask.

It probably spread at a similar rate relative to how fast truth spread at the time.

Lots of old quotes about falsehood spreading faster than truth: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/13/truth/

> The vast majority of the evidence is anecdotal

True. But how does that compare to evidence that the vaccine will have serious adverse effects?

Thanks. I only hovered over mRNA on a wikipedia page[0] and saw the word "fragment", so I knew it wasn't live or attenuated viruses, but didn't realize how novel this vaccine type is.

That said, I'd still rush out and get it. I'm more concerned about the unknowns of Long Covid than I am about the unknowns of the vaccine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Covid

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_vaccine#Clinical_tria...

I did not think impersonal entities were what the gp post was talking about; apologies if they were. But even including impersonal supernatural entities, the wikipedia page I cited shows that's not a defining characteristic.

Help me understand what risk you're concerned about. Have there been other mRNA vaccines where an adverse effect showed up in general use that wasn't caught in clinical trials?

>In most languages, "religion" will imply an ordered belief in a supernatural entity and set of accompanying practices

Buddhism is considered a religion and does not fit that description.

Your emphatic capslock notwithstanding, there's no single defining element. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion

That it's dumbed down and watered down explains the appeal.

> I never understood the wave of Social Media; it appeared to be a dumbed-down and watered-down...junkfood...

I'm confused. Before the semicolon you're claiming you don't understand the wave of Social Media. After the semicolon you demonstrate perfect understanding of it.

The author is right under the title of the article: Gilad Navot. Looking at the gray in the beard in Navot's picture on the about page, I'm guessing that Navot has more than one year of engineering experience. (I'd also guess that Navot's preferred pronoun is not "she", else she would ditch the beard)

> Vue includes a whole templating language, that have control structures in addition to JSX features (v-if, v-for, ...)

This is why I like JSX better than idiomatic[0] Vue. Using SGML syntax for programming logic or other things it was not designed for ends you up here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19951229

[0] I am aware that JSX is possible with Vue, but I believe it's rarely used. If you think I'm wrong, wait to correct me until after you correct the article author, who says that Vue projects all follow the same structure.

What emotional chord was struck with you that drove you to use absolutes like "completely", "nothing to do with", and "100%" when the primary bad parenting the author acknowledges is buying the daughter an iPhone too early?

And if you can't get a dog, play a game like Pokemon Go or Ingress.

Wii Fit is good for balance. I hope mine still works in 3 or 4 decades.

You applied this question:

When I modify this code, what tests will tell me that it still does what it's supposed to?

To this situation:

When I modify this code, will tests that enforce coupling between different components tell me that the code still does what it's supposed to?

You observed that no, such tests would need to be changed even though the overall logic was the same. I assume that next you would apply the same question to a test that is for the overall logic, and conclude that yes, it's a good test.

> While that's true, you don't want

I'm confused. These opening words make it sound like you're getting ready to partially disagree, but then the rest of the comment is pure agreement. What did I miss?

I don't think clearly defined boundaries are what's needed. People just need to keep in mind that the purpose of tests is to catch bugs. When I modify this code, what tests will tell me that it still does what it's supposed to? Keeping that question at the fore will work better than any cookbook.

You are technically correct that they never said vim/emacs lacks those features. A tiny bit of reading comprehension effort can illuminate the intent of juxtaposed sentences.

> That said, if you’re new to programming, a modern IDE could be helpful. With code completion, Git control, and even automatic deployment systems, modern IDEs are a Swiss Army Knife of features.

Just in case anyone reading here is as colossally ignorant as the writer, let me state for the record that emacs has those features. I don't use vim but I'm pretty sure it has them too. An accurate list of how newer IDEs benefit newbies follows:

1. Familiar key bindings

Hypothesis: The average printer buyer is not reading eff.org or having conversations with friends about friends' printer experiences. They go to a store and buy what the salesperson recommends. After purchase, they think of the restrictions as an annoyance, not a freedom issue to talk with their friends about.

> Who doesn't have an auto increment Id field on every table?

In large organizations with a lot of teams, natural primary keys make interoperability easier across databases, as opposed to a forest of artificial keys that are all different. SQL experts who advocate natural keys point to ON UPDATE CASCADE as the solution to natural keys that occasionally change.

So the absence of an auto increment Id field might be a dumb error, or might be super smart, or might be both. Both means you're a SQL expert but haven't made sure everybody else working on the project always will be.

> I disagree that you should refactoring code "so that the entire team can understand the code". Teams turnover much more frequently than a code base should

I didn't read it as saying the code should be refactored every time the team changes. I read it as saying that as the organization's understanding of what the software does evolves, the structure of the code should evolve with that understanding.

When it's ground nobody's covered before, it's hacking.

> there's nothing 'official' about it. If someone goes faster but never tells anyone, they still went faster

The word "official" refers to authority, not to reality. I'm using the official definition.

Merely believing in something false is harmless, but once in a while humans actually act on their beliefs.

Suppose a restaurant employee believes that the requirement to wash hands before returning to work is a hoax by the soap companies in order to sell more soap. If the employee believes this but never acts on it, fine. But if they stop washing their hands before returning to work, that threatens public health.