charlesism

    > Essentially, I'm operating a system, and if you can 
    > guarantee the system functions as documented -- I 
    > don't really care how the sausage gets made.

If a software fix for a hardware issue works well enough, I'm with you 100%.

The thing about the incentive, though, is that a software fix ticks the "we did something" box, as long as it improves the issue to any degree. That it does any good at all, combined with the lower cost, can give management (or ass-covering employees) enough substance to rationalize the decision away.

I doubt anyone at Boeing would willingly risk customer lives. But if they are working under pressure, and can say "well, we did do something to address the issue," that can lead to bad decisions.

I know little about Boeing, but I'm sure the amount of money at stake, if they have a serious mechanical issue, would be staggering. I don't want to fly on a 737 Max. I worry they have too much incentive to conclude every root cause is software.

Is it complicated? You like a website, and that website is bad for the world. Coco-Cola causes tooth decay regardless of how much I enjoy drinking it.

I figure, if I avoid leaning new linguistic trends, after enough years pass, my writing will suddenly seem sophisticated. What's the payoff for mimicking internet slang and turns of phrase? A decade from now, you either sound like a has-been, or a person who can't let go of their youth.

I don’t have much feedback, except to say I think this is a really good, useful concept.

Thanks. I subsequently went down the Bertrand Russel rabbit hole, and wound up watching a half hour interview of his, which I just posted to HN.

Both have access to nukes, which is a credible argument they are "just as powerful as any emperor in history"

    > What do they all have in common? They have too much power and 
    > display autocratic tendencies when exercising it.

The source seems to be related to a “Center for Economic Freedom” which I gather promotes some variant of Reaganomics

At Reddit hardly anyone complains that Reddit is turning into Reddit.

Don't go for a BA in English and Philosophy at the University of Sydney, at any rate.

Harvard denies admission to boy once they discover he’s a racist troll. That seems quite reasonable to me.

“It’s not fair! We stole these lyrics first”

The Factory milieu produced at least one would-be murderer, and probably worse. Not that I agree with the original comparison. Culturally, the Warhol crowd were a stop between the somber, black-clad Existentialists of the 50s and the somber, black-clad ‘goths’ of the 80s.

In reality, when you attack a group, it gets stronger, unless it retains the same strength, or gets weaker. That’s admittedly a less satisfying rule, but at least it’s true.

    > Jobs personally heads the MacIntosh development team

MacIntosh :)

The article really does read like propaganda to reposition “debt peonage” as “aspirational debt peonage”

Wouldn't impairing a foreign nation's economy increase economic migration from that nation? I'm no economist, so maybe I'm missing something.

    Of course, there are minor differences between various ethnic groups

This is a poor choice of words, which undermines the author's thesis. If there were actually distinct "ethnic groups" then one could call those groups distinct "races." The point is that when we classify people (into ethnic groups, or races), the specific criteria we use, and the boundaries we draw, are subjective.

It's not a huge deal, but would it be hard for HN to vet submissions here before they go live, instead of after?

Equifax is in the business of selling data. I will grant you that's a good point. I suppose the issue now boils down to whether 20 years is a long time or not. I don't think it is, but I don't see a conclusive way to argue either side of that. I'm not sure how to continue at this point :)

"Equifax was founded by Cator and Guy Woolford in Atlanta, Georgia, as Retail Credit Company in 1899"

And the thing is that most people would never knowingly make the privacy vs utility trade-off. The risk (that the entire world gain access to one's search history) is not in the best interest of most users. Personalized search does not provide that much added value.

And why is it that we all trust Google is unhackable? I won't be shocked if someday a torrent turns up with billions of private Gmail messages and user search history records.

I scanned this essay for the inevitable "there is more work to be done" line. This time it's "we know our work here is never done, and we want to do more to stay ahead of user expectations."

+1 for teaching me the neologism 'malgorithm'

You can't think of a more likely reason why Saudi Arabia has influence? Wow.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...

It's easy to see why the Koch brothers fund this foundation, though that thought does grate a little.

I'd rather the person telling me "just be thankful for the system we have!" not be worth $50 billion more than me.

Not to minimize their impressive management of Koch Industries, but most of us don't inherit $20 million companies from our parents.

You could have picked one up after the video game crash. I think the XL machines wound up selling around $100 in the mid 1980s.

    My biggest worry is that a new “Marzipan” 
    music app won’t have any of these features.

Well, that's the real problem: is Apple still willing to create, and capable of creating, great desktop software? Apple's plan to break up iTunes is an excellent idea, in theory. If the replacement apps are bad apps, it doesn't matter how good the rest of the plan is.

    Is Apple going to accept that they’re currently 
    alienating and undermining decades of goodwill 
    by shipping broken computers in mass quantities?

I imagine the majority of people who work for Apple understand that. That doesn't necessarily mean the company will respond appropriately. That conflict is what happens when employees lack faith that doing the right thing (for the long-term health of the company) will benefit their own careers. I think that's what is happening at Apple. Individual employees know better, but the company makes a lot of bad decisions, even so.

Cheers. I hadn't thought about that. I just saw the photo, and it doesn't look like a pleasant way to work. Screwdriver breaking something off, ESD, etc.