fardo

Not at all, politics is often a question of values as much as one of logistics, even assuming AI can handle logistics.

For example, consider homelessness. No one has any clue what, if anything, is the best solution, because there are tradeoffs of values.

One possible solution (these are examples, if your personal pet solution is not included or is misrepresented, I apologize) is you ignore the homeless and just let them be, and allow individual communities and cities to address charity and enforcement. Another is for states to house all non-mentally ill homeless for free, for, say, a year, and, in mental health instutitions, house the repeat homeless, the mentally ill homeless, and those that after some period of time cannot or will not find work.

AI can help you diagnose the problem, and make predictions about it, but those two solutions above have VERY different outcomes, have very different pricetags, and accomplish very different goals. An AI can’t think about the high level moral tradeoffs of questions like “is 100% getting homeless off the streets worth a fraction of the population being held at significant cost to taxpayers and against its own will?”

Somebody, at the end of the day, must decide which, if either, of those plans people will use, and that somebody is a politician you elect. AI is not going to replace that.

If you don't write your own billing system, either:

>Option one:

The group managing your billing system is going to take a cut of your revenue, and if you're really big, that's unacceptable.

One example: Stripe takes about 3% [1]. If you're a major commerce company like Ebay which made roughly 10 billion dollars [1] last year and you used stripe (and lets say you did no negotiation and just used their defaults, unlikely but possible) that's 300 million dollars plus change you're leaving on the table by outsourcing. This means if you're in a position like that and it costs you less than 300 million dollars to build and maintain your billing system (and keep in mind 300 million buys you a team of 2,000 engineers and managers all working at fully loaded costs of 150k), then you're not going to outsource.

>Option two:

You're going to use an open source solution. Risk aversion is the critical point here: If your billing fails, or gives out product for free, in many cases, you no longer have a business. You cannot afford to get billing wrong, and so, in an environment where no "It just werks" open source solution exists, this isn't really a choice most management types can stomach.

[1]https://memberful.com/blog/stripe-vs-paypal/

[2]https://www.statista.com/statistics/507881/ebays-annual-net-...

>I feel like this problem wouldn't be limited to a person's use of the internet but would be an indicator of a person's lack of curiosity in general

I don't agree with that idea. When people say "The internet isn't fun anymore", I don't think this generally is a change in the person so much as fundamental changes in how the modern internet is experienced.

By analogy, if content on the internet is like a liquid flowing into a container, then it's predictable that the liquid will ultimately match the shape of its container. If you change the shape of that container, the liquid's ultimate shape (and thus the way it is experienced) changes in a predictable manner.

When people say the internet isn't fun anymore, this isn't a comment about what's being poured, but the structure in which it's received and presented.

Say what you will about streams of "information": I believe if you switch a man's wine glass with a dog dish, only a wino would say nothing has changed.

>safeframes

Safe frames are not the general solution that you make them out to be.

First, site owners have to actively choose to use safeframes. My personal opinion, just based on people I've spoken with about this, is that most businesses and individuals who run websites treat their ads as a black box and their security as an afterthought. This means any solution for security that isn't by-default and that non-technical site owners have to turn on themselves, with near total certainty, isn't going to be protecting users.

Plus, not all ad networks support it as of June 2017 [1]. In my view, it's less a solution than a "literally-crafted-by-the-ad-industry" [2] externalization of responsibility for users getting hacked due to poor network policing.

[1]https://www.monetizemore.com/blog/should-you-use-dfp-safe-fr...

[2] Page two of https://www.iab.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/SafeFrames_v1...

>Fraud? Malware? What does this have to do with adtech?

A lot, actually. There are many vectors in which adtech and fraud/malware intermingle:

> XSS Attacks:

When your website loads HTML into a page without encoding it first, someone can insert HTML script tags that your browser will parse successfully, allowing arbitrary Javascript to execute in your browser. Malicious actors will then usually redirect you to further unsafe pages that will initiate more downloads or (depending on circumstances) compromise your active user session or credentials. All you need is an ad network that didn't take precautions for a malicious ad and you're serving malware to all downstream users.

>True Clickbait with a malware payload:

Less common nowadays in the sense I mean: Ads that are literally designed for you to click on them, giving the same result as above. We're talking things like "Punch out Osama Bin Laden!" from the early 2000s or "Click here to win a prize!" affairs, where there's no reason a user ought to be clicking on the ad except that they were, quite literally, baited into doing so.

>Normal Clickbait with a malware payload

Create some "interesting content", that just happens to also do all of the above. Miracle cures, "BIG cost savings", poorly vetted porn-ads, and so on. A lot of internet chum is of this type, and there's a great article analyzing it [1]

>Literal Scams:

Many ads presented on websites prey on low information individuals, the elderly, or the young, all of whom are less likely to know any better.

My point is, all of the above is served, with some regularity, over many ad networks today. This means in some sense, many ad networks are responsible for the ads they serve and the damage they cause their users; if not legally, at least morally.

[1] https://www.theawl.com/2015/06/a-complete-taxonomy-of-intern...

>Don’t blame the email

I blame the unspoken expectations that come with email. Email is, in my experience, a political problem rather than a productivity bug.

Requests for support on active bugs comes through email. Your manager will request features, or ask questions about your code and status, through email. Coworkers on different teams collaborate through email.

To not answer these emails immediately probably would not lead to readily apparent punishment, nor would my manager say “he insisted” I respond that quickly, but other coworkers who prioritize these active issues, are ultimately more visible, promote faster, and get bigger bonuses.

By choosing not to play the email game, in many cases, you won’t be punished, but you won’t be rewarded either.

>The principle that a central authority gets to decree how we live, eat, breath, and think is inherently dangerous, especially when it comes with no evident limits.

I don't agree that such an authority is inherently dangerous, this kind of legislation is specifically an example where danger is explicitly reduced.

The below is an attempt to show this isn't just a noble gesture, but that environmental legislation has huge positive impacts, and is exactly the kind of thing we want a state doing.

California generates most of its power through natural gas [1], which the burning of creates smog, which has measureable impacts on life expectancy. Early numbers from China indicate that the difference between highly urbanized areas and less urbanized areas amount to at least 5.5 years of reduced lifespan. [2]

It may surprise you to find out that California, in many heavily populated areas like the Bay Area, where most people are living, actually has worse smog than that in Shanghai [3].

Let's try a simple model and do a back-of-the-envelope calculation of what this means for Americans:

Let's say that in the bay area, the smog is (ass-pulled in direct contradiction to my above source, so we're being conservative) half as bad as in China's urban areas, and therefore longterm exposure to smog reduces life expectancy by 3 years. Let's say that long term, solar panel usage allows California to reduce natural gas burning for power generation, which ultimately reduces smog in a way such that it halves the impact on life expectancy to 1.5 years.

There are 7 million people in the Bay area. If you're willing to buy the above model, you are saving 10.5 million years of human life just in the Bay Area by making the change, before we even begin to discuss external positive environmental impacts and subjective quality of life benefits of smog reduction.

Last thought? The average human lifespan in America is 79 years[4]. If the above model is correct, such a change is equivalent to saving 132,000 lives. You don't notice that all this life is being lost because the effects are so diffuse.

There are times to leap to your pitchforks about the harms of the state, but environmentalism definitely isn't one of them.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_California

[2] https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-energy/coal-and-other-fossil-fu...

[3] https://www.ozy.com/acumen/think-chinas-pollution-is-bad-try...

[4]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expe...

Have you candidly told him any of this?

In your position, it sounds like you two need to have a serious talk about what both of you consider your role to be and about where the company is going. Find a free block of time and figure out where you two go from here, you’re both adults and can and should be discussing these feelings and issues.

The better question is "Why do you want to build these things", because the answer to that question would help answer yours.

Are you looking to make money? Then Chrome extensions probably aren't a great way to do it, given that they're distributed for free, and a dating app might be questionable, but an online video editor might be a good idea.

Are you looking to make something you'd find useful for yourself? An in-browser video editor or gifplayer probably wouldn't be very useful for you, but the extensions could be very helpful for you.

Are you looking to build up a portfolio? Then it doesn't matter which you build, all of the above projects probably would be okay portfolio pieces.

I personally would not be interested in paying for any of the above, but as I'm trying to explain, that doesn't necessarily matter if you're not making it for money or you're not trying to cater to HN's demographic. Figure out what's guiding you and I'm sure you can filter at least half of the ideas off this list.

This is untrue in modern tech for most people. Let's attempt to break it down for a person who's single who wants to retire early:

If you're pulling 100k or more, you should be more than capable, if you are living frugally, even after taxes, to save about 30-40% of that (if not way more. Remember that the median single person income is about $35,000, and the median family income, in total, is $75,062 [1]).

The current wisdom is that if you are withdrawing no more than about 3-4% of your savings, you can expect, due to return on investment, your money to last about 30 years with 90% certainty [2].

This means that if you are willing to live on, say, $18,000 (fairly doable in many parts of the country where rentals are 600-900 a month), you only need a nest egg of 600k to begin a 30 year retirement in which you never make another dollar from working.

To make this concrete: let's say after taxes and expenses, 30% of $100,000 is all you can reasonably save, due to the Bay Area being pricey and general life expenses. I personally don't think it's a major sacrifice to stash this much away, but let's run with it as an example. That's $30,000 you can sock away a year.

This means to reach that 600k retirement figure, it should only take someone who starts saving for retirement immediately, 20 years to get there.

And I would argue this is a VERY pessimistic assumption set as well, because the 3% number is meant to be a guarantee to survive HARD economic downturns, and the above analysis assumed you never received a bonus, never got a raise, never were awarded stock, never saved more, and never developed any income streams besides your job, despite being a programmer for over 20 years. Some analyses of doable salary increases programmers regularly get show you could pull this off in 8 years with my 30% estimate [3]. If you can, for example, increase your savings rate in my setup to 50%, you can have the above 600k based retirement within 12 years, in your mid 30s.

Families obviously make this analysis more complicated, because of housing and the possibility of new income streams and drains, but assuming a two income family, I still would assert the fundamentals of the above situation haven't changed.

So, in short, it very much is possible to retire in your 40s. You just have to live your lifestyle in a way that actually allows for that.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-12/u-s-house...

[2] http://time.com/money/4689984/safe-withdrawal-rate-retiremen...

[3] https://danluu.com/startup-tradeoffs/

I think the elephant in the room for making new friends over 30, is stagnation in one's daily routine caused by one's job.

I don't think anything changed dramatically in the last 60 or so years on this point, even with the development of social media; by the time you're 30, you're basically done making friends.

The article glossed over it, but in your childhood and teens, you're surrounded by a new group of people every 5 or so years, and just through sheer quantity, you're likely to make at least a few friends. Throw on team sports, extracurriculars, clubs, and the ease of introductions in a school environment, and it's almost impossible not to make a few friends all the way into your late 20s.

Somewhere around when you turn 25 or so, though, without substantial effort, things stabilize. If you were going to leave your home, you probably did, and you're settled in. You and your old friends start to marry and have kids, and both of these occupy your free time (and theirs). You may have bought a house or found a job you want to settle into for a while, with plans to stick around for several years.

For at least 8 hours of your day, you are at work, interacting with people in an environment toxic for creating trusting friendships (You're competing for the same roles, titles, bonuses, etc.), and worse, these people you're competing with are almost always the exact same people, so if you're not really friends with any of them immediately, that's basically never going to change.

With the remaining time in your evenings, you'll also settle into a routine. You won't be playing sports anymore, and if you have hobbies, you'll generally be doing them with the same small consistent set of people in your area, assuming you do them with others at all.

So, in short, if your 8-hour workday isn't a time to make friends, and you're not interacting with people in a way that leads to making friends in your 8-hour evenings, when the hell do you expect to be making your friends over 30, during your 8-hours asleep?

>Perhaps there should be a central clearinghouse for people who don't want to be tracked by certain sites.

This the most G. K. Chesterton-esque comment I have ever read on this site.

Poe's law may apply, but if you're actually being serious, "Let's build a list tracking all the people who want to avoid tracking" first, probably wouldn't work, and second, is the surveillance equivalent of a "standards problem" [1]

[1]: https://xkcd.com/927/

If we only get to pick one as a society, entertaining people, hands down.

Society happily survived without proof of work for millennia, but I think it’s important to remember that entertainment is the good part of life that proof of work is ultimately supposed to enable.

I mean this in the same sense the founding fathers did when the wrote stuff like:

>“I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.”

That is, proof of work is the tradeoff that ultimately should enable people’s personal entertainment and happiness.

If more of the former means less of the latter, I think we are in a bad way.

It respects the people in society who believe that, as long as a commercial work continues to make significant amounts of money, they are entitled to the profits of their labors.

It also respects the statistic that most creative works stop being commercially exploited within about 28 years [1]. A shorter default copyright allows society to reap the benefits of the default effect [2], in which a creator who is no longer interested in the sale of their work is psychologically more likely to just let the default option happen, which in a world with regular extensions of copyright would mean their work would enter the public domain and others could make use of their work.

It also forces creatives and companies to back up, with results, that they believe their works are, for their own benefit, worth denying the public access to. If a work deserves or needs more than 20 years of profit to justify its existence, fine, but your belief being backed up with a $20,000 deposit, and the knowledge that the cost to you is only going to go up from that point, speaks a lot stronger than just one's word.

[1] Average result of articles linked in https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/oct/07/shorter-c...

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_effect_(psychology)

>Problem is, material in the public domain quickly becomes worthless

I wonder if Disney, which built its empire on repurposing public domain Hans Christian Anderson stories as animated films, would have agreed with your assessment.

The value of the public domain isn’t in its literal resale, nor is it supposed to be: the value is in being a direct, continuing, and explicitly legal source of inspiration for the new.

Regardless of how impressive your side project is, unless it is a very special exception (e.g. you’re head maintainer of a linux distribution or open source tool the company hiring you is extensively using and needs your expertise on), it’s only getting you into the door to talk to people, and it’s not a route around the interview process.

So, ultimately that process is going to be whiteboard coding, because it (let’s be honest) basically always is. That whiteboard coding tends to draw its questions, most often, from question pools like those on Leetcode.

This means if you’re resume’s strong enough for someone to talk to you, you probably should be optimizing to pass the whiteboard section.

>Put it in the context of operating systems, and the guy was saying "This is the next Windows." That would be laughable.

That happened in real life!

Consider what the launch of Linux looked like:

http://www.thelinuxdaily.com/2010/04/the-first-linux-announc...

It’s reasonable to think a hobby project won’t get big, and saying it will certainly is talking a big game before it’s actually happened, but even in the OS counterexample you provided, strange things can happen.

Some side projects die, and some side project ends up taking over the majority of the server and all of the supercomputer OS market.

Yes, I edit any article that needs copy-editing.

You would be astonished how many articles have basic errors in grammar and spelling. I enjoy the idea that if I noticed it, others will too, and I’m preserving their flow on the article.