jleyank

Locked behind firewall. Is the author saying the young lack the imagination to read or at least to see analogies? Are they saying that there's insufficient stimulation on the written or typed page? Or that people today are too passive to engage in reading, merely receiving video?

Lock everything down and everybody's going to stop reading cuz they're not going to pay for the text and they're not going to hack their way in. And if AI is generating said text, it's going to be wordy.

STEM is really a pastiche. Things one looks for in CS aren't the same as what's looked for in a Science program. It's way easier, for example, to see whether the person has a BS Chemistry degree (which has predefined requirements) than checking each course to see whether it's for majors or for poets or for pre-meds. I suspect it's similar in Physics, and Biology has the problem of being the safety major for pre-xxx types. Or at least it used to be.

Given the lab requirements, there's little undergraduates at uni can do in Science. They can participate in a paper, but they spend a lot of time trying not to hurt each other and develop some kinds of lab skills. And if they're p-chem or theoretical, they might not even get lab skills (more engineering). Some schools offer their lab-oriented majors the chance to intern at a biotech/pharma, and THAT has a major impact on hire-ability. But w/o the PhD, they're headed for lab tech.

For CS, on the other hand, you can build entire systems independent of attending uni. So yeah, what-you-have-done is usually more significant than what-did-you-study. Given this, trying to wedge Science and Technology together really isn't useful. Didn't some of the techbros call uni a waste of key programming years? Similar to how footy views uni vs. youth programs.

If US-ians stop cutting checks to Alberta oil companies, the trade deficit goes away. Get cracking on the cracking and get those drillers into Venezuela. I guess one can't have trade deficits with colonies, er, states?

Us/Canada had a nice free trade deal signed by the current prez in his first term. Pity said prez is ignoring it. Hasn’t left the agreement, just ignoring it. And nobody bothers to point that out and how he’s breaking us law to do so (ratified treaty).

People with complementary positions facing shared difficulties have been known to work together. As Franklin said, "We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." And there's no guarantee that the current US approach to other countries will change in the (near) future.

I think they could pay 0.20 - 0.50 dollars higher at Target or a different bulk store.

"Cheap goods" is quite a problem, as basically the US, possibly all of North America loves their cheap Walmart items. Screw how they were made... They're usually the cheapest. Replace "Walmart" with whatever large box store goes lowest price as appropriate.

Let them have their minority government and see what they table for consideration. From their actions, people will judge them.

The won because people think complex problems have simple, untried solutions that are common sense. They hate "them", they're stoked on (social) media. They feel put upon and denied their rewards. Same old, same old with more effective communication paths.

It doesn’t help that there’s no local contribution once the thing’s built. A few people taking care of the machines and power generators. Probably no local tax contribution to speak of. And the things support a worldwide or countrywide customer base so the locals won’t see a difference due to the machine in their back yard vs one 1000 miles away.

And they’ll have to pay for the load on their utilities and air as it runs. Possibly noise as well. NIMBY makes sense for these things outside of remote sites with lots of natural power and water.

Alberta is the most US-like province. As it's not been hit by Trump tariffs, it opposes any change to the current situation. As it's based on oil revenue (with some food production), of course it opposes renewable energy sources. Bit selfish, it is.

I wonder how loud they'd yowl if "no trade with Canada" gores their ox?

If this includes healthcare and non college teaching, it’s not surprising. If it includes ai-induced layoffs, there’s few women there. So without context it’s just bs on Twitter.

This result should be kept in mind by all those techbros saying they're going to fix the drug discovery business, make it efficient and get things cranking out in 18 months. Sometimes, the dog dies. Sometimes, the model isn't quite close enough to the problem. Sometimes, they find there's a second mechanism that reveals itself at the wrong time.

Blackmailing oneself is an interesting development. Does saying "yes" or "no" hurt more? Isn't think one of the jokes in Blazing Saddles?

Of course they do. They seem allergic to salaried labour, and those who participate in it. They're all NPC's to them.

As others have said in-thread and elsewhere: work to live, don't live for work. Yes, be professional and exceed expectations from time to time, but your in-basket will be full when you exit. Take time as the years progress to do "other things", as the physical abilities or people involved might not be there "later".

Keep in mind that water and ethanol are miscible, so it will be very difficult getting the last bit of ethanol out of a mixture. Don't think they're going to do pharma-grade separations to get < 0.5% alcohol out. Similarly, 200 proof ethanol (pure) only lasts until you break the seal. It'll drop to 195 proof from the humidity in the air.

If I have to debug or maintain something, I have to understand it enough to make changes and test them. This was traditionally accomplished by having me write the code against a spec of some kind drawn up or described by those familiar with the problem space.

If I'm not going to be writing code, there will be a time hit trying to understand what came from the vibe code. Teams are going to have to learn whether it takes longer to create the code or to understand the result and whether one of these makes a useful and robust and maintainable product. And "understanding" better include looking for malicious bits of code.

TBH, I'm not personally going to be doing this cuz I'm an old fart. But there's a large number of HN readers betting their careers on this stuff. Or, probably, being forced to bet their careers.

Thought I'd add... There is a pride-of-work involved in many people's work. Take this away, make them a cog, and they might wander off on ya.

As far as I can tell, humans are still showing more ability to "move outside one's training set" than various computer tools. When such tools can show reasoning rather than data recovery skills, we'll all have to find new work. But unless they're going to consume goods, the economy needs meat sacks.

I would be very concerned about what I'm actually paid to do if I can be easily replaced by a statistical text/token generator... Admittedly, not all jobs are new/novel and break new ground, but they've been gunning for Tech Staff for decades. This is merely their latest and possibly most effective attempt. Or it's at least perceived as such.

I've always thought "computers" was an odd discipline as it had virtually no interest in its history. Yeah, they were large, slow blobs, but without all of the old machines we'd have no hacking, and no new machines (or marketplace). Individuals might have interest in individual machines, but compared to things like history, virtually nothing at scale. Which is sad as the world's becoming "computers".

What revenues are provided to the locals (people, or government) from data centre operators aside from taxes on water/power? Once constructed, they provide few jobs, and their services are used wherever the network touches. It's not like the presence of a data centre spawns a lot of tech related construction (offices, cloud servers, Starbucks, ...).

At least a warehouse (today, anyway) hires warm bodies to schlepp goods around. Those electrons move themselves. Thinking about it again, it's basically colonization. The data centre owner drops a box that consumes local resources and is expected to purchase finished goods.

So much for freedom of speech, etc. Are they going to ban donating to particular parties, requiring such donations, etc.

It seems, sadly, that the techbros aren't trying to change the world for must of us. Perhaps change it for themselves, certainly prevent their pile from being reduced. More "F*ck you, I got mine!" I guess.

I would think that there was a group of people who got there first and survived. All groups that followed them can be viewed as colonizers or conquerors I would think.

Yup. They traded hard power over some small area in return for soft power over the West. One would think this was a good trade, maintaining status without a whole lot of effort.

If they're really trying to colonize Venezuela, they're going to learn about the colonial unrest they (mostly) managed to avoid after WW II.

How about "They were there before the first colonizers got there"?

The us is closer to a dictatorship than at any time in the recent past. Ruling by executive order is rather close to ruling by decree and neither congress or the scotus care.

In at least two languages.

CUsMA might be convenient re Mexico. They can consider withdrawal once a bilateral deal is reached.

More bigots than morons. I’m folding American exceptionalism into bigotry along with all the usual aspects.