kepler1

To my un-expert eyes and lack of knowledge about Lisp, I have a hard time understanding the difference between this and a TI-86 graphing calculator?

Wow, that seems like such tail wagging the dog! Like, no one would shop at the discount store unless they had a luxury brand associated with it? Is that the reason for these department stores to exist now?

And I wonder what happened, as at one point the main store must have been a money maker. Just profits eroded over time?

The funny thing to me is that it felt like this whole field of pronouns, over-sensitivity, not wanting to call things straightforwardly, was propagated by white female journalists and HR directors.

As tempting as it is to criticize Apple for being some evil empire, another highly plausible explanation is simply that their products are quite good, and people are willing to join the ecosystem for some inconveniences / loss of freedom. And the side point that not everyone (though it might seem here) is a 20 year old hacker demanding that they be allowed to jailbreak their phone, or insisting that all WhatsApp chats be able to integrate with iMessage as a matter of moral principle.

I remember a Silicon Valley historian / older generation entrepreneur was speculating whether the entire environment of this area was a product of 2 things:

-- low interest rates

-- favorable capital gains rates

And any ebb/flow to that could dry up what we take as granted about the circumstances that produce the VC, startup, tech landscape we have been accustomed to.

Well, the part that takes decades is where the citizens will behave even when there is no camera present.

I think there's something challenging to put my finger on about India, which is something like:

"When you have an overall country atmosphere where you (even if you are conscientious and care) think others are not conscientious and do not care, then you will come to not be conscientious and care either."

So there is an effect where enough people disobey rules or lack standards, that eventually no one follows the rules. Traffic is ridiculous because no one obeys the rules, manufacturing is subpar because no one thinks anyone else will care (or will put up with shoddy deliveries).

And this is not some racist / cultural prejudice. It is totally changeable. The evidence I have here is that people from India, when living in the US, completely adapt and become "positive rule-wanting people". There is something about a critical mass of rule-breakers that sends a system into a negative spiral. As others said, probably China was like that too at some time in the recent past. And even the US was (or might become) this way.

The opposite effect is also in force: when you live in Japan, for example, even as a visitor, and see that no one is littering on the public streets, even when they do not provide trash cans, you don't litter either. But let a certain viral % of rule breakers take hold, and if your group culture does not value what is being broken, you can descend into a loss of discipline.

Again, this is not some prejudice -- it is a human factors / malleable / totally changeable thing. But it will take decades I think. And have lots of forces trying to stop it from improving. Sometimes I think you need to create an isolated bubble where enough people agree and see how it can work, to propagate it elsewhere. Otherwise the forces of mediocrity pull you back down into chaos.

Forgive me for being negative, but it doesn't seem to me that anything that faces the public in the UK is allowed to be nice any more. Lack of funding, overzealous safety and cost regimes, plus hooligans who will deface anything, and you have a country where everything has to be made industrial-ugly, if even made at all these days. (except for private office buildings for finance people)

My understanding is that the cost of producing hydrogen is not one of the major bottlenecks about why those vehicles are slow to be adopted?

I mean, good to have such breakthroughs, but this is not (right now) a huge limiting factor on why we don't drive more H vehicles, is that right? It's more the storage of it? And specialty fuel cells needed to power the cars?

So, is your argument (or in fact, your intention) that some groups are especially sensitive, or need protection and cannot do that on their own and need a supervising authority to declare that they should get special protection? Who decides that <x> group is being harmed more? And by what measure?

Or is the underlying principle that no one should be subject to speech that may demean them?

This whole approach would seem to go against many of our principles of equality and freedom of speech.

ChatGPT just gave us the manual to what's ok / not ok to joke about as a comedian. Or mention as a politician.

I hesitate to (but will still) make a joke in the moment:

Text: "We have too many Black and Hispanic students in our university."

ChatGPT: Hateful

Text: "We have too many Asian students in our university."

ChatGPT: Ok

[yes, yes, acknowledging that the main plot in the chart shows Asians scoring highly in terms of what counts as hateful, as well.]

I got this video served up to me randomly as well. I was amused by the random Youtube commenters all along the lines of "what a beautiful simple life this man leads", etc. etc.

And I couldn't help but shake my head at the naïveté / shallow internet lauding that this is some idyllic rustic life. This guy is actively choosing to live in harsh, most unforgiving conditions that require all his daily energy, hours from any kind of help. And he's going to die there as well unless something changes, and probably without anyone knowing.

As others have said, maybe he wants this because of some unresolved emotional problems. All I see is someone who is making his own life purposely hard. Perhaps there is a little to be admired here -- the unusual nature of it, and the perseverance. But this life isn't something to be desired by anyone, and I don't join in the reflexive cooing over how awesome it is once you get over the unusualness.

Haven't we reached the stage of this where a CEO laying off people can just send a link to the past 4 CEOs apologies and explanations, and say "watch this video"?

Not much new info being conveyed at this point. I guess you have a need to see your own CEO do it for some kind of closure?

The credibility of the assertions in the article aside, most of the problems that SF is experiencing are of its own creation, so I cannot commiserate too hard with its plight. And I recently moved away, so I care less.

Every city, whether you admit it or not as part of a deliberate strategy to succeed, is building itself a reserve of advantages and points against future adversity. SF has natural bonus points for geography, weather, etc. And intangible bonus points for talent pools, etc.

SF chose to squander points over the years by letting conservative liberals prevent it from modernizing its policies and infrastructure, letting tax money be spent on ridiculous homeless-favoring policies, underinvesting in long-term improvements while diverting money to enrich union Muni drivers and city workers. Favoring people who are here already, over those who want to be here but couldn't afford it, who gladly pick up and leave from their rental properties with no attachments.

All leaving it with a fragile tax base and city services so entrenched with lazy interests that it collapsed at the pandemic's pressure.

If you want a lesson in how a city with so many advantages can sink its own ship, study SF.

Except imagery of Israel, right? For some reason we give them a special pass to not be subject to the same scrutiny and concerns as other places, huh?

There is not a single tech company out there that wishes to get into the business of checking people's physical IDs or wanting to invite use of IDs (or making judgements about such authenticity) to manage their accounts.

How would this work? You provide a certain number of photos to corroborate who you are? How would that not be vulnerable to hacking as well?

I sympathize with the writer, but have to ask, what solution would make it possible to resolve this situation without weakening the security for another case that sounds the same but is being used by someone malicious?

I think you have to activate the Apple 2-factor authentication so that your key Apple ID info cannot be changed without corroboration or that 28 character code.

If Apple were to let this situation be reversed, who is to say a hacker wouldn't be using this exploit to take over someone else's account?

Oh, interesting, but too bad -- the heated water makes such a nice difference (hah).

Problem here is getting electrical to your toilet location? I was thinking about that too, but I didn't feel like making the leap to hiring an electrician to install / create a new outlet there.

Is there not a simple "look book" that exists and gives you examples of where you can find / buy the kinds of clothes that you see and like? (hopefully for less than premium prices)

I find it odd / annoying that all the clothing is made in low cost countries, but we need funnelers of information or access or recommendations who tack on a surcharge at every step until you're paying $50 for a simple t-shirt.

I equally find it very strange that, for companies making and selling clothing, I can only imagine it costs very little much more to make good-looking clothing and copy the latest styles. Why does cheap clothing always seem to be so unstylish?

Example: someone manufacturing a tie (if people wear those any more even), the material and labor scarcely costs more if it's ugly versus nice. Why are ugly ties still made?

Puzzled.

For some reason I jumped to hoping the title also implied that union-only anti-compete clauses in government contracting were also banned. But that was too optimistic.

I feel bad for you/anyone having to pay extortionate rental car one-way rates because they're so variable/fickle. In future try something like below, before biting the bullet and paying full. But maybe in this circumstance with demand being what it is, there's no way around it.

https://blog.autoslash.com/secrets-to-getting-a-cheap-deal-o...

I'm sorry but suggesting Mark Rober is helping to stop the scamming industry in India is like helping Ukraine by adding sprinkles to a cupcake at an elementary school bake sale.

How long before someone with less-than-good intentions walks up and starts using this phone in ways that the creators didn't intend, and it has to be shut down?

I guess we know why they chafed under Apple's app store and rules.

I mean, if you ever wanted to get on the bandwagon of why we have so many college administrators responsible for raising the cost of college and creating work for themselves by stoking culture wars, just read through the list on that page.

-------

">Instead of: Philippine Islands

>Consider using: Philippines or the Republic of the Philippines

>Context: The term is politically incorrect and denotes colonialism. Some people of Filipino heritage might use the term, though."

---------

">Instead of: "preferred" pronouns

>Consider using: pronouns

>Context: The word "preferred" suggests that non-binary gender identity is a choice and a preference."

---------

">Instead of: Karen

>Consider using: demanding or entitled White woman

>Context: This term is used to ridicule or demean a certain group of people based on their behaviors."

(Have we landed in backwards land? So "white" is ok to use here?)

---------

">Instead of: blackbox

>Consider using: hidden, mystery box, opaque box, flight recorder

>Context: Assigns negative connotations to the color black, racializing the term."

---------

">Instead of: red team

>Consider using: cyber offense team

>Context: "Red" is often used disparagingly to refer to Indigenous peoples, so its use in this context could be offensive to some groups."

---------

">Instead of: war room

>Consider using: situation room

>Context: Unneccesary use of violent language."

----------

I think we're talking on orthogonal lines. It's not companies who are competing, but workers who are competing with each other for jobs and being willing to take those jobs.

If the employment conditions are transparent and not unsafe physically (which is related to having full information about what you're signing up for), why is sick days something that shouldn't be open to negotiation or a person willing to agree to have more or fewer of them?

Suppose that a person is young and healthy and believes he/she doesn't need a lot of sick days. Why is it unreasonable for him/her to agree to a job that doesn't offer extra sick days? What's the logic / principle there?

Is it because sickness is unpredictable and an employee shouldn't have to suffer from something unexpected? Is it an information asymmetry argument?

Again, at the risk of sounding coldly analytical about it, while I'm grateful child labor laws were put in place, I don't think they actually did much to alleviate the underlying reasons and experiences of why children were put to work (by their parents or exploiters or themselves) in those days. Suddenly outlawing children from working didn't miraculously make their lives better or lift them out of poverty. Stopping people from taking those jobs merely stopped them from making their desperation visible (and of course obviously yes, from dying in horrible conditions they probably had no idea they were signing up for). It was other efforts and initiatives improving the standard of living that made the difference.

I do think such laws have a very good and important role to play where people don't fully know what they've agreed to. If someone wants to get a job by offering their labor for less than his next competitor and is going into it with full information, I don't think we should act like we're doing him a favor by stopping him from doing so. Stopping someone from taking a less than minimum wage job has not alleviated their situation.

Again, just dispassionate observation -- mandating whatever number of sick days per year may be a humane gesture, but it doesn't change the underlying fact that there is a surplus of willing labor in this country willing to take jobs at these pay rates that even don't have any such benefits.

Efforts by unions to say that their political power and striking/etc led to change in our standard of living are conveniently mixed up with the rising general demand for labor and wages because we were a growing country willing to pay for relatively scarce labor at the time. Those conditions are not the same now.

I hesitate to speak an unpopular (in many senses of the word) position, but there is a stark truth if you are a scientific/economic/objective observer that as long as people are willing to sign up for jobs under these conditions, you cannot greatly escape the truth the employers will continue to offer those conditions.

Be outraged as much as you want, and claim that this is so anti-labor and immoral / unfair, but it is a truth you can see play out in many similar spheres. You keep accepting conditions, and there is no incentive to change. And trying to put in rules to prevent it artificially is simply protecting some workers from what the market will bear.

It went the other way for workers because of mass shifts in unwillingness to work under certain conditions -- see the wage rises during Covid and up to today. Things do change if people are unwilling to take the jobs.

We unfortunately have too many people willing to take these jobs at the pay and benefits / conditions offered. Until that changes, you're fighting a fight against market forces. Unions, for all the good they done at times in the past, are trying to escape competitive market forces. As are we all, I admit.