lake_vincent

Correct me if I'm wrong (please), but don't we still lack any kind of fundamental definition of what dark energy/matter is other than..."the cause of the difference between what is calculated, and what is observed"? To the point that we aren't even really sure that there is such a "thing" as dark matter (in that it exists in any conventional sense)?

From Wikipedia: "Dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter thought to account for approximately 85% of the matter in the universe...The primary evidence for dark matter comes from calculations showing that many galaxies would behave quite differently if they did not contain a large amount of unseen matter. Some galaxies would not have formed at all and others would not move as they currently do."

85% is kind of a lot of "stuff" to be missing...

I find it kind of funny that humans are so confident that our models of reality are correct that we truly think it's more likely there's just hidden "stuff" than there's just something hugely wrong with our idea of what the universe really is, and how it works. Our physics works great in a lot of circumstances, but to be missing 85% of the damn universe might imply we are wildly off base when it comes down to the true nature of things.

Obviously, I don't have an explanation myself, and I understand that we can only work with the evidence we have, but I think it's a sign we need to radically rework our basic assumptions about reality, and not just look for our missing keys...

Perhaps black holes are the right place to look, but not as a cubby hole for our missing stuff - rather, as a path to transforming our assumptions about reality.

I feel the same way about the red 'N', and that association on a large scale is very bad for business. Once your logo becomes a marker for something to avoid, your brand is toast. Very hard to reverse such a perception.

It's interesting how legacy companies are not making exciting consumer/commercial products anymore, but infrastructure and technical projects are booming.

Google TensorFlow and DeepMind, Microsoft WSL2, Meta AI, etc. Also worth mentioning the many quiet efforts to get quantum computing off the ground.

Just because the Great Pyramids were built with slavery doesn't mean that slavery is okay, or that there is not a better way to build a pyramid.

Exactly, which is why I am advocating precisely for giving people what they need. Some people need pressure to perform optimally, others don't. Some people need to put in 80 hours of work per week, others don't. It is simple and humane to approach it this way.

Indeed. For example, Musk fancies himself a champion of "hard work" but what he fails to realize is that humans have not actually merged with robots yet, and we still have human needs.

If innovation and brilliant thinking are part of your brand, you actually get higher quality work, sustained over a longer period of time, if you actually back off on the whip-cracking and just give people what they need to produce great work.

You get slightly slower growth, but more area under the curve in the long run.

Here: https://truthout.org/articles/the-indisputable-role-of-credi...

If you think this is not really happening, you are naive at best, complicit at worst.

I honestly cannot tell if you are joking/trolling or are just completely ignorant to the reality of what happened.

It's the exact opposite, bud.

You very strongly compared my theories with QAnon, which is actual Alice-in-Wonderland level crazy. To compare financial crime theories that (given the precedent) could very well be true , to fucking QAnon is ridiculous, and I found it extremely condescending.

You can disagree, and you can bring up valid arguments, but your posture was offensive and has no place here.

Lol, right, because things like this have never happened before. In particular, the years 1998 - 2008 were devoid of financial crime, and are a decade of restrained, ethical capitalism that we should all aspire to. Gentlemen of Wall Street today are just trying to return us to that gilded age, and any suggestion to the contrary is conspiratorial madness I do say, good chap!

Thank you for pointing out my severe mental illness and inability to think clearly about such lofty matters. I'll go take my meds now.

I really hate to do this because it sounds lazy, but I strongly encourage you to watch The Problem with Jon Stewart's episode on this. He explains it very well, and it's a lot of information, so if you are genuinely curious, I would highly recommend it. It will open your eyes to a level of criminal activity at the highest levels of our markets that will hopefully surprise you. It explains this, and more.

https://www.theproblem.com/episode-5-the-problem-with-the-st...

Wouldn't it be wild if a market maker also controlled a hedge fund, and also had members installed on regulating bodies, but then like, PINKY PROMISED they wouldn't abuse their positions? And then imagine if the SEC were complicit because it's run by an ex-Goldman henchman?

Nothing bad would happen, right?

Back office systems are exactly where Citadel, the market maker, could put a tiny little window to peep at data they shouldn't, so they can frontrun every trade retail investors make!!

The secret ingredient is crime ;)

Spoiler alert: they had help. Robinhood is a wolf in sheep's clothing - they are controlled by, and beholden to, criminal enterprises such as Citadel. This "in-house" trade clearing system is actually Ken Griffin's personal honeypot. It is built for one, and only one purpose, and that is to fleece retail investors at all costs while simultaneously creating the appearance of being retail's champion.

It's a neat trick, and I'd almost respect their enginuity if they weren't robbing people blind. I wouldn't touch Robinhood's products or common stock with a 100 foot pole, and neither should you.

Edit: See my other comments below for an idea of how/why this works.

Let's just embrace the chaos and develop a new flavor for every browser until there are precisely 31 different flavors of Markdown. We cap it there, Baskin Robbins style, and then watch the world burn.

If I may suggest something unorthodox - have you tried psychedelic therapy? And I don't mean just taking a psychedelic, I mean working with a therapist to go on an intentional healing journey.

Might be worth a trip to Oregon :)

Oh my...what an awful way to get back from vacation! It's such a shame when egos get involved like that.

I deeply appreciate that level of wordplay though! Glad it worked out for you in the end, and I hope you have continued to express true creativity in your code :)

The Fediverse sounds like the Federal government's even more dystopian version of the Metaverse.

(I read the article, so I know it's not actually that, and in fact is kinda neat)

Exactly! It makes no difference to the compiler what you call a variable, but it makes a difference to the human.

Whenever I do a pandas dataframe melt, I name the variable "melted_cheese". I could just name it something plain/boring, but life is simplybetter with melted cheese.

And here's a link to Story of Mel, for anyone who doesn't know who "Mel" is :)

https://www.cs.utah.edu/~elb/folklore/mel.html

This sounds perfect for me, because I don't actually know git, and just use some stupid gui. And even that's a step up from my old VCS called "clone a folder and slap a date on it."

(I am a hobbyist programmer)

I am having a bad night with drinking, and needed to read this. Commenting live, next to a toilet bowl!!

Thank you, stranger, and I wish you well on your journey.

+1 for this. Would love to compare all the algos on the same maze, so you can visualize the differences in their pathfinding approach.

This! I am coding something right now that Mathematica would honestly make 100x easier, but I refuse to use it because I want my software to be FOSS, and not depend on a proprietary language.

I respect Wolfram's enginuity, but I resent his ego for keeping us all out of his walled garden.

Oh damn, that was good. The actual citation is what threw me, well done.

I would buy you another cup of coffee to replace it, but money is a little tight these days...

Relax buddy, it's a meme [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme

Well, technically, it's only a recession if it comes from the Rècession region of France.

What OP is referring to is called bubbly fiscal agony.

Yes, this!! I'll be in the car and will pull over to take good photos of a sunset if I have my DSLR with me, but not if I just have my phone. I agree there is a different mode it puts me in that a phone camera has yet to capture.

The Book Depository is another excellent Amazon book seller. Not the fastest shipping, but always real books, and great collection of specialty technical books. Highly recommended.