milliondollar

Don't think op is in US. Nobody would say "phone engineer" in the states.

I'm genuinely surprised at the excess deaths number? Can you square your "no excess deaths" vs this data from CDC?

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm

Actually remember a presentation from one of the logbook startups from a few years ago. The key feature that skyrocketted adoption was the ability to fudge (...er, "correct") the logbook manually. When it was automated, they had issues because it would basically lock them down to the rules.

Nazi prison guards of our algorithm world war.

Agree. In US, 500 kids have died. That's in over a year, and in a time period which didn't include vaccine.

Every year 800 kids die from drowning. About 200 kids die from the flue. Driving kills 4000. Suffocation 1500.

The risk to kids is very very small (especially considering vaccine can probably prevent almost all the above deaths), and certainly less than many other risks we tolerate.

F'n A. Reading the comments on this thread makes me love humanity. So much ingenuity, raw engineering horsepower, creativity. Goddamn, you are great people and you should be proud of yourselves. Reading this makes me believe we will survive as a species.

I would welcome you to move to VT, which has had fully state based funding since 1996 or so. The outcome has been decidedly mixed.

One clear thing that has happened is every student is getting a lot of money spent on them! (~$19k). Spending has increased substantially. There is a lot of waste. Despite losing 30% of students since that time period due to demographics, the number of teachers has actually increased. Staff to student ratio is 1:4.

But performance has not changed, and has actually gone down a bit if you squint at the numbers.

Agree. I've voted in 4 states (NC, NY, VT, NH) and it has all been like above. And I've also served as election volunteer, checking absentee ballots against the voting rolls.

Double yes. I am praying Palm phone upgrades. Exactly what I want but needs more battery life.

I can COMPLETELY believe it was a lazy analyst at an insurance company. Boss: where's the data that Bob wanted? er... Here! (Source: been inside many insurance companies.)

Hanlon's (and Ocham's) Razor all the way here. Laziness / stupidity wins.

Depends on definition of "senior". If you are still an individual contributor and need to demonstrate technical expertise, fine. But if you are a manager, you need to demonstrate the ability to lead, create impact, and deliver results. Side projects are for entertainment / continuing education.

Sorry, whats the difference here?

-avg streamer makes $x. Total = $x * # streamers

-streamers make an average of $y. Total = $y * # streamers

Average is always sum/n?

I am starting to believe "purpose" as related to work is mostly a giant con. Sometimes we run it on ourselves. But we are all dust in the end. Does the project or business that we are working on really matter?

I owned a dam. Worst deal of my life, as it was regulated by the town, state, and feds.

Touching anything on it required permits from multiple agencies at each of the above.

Be careful doing ANYTHING with water, as that is regulated by feds, states, and ofen localities. Wetland regulations are extremely restrictive. And wetlands are often not wet! (Depending on where you live, state and local often try to "out green" each other by layering on even more restrictive regulations.)

I'm in a similar boat. Not outrageously rich, but rich enough that I won't spend it all before I die. Work in a highly lucrative industry, which bores the hell out of me. I took a couple years off. Built a house, moved in, then.... I was definitely hit with a lack of purpose. I'm back to work now at old career trying to figure out "what to do with my life" again.

There was a Catch-22 for me, in that "working" at any organization for any normal sized paycheck just seemed ridiculous if it didn't 100% hit on all the "passion" buttons. And honestly, no organization will be free of BS that makes work work. So making that tradeoff became REALLY hard.

So I decided that if I was going to work, I should just make a ton of money. At least the bank account fills while I search for the next thing.

Each fact in the document may be true, but the document is so overbroad as to be useless. Who is it intended for? I mean, it is almosth philosophical in starting from how senses actually work from science.

Each lesson included could / should be broken out for Joe to make the desired outcomes practical and achievable.

Absolutely stunning example of work by some folks in DoD who clearly have "bullshit jobs." This includes diagrams and descriptions of how eyeballs work, quotes from Hemingway, and case studies of WWII operations. Can anyone imagine actually trying to train Joe based on this manual? A shining example of BS at its peak!

Their solution in the TFA is to focus on straight-through billing through standardization of payment mechanisms, arguing that each physician is paying $100K / year. Of course, this also puts the lie to the insurance companies, who are the other side of the transaction and essentially add another 20% in cost just to pay the bill! (Their loss ratios due to medical costs are about 80%.)

Insurance companies are basically just bill paying services, as almost all employer sponsored healthcare is self-insured by the employer as the risk pool is large enough to take care of the true "insurance" nature of the mutual pooling of risks.

So how do you think insurance companies will react to making it "easier to pay the bill through standardization?"

Chance of movement = zero.

It's time for the "Ron Brown* Vacation" story from dotcom boom 1.0.

I was a tech project lead at a semi-famous internet portal startup, so worked across departments picking up staff for my projects. The DB guy assigned was Ron Brown. Went to onboard him and he wasn't at his desk. I ask the guy next to him. "Oh, he's on vacation this week."

I came by the next week. No Ron Brown. Where is he? I got a very specific story in response: "He was in a fire, he had his feet burned." Terrible! So I got someone else assigned as DB guy.

Never saw Ron Brown again. About six months later, I was down by his desk. Asked whatever happened to him. "Oh, last week we discovered he just stopped showing up to work, so we just fired him yesterday!"

This was in a company of <200 people, and certainly there were less than 10 DB experts, all onsite. So I'm sure these days it's totally possible.

*Name changed to protect guilty.

I'm sorry, but unless you are in the US the estate is over $10m, you owe no federal taxes. https://smartasset.com/taxes/all-about-the-estate-tax#:~:tex....

I don't know what your local / state is shafting you for, but the estate tax rhetoric is totally a put on by rich people.

EXACTLY my question. How much would it have cost to make some bets against the various types of vaccines that could come out. Make a "generic" manufacturing facility that could then help scale up. So what if we "wasted" $10B on facilities that didn't pan out?

..and you've just described what management consultants do at scale.

Interesting that a big chunk of her money on each vehicle is from a few videos and 1 medium article (I think $18k from 1 medium article, the rest earned around $300). Definitely a power law.

This is still a "hits" business even for those with 1.5m followers.

This is a very literal approach. I assume that when you watch network TV you assume everything is coming at you with the same purpose and intent (news, talking head show, some documentary like 60 minutes.) Just because you want everything you read online to be "hard news" doesn't mean it will be. It takes a bit of work to understand the context of what you are seeing. So yes, you are holding it wrong.

Amen. Learning how to read the news is a skill just like everything else. The direct links of the internet make it harder, but one still needs to try and understand the context of the publication and how the article is presented. A-heads are entertainment.

Can confirm. Also learned that in 1988 in my typing class. Also learned lower case l instead of a 1. It was for typing speed so you didn't have to reach for the top row.

Yes, in the Army there is even a term for this: spendex. (spend exercise). A lot of fun blowing through all your extra ammo at the end of the year!!!

The author was also a minor player in new journalism circles. He wrote "boys on the bus", an account of working with Hunter S Thompson to cover the 1972 presidential campaign.

I totally agree. It's an absolute privilege. But the argument around TFA is: "Is this parent making the right choice." She's not an hourly worker. She's at the peak of her profession. She has many choices which would provide a fine living and a more reasonable balance, if she chose them.

This is absolutely the question of tradeoffs between job satisfaction vs time at home. It is not a question of putting food on the table.

I made the opposite choice. I left a 7 figure a year (but 70% travel) job to take a few years off with my kids. I'm under no illusion that my kids will be that much better for it, but I will be.

I am consuming this time with just absolute relish. A relationship is the sum of small things. And driving them to school is part of that overall cumulative time that ... just... matters. For me. I'm sure the kids would be great if their mom did it without me. But I only have one shot here, only a few years where the kids are 12 years old. So yeah, I'll spend my 7 figures a year for this. (Bezos test: would I make the same choice on my death bed looking back?)

She is in a unique situation in that she could choose to live any way she wants; she's not some working stiff. And she is choosing something else. It's not going to hurt her kids, but I think it's a tradeoff she may regret later.