monkmartinez

How would you goose the numbers in real time without an army of people curating what was reporting? Accounting is a bit of shell game at these levels, is it not? That is, we move one loss to this column, a gain to that column and suddenly we don't look __as bad__ as we were going to just a few minutes prior. Doing that in real time is super problematic.

You and I both. Facebook numbers have been a scam for a long time. I look at most social media as I look at multilevel marketing... it's all sunshine and rainbows until it simply collapses. There are no 100 year businesses in social.

And who will blow the whistle? One person could deploy a bot army to juice numbers.

On a related note, the market itself is controlled by HFT bots. Don't rock the boat too much and no one is the wiser.

Edit: Would love to some actual debate on this rather than downvotes with no context. I have deployed many bots for fun to twitter and reddit. I could easily do the same on Instagram, Snap or Facebook. I could even make them look "Kinda real" with markov chain driven text input. Super, duper easy.

GoPro has problems of their own. Xiaomi Yi and other sport cams from China.

I have snapchat on my phone, not because I use it... my daughter likes to make funny faces. She does NOT post. Am I counted as an active user?

I saw Scott Hanselman spin up 1000 Azure instances in a demo today; How many bots can each instance support? Instant growth.

How much social media activity/growth is not human?

It is mostly EMS now... just fair warning. A lot of your options, like software engineering, depend on where you live and/or where you would like to re-locate. That is, lots of volunteer and professional options on the east coast... while mostly professional paid/career options on the west coast.

I cannot speak to the volunteer tier of the fire service, I am simply ignorant to the demands of that side. I can speak to the west coast professional model. To be clear, there are lots of professional options on the east coast too. I just don't know them.

In my humble opinion, this job is not for everyone. This job like any other has lots of cool shit and tons of horrible shit too. The ageism that may or may not exist in software is real in firefighting. Not due to politics or opinion or the SV stuff.... NO, It has do with the physical stress the body takes in this profession. It isn't commercial fishing, but sleep deprivation and picking up patients that weigh 500lbs, fighting brush fires all day, stress from seeing bad situations, etc. is real for most Fire/EMS folks today.

The academies are tough and the competition to get in is really high. For each class in my department, there are generally about 3K applicants. We select 30 or 40 and of those 15-25% will wash out of the academy before it's over.

If none of that makes you change your mind, go get EMT certified, Firefighter I and II certified, then take and pass the CPAT test... After that, start testing at every department that has open applications. You could probably script the app process :)

I am a total nerd/geek. A 6'2" 215lb dyed-in-the-wool technology buff. While I enjoy hard blue collar work, I also enjoy chilling in front of a computer. I have some idea that, perhaps, someday I can try my hand at getting paid to code... or just contribute to OSS in a meaningful way, which I have done from time to time. Hopefully to better the fire/ems service or pre-hospital stuff. Or just scrape the shit out of the web for profit... lol.

Yeah, I do have two apps in the Play store and I love tinkering with Python... I have a dream that when I retire from the fire service, I will develop software for money or no money. It's a long shot... but I try to stay abreast.

The fires don't bother me much. It is the calls involving children that just eat me up... definitely have some stories and sights that I would love to delete.

Typically between 17:00 and 06:00 I am trying to learn something other than EMS and Fire... in between calls of course. Lots of my buddies watch sports and/or read during that time.

If you are at a busy station that typically is the time you get the snot kicked out of you. That is, every time you put your head down the "tones" go off and you get back into the truck to handle a problem for the citizens of your community. Some problems are real, some are perceived, and most just need a firefighter/EMS person to tell them what they should do.

Flag down was captured perfectly by @throwanem.

Great answers! We also do our own EMS which make up 90% of our calls...

1. Depends on the number of trucks... typically 10 - 14 per station.

2. The oncoming crew waits until everyone for that shift is at the station, he/she notifies the Incident Commander who will arrange for pickup and change over. These are typically large defensive fires that just take a lot of water and time... not super taxing physically until it's over.

3. We call additional resources from surrounding stations. Our dispatch system is actually really good, coupled with super professional dispatchers.

4. We do have flexibility. I posted the ideal day... at busy stations you generally don't eat much and don't sleep at all. If you are running 20 calls a shift and each one takes 30 minutes minimum... well, your day is long.

5. Yeah, we try to improve all the time. However, change can introduce cataclysmic push back from "seasoned" fire/ems guys and gals. Ideas are constantly evaluated and judged. You need to have thick skin if you put forth a new idea... it is somewhat of a game to give each other a very hard time.

Profession: Firefighter - Full time <600 organization

Workday (kind of, nothing is typical at the firehouse):

- [06:00]: Wake up - get dressed covertly and slip out of the house

- [06:30] Arrive at the station - Get coffee! Find my "relief" which is the similarly ranked person on the off going shift.

- run 911 calls

- [07:30] Have "line up"; Where we discuss what drills we have planned, eat some breakfast... drink more coffee. Talk about the previous day off.

- run 911 calls

- [08:30] Workout. Generally we have a mix of runners, lifters and crossfitters. Sometimes we will do the workout "on air" with our SCBA packs on... sometimes we need to just walk a few miles. Everyone on my shift likes to workout.

- run 911 calls

- [10:00] Shower and checkout equipment or drill. Send someone to the grocery store for the meals of the day.

- run 911 calls

- [11:00] Cook lunch, check email, and do any CE/Online training

- run 911 calls

- [12:00] eat lunch (between 12 and 2pm we typically get to eat... based on calls) , then pick up

- [13:30] safety nap for the long night ahead

- run 911 calls

- [14:30] Afternoon coffee, plan drills for the next shift. Admin stuff.

- run 911 calls

- [15:00] Drill on some piece of equipment. Learn or relearn something. Generally Fire in the morning, EMS in the Afternoon.

- [16:00] start preparing dinner

- [17:00] Flag down and eat (depending on calls). We can watch TV or do personal stuff after this time.

- run 911 calls for the night, try to sleep

- [06:00] awake and get ready to go home.

> Another limitation of Amateur bands is that they can't be used for commercial purposes, so licensed commercial drone operators must be using commercial bands where cryptography is permitted.

I don't think so. I think we can agree that many, many commercial operators use DJI. There are also lots of amateurs using DJI. Both use the same firmware. There is no option for me to encrypt or unencrypt my Phantom which I could easily use commercially if I had my FAA Part 107.

Yes. Yes, you can go hiking on slimfast or Weight Watchers. I go hiking all the time in Arizona with a Builder Bar or an apple and some water. 6 to 8 mile trail runs with some water (nothing else) is very common for me and my friends. I am not going to mix up Soylent for trail running or hiking, ever. I can almost say that 99% of my friends will not either.

I also participate (professionally) in uSAR via a technical rescue team for a decently large municipality. We don't take food on call outs and have no idea how long an extrication will take for example. When I am at work, I often don't eat for two, three, or four hours past "lunch time" or "dinner time" due to calls. Soylent is not an option anymore than drinking a protein shake on a call. Not happening.

Go to /r/homelab and watch for a good 6 months. A lot of guys start off with old server hardware. Then, after 3 to 6 months, the noise and heat get to them, and they are begging for something more efficient.

The only people that care are those that hold cryptocurrencies. I wonder what that looks like in terms of percent of world's population. I bet it is absolutely tiny... So we have the same crappy situation in cryptocurrency land that we have in fiat land. Wealth concentration.

Meh, I am going to stick with the stuff that is backed by floating armadas, gigantic planes/bombs/missiles, and Devil Dogs.

Yes and I would add that the ecosystem practically begs devs to do this. The language lends itself nicely to these ends as well. I wish there were more options for the web...

Not a fun thought experiment to be sure. I own a gun, and I am constantly awoken in the middle of the night for my "real job" so I have an unfair advantage. That is, I generally have my wits about me very quickly post eye opening. Still, I am not sure that discharging a firearm in the darkness of my house would be easy. I am in good shape due to said job, but that doesn't mean the burglar comes after me, they may have my 7 y.o. "hostage"... or something.

I would probably try to negotiate with a burglar. The only thing I really care about are pictures, videos and my family. They can literally have the rest... funny that sometimes I am a bit jealous of people when their houses burn to the ground. They get to start over... I always hope they keep offsite backups of what really matters.

No... in addition to being prohibitively expensive, the other model being put forth to make it less expensive, ride-sharing, also has drawbacks which make the idea a non-starter for most Americans.

If ridesharing was awesome, we would see it now with luxury cars. We don't because it is stupid and will not reduce the price of the car dramatically enough to outweigh the negatives.

If they need self-driving cars to be profitable, they might as well hang it up, seriously its not happening for a long while. I don't think that is the case, however.

How about a haboob near phoenix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vQMuwRjI6s

If you don't think self-driving vehicles face an enormous uphill regulation battle, you are sorely, sorely mistaken! Politics haven't even entered the self-driving game yet. They will and every union associated with driving is going to freak the fuck out. It will be a bloody political mess.

Then what? What if you have something pressing to get to? All these rideshare arguments fall flat on their face when it is anything other than "going out" without much of a timeline.

Just tons of drone cars picking up kids and delivering them to their parents. Owners of said cars collecting monthly AirBnB style rent from the people that can suddenly no longer afford a $3000 beater to get them around, but will happily pay $10 a ride in a self driving car. Oh yeah, don't forget about the vomit and drinks spilled all over the place in your ride share. Also sick people touching all the things. Where do I sign up? </sarcasm>

I don't know where to start with this. The whole point of the truck is to get the workers! to the site. Said vehicle is also there to support the workers during the day with storage for tools and materials. SO no, the damn truck isn't going to replace a plumber or a/c tech. wow.

Depends on the price. I suspect it will be prohibitively expensive for the long foreseeable future.

The iPhone is how much to produce? Very important point you missed in what I wrote; Hardware and software package. A lidar without software is useless.

I live in the suburbs. I have a family with two grade school kids that participate in seasonal team sports and year-round gymnastics. They attend a charter school with no school bus system.

Let's say each ride cost $10... that is $20 to $40 per day just for the kids on most weekdays. Add in birthday parties, saturday games, doctor/dentist, trip to grandma/grandpa that live 7 miles away... and we are talking $1000 per month in "ride-sharing costs" for my children alone. We could add in my wife and I's costs, but it would be silly.

Maybe this service is less than $10 per ride, even at $5 per ride it is wayyyyyy more expensive than I currently spend on a 4 year old Toyota Highlander with low miles with insurance and fuel.