nck4222

I would say you have an interesting article here, and your user poll is interesting too. But like you said you don't really have the data to back up this claim, so it just comes off as really click-baity. It worked, as I've never heard of your product and am clicking around the site now, but it's disappointing none the less.

That kind of humor and response is off putting to me as a potential customer. It gives me the impression that either this website is a bit of joke, or that it's not really meant for people like me (that don't 'get' that kind of humor).

That's fine if that's what you're going for, it's up to you. But FYI you'll lose some customers over it, maybe more than you'd gain.

>The more pressing question: Can we actually still do such projects in western democracies?

I sure hope not. Two sentences by the author dismissing environmental concerns isn't sufficient.

They also list Boston as an example, but Boston's land creation projects ran over cost back in the 1800's, which most people seem to think is only a modern day issue for some reason. The Back Bay was filled-in because the city had already created an environmental disaster out of it. A dam was built which caused the bay to stagnate, and fill with sewage. Maybe a judge should've ordered an environmental impact study be done before the dam was built, which would've caught this. https://historyofmassachusetts.org/how-boston-lost-its-hills...

You don't need to create land in order to have a functioning public transit system, which would address several of the problems the author brings up, without introducing a plethora of new issues.

White boarding is the worst form of interviewing, except for all the other forms that have been tried.

Organic doesn't mean more flavor.

Tasteless strawberries are around for a few reasons

1) you can't try before you buy. bigger, redder strawberries look better, so sell better, so are grown more, and so on until that's the expectation. if varieties are cultivated for their looks, that means they're not cultivated for their taste or sugar content

2) bigger strawberries are easier/faster to pick, which means they're cheaper to pick

3) people want strawberries in winter, which means for a lot of us that means we're accustomed to buying strawberries that have been shipped thousands of miles and not picked recently.

https://www.npr.org/2012/05/17/152944880/bigger-means-better...

"To be made whole" means to fix a wrong doing, or restore something to the way it should be. They're saying they thought they were making it up to the employees when a customer didn't leave a tip. Which is just them trying to save face.

Oh my bad, didn't mean to suggest it was intelligently designed. I didn't read that full page and didn't pick up on that context. I'll remove that link.

For some reason, this reminds me of the Laryngeal nerve. It's like a natural process repeating itself in different systems. Because re-engineering the solution from the ground up to be more efficient isn't an option, there has to be small incremental steps to arrive at a solution that works.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurrent_laryngeal_nerve

Things already survive decontamination.

Duke Nukem Forever would beg to differ. The risk with delaying is that you may not be prioritizing the important things. Because you just bought yourself more time, it's easier to do the part you enjoy, instead of the part that's needed.

>Users of English who can only understand a narrow range of accents (Americans, I'm looking at you!)

Is this based on your anecdotal observations, or is this opinion based on something concrete? Because as an American who knows many other Americans, my anecdotal experience is that we can understand English accents from people all over the world.

This of course varies from person to person, but software engineers I've worked with are accustomed to speaking with people with accents.

Massachusetts passed a law against using your phone while driving (other than one touch button presses) something like 4 years ago. I'd be shocked if this screen was illegal in the 80's.

>Obviously the birds aren’t considered conscious

That might not be as obvious as you think. There are studies demonstrating that the parts of the brain that demonstrate consciousness in mammals, evolved before mammal and avian evolution split. With other features co-evolving later on as well.

Some birds are considered sentient now, and as more studies are performed, more and more animals are added to that list. First it was just humans, then all apes, oh and dogs, plus pigs, turns out dolphins too, and parrots, and corvids, etc. etc. etc.

At this point I'd be more surprised if they weren't conscious.

I agree at some point we may reach the point where this is an ethical issue, but if you had read the second paragraph in the article you would see that this is not happening as you've described:

>The brains did not regain anything resembling consciousness: There were no signs indicating coordinated electrical signaling, necessary for higher functions like awareness and intelligence.

I mean I'm not arguing that all women are discouraged from STEM, and I agree attitudes are changing, which is a good thing.

I wouldn't say that the problem is solved and it doesn't happen anymore though. I provided one study above, feel free to look up more, there are plenty. Something like 80% of STEM jobs are still held by men, and obviously that's not totally a result of discouragement, but seems likely to me that part of it is.

Just because women as a group have been disadvantaged, doesn't mean the women receiving this particular advantage deserve it more than other women, or other men.

There's nothing in this release saying they want to offer this to disadvantaged women, they simply want to offer it to women.

It doesn't have to be overt, or even knowingly done. Children are frequently subtly pushed towards different careers because of their gender, many times by their devoted parents. It's a societal problem.

EDIT: Here's one paper that talks about how "widely shared cultural beliefs about gender" affect early decisions people make wrt to their careers https://sociology.stanford.edu/sites/g/files/sbiybj9501/f/pu...

"The results of this study show that males assess their own mathematical competence higher than their otherwise equal female counterparts"

"self-assessments of task competence were found to influence career-relevant decisions, even when controlling for commonly accepted measures of ability. For males and females, the higher they rate their mathematical competence, the greater the odds that they will continue on the path leading to careers in the quantitative professions. However, since males tend to overestimate their mathematical competence relative to females, males are also more likely to pursue activities leading down a path toward a career in science, math, and engineering."

I'm trying to figure out on what side of the debate I fall on this one.

On the one hand, women have obviously been disadvantaged in many ways, for many years, which is wrong. The gender disparity in software development is well documented, and should be fixed. No one should be discouraged from learning, or opportunities denied because of gender.

On the other hand, a for-profit company deciding to offer free services to individual women, who may or may not be disadvantaged, simply because they're women, doesn't sit well with me either. Frankly, it seems likely that anyone who applies to lambda school (either gender), probably lean towards the more advantaged end than the less advantaged end. So it seems likely this is going to result in women with plenty of advantages already, receiving $9000 worth of education for free, while explicitly denying this opportunity to men, and continuing to disadvantage members of both groups.

So, I guess my question is, why is this morally OK? If this was targeted specifically to disadvantaged people, or disadvantaged women, or if it was a non-profit, it seems like this would be an easier call for me.

Looks like a lot of those would benefit from a little more evolving. Apparently the generations varied from 50-100. This paper is really interesting, and shows how detailed the simulation is: http://www.karlsims.com/papers/siggraph94.pdf

Ah ok thanks, I misunderstood.

>We do not expect every company to have infra/ops setup to prevent logging on login requests.

What? I absolutely expect every company to not log my password in plain text. In my 15 years as a developer across several companies and industries, I have never seen anybody log passwords, or advocate for logging passwords.

I'm struggling to think why any employee of any company should be able to view a plain text password in any form. Why would there not be an expectation here?

It appears so, because I remember thinking the same thing when https://www.gosafr.com/ launched (uber for women).

I recognize there are different safety concerns for men and women, but I do have a problem with companies like these. At least with safr, their advertised safety benefits for women come down to:

1) App/Tech features that would be beneficial for either gender (like extra monitoring by safr through the phone app, and "thorough" vetting/background checks of drivers).

2) Marketing relies heavily on "It's safer because your driver is a woman." which seems to be part of van go's pitch as well, and as a man i find particularly offensive that i'm being deemed unsafe around children/women simply because i'm a man.

That being said, I'm obviously not the target audience. And I believe it's legal because they don't discriminate against men who apply to be drivers/riders, they simply only target women in their marketing, so the people end up being almost entirely women. I would guess this is what vango will end up doing/saying about the gender split as well.

>You build AirBnb for X... so what?

I can't stand this template anymore. There's probably a natural cycle/rise-and-fall for these things.

1) Problem identified, "how do i quickly and efficiently describe the purpose of what we're doing"

2) "[existing popular company everyone knows] for [different market that it can be applied to]" is passed on to others to solve that problem. Phrase becomes popular, more people start using it.

3) Everyone starts using it, phrase becomes overused.

4) People begin questioning whether it still has the same meaning or if it's changed contexts since it was originally suggested.

5) People despise hearing it.

I'm right around step 4 there at the moment, heading towards 5. All I keep thinking is "so you're using the same phrase everyone uses, yet you're telling me you're revolutionary, and groundbreaking."

I get that it's just one phrase, and I'm starting to make assumptions here, but I think at some point it becomes more formulaic. And it's hard for me to believe you're hacking, innovating, and revolutionizing when you're following a formula. It's just more "I'm in-the-club" language now.

The more I read about flight systems and protocols (and I am absolutely a layman when it comes to this), the more it seems like it's very rarely solely isolated to one component.

The hardware, software, and human systems are so intertwined that it likely involves all 3, even if the route cause can be isolated to one.

That being said, there hasn't been much specific information about the cause released yet, that I've heard.

I believe you. I also believe there are now going to be outside parties with strong financial incentives in OpenAI who are not altruistic. I also believe this new structure will attract employees with less altruistic goals, that could slowly change the culture of OpenAI. I also believe there's nothing stopping anyone from changing the OpenAI mission further over time, other than the culture, which is now more susceptible to change.

For me, how much action government should take in these transitions comes down to how much societal benefit comes from having the transition take place.

With energy transition it's obvious: cleaner environment/planet, new industries with safe jobs, elimination of a dangerous job, a healthier population. So it's beneficial for the government to help make the transition happen quicker, and support the people negatively affected by it.

If there are societal benefits towards getting everyone to be cashless (I'm not an expert in this, I simply choose cashless because it's more convenient for me, although I suspect there are larger benefits), then the government should take the same role. Help the transition happen, and support those that will struggle with it. If they're not going to help the transition, or if there are no larger societal benefits with the transition, then the people that still depend on the older option should still be able to depend on it.

FWIW, while I agree this a problem, large box retailers (Whole Foods before the Amazon acquisition, Walmart, etc) are well known for doing this as well.

So if that's the line you draw, it extends further than just tech giants.

I was ready to be annoyed at government blocking popular progressive changes, but this changed my mind:

>In New York City, the majority of the nearly 12 percent of unbanked and 25 percent underbanked residents are people of color. Close to 17 percent of black New Yorkers and 14 percent of Latinx New Yorkers are unbanked, compared to just 3 percent of white New Yorkers.

I had no idea that many people didn't use banking services, which probably says more about me than anything.

Not to get too political, but this reminds me a lot of the coal vs renewables debate. I'm 100% on the side of transitioning away from coal, towards renewables, the same as I am in favor of ditching cash. But people who still depend on the coal industry, and using cash, can't just be forgotten about because "cashless is better".

Places should be forced to accept cash until everyone can go cashless (within reason obviously, there needs to be some sort of line drawn here, but those percentages show we're not there yet), and the government should support/retrain coal miners who lose their jobs due to energy transitions.

While I agree that the attitude shown in the quote is undesirable, I think it's more a symptom of the problem, not the underlying problem itself. He's essentially right. Infrastructure projects are constantly shot down because of cost concerns, yet we have crumbling infrastructure that needs to be replaced. If estimates became higher, approvals would decrease.

One other piece I haven't seen mentioned yet: large construction projects that take years to complete are incredibly hard to estimate accurately, because unpredictable economic swings can cause the cost of items to vary quite a bit between when the estimate was produced, and when the work was actually being performed and purchased.

This was one of the reasons why the Big Dig's estimates were so far off. Although there are a dozen other factors with that particular case as well.

I'm not trying to disparage fasting, who am I to say it hasn't helped you, or others?

That being said you call it a health tool, and then say it produces stress, which has been documented as being extremely detrimental to health. You also mention, being unable to focus, and being wired.

I'm glad it's helped you, but this endorsement makes me question the health benefits more actually, and makes me less interested in trying it.