pbourke

> At least with JSON and HTML, you don't need a separate definition file for basic, primitive data types.

Unless I’m missing your meaning, this seems like an apples-to-oranges comparison. HTML is not a general-purpose format like JSON. It’s a very complicated document format that is validated with reference to an external spec.

I think XML is a great fit for a document format that can become arbitrarily complex yet still easy to author and validate. It’s obviously a really poor fit for a wire transport protocol.

A well-designed system at launch is not sufficient to provide sustained value, but competent ongoing maintenance is. Phrased another way, you can sustain value by maintaining a badly designed system but not by not maintaining a well-designed system.

Ideally systems are well designed and well maintained but we don’t always have that luxury.

Circling back to your point, it’s ironic that maintenance is the lowest-value activity in terms of big tech company reward systems.

Incoming on-brand Gen X comment: it’s funny that they even skip over us when handing out pejoratives.

Rest in Peace, Bram.

One thing that has stuck with me from Steve McConnell’s “Code Complete” is his use of PDL (“Program Description Language” - I think).

The general idea is to write everything out in pseudo code first (at the function or small group of functions level - _not_ the whole program or component).

My PDL is basically a slightly more hand wavy dialect of Python.

  A man wakes up in a strange room
  He doesn't recognize the woman next to him
  He gets out of bed, there's a wallet on the dresser
  He opens it up, looks inside at the driver's license in there with his face on it
  And someone else's name

I vaguely remember a mysterious “other room” where ICON-related things happened - this must have been where the LEXICON server was located.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/david-pogue-misinforma...

It's irrelevant until it fails with no backup mechanism when maneuvers are needed.

How do you know if you’re at high risk for something? This assumes a medically literate and motivated person will seek care based on … what? Realizing that grandpa, great-grandpa and dad all didn’t live past their 60’s? High cholesterol and hypertension can be “silent killers” - how do you know to check for them?

> Where "future" is synonymous with "hope, life, time, joy"

You have dropped the crucial last word from that quote: “The future is already here. It's just not evenly distributed yet”

There’s a lot to do on most continents.

Do you think there’s a difference in insurance premiums between the 2005 Ferrari and 2005 Hyundai?

With the exception of law, automation has already arrived in all of these fields (to accounting first, 1-2 generations ago) and there are now more people in each field rather than less.

Answering my own question: each has a comfortable regulatory moat and competent professional society to defend it.

Research points to the opposite conclusion:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/19485506166414...

> Two studies using large, nationally representative samples of Americans (N = 118,026) and different measures of social contact showed that higher household income was associated with less time spent socializing with others (Studies 1 and 2) and more time spent alone (Study 2)

Are you sure about that? In the US, I’ve read anecdotal reports about people with Southern accents facing discrimination.

In Canada, the Maritime provinces have a distinct accent and there has been a culture of joking about “newfies”[0] (perhaps that has subsided recently).

Are there laws that apply to these situations? Laws can also exist on paper but almost never see enforcement.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newfie

If you are confronted by a mentally ill person screaming threats at you, is your first thought to seek comfort in the violent crime stats? You must be some kind of robot, if so.

> “It was a fake idea, a fake rationale behind it,” Gaab said. “And it worked, people loved it.” It worked as well as a group psychotherapy treatment Gaab and his colleagues used with study subjects a few years earlier.

Were people explicitly told that it was a fake idea at the outset, and went along with the ruse?

Can I buy sugar pills and tell myself “these pills will help with problem X” and have an expectation that they will work? Or do I need to receive “Problem X pills” from some authority in order to see a placebo effect?

I had always assumed that a key component of the placebo effect is not knowing whether you’re receiving the treatment or the control.

Vitamin B-12 deficiency due to lack of intake (a risk for strict vegan diets) or pernicious anemia, an autoimmune disorder. The former is addressed by over the counter supplements and the latter by injections.

Deficiency can be diagnosed through a blood test.

Under the BLS classification scheme, these jobs are sprinkled around under various industrial categories such as medical, logistics, business services, etc. they add up to a large number of jobs in the aggregate (probably another 10%)

For instance, say Team A is used to receiving a report in Excel every week. If an upstream system is added or changed, Team A will fight like hell to keep their Excel report even if it’s no longer needed. Whereas “the system shall generate a weekly Excel report” is just another feature in the backlog and much easier to sell to the organization.

As I understand it, VCs manage pools of money that are structured as limited partnerships. Each pool has an investment objective, and presumably “recapitalize a failing bank” is not one of them. Any VC who did this would probably have been sued by their investors.