rawgabbit

Quote:

     A perfectly optimized system that produces incompetent operators is not optimized at all. It has simply moved its failure mode somewhere the spreadsheet can’t see it.

The ancient societies you mentioned, were not anti-intellectual. If anything, they placed too much power in their intellectual elites e.g., monks becoming bureaucrats in Charlemagne's kingdom, scholars becoming mandarin officials in Chinese dynasties.

The US always had an anti-intellectual streak. A common quote was I'd rather be judged by a jury of averages joes than a panel of intellectuals. In 2026, the anti-intellectual and anti-science folks are in charge of US institutions.

I write like this. It's probably a Texas thing as my writing is a close approximation to how I talk. That is the writing is meant to be read out-loud.

BTW, I believe the author was painting the visual image of Beavis & Butthead, not a caveman.

This kind of back and forth reminds me of the Dot Com bubble circa 1999. There were endless articles saying that the internet was a new golden era for mankind and that the hyperbolic company valuations were justified; the detractors cried bullocks.

I use AI every day as I assume everyone else on Hacker News does. Will the S&P 500 drop 20%? I have no idea. If you know, please let me know so I can adjust by 401K.

AI style writing; didn’t bother.

I thought the recommendations in section 3 were substantiative. That is move away from time-bound exams and move towards semester length project portfolios.

     >"In the era of AI, some traditional learning goals may merit rethinking; for example, do the majority of our students need to be able to write complex programs by hand?"

     >"quick, high-stakes evaluations embody the opposite of the signal we want to convey to them right now."

     >"We urge instructors to consider forms of assessment that are less vulnerable to AI, and more valuable for learning, such as oral exams, semester portfolios, and out-of-class assignments paired with in-class conversations. This likely means resources such as TAs and class time will become more central to evaluation."

Sorry. That is double-speak. Yes, there is a shortage of cheap talent; but there is no shortage of skills and no shortage of labor. If you want cheap labor, corps are welcome to move offshore.

Corps can't have it both ways.

No one is saying corporations cannot offshore and move the jobs overseas and hire workers from that country. What we are saying is that it is disingenuous to bring those workers into the country and claim there is a skills shortage; that is a bald faced lie.

Yes, you're probably right.

With large sets or sequences of numbers approaching almost infinity, counting as a method of determining how large things are ... doesn't work well as you found out. To determine if ginormous set A is larger than ginormous set B, you have to do things like matching-pairing. For every element in set A, pair it with an element of set B; if you exhaust all of the elements in B but still have elements in A... then set A is larger than set B.

To formulate the probability of B happening, for example, you have to make an educated guess. Create a functional equation that map A (all possibilities) to B (desired possibility). Then you make a ratio-fraction with the equation in the numerator and set A in the denominator. Using Algebra, try to eliminate references to A in both the numerator and denominator to give you an educated guess of what the probability is.

A few years ago I visited downtown SF for a convention at Moscone center. I remember walking along St Patrick’s thinking this is a beautiful place but , my God, the entire area stinks of urine.

Gold hit $4700 today. Hyperinflation looks like where we are headed.

When a debt crisis occurs, there is only one good option and many bad ones. The good option is the debt holders realize they need to compromise and are willing to forgive part of the debt for proper governance. ie. forgive part of the debt as long as the US adheres to a strict budget which involves raising taxes and cutting services. And no more giving out tax breaks and tax holidays as if they were free.

All the other options are infinitely worse. The problem is that such a deal is political suicide. MAGA will run on repealing the deal like they ran on dismantling Obama care. They are the party of financial self immolation.

The counterclockwise one is a Buddhist temple. The torii gate symbol is a Shinto shrine.

By rapport, I believe the author means non-verbal cues that the other person is interested.

Some cues include the person physically squaring up to you front to front instead of being at an angle to you. Another cue could be touching you on the shoulder or forearm. For me the most obvious tell is that they are laughing or giggling.

Breaking rapport means the other person wants to disengage without offending you. I usually make the excuse I need to take a breather.

Thanks.

Help me understand. Snowflake configured their Github repo to allow auto fixes by Copilot. It got merged automatically without anyone's review? And introduced essentially script-injection vulnerability through the title field?

If this is the case, I would say Snowflake should shut down its repo and get off Github asap.

I grew up idolizing Roger Staubach and followed football fanatically. Over the years, I lost all interest. To me, how the Dallas Cowboys is considered the most valuable franchise while putting out 26 years of ineptitude is mind boggling. I used to watch the games and analyst commentary fanatically. I haven’t watched any game or the Superbowl for ten years. To me, it is now all about sports betting. Who wins is besides the point. It is just naked gambling. I usually have a live and let live attitude. But I have seen gambling destroyed families. It is the work of the devil.

In my experience, it is the blood tests, x-rays, ultrasounds, cat scans, and interpretations ordered by the physician. The labs, technicians, and interpretation may or may not be in network. Six months after the visit, I get a bill from a third party I never heard of.

It was this quote: ” Aspiring controllers must also pass an exam that the FAA says predicts candidates' "aptitude to be an air traffic controller." Within a week, they are notified if they have passed”

Only 10% make it through the first week? At least the weed out process is quick.

In Texas until recently it was not clear if deed fraud was a crime but a civil matter.

https://www.fox4news.com/news/lawmakers-target-deed-fraud-ne...

https://www.texastribune.org/2025/08/01/texas-legislature-sp...

Please try https://patriotswire.usatoday.com/story/money/real-estate/20...

I can’t edit the it anymore.

I would think it is pesky Apple permissions in the way. OpenAI with camera and microphone will literally suck up all your data without Apple being the middle man.

By starting this line of devices I can Open Ai working to create Joi the virtual girlfriend from Bladerunner 2049. https://youtu.be/y-a3YshkPRc

The other article pitched it as an "AI Companion". I can see the market already; virtual girlfriends or virtual friends for the homebound. People will buy a "Companion subscription" that will allow them to talk their friend all day. It will be very successful. I feel bad for any human moderators that will have to wade through these conversations.

Words in American politics have lost their original meaning. Words in American politics mean whatever the national committee say they mean for that week.

Communism means everyone who opposes Trump.

Freedom means parroting whatever nonsense Trump says today.

Socialism means everyone who rejects the current corporate oligarchs.

The old timey systems modeled this problem using accounting 101.

When things change, you don’t immediately update the balance. Instead it is written to a transaction journal aka a log. The thing is this log is the source of truth. State or the balance is derived from the log.

You don’t send a continuous stream of logs. Instead it is batched and sent asynchronously. It is also applied asynchronously. It also records if the batch was successful or not.

If you have multiple systems sending their logs to a central server. No problem. The central server orders them all before applying the batches.

Every so often. The books are “closed”. Meaning the central server won’t accept any more journal entries for things that happened older than X dates.

As a Texan and a sample of size of 1.

     [N] That you need gates on your communities.
     [Y] That your kids' school is going to get shot up.
     [Y] That cops might be the enemy.
     [N] You'll be part of the wrong tribe. 
     [N] Medical event away from financial catastrophe. 
     [Y] Medical insurance, they're trying to screw you.
     [Y] That healthcare is tied to employment. 
     [N] That your government really wants to !@#$ you.

This is my personal opinion as someone who grew up in rural Texas and moved to the big cities. Some anecdotes: Schools participate in "active shooter training". The cops came to my son's high school and gave the "talk"; say "lawyer" -- comply and don't get killed -- tell the judge you were under duress. Racism and discrimination is present; but living in the big cities I don't think it is as prevalent. Medical care in the US is a cruel joke where people are indebted to doctors and hospitals and you are expected to die broke at the end of your life.

If I had my wish, the original French hippie colony would have been successful and we would be calling ourselves Reunionais or something like that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Réunion_(Dallas)

Or you can offer subsidized ride shares for $1.50 a ride. https://www.dcta.net/getting-around/gozone-demand