Aspartame is considered the most studied food additive in existence. Decades of study and decades of consumption and yet nothing conclusive found unless ingested in obscenely large amounts.
5,602 karma · joined October 18, 2013
Instead of victim blaming it's important to spread awareness of how this happens in the first place: answering inbound requests: phone, email, social media, etc. Best not to answer cold contacts of any kind.
This is a terrible story and I feel for the person affected.
The lesson here is that there's no reason at al to answer any inbound phone call if it's not a personal contact.
There are only two reasons someone you don't know may be calling you:
- to sell you something
- to scam you
If it appears important like your bank or a government agency then call them back and do not answer. There is no upside and a potentially disastrous downside for trusting an inbound request of any kind.
I am personally skeptical that no-code solutions will replace software developers at a significant scale.
Creating a boilerplate project with no integrations or existing logic is one thing. It's a very different thing to use generative AI to maintain existing systems, integrations, and business logic without a human that knows these systems.
The landscape will change for software developers. Probably dramatically. But anyone predicting the end of software developers has as much credibility as someone who says they can talk to dead people.
Mixed bag I guess.
But a counter argument is that uBlock origin, Pi-hole, and Reader mode in Firefox go a long way to blocking those things and creating a nice reading experience.
But on the whole I think it made the web worse. Lots of sites had microscopic text that you couldn't enlarge, no bookmarking pages or maintaining state, no right click, never ending security holes, invisible to search, inaccessible to those with vision or hearing assistants. The list goes on and on.
I was on bulletin board systems pre-internet as a kid and spent too much time on the web in the late 90s. I've seen it evolve from java applets and flash to something better.
Though I don't like social media much anymore and worry about the effect of screens on kids, I still love the internet and value what it makes possible.
I don't buy into these arguments of things used to be better. It's the same argument that older generations used with younger generations for music, cars, or clothes. The list goes on.
It's subjective. Technology enables new possibilities. Everything grows or dies and life moves on.
It's not that the internet used to be fun. It's that the internet changed and people tend to stay the same and not want things to change around them.
People still answer phone calls like this? I've never trusted incoming calls if not a personal contact. If it's your bank you can call them back.
That person calling you, knocking on your front door, sending you an email or DM? At best it's someone trying to sell you something but likely someone trying to scam you.
There is no upside and lots of potential downside for trusting an inbound request of any kind.
But I was specifically responding to the article which opens with this quote by Om Malik:
>With that caveat, I think both, the big (TV) and biggest (movie theater) screens are going to go the way of the DVD. We could replace those with a singular, more personal screen — that will sit on our face. Yes, virtual reality headsets are essentially the television and theaters of the future.
And the rest of the article lays out a mostly supporting case with the missing apps argument.
I may be an outlier but in our house the only time we watch shows or movies is a social context--usually Friday or Saturday nights as a family. I'm struggling to see how the headset could replace what is in my experience a mostly social activity.
Will it ever be comfortable enough for the binge watcher to watch it all day? I have my doubts.
I think it will be a coexistence and replacement of flat screens will be a very long time away.
AI generated images in a news article or long form essay are incredibly distracting and do not add value. Not a fan of experiencing the uncanny valley when I just want to read text.
People complain that you used to get forum posts, blog posts, and guides for specific questions. But most of those have long since migrated to reddit or other social media.
Not a fan of google but think we should examine the other side of the coin on this one.
It would make sense if suboptimal or another word was used instead. But it wasn't and the end result makes it appear as though there is a harmful risk when in fact there is none.
Also WildCat! BBS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildcat!_BBS
But if your information is stored in a database of a large entity, chances are it will spill out at some point. This is especially true in healthcare.
How do they plan on gaining any market share in AI space? I think subconsciously I avoided Bard because I had little faith anything beyond search or email will live more than a couple years.
It’s because technology is harming our brains.
I sympathize with the author and feel this to an extent, but maybe this has more to do with aging than it does using apps and addictive social media. Memorization is a lot easier when you're young versus when you're older.
Though I'm sure it does play a part--spending most of your time on social media leads to not using some parts of your brain. You've got to use it to keep it working properly, just like muscle.
Preventing these deaths by eliminating the ability to drive at unsafe speeds is not suffering.
[1] https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/speed-campaign-speeding...
Yes. Whether remote or in person, pairing works best when there's a experience/skill mismatch. Both parties benefit because the senior has to know and explain the why and the junior learns the what. I enjoy it as long as it's small doses.
It is draining and tiresome when done for long periods but I think worth it. It keeps you sharp and builds relationships with teammates.
Pairing with someone on your level can also be beneficial but with diminished returns.
>“The McKinsey framework will most likely do far more harm than good to organizations – and to the engineering culture at companies. Such damage could take years to undo,” Orosz and Beck argue.
I would go further and say it will likely damage user experience too. Cranking out features to game productivity scores and ignoring outcomes is a good way to get bloat, bugs, cluttered and overly complex UI, and an overall degraded user experience.
But today the bags are tagged with gps trackers and they're almost always caught.
>Ultimately, never choose the one giving you an ultimatum.
This is such great advice. When you are given an ultimatum it is very revealing. Pretend to comply as the author advises, then find something else.
Your sense of self-worth is more valuable than salary or position prestige. If you comply long term, you lose a part of your self and persona.
If a person has been in a professional position for 10+ years, what relevance is a college degree from so many years ago?
It baffles me how prevalent the thinking is that what someone did so long ago has any current relevance.
There's a lot of effort and conversation around inclusion in the workplace yet so many companies have education requirements which is counter to that idea.
I would argue that betting the farm on a single unreliable (at best) partner for cheap energy and future development is an internal factor and not an external one.
Presumably this is all done so they can get a verified email address for marketing purposes, as proof of entry only arrives via email.
Gone are the days where you could pay at the door. Now you must go to their website and fill out a long string of forms and manually type in your credit card number, all so you can get a QR code and wait even longer to enter.
Or go to a restaurant and use your phone to scan a QR code to read their PDF menu on your phone.
Once a refuge from always-connected society, restaurants and museums now require it and I'm finding myself not returning to these places.
This could be in the form of a tech blog or giving a presentation to your team. There are also meetup groups, social media, and other outlets. Mentoring junior developers is another great way to stay current.
If you've been focused on front end for a while then try giving a talk at your company about something orm, db, or api related. In doing research you will learn, and you'll find yourself digging for more information to answer potential questions.
In short: help others learn. You'll learn a lot yourself along the way.
He did all of that and so much more.