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vicnovon Europe's Largest Unions Demand Right to Cancel Work on Days Above 30C

How countries with wet/hot climate that achieved economic success have solved it?

Because my cynical mind tells me that the only thing it will result in is 1. Extremely low productivity 2. Hiring outside of unions.

Union will push for “union only jobs” and that’s going to result in even less productivity OR robotization of agriculture and construction.

vicnovon US seeks cheaper hunter-killer drones after Iran destroys $1B worth of Reapers

not a fan of defending billionairs, but is mostly a useless populist slogan*

You can do full Dekulakization (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekulakization) on them and it won't change anything in current economic situation.

Confiscating 100% of all billionaire wealth (~$8.4T) covers - ~1.1 years of federal spending (~$7.4T) - ~4.4 years of deficits (~$1.9T) - ~23% of debt (~$36T):

and pretty much kills US ability to rely on private sector (and I dont think we have a way to rely on public sector)

The sooner we all start focusing on things that actually matter -- like improving democracy, quality of education (btw spending more may not solve it) etc -- the faster we will improve situation.

Cities like NYC pretty much can afford UBI (look at per capita spending on homelessness, public schools etc). Taxing more may not be the answer.

*it should be studied what motivates people to repeat it

vicnovon Show HN: 18 Words

I think there is probably a research paper hiding inside this game.

I couldn't guess Dice because, as an ESL person, I couldn't make the D-i combo sound like /d/+ /aɪ/ in my head (it sounded as /d/ + /ɪ/), so a part of my neural circuitry didn't fire, and I couldn't complete it with `ce.`

In other words I, personally, in this pattern recognition game rely on the way words sounds in my head to find familiar combinations and continue the sequence.

vicnovon The AirPods Effect

You can be poor and obey the law. You can protect the poor and enforce the law.

It is the weird identity politics is what gets in the way.

vicnovon GPT 5.4 in practice – Stinks?

I can’t use it after engaging with Claude. Even simply having a conversation about some design decisions seems annoying.

So I would agree with you, it is not great.

vicnovon Tailscale's new macOS home

This is all cool, but to allow ssh access I still need to install tailscale through brew?

i don't get it.

vicnovon DARPA's new X-76

It is a fascinating take. I am curious to understand what model you think would work.

The U.S. effectively has a dysfunctional system with wild mix of "no regulation" and heavy state participation. I am not sure there is any country with a deregulated system where people can enjoy good healthcare. You could theoretically say that Switzerland does this, but the government there requires everyone to have insurance, even though hospitals are 100% private.

vicnovon MacBook Neo

I was really hoping for 11inch version, but I am just that weird.

vicnovon It’s been a very hard year

> we won’t work on product marketing for AI stuff, from a moral standpoint, but the vast majority of enquiries have been for exactly that. Our reputation is everything, so being associated with that technology as it increasingly shows us what it really is, would be a terrible move for the long term. It is such an “interesting” statement in on many levels.

Market has changed -> we disagree -> we still disagree -> business is bad.

It is indeed hard to swim against the current. People have different principles and I respect that, I just rarely - have so much difficulty understanding them - see such clear impact on the bottom line

vicnovon A WebGL game where you deliver messages on a tiny planet

Very pleasant. happy to report -- i delivered all packages.

vicnovon US Visa Applications Must Be Submitted from Country of Residence or Nationality

How does it destroy the country? I genuinely do not understand your logic? Is it because you assume less talent will move to the states?

vicnovon Flunking my Anthropic interview again

They spoke with respect and pointed out that, from the point of career growth, they may need to talk to someone. They pointed out that there might be more effective ways of dealing with what the blog post author is going through. This comment didn't make me sad at all, if anything I appreciated it.

vicnovon Gemini 2.5 Deep Think

interesting out of all "thinking models," I struggle with Gemini the most for coding. Just can't make it perform. I feel like they silently nerfed it over the last months.

vicnovon Scientists may have found a way to eliminate chromosome linked to Down syndrome

It is an important point. Our understanding of what is “disease”/“malfunction” and how to address diseases has been changing.

I can see how if we, as society, - gain such immense wealth that taking care of/ providing support to/ humans with DS becomes so easy - arrive to the conclusion that there is no downside in emotional health/wellbeing - change definition of what “living full/happy life” Then parents stop perceiving DS as a concern

vicnovon Scientists may have found a way to eliminate chromosome linked to Down syndrome

“Fundamentally normalize” is the part that surprises me. I sometimes think that it is the refusal to hold two thoughts simultaneously that drives it.

One can value/respect people with DS and strive to eliminate DS at the same time.

vicnovon Scientists may have found a way to eliminate chromosome linked to Down syndrome

Both sides have wild distortions, I just feel like it is “more clear” what’s going on in the right.

vicnovon Scientists may have found a way to eliminate chromosome linked to Down syndrome

I think it is worth a separate research that modern definition of progressive thought considers eliminating/treating a genetic malfunction "unethical".

vicnovon Scientists may have found a way to eliminate chromosome linked to Down syndrome

because alot of times when they do it makes the news and because when it does happen.. it usually happens in (very few) "first world countries"?

vicnovon Scientists may have found a way to eliminate chromosome linked to Down syndrome

> just how ethical it is to completely eliminate Down's from the gene pool

wait.. what?

vicnovon Why I Hate Azure with a Passion

Yesbut… is it true? MSFT is very successful long-term.

You’re making an assumption that teams having control over their work will lead to better quality of product (which i agree) and then (I assume you predict), in return, will result in better financial performance.

But is that true? I am not so sure. I worked in some banks and it is very easy to come up with better products for consumers… that will make less revenue to the banks. I also worked in big tech, and so how prioritizing UX over paying customer requests is virtually impossible.

Oh… i also observed teams ACTIVELY not wanting to take steps to improve products because it would lead to taking risks, and most corporations incentivize you to he risk-averse.

This is a very interesting topic, with few clear answers beyond “culture has to be very good to build good products”

vicnovon Why I Hate Azure with a Passion

The fact that you hate it and yet still use it explains why they can afford it to be so bad.

Also.. most people want to do their job well, very few people are aligned in what “doing job well” means when it comes to large corporations.

Improvements you wanted were not prioritized not because dev teams disagree, because their leadership needs to hit sales targets, and that probably means catering to some very specific requirements of very large orgs.

There is no malicious intent, and no unprofessional behavior. This IS big corpa working AS INTENDED. Everyone stuck in some sort of local maxima, no one is happy and business is growing.

vicnovon Meta says it won’t sign Europe AI agreement, calling it an overreach

Is every sprint a spiral towards destruction?

vicnovon Meta says it wont sign Europe AI agreement, calling it growth stunting overreach

It is fascinating. I assume that the tech world is further to the left, and that interpretation of "left" is very pro-AI regulation.

vicnovon Meta says it won't sign Europe AI agreement

Just like GDPR, it will tremendously benefit big corporations (even if Meta is resistant) and those who are happy NOT to follow regulations (which is a lot of Chinese startups).

And consumers will bear the brunt.

vicnovon Changes since congestion pricing started in New York

The only issue with this tax is that I doubt MTA is capable of putting new revenue to good use.

Effectively we added a barrier to travel (this IS a tax), with some positive externalities for some people (including me), but whether that tax revenue will be deployed well is doubtful given MTA track record.

(Yes, it was/is underfunded; but also somehow everything is 10x of what it “supposed” to cost)

vicnovon Just Fucking Use HTML

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

“without a clear indicator of the author's intent, any parodic or sarcastic expression of extreme views can be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of those views”

vicnovon 555 Timer Circuits

Can you recommend books/courses that cover this new approach you’re talking about?

vicnovon I designed a Dieter Rams-inspired iPhone dock

are there good online services for 3D printing? I have no idea where top print it once I download the files.

vicnovon Using GPT-4 to generate 100 words consumes up to 3 bottles of water

A gallon of water per almond.

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/01/almonds-nuts...

I know, I am engaging in “whataboutism” but I also feel like articles like this are harmful. It is a red herring.

vicnovon Using GPT-4 to generate 100 words consumes up to 3 bottles of water

This is one of those things that only makes sense in comparison to other objects.

How much water a requires a bag of almonds grown in California?