yodsanklai

> It's quite depressing how little society values the night sky,

Considering how little value we put on far more important things (like the climate or biodiversity), I'm not really surprised.

> I love seeing artificial objects in space, because it shows that we, humanity, are finally getting there.

The problem is that nobody asked the other 8.3 billions people what they think about seeing stuff in the sky. For the benefit of 1/1000th of humanity (~10 million starlink users).

> What's the goal of the US/Iran war?

I'm just a layman, but the goal seems obvious to me. First it's not US/Iran but US + Israel / Iran. From Israel's point of view, I assume the goal is the preemptive destruction of Iran's military capabilities (especially nuclear weapons).

Funny how the two top comments are contradictory. We need better than anecdotes to understand what the new models bring.

> Nowadays I wouldn't recommend anyone to get a tech degree in a university unless it's a world class one.

I'm in Europe where education is mostly free or inexpensive so it may be different in the US, but it sounds like terrible advice. In most fields, it will be virtually impossible to get a job without a degree, and even in tech it'll be hard. I work in a big tech company, and as far as I can tell, most SWEs do have a degree of some sort. I'm sure there are exceptions, but they are rare.

There are certainly lines you don't want to cross if you want to avoid conflicts, and there are ways to ask questions nicely. Maybe it's a professional bias, but when you work in research or engineering, I think it's pretty normal to ask questions or push back on strong claims without proofs, without necessarily sounding like a jerk.

I think I managed to upset people on several occasions as I was just genuinely trying to understand their opinion on some topics.

I noticed that with some people (and possibly most people), it's not even a matter of who's wrong or right, simply asking to justify or explain their claims may be perceived as an attack and enough to trigger an argument.

> Sure, thus the "find a trainer" suggestion

Not sure a trainer is a silver bullet. After 50, it gets increasingly harder to improve as we become more and more injury-prone and start developing chronic issues. Staying active and fit should be reachable for most, but high-intensity or competitive sports become a privilege for those with good genetics. Most of us switch to low-impact sports such as cycling, swimming, hiking, bodyweight training and so on...

> And if you're injuring yourself regularly during weight training or other gym activities, I'd suggest you might hire a good coach/trainer for guidance and programming, because that shouldn't happen either.

After a certain age, it's difficult to train somewhat intensely without risking injury. You can always find some exercises that work and maintain a physical activity, but this may not be enough to maintain your muscle mass or your stamina.

> can have views on all four quadrants but you'd never know that if I end up in any of all four

Curious of examples of views falling on all four quadrants (not close to the center) without too much cognitive dissonance.

> Israel are doing their best efforts to avoid civilian casualties.

According to wikipedia, there have been 80K people killed in Gaza, 80% are civilians, 30% are children.

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

> it is a very weird way from Israel's point of view to make what you call genocide.

It's not me who calls that a genocide. That's becoming the consensus on how it's being called outside of Israel.

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

There are many Israelis who conclude that their country is conducting a genocide in gaza and ask for it to stop [1]. Conversely, there are people who are "far far away", who have access to the same information as everybody else and don't see any wrong doing, and support the destruction of Gaza and its inhabitants. I have a hard time understanding how anyone can think this is right, or maybe they don't know or don't believe what is actually taking place.

[1] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/07/israel-opt-is...

There's simply no excuse for what Israel has been doing and everyone with a functioning moral compass should be denouncing it. Debating about Hamas is a distraction. They have a right to defend their country, but not treating a whole population as collateral damage.

> is pushed by powerful and wealthy elite down the throat of society.

Adoption has been exponential. We don't need to be AI to be pushed down the throat. People use it because it works and it's useful to them.

> The debate that we should have had: Is this tech actually mature enough for pervasive use in society.

It's too late for this debate because this tech is already pervasively used, and there's no coming back. It's part of our lives.

What we need to do is understand the risks and adapt, probably regulate, educate. So we can get the best of this tech, and mitigate its risks.

> top universities experimented with removing test requirements from admissions

What could go wrong...

AI should be a formidable booster for learning if used properly.

I know that some students it to prepare for competitive tests, sometimes with very good results.

I've also been using it a lot recently to brush up on my math and physics knowledge from my graduate years. It has helped me clarify and understand a lot of concepts better.

That being said, there is no shortcut, and to be good at anything, one has to put in the work and the hours. However, information has never been as available as it is today.

> There is more to life than money

That's what I told myself when I was in my 20s and early 30s. And then I realized that I had no savings and no opportunities to save, unless I switched to a more lucrative career (which I did, with zero regret).

We don't know what tomorrow will be made off, now I reached a stage where I think I should save as much as possible while I can. And I'm not a materialistic person at all.

Meta isn't nowhere near cigarettes manufacturers in terms of damage. Tobacco kills millions every year. Meta may need even more regulation, and you can argue that social medias aren't the greatest invention, but I don't think they are that bad.

There's no mental gymnastics here. I draw the line differently than you, that's all. I'm not a big fan of Meta and their products, I would be happy to work there anyway for the reasons I mentioned. But I wouldn't work for let say Marlboro.

There are tons of good reasons to work for Meta. You can work on interesting projects, build your resume and network, work on interesting engineering problems, learn from other people, and of course, they pay very well. People do need to support their family, secure their retirement and so on...

Is it perfect? certainly not. Is the company toxic? where do you draw the line? how much are you willing to compromise given the other advantages you get? Everybody has a different answer to these questions. Some people would tell you that even working in tech is wrong due to environmental concerns.

Personally, I would happily work for Meta. Many people use their services and like them. Is it the greatest thing for society? probably not, but neither is Netflix or Amazon or Apple...

> how many people finally get it because of animations and playing with the maths instead of some old dude drawing a formula on a blackboard

Visualisation helps of course, but if you want to be good at maths, you need to put the work and try to solve tons of problems. Most of what 3blue1brown shows in his fancy videos are things you can drawn on your own on a paper, and if you've never done it yourself, chances are you don't understand.

The problem with digital tools is that it's easy to get distracted. If you watch 5 minutes of 3blue1brown and then 20 random videos, it's not going to help.

Same here. I didn't find the drink especially nasty. I drank it very cold, it had a somewhat chemical taste but very fluid, not disgusting texture. I do remember it was a lot of liquid to drink though. As for the bathroom part, no pain or discomfort whatsoever. It took a couple of hours total if I remember correctly.

No, the worst part is the risk of puncture. Rare, but it happens. Happened to a colleague of mine.

He seems to be a nice guy and this contrasts with big tech CEOs, but this is pretty demagogical. AI is going to causing disruption but is here to stay, so what should be done about it? "Think different", "you have actual intelligence" may be comforting and enough to be cheered but is not a very actionable advice.

Gemini helped me a lot for my tax return. It actually did a better job than Deloitte, it found several mistakes in previous returns they filled for me.

Stuff like that should be regulated at a much higher level than unions.

I don't think it's about trust, but they're using employees behavior for training their replacement.

> American companies should not be allowing their tech to ...

Do they have a choice?

> My brain does not work the same way, as when I was before 36.

I'm not sure it's that bad if you do it full-time like any other student. Getting a degree should be doable even at 40+. I used to be a university lecturer in CS, and occasionally I got older students who did very well.

That being said, I think the issue is employability. You may get a degree, but is anyone getting to hire an older person with not experience?

Sometimes I wonder if people praising AI work on the same type of code as I do.

Just now, I was working on a bug report. I had Claude write the code. Perfect, CI is green, new tests, everything seems fine. Took me 5 minutes. Then looking closer, I can see that there may be a performance regression and that the code seems pretty verbose. I iterate on the prompt "of course, you're right, let me fix this". New code is even more verbose, lots of comments that shouldn't be there, the code is more intricate, it takes me some time to understand what's going on. Plus new test cases to review.

After a day of asynchronous iterations on this, I finally sit down to look at this problem. There was a one line fix that Claude couldn't find on its own.

I lost time, reviewer lost time, and if this had been shipped as is, the system would have been worse. I could go on and on because this happens daily. And the worst part is teammates submitting slop.

> there could be another person here that i have the capacity to be really good friends with but i will probably never know it.

I often have the same thoughts. There are many lonely people eager to make friends.

I used to live in NYC where I didn't know anyone. And I remember one evening at the coffee shop in Barnes and Noble, there were only two other people there, and we started to chat. Even though we had very different backgrounds, we started to hang out and became good friends (but lost contact since then unfortunately).

Sometimes it doesn't take much, just exchanging a few words. Forcing oneself to be a bit more social, without expecting anything, is probably a good habit.

Compared to a gym, the class setting almost forces you to talk to people. I wouldn't see myself talking to people in a gym, but in a snowboarding club or martial arts class, or a group hike, it's difficult not to. Once you exchanged a few words, even for the sake of an exercise, the ice is already broken. At the very least, you'll say hi the next time you see that person.