JackFr

That is not any COBOL I’ve seen. Straightforward, well documented and comprehensively specified and tested.

When we needed changes (this was back office clearing stuff for a bank) they wouldn’t even talk to us until we specced out the changes we wanted in writing and often the specs we submitted would come back with requests for clarification. This was like the opposite of agile, but I don’t recall any bugs or defects making it into production.

Beautiful analysis by Michael Brendan Dougherty: “MacGowan was able, as an Irish-Londoner, to take Irish music in hand with a joy, pride, and inventiveness that seemed impossible for the native Irish who either revered their musical tradition too much to experiment with it, or disdained it as a kind of false Paddyism.”

I have posted this before, an argument in defense of stack ranking I had heard from a friend's father who was a long-time manager for a large industrial conglomerate from the 60's through the 80's. Simply put it was that they were far more willing to hire non-standard candidates on gut and hunches, knowing that if it didn't work out, it didn't work out they would be gone in 1-1.5 years and it would not be a ding against the hiring manager. Further, at least in that day, it was an environment where everyone was going in with their eyes open -- people were not blindsided by it, they expected it. But as you point out, the FAANG's are doing the opposite of this. They've got extremely difficult hiring processes and are pretending that it's not stack ranking.

I had an argument with my wife about funding our public libraries. (We live in NYC which I believe supports 3 out of the top 10 public library systems in the country. Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan maintain separate library systems.)

I am happy for my tax dollars to support the system, but the bottom line is that branch libraries exist as a free, under-resourced Internet cafe for the indigent. That might be a good use for the public fisc, but the librarians and books are completely ignored.

We have three children the youngest of whom just finished high school and we were forced to admit none of us has been in our neighborhood branch in more than 8 years.

At the same time I haves seen two exhibits at the main reading room in the past 18 months.

Biometric data as authentication vs. differentiate my shitcoin so I can get in on the crypto grift.

I just don't get his cult of personality. He's an underwhelming intellect but a top-notch promoter. And Worldcoin, seriously? I can see in 2019 wanting to be in on the grift, but let it die.

> they will consider changing jobs.

Hmmmm. The stiff resolve of a spaghetti noodle. I "consider" changing jobs literally every single day.

Beautiful, but clouds seem to be missing any cyclonic aspect.

From the initial board release, the issue then was not necessarily the fundraising or him being spread too thin, but rather that he was not forthright with the board. Every CEO manages the board to some extent and paints a picture for them, but if significant, material information about strategy and operations is being purposely withheld from the board, they cannot do their job.

The idea that only a tiny handful of people knew about Bernie Madoff’s fraud was simply a lie to keep a lot of people out of jail. It’s proved very effective. When your relatively removed it’s not that difficult to generate reasonable doubt.

Same exact vibe here. Everyone knew. It’s very easy to be ignorant when ignorance keeps you from a very long prison sentence.

What about crime victims?

Should other people in a police station have any expectation of privacy? Victims of crimes? People who've been arrested?

Singularity coming later this afternoon.

Need some Boston Dynamics flair.

> It's not just the increase of the money supply. It's the increase of the money supply faster than the "stuff" of the economy increases.

This. Inflation always is too much money chasing too few goods. Secular shortages give you too few goods. Loose monetary policy (or fiscal policy) give you too much money. (A tight monetary policy can immunize effects of a loose fiscal policy - if there is institutional will.)

Yeah, I’ve heard that a bunch - about the press being uninformed or lazy. I’d offer that they are neither, but if they are restricting themselves to reporting facts and not prognostications and opinions, the statutory maximum is a reasonable thing to report.

IANAL, but I think you misunderstand her plea agreement.

> "the defendant will not be further prosecuted criminally by this Office for any crimes, except for criminal tax violations"

That has nothing to do with her sentencing and is typical of any plea agreement. I’m not going to plead guilty to crimes without the guarantee that you’ll not charge me with more. What would be the point of pleading guilty then?

Yeah you don’t just automatically get an appeal. You need to point to specific errors in the trial. Of which it didn’t seem like there were many.

Sam Bankfraud-Man

With or without testifying he cut a remarkably unlikeable figure. Smug, aloof, arrogant and condescending, honestly much more so than a typical white collar defendant. I suppose his fatal flaw, though was not having anyone else to blame.

> Case in point: the Kennedy assassination changed the world

Really? In what substantive way?

The future of the future of warfare: A $1 shotgun shell killing a $400 drone.

> One example is the big bang theory being proposed by a Catholic astronomer who didn't like the then prevaling idea that the universe did not have a beginning or end because it went against his religious beliefs.

That’s simply not true.

Fr. LeMaitre developed the theory to explain observed red shifts of galaxies (deriving Hubble’s Law prior to Hubble.) He felt his theory (and science in general) had no connection or contradiction to his faith.

Edna Ferber.

The movies Cimarron, Giant and Showboat definitely more well known than her novels on which they were based.

Agree. Saw that as a math major undergrad, there were some people with more of an engineering bent who just crushed multivariable calc, differential equations stats and numerical methods, but then just got stuck at abstract algebra and point set topology proofs and stuff because there was no concrete application or “real world” anchor for the work.

Amusing counterfactuals:

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/teacheng/files/Maug...

Article could be summed up by "Comparison is the thief of joy."

The guy has built a successful, profitable company, with satisfied customers and a culture he claims to be proud of. And yet the whole article is him carping.

> The companies that buy up sites like Bandcamp are interested in nothing except ensuring the executives’ pockets get lined appropriately.

What about the people who sell sites like Bandcamp? It seems to me they want their pockets lined as well.

To me it points to something fundamentally unsustainable. If cycle of “people who love music/support the artists” create sites/publications/etc. and then invariably sell out to some larger corporate body who dilutes or destroys the operation - what is going wrong?

The reason why you see them built up in the high income zip codes is because branches are almost completely out of the business of regular teller operations of years ago which as you correctly point out have moved largely online. Instead branches exist to move high margin services and wealth management product to high income customers.

That isn’t to say the big banks don’t have a real estate problem - they do but it’s more the back office than it is branches.