balderdash

We have an embedded system in one of product offerings that was largely developed using a bunch of “antiquated” technologies (over the past twenty years) and over the past year the two software devs that maintained it have retired. This normally would have big problem, but the entire codebase was re-written, documented, and modernized in a matter of about 3 months (for about $20k in tokens, and a mid level developer spending 50% of their time on it over that period). So it doesn’t surprise me to think a company like Cisco has piles of situations like this.

I think there are several interrelated factors at play here

1) is the dilution of the “college” degree in terms of quality - an online degree does not generate the same outcomes as from a highly selective institution.

2) value for money for a college degree keeps declining (unless you get it for free) - tuitions have gone up astronomically and colleges have spent lavishly on administrators, student housing and sports complexes, all without improving or changing the core product for which they are charging (education).

3) too many / the wrong people are going to college - just look at the universities that will basically take anyone, less than a third graduate, and they borrow / are in debt at graduation, and they have starting salaries that no better than highschool grads (say USC - Aiken)

4) students pursuing expensive degrees for jobs that do not pay / low ROI (we need techers and social workers but spending $200k-$400k to become a social worker that pays $45k/yr doesn’t seem to be the winning proposition).

5) if you’re somewhat mechanically minded, are willing to travel and work outside, and can pass a background check / drug screen you can earn $75k/yr inside of two years working a blue collar job.

Given these elements - it seems unsurprising that more and more people don’t see college as the answer.

Search for freedom indexes there are a bunch with different criteria.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/freedom-i...

The distinction I suspect is targeted spying vs mass spying. I don’t think anyone is going to get upset about a targeted counter espionage operation, but spying on the public at large with no evidence of suspicion of wrongdoing is another matter.

I think the most charitable argument for keeping it secret is: “it would expose capabilities and methods that if made public would allow our adversaries to avoid detection / change their methods”

I don’t agree with this rationale. On the other hand there is a tension between operating effective counter intelligence operations against nation state actors operating against your interests within your borders and free and open society. I’m not sure where the line is but my perception is we’re way beyond it.

My small town newspaper had a police blotter - almost all the dui arrests the pretext is failure to stay in lane (eg they touched either the yellow line or the white line on the right, the town is on the country and it is practically (if not literally) to never touch a line driving (sometimes I try it just for fun and it takes an insane amount of concentration on winding roads)

Point being is that if you drive there is a pretext for a stop.

Either a) your company will reimburse you for your costs incurred and give you a different week off, or b) they don’t need you there that badly.

Lapin à la moutarde (Rabbit in a mustard sauce - Burgundian dish) - not sure you can say the rabbit is as front and center as you’d like - but my favorite preparation served with a starch - get the boneless loin.

Honestly fried rabbit legs (southern style fried chicken but rabbit essentially) is also pretty good.

One to add on here (which goes to going to a top tier hospital in the field) is you want doctors that are perform this procedure / surgery / diagnosis multiple times a day / week, not once every few months or years. most of the medical medicine is definitely a field where consistent exposure / practice makes a huge difference. (and yes there is a caveat that to a hammer everything looks like a nail).

this goes for everything not just cancer, orthopedic surgery, cardiology, neurology, etc.

Just take the mindset of - if this gets screwed up, where do i get sent to deal with the screw up, and just go there first.

the crazy thing is, as mentioned above, they probably take your insurance and your not going to end up paying more to be at a top notch facility.

I’m not sure what you mean by not that common. The ta millions of people a year- yes maybe it’s only ~1% of the population, buts it’s one percent every year, and I quarter you it’s no evenly distributed.

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2026/2024-sta...

Its breadth and depth - it’s about being able to see a forward for ISONE Vermont Pk power prices, swaptions on uk gilts, where 5yr forwards are pricing for the yen, freight rates and ship tracking, weather data, satellite analysis, legal and legislative data etc.

I’m pretty sure you can get a one month free demo (with limited data feeds).

Here’s the thing - if your local you know they’re there - and if you’re planning on committing a crime they’re trivial (but inconvenient to bypass). So really they’re just recording the everyday movements of the towns populace “just in case”

There was no crime before the alprs, no crime after

my mom lives in small town that only has two roads in/out of town and the police have alprs on those. there's no violent crime there, and all the police department does is traffic (DWI's, speeding and parking tickets, and accidents) and respond to small town crime (noise complaints, stolen bicycle, stray/lost dogs etc). I think the only thing that the alpr has ever caught people for is out of date vehicle registrations - but now the police department wants a flock camera because they are "great crime fighting tools"

I think people need to remember the extreme heterogeneity of crime even in the same city or town let alone across a nation.

I’m not disagreeing with the trend, but it effects people differently.

Trying to be as charitable as possible, is that this is a technology that allows people (the average municipal police force) that can only solve the most obvious of crimes to solve marginally less obvious crimes - at the great expense of the general populace through loss of privacy and abuse.

I'd characterize it differently - america makes lots of medicore wine and whiskey, but it also makes some fantastic wine and whiskey - my problem has always been that the good stuff in the US is stupidly overpriced why pay 2x-3x+ for an american bottle of wine when you can have one of similar quality for a fraction of the price from south africa, spain, france, germany etc.

I’ve been there myself - but your actual friends don’t care.

Try easing into it - go on a late afternoon sunset picnic (ironically also on the list) - a blanket, cheese, crackers, cured meat and wine and a portable speaker. Everyone is happy and it’s super cheap, the outdoors is your living room and a couple hours before sunset never disappoints (though depending on where you are the weather might be a challenge).

I wish that were the case, my multiple experiences are quite different. its not that the software doesn't work - but the software doesn't actually capture the process, or properly talk with other systems, or isn't set up for a new business model or product line...then you have layers and layers of "tools" created to make it work, and a bunch of people using spreadsheets and csv files to do workarounds, and then the guy that wrote a bunch of the tool's 10 years ago leaves and there is no documentation or it needs to be re written in order to upgrade some other piece of the system.

i guess another way of saying this is that on the micro level a lot of this stuff is not rocket science, but at the macro level it becomes hugely complex.

Check out @Risk and crystal ball - both have been around for a long time.

I should also say what’s really nice is you can define the shape of the probability distribution and parameters for random variables, as well as the correlation of different random variables. Both are effective but also feel dated these days.

https://lumivero.com/products/at-risk/

https://www.oracle.com/applications/crystalball/

Look up extreme indifference murder or depraved heart murder - I think you’ll find it exactly fits the context of this discussion

Also I think they charged people in the ford pinto case with reckless homicide but they got off.

Agree - one sensible start would be to at least hybridize the European model where students are a whole lot closer to getting there medical degree as an undergraduate.

Can you cite - antidotally the only doctors I know that would rather be an employee work for big hospital chains or already sold their practice for a pile and are happy with less responsibility.

Yes they will earn above market return on a lower capital base with medical shares in medical practice trading closer to book value - and the economics are the profit share not equity value of the firm. Earning $250k/yr on a $1m capital contribution requires a whole lot less rent seeking than earning the same $250k on a $5m share purchase.

While not perhaps the best argument is the private equity provides liquidity for founders that want to exit. If you started business X, you’ve grown it for 20-40 years and you want to retire, selling is typically the answer. Let’s say the business makes $1m/yr after tax cash flow, PE might buy for $10m, besides PE there aren’t a bunch of likely buyers for your business (of course maybe there is a big competitor, and maybe you could sell it to an employee (but they probably don’t have the money and would need you to seller finance etc)). So for entrepreneurs with a successful small business (say $2-5m+ of ebitda) selling to private equity is the clearest path to a liquidity event for them.

I feel like medical practices should be like law firms where effectively non-lawyers can’t own equity and equity owners have to comply with ethics and code of conduct rules…