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bequanna

1,823 karma · joined January 17, 2014

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bequanna··on US inequality is getting worse in ways you might not expect
Many people I speak with in my generation (millennials) have a growing frustration with sending a large percentage of our paycheck to the already rich Boomers.

This is coupled with their self-centered politics which seem obsessed with them capturing as much wealth as possible and avoiding taxes at the clear expense of younger generations.

bequanna··on Meta Files Patent for Facial Recognition, Automatic Recording of People
Won't happen, that's what campaign contributions are for.

They will get periodic slaps on the wrist, but this is purely for show. There is too much money to be made and spread around.

bequanna··on US oil reserves are so low, the caverns holding them could be damaged
Generations before Boomers crafted policy that considered the future beyond them (children and grandchildren). Boomers do not follow that tradition.
bequanna··on Danube's record low levels force shutdown of Hungary's only nuclear plant
Not TOO much loss tho, right?

I thought the cooling tower design helped maximize cooling and minimize loss as steam.

bequanna··on BMW Is Showing Commercials on Their Car's Dash Screens as a Treat
Beyond Gen X, does anyone younger consider BMW a luxury brand?
bequanna··on Minnesota becomes first state to ban prediction markets
Exactly.

This is not a law to protect people, this is a law to protect entrenched special interests (Reservation and State-owned casinos).

bequanna··on Amazon to acquire Globalstar and expand Amazon Leo satellite network
Post-Jobs Apple seems paralyzed and unable to commit to any big moves.

It is impossible to overstate the success of the iPhone, but there are so many recent examples where they dipped their toes in only to fail or be left behind (autos, VR, AI, etc).

What will the next 20 years of Apple look like? Just more iPhones?

bequanna··on Oracle slashes 30k jobs
It sounds like you don't use Oracle, Oracle uses you.
bequanna··on The Cult of Costco
Costco's genius is in building and maintaining trust with their members.

In the age of private equity takeovers and the MBA-enshitification of pretty much every product and service, Costco appears to be the only retailer that will stand on the side of their members against those forces.

They are playing the long game--which will pay off incredibly well for them as fewer and fewer companies care about customer satisfaction and quality.

bequanna··on Beyond has dropped “meat” from its name and expanded its high-protein drink line
I’m completely against factory farming, confinement barns, etc and always avoid meat produced this way.

But I do wonder what you mean when you say “cruelty” in the context of cattle.

Having lived in/around rural livestock production most of my life, I can tell you that most cattle operations I am familiar with take excellent care of the their animals. Minimizing stress is absolutely a top goal for them.

Pork, on the other hand, is almost always produced in a horrifying, cruel way. Confinement barns are terrible in every sense of the word. Pigs are treated without respect from cradle to grave.

bequanna··on US Job Market Visualizer
Are new H1Bs a thing anymore?

Since the fee went up to $100k, I’m not aware of any companies still sponsoring hires who need a new H1B

bequanna··on Corruption erodes social trust more in democracies than in autocracies
I'm not trying to downplay their accomplishments, but how much of their scientific advances from the 40s-60s were due to capturing ex-Nazi tech (and scientists) or stealing from the US via their incredible intelligence efforts?
bequanna··on UBI as a productivity dividend
So in this version of the future, everyone lives in government housing?
bequanna··on Oracle may slash up to 30k jobs to fund AI data-centers as US banks retreat
> I don't know what comes after, but when you combine this with the Iran war it's going to be closer to economic depression.

I follow your extrapolation in the first part, but this is where you lost me.

Why is the Iran war guaranteed to have long-term net negative consequences? It seems far too early to predict the outcome with any kind of certainty.

bequanna··on Texas is suing all of the big TV makers for spying on what you watch
Ah, bingo, yes!

I should have been more specific in my comment. Perceptual hashing allowsfor higher similarity scores between similar looking images.

Lots of cool techniques to experiment with. Highly recommend playing around if you’re interested.

bequanna··on Texas is suing all of the big TV makers for spying on what you watch
The actual screenshot isn’t sent, some hash is generated from the screenshot and compared against a library of known screenshots of ads/shows/etc for similarity.

Not super tough to pull off. I was experimenting with FAISS a while back and indexed screenshots of the entire Seinfeld series. I was able take an input screenshot (or Seinfeld meme, etc) and pinpoint the specific episode and approx timestamp it was from.

bequanna··on alpr.watch
How are you monitoring the meeting minutes? Would you open source this?
bequanna··on A giant ball will help this man survive a year on an iceberg
Are you thinking of “The Iceberg Hermit”?

I read that book as well in my early teen years.

bequanna··on Adenosine on the common path of rapid antidepressant action: The coffee paradox
Not necessarily wrong, but I suspect people likely don’t like that you cited a ChatGPT response.
bequanna··on Is America's jobs market nearing a cliff?
I’m not sure I follow. So, are you saying that wealth will become completely concentrated at the top and the rest of us are obsolete, out of work and broke?

That seems unlikely. What is the point of an economy if there is no one who is actually able to consume?

bequanna··on Is America's jobs market nearing a cliff?
How do we know this is the bottom?
bequanna··on Is America's jobs market nearing a cliff?
Offshoring (India + LATAM) with a side of h1b.

Offshoring is by far the biggest culprit. Plenty of Jr/Mid roles hiring…but not US based.

bequanna··on Americans no longer see four-year college degrees as worth the cost
The h1b program can essentially be eliminated tomorrow. Trump could theoretically make h1b visas non-transferable, charge a high annual renewal, etc.
bequanna··on All it takes is for one to work out
> Not even proper healthcare is guaranteed.

…except it is. Health insurance is available on a sliding scale based on income and essentially free for most low income people.

bequanna··on Student perceptions of AI coding assistants in learning
Well said. I’ve often been able to trick myself into thinking I’ve learned something, especially if it is somewhat intuitive.

But unless I practically apply what I learned, my retention is quite low.

bequanna··on How to Short the Bubbliest Firms
Said another way: “being too early is the same as being wrong”
bequanna··on X Just Accidentally Exposed a Covert Influence Network Targeting Americans
It seems like they are using a more sophisticated way to determine location (App Store download county, etc) not just IP.
bequanna··on In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All
No, you simply are unable to reap the benefits that are available to high trust societies.
bequanna··on In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All
Totally agree.

However, this only works in a high trust society, which we no longer have.

bequanna··on Deciding to Win: A Common Sense Renewal of the Democratic Party
> Donald Trump and the Republican Party are damaging our economy and threatening our democracy.

The very first words in the very first sentence illustrate the problem. Since ~2016, the Democratic party has (mostly) defined itself as anti-Trump party, with some gender/identity issues mixed in.

Trump firmly believes there is no such thing as bad press. Giving him endless attention is playing into his hand. Choosing to play his game.

This piece makes some good points on how the Democratic party should shift policy to start talking about things voters actually care about, but first they need to tone down the anti-Trump rhetoric and stop feeding his hype machine.

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