cheese_van

A less dystopian avenue would be if the background actor to license his avatar per use. That is, the actor retains choice, just licenses his likeness for one movie only, and only for the movies the actor wants to be in.

I can't imagine a worse situation than when a studio could use likenesses in movies that the actors would be horrified to appear in.

If my own worth to my employer is sufficiently opaque to require me to defend my position, this suggests they have insufficient data to evaluate me - and if my worth is not obvious to them, then I guess it's time to go. What else does this company not have a good handle on? It's a red flag they'll be poor performers in whatever market they've staked out.

With all due respect for julian37, I suggest caution. I might amend "quite pungent" to "good God what the hell" and "deep flavor" to "tastes like it smells."

Perhaps I am betraying my American lack of culinary flexibility. Perhaps julian37 is just joshing us.

I very much miss living in Frankfurt, a wonderful city. However, I suspect that the local practice of recommending Handkäse to visitors is an inside joke and a harmless and amusing example of German humor.

There's a certain lack of predictability for users, both viewers and content creators, that may be disquieting for both. And advertisers being unable to reach non-logged viewers diminishes return. I would also expect the growing distaste for the owner's antics additionally diminishes a pleasant experience for some. So returns in value for all involved, in short, is not growing but decreasing. It doesn't seem a trend useful for maintaining engagement, and certainly not for growing it.

Seems, now that they have demonstrated the theory, brilliantly intuitive. A beautifully simple criteria. Beautiful if true.

I thought the opening credits were visually interesting but uneven in artistic quality. And when I understood it was AI generated, I thought that loosely tied in with the subject matter. I am not a professional artist however. I do believe that more care should be taken to preserve those jobs that are threatened by technology but I'm not sure how that can be obtained.

Not fake but rather breaking news. Bavarian State Office for the Care of Monuments official press release was yesterday, the 14th: https://www.blfd.bayern.de/mam/blfd/presse/pi_bronzezeitlich...

But what a beautiful sword!

>Also in the former East Germany, where FKK (naturism) was encouraged at the time

Yes, in East Germany. There were political nuances to that. FKK very much proclaimed "we are free here in East Germany," much like the no speed limit in West Germany proclaimed, "We are free here too." Hard choice that, nude cavorting in nature or driving fast!

During my freshman year in North Chicago we swam nude. That was 1970. There was no controversy among the students about it, and I don't recall any adult discussion about propriety. There was a very large concentration of military dependents at the school, and I was one, and military disregard for personal preferences about nudity was considered normal and expected. Nude swimming perhaps got us ready for that experience? The effect of diminishing body shame was probably beneficial as well. Eh, I escaped high school unscathed and I suppose brought away that nudity and sexuality were two very different things.

> How do you address the concerns of users who feel that Reddit has become increasingly profit-driven and less focused on community engagement?

Had he a modicum of awareness regarding the question, he would have also addressed the community engagement part of the question - to users, the most important part of the question.

"The community built our platform and we'll never forget that or make engagement unpleasant. We need your engagement." Had he said that, and then segued to profit, he at least would not have been betrayed by his predetermined inflexibility.

> British understatement gets me in trouble when communicating with americans. In the British to American dictionary, 'I would prefer not' becomes 'I wont'.

It seems quite a few of the Americans you speak to haven't read Melville's "Bartleby". You'll not find a more emphatic, "I would prefer not" in literature.

I've worked with Peter.

Ages ago, archeologists would join their country's diplomatic service for the chance to be paid to travel and live in far corners and dig. Peter joined the Foreign Service to bird, for much the same reason. Not much of a carbon footprint to hop in a car and visit neighboring countries. It's what we all did, to see the sights. But Peter did it to see birds.

A very, very nice man. I worked with him for over a year before I was told his status in the birding community, and I didn't hear it from Peter - he didn't talk about birds in the office: hardly anyone that was not his close friend knew he was an obsessive.

But again, to your point. The government ferried us around the world and dropped us off in interesting places where we lived for generally, about 3 years and then moved on. He took advantage of that and I would imagine his footprint is about the same as anyone who takes a car to see the neighboring sights on a weekend.

Nor was I able to log in with Firefox w/linux. I suppose I could have used Chrome but the failure gave me an excuse just to end my subscription. I honestly didn't view HBO that much so I guess I'm up a few bucks. But it does occur to me that a failed first impression can result in lost business - like me. So if users are sitting on the fence, don't push them off! I suppose is the moral.

Another problem, one that I experienced as I was new and unschooled: It was a long run to the antenna and I left too much slack before the transmission equipment. I just bunched the slack into a jumble and then hooked it up. Of course the engineer that lectured me about conductivity, magnetic fields and SWR remains a memory. He neatly coiled the coax and my problems disappeared. Even something as simple as coax benefits from experience and a small bit of knowledge.

Absent a clear explanation of how the presumed alternate currencies can be used without convertibility, the article seems like a shallow polemic with no useful argument beyond, "The US wouldn't like that."

It is complicated. I was working in a state psychiatric ward during university, and the ward psychiatrist had noted in the patient's chart that after meeting the patient's mother, he suspected a genetic etiology of the patient's condition. In other words, the patient's mother was also crazy. The patient's mother, having received legal access to the chart, read that, and was now suing the state. The earlier comments in the thread about the target audience was spot on. Radical record transparency may perhaps not always benefit health professionals, unless of course, some things are just not recorded - and that may not benefit the patient.

Curiously, it's not even a requirement to join the US State Department's Foreign Service to conduct diplomacy. Just pass the test.

Although certain support positions within the Foreign Service do require a degree, "core" diplomatic officers do not. Want to be a diplomat? Again, just pass the test.

Playing up the "huge pile of money" angle may be wholly fictional. Or not. A much more responsible description is that a trade is very likely to provide independence and a fairly stable work-life, albeit hardworking. Perhaps an antique perspective, but its dispiriting to me that indecent amounts of money have become a more compelling goal, or glamorized as a goal, than an ordinary life of stability and independence from want. For most of us, its the stability that allows us the time and environment to grow as people, not the fairy tale dream of following one's "passion".

My guess would be that using Roman numerals was an attempt to "elevate" the product beyond its working class entertainment origins. Talkies were shown in venues where less sophisticated people frequented and the industry needed to escape those connotations of un-sophistication and even perhaps immorality. In the same way baseball was considered entertainment for the rougher lower class crowd. Roman numerals added a pretentious sophistication.

5-7 things in a list might be daunting. I've found that setting the bar much lower is a great help. I worked in an office that responded to world events. So the inbox just grew. My working response was to, before setting out for work, write down the one thing that I wanted to accomplish that day and do it, regardless. One thing. Just one thing. It was amazingly effective for me.

Not much information here sadly, just an abstract that barely whets the appetite. That's ok, I suppose, but the cited paper's link, Optimal Transport Reconstruction of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations, requires a subscription to read the paper. Which is a sad reminder that science is pay-walled in so many places that one wonders if the glorious, explosive rate of physical science growth at the turn of the century would have even occurred had such paywalls existed then.

>More likely he didn't trust democracy

Democracy during Junger's time was not a sure thing. For many, compared to what the Soviets were espousing, it seemed ideologically inferior and its flaws, at the time, were painful. Until the flaws in the Soviet model manifested in ugly ways, many countries in Europe were leaning towards their own models based on the Soviets. It was a near thing and had the Soviets not proved to be such dicks, Europe certainly could have gone the other way. "Aftershocks" by Gunitsky has a very nice chapter on this subject.

The discoveries come from inferring,and calculating, from those laws, what is possible. What do those laws really mean? If the law is true, then it follows that this other thing must be also be true because the law expressly says it is true (or the law allows it).

Remember though, these spices were not carried by, say one trader, from origin to destination. The trade occurred along known routes that were relatively fixed, so trading communities grew. It was there that you got the goods - not at the origin. So you can say the spices traveled, but the fixed traders didn't have to.

Cloves have been found at Syrian 4th millennium B.C. sites, Tel Mozan I think, indicating an unbroken route to Indonesia. Our ancestors were not unsophisticated.

Poor trust in Germany of American intent has been ongoing for some time. The US has done much to repair it, although the quiet diplomacy has been more effective than the public diplomacy. The preservation of this trust, despite what conspiracy seekers believe, would strongly militate against this event - its benefit would in no way be perceived in USG circles as greater than the cost.

Thanks for this recommendation. Its interest reminds me that HN is one of the better sites to browse, and the occasional, seemingly off-topic (non-tech) discussions can be pleasurable.

I'm perversely delighted that determined criminal gangs are associated with covertly reaping a fungus. Refreshingly not because the fungus is psychoactive, but because it has flavor derived value.

I know I shouldn't make light of criminal behavior that in the end, is destructive, but I would enjoy hearing the discussion about "What are you in for?" when these guys get apprehended. The topic probably would interest even hardened criminals. "You can make money doing that shit?"

Which Agency is responsible for enforcement? USDA? Are there dedicated fungus cops? Chasing fungus criminals in the great outdoors sounds like a terrific job.

Yes, I experienced this. About every year and a half, my company instructed each office to layoff a certain number. Low performers were targeted. If an office didn't have low performers, good performers were let go, and only the very best were retained. It cruelly encouraged and enforced exceptional output. It was heartbreaking, actually. But the pay was very good and we accepted it.

In that context I was told, "Tutor this guy (a fair worker, but not exceptional). We're going to let him go if he can't step it up." We worked together and I saved his job - it remains a very proud moment for me.

The company was a leader in its field, and its merciless practice of retaining only the very best performers contributed to its success.

Capitalism at its Darwinian worst, perhaps. Or its best, depending on your perspective.

Around 1993. An overseas government office, high ranking guy,light-years beyond my rank, brilliant in his political field, complains he's lost data, AGAIN, furiously summons me to make amends about the deplorable system of which I am in charge and FIX THIS SHIT.

Office has a low standing safe next to his desk. Each safe has a little magnetic sign, one side says "open" the other "closed". While the safe was open, he put the sign on top of the safe, out of the way.

It seems (who knew?) that placing your floppy disks on top of magnetic signs might corrupt your data. I accepted responsibility, I told him, because I didn't anticipate he might do this, and I should have briefed him. On one hand it was politically expedient to end the quarrel quickly. On the other, perhaps true: never assume your users or clients have a single shred of intelligence beyond their field.

Happened to me. The key for one car worked on another car of the same model.

Nice elderly lady at work asks us to take out her car at lunch to diagnose a noise. We found her '73 Buick Skylark in the multi-story car-park and went to lunch. Ran great. Afterwards I asked, "I thought you were Baptist? Why did you have a St Chris statue on the dash?" Of course she didn't.

We had found the "wrong" car on a lower deck of the car-park but when we got back from lunch parked it on the uppermost deck, unaware it belonged to someone else. When we discovered our error, we imagined what the owner might go through when the car was discovered missing but we kept our mouths shut, fearing some sort of liability.

I bought that old lady's Skylark. Ran like a dang tank.

And additionally funded by the US State Department to provide anonymity for users seeking political expression in countries where that expression may be dangerous.