danielrpa

I'm not sure that America presents itself as a "bastion of...lean government with minimum taxes". It's so obviously not true that I'd like to see any statement from the US government in front of International forums or through diplomatic channels in that regard. So if the government is presenting itself this way consistently, I'd like to see where this presentation is taking place (vs promoting liberal values in abstract).

However, reduction of taxes and government intervention is a common talking point in internal politics. All things considered, the US has done a better job than, let's say, Europe and Asia in keeping the government out of economic affairs. No sane American libertarian would say, though, that the government has been successful at being "lean with minimum taxes", however it's doing better than most other major countries.

Having lived abroad and personally knowing many people living across the world, I can say that keeping taxes "low-ish" and the market "free-ish" is rarely a topic of conversation in the mainstream political debate outside the US.

I like what you are saying but not the last line. Angels exist - what evidence do we have that they don't?

ChatGPT points to us possibly going in the right direction. It is so good that people need to write long articles about why it is not as good as a human. Contrast to older efforts, which were pretty clearly not so great. I find this pretty compelling, and GOTCHA examples that show that ChatGPT isn't as good as humans in everything miss the point.

Birds fly and drones don't look like birds - but they fly. If the goal is flying, it's okay that we achieve it through something that doesn't exactly mimic what inspired it. Do we need a "full human" for all we do? Our billions of machines, many performing work previously done by humans, show that we don't.

If we can largely replicate intelligence, it's not super important whether "this is how human intelligence works".

Let me guess... With you in charge of deciding the fair allocation and who should get exceptions?

Another idea: eliminate business travel to attend meetings now that we have amazing remote presence tools.

It's more complex than that. There factors other than drag. Planes wouldn't be more efficient if they simply used roads at 60mph all the way to the destination (no takeoff)! Fuel is expensive so they do a lot of work to figure out the optimal speed.

I don't want to start a flame war. This said, I think vinyl sucks; it's my opinion and not some absolute statement about the universe so please respect it! It was the state-of-the art technology when I was kid, but I was so glad it was gone. Digital music is SO much better and I remember the joy of replacing vinyl by CDs and then by high quality digital files.

And because of all of the above, I understand why a lot of the buyers don't have actual record players. Vinyl is a bit like 8-bit cartridge gaming, it's a mix of nostalgia with physicality, holding something fun and cool in your hands. It's more like buying a book... The albums had pretty covers, and I do remember liking to hold them in my hands, read lyrics (often included in an insert) while listening to the music. That was a nice aspect of it, but it was overall so cumbersome and lossy that I'll keep my FLACs, thank you.

A lot of people I saw being let go at my company weren't very good at their jobs - either because they were not capable or because they were not willing to do a lot of work - and leadership took the opportunity, in their eyes, to get rid of them. I'm not saying it was the biggest factor, but I wouldn't say it was "by far the smallest" based on my observations.

I'm actually not trolling. I find Apple's UI legitimately unproductive, a mix of 80s, 90s and 2000s thinking that didn't survive the test of time. Window's older taskbar is vastly superior, as the CLI, both examples of UIs that got it right.

YES! Thank you for focusing on productivity instead of copying Apple's obsolete UI.

I believe Sundar will be remembered as one of the weakest CEOs of his generation, and a person who caused actual harm to humankind by wasting one of the highest concentrations of talent (Google circa mid-2010s) that has ever existed. Imagine what these people could have achieved elsewhere if not lured by Google to be subjected to Sundar's incompetence.

Perhaps, at the same time if they DO fail badly, they would likely be replaced. Not as much in Google's case, where the highly paid visionary CEO has missed the greatest trend of the decade and still makes 200M. I could have equally missed the same trend myself for only 20M if they had given me the opportunity.

And this is the 8-bit version of AI Art, relatively speaking. In 10 years it will be hard to find a human that can match AI's quality in "regular art", i.e., something that doesn't try to innovate artistically but otherwise looks great.

Similar experience. My MIT reports were largely average in terms of output, despite very strong "raw puzzle solving ability", if that makes sense. However, I had some amazing state school reports, they blended talent for unconventional solutions, strong work ethic, and the attitude of someone who doesn't think their lives are already figured out due to their college degree.

One problem is that there are plenty of really bad state school people too. The bottom line is that if you select carefully, and don't let fancy degrees bias you, you will find some of your best people from "boring" places.

There we go pay for Skyrim again...

I don't know about the power requirements, but you can get Intel-based mini PCs for $100 on Amazon.

I've been using a Mac M1 for over a year at work because my company likes Mac. I particularly would love to have Windows as an option.

I feel that everything is just a little harder and slower in MacOS vs Windows - one very obvious and memorable problem is the massive installation times for OS updates. Overall, as a result of a number of annoyances here and there, I'm less productive with a Mac despite its great hardware.

A lot of digitally created content will likely include AI going forward

Jobs often make people feel useful. While many can be the happy unemployed person playing Counterstrike 24/7, many others need some sort of occupation for self-realization. This is actually a common problem, which can even became a major psychological issue, with people entering retirement.

Maybe one day we can live in a world where machines are doing all the work and there are fulfilling hobbies for everybody, but I fear this will require more changes, on a much longer time horizon, than the short-term issues just around the corner due to the recent AI advances.

> but stringing words together isn't thought

Doesn't it sound like "thought"? Is there a significant difference between behaving like thought and being thought (whatever that means)?

We have this idea that people under 30 are smarter, more agile and likely to innovate, Mar Zuckerberg said it himself.

Guess what, most older people will facepalm when thinking about the stuff they did and said when they were under 30...

Everything you are saying matches what I've heard too. But despite these jobs being bad, I assume people who take them have no other choice, otherwise why would they do it? If AI takes over call centers, what would these people do?

Bing Chat gives you references.

The goalposts people usually talk about were just the relatively low expectations of the past - low at least by the standards set by ChatGPT.

Before ChatGPT there wasn't anything quite like it, so I think that the goalposts were mostly about passing the Turing test, or at least "not sucking" after 4 or 5 phrases. The leap from whatever existed before it was enormous, and I think comparable to the first iPhone versus, let's say, the Blackberry or Windows CE. Maybe even more than that. Go back to the first iPhone, it had a lot of issues but it offered so much as it was that people wouldn't look back.

It's too much to expect ChatGPT 3 to be better an experienced emergency doctor or neurosurgeon. But the fact that it can be a competent assistant to a doctor instead of a toy assistant - that by itself is amazing.

Atlanta - amazing suburbs if that's your thing. Not dirt cheap, but Forsyth county is reasonably priced and has amazing schools.

Not daily, but often: questions about history. GPT3/4 demonstrates good historical insight and the ability to make nuanced arguments. For instance, I like the mention of some of Reagan's "liberal" policies in this answer:

"Can Ronald Reagan be considered a liberal?

Ronald Reagan is generally considered a conservative politician. He was a member of the Republican Party and served as the 40th President of the United States from 1981 to 1989.

Reagan's political philosophy was based on a belief in limited government, individual freedom, and free markets. He advocated for a reduction in government regulation and taxes, increased defense spending, and a strong national defense. He was also a strong supporter of traditional social values, including opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage.

While Reagan did take some positions that could be considered more liberal, such as his support for amnesty for undocumented immigrants and his advocacy for the abolition of nuclear weapons, overall his policies and beliefs aligned more with conservative ideology. Therefore, he is not typically considered a liberal."

Now ask this to a human. You will get a polarized answer "No, Reagan is a conservative icon!!!!!!" lacking any nuance.

I'm sure Eastern Europe is great, but if you want to remain in the US there are many other great places to live in the Midwest and American South. You do need a car, which is fine or even desirable for many people (like me).

In the US it's still possible to work as a Software Engineer in major cities and buy property. Great Atlanta/Houston aren't exactly dirt cheap, but you can buy a decent house by paying less 2500/month mortgage (not hard on a Software Engineer salary). In the Midwest there are even more affordable cities.

MOST counties and municipalities do not have local income taxes.

I have 3 standalone Rokus and 1 TCL TV with Roku. I'm happy with all of them. I've avoided the cheapest Rokus because they are slow, so the mid-range to the top range ones, along the built-in on the TV, are fairly responsive.

Everything you said is correct. And just to be clear, in the US it is technically very straightforward in most states and you can fire people for any (non-protected) reason or for no reason whatsoever without any notice. However, there is always a risk that people will sue the employer by claiming that they were fired for reasons other than underperformance (gender, race, religion etc).

Employers in the US don't care about giving people the opportunity to improve, it's more about documenting the underperformance so there is an airtight case against the employee - nobody can claim a protected reason if the underperformance is very well documented.

All of this said, and this applies to smaller companies more than bigger companies due to the risks involved, if the employer is very confident the employee won't be able to argue that they were fired due to a protected reason, in most states they can just fire them in the middle of the day with no justification: "I don't like you, out of here".

These kits were awesome, BTW. I had one too. I know you can find them still on Amazon, but I never got my kid, who's otherwise into computers, interested in them.