There is common trick in designing reliable systems out of unreliable components: replicating the unreliable component 3 times. When one of the three behaves differently from the other two, it's declared faulty and replaced. This wouldn't work with 2 copies as it wouldn't be possible to say which copy is faulty. So roughly speaking, for an outsider, the HN website appears as a single entity, but under the hood it's 3 replicas. This is an analogy to a proton that consist of 3 quarks.
I like these attempts to build a useful model of software companies, but this particular attempt is quite mediocre. The best attempt I've seen was the Gervaus Principle book. The colorful chairs and ping pong tables are there to distract the employees, to turn the workplace into a kindergarten. Once you remove all that, employees will grow up and become even more expensive.
What's the definition of "set"? Or what's the definition of the implication symbol, i.e. when someone says that something obviously follows from the previous theorems? We don't bother to define a lot of foundational things in math.
The same word can have infinitely many meanings. So even if we restrict the length of proofs to 140 chars and restrict the alphabet to Latin, there will be infinitely many proofs there: well just start inventing new meanings for the same words.
We can call it a materialized idea, like an implemented software algorithm. I'm indeed talking about the world of ideas that's not real, i.e. non material. The proof of the Fermat's theorem has always existed, but only recently it's been discovered by Wales.
Im merely trying to drag the concept of separating ideas and reality as two different but very real worlds under the spotlight of everyone's attention. This concept is fundamental and very old. I won't be able to defend this idea with formal proofs.
So long as every real number exists, has properties and so on. Every such number is a separate idea. They exist, no matter whether we know about them or not.
We don't "come up" with ideas from other ideas using some closed form rules of logic, like in Coq or some Turing machine. Instead, we discover new ideas.
There is a world of ideas and the real world. People live in both worlds. When they discover a new idea, often by accident, they label it with a symbol and use it in the real world. Other people can see the same idea and since they can't fully describe it with words, they agree to use the new symbol.
We describe new concepts with words, but those definitions are underspecified: they refer to things with vague or non existent descriptions, or just common sense. What is "set" for example? The same words often mean different things in different contexts. This extra meaning that's always attached to words is what makes these definitions non countable.
The premise of this idea - that anything describable can be written in a binary firm and is thus countable - seems wrong. It's wrong because we easily invent new concepts and put them into a symbolic form. We could invent a new concept, agree on a new symbol for it and add it to our alphabet. The set of ideas isn't countable and so our alphabet isn't countable. This alphabet can't be translated into some binary form either.
We're witnessing the fall of the Roman Empire. CDC just implements the will of healthcare bosses who want to take the most of it before this card house falls apart. In the corporate world this is called the phase of creative destruction.
To avoid an emotional confrontation with the candidate. 95% don't meet the bar, but they would be offended if they were told how they really perform. Some may even sue back if they happen to be in some minority group. Companies like FB don't have a shortage of very qualified candidates, so you not applying again is just irrelevant to them. The sign of a perfect interview is when the interviewer realizes that you know more than him.
Isn't the reason obvious? Healthcare in the US is an insanely profitable and powerful business. If everybody gets infected, tens of millions will need expensive treatment the rest of their lives. Healthcare will make tens of trillions dollars. Remember the anecdote that there are no laws that big capital wouldn't break for the 3x profit? Here we are talking about profits comparable with the entire world's wealth. We have an opportunity to witness this sociopathic system in its nature state: the virus needs 1-2 months to spread everywhere and during this short period, the healthcare system is going to openly block any attempts to prevent its spread. After that it's going to open the gates and let the tests, masks and vaccines flood the market.
Public transport is a hub for diseases no matter how well it's designed. You really need a personal transportation vehicle that isolates you from others.
Complex solution for a simple problem. I'll sound naive, but I think that quantum entaglement is a very simple thing: it's a link, like an edge in a mathematical graph, between two particles. The length of the link is 1. Not nanometers or something else, just 1. The particles rapidly change their state, but they are synchronized via this link and at any moment they are in the opposite states. Measuring one particle is done by bombarding it with another particle, which stabilizes its state, and also the other particle, via the link. In other words, our world is just a mathematical graph that appears to have continuous properties at scale.
As long as other countries use dollars, it's the US that's got 15T worth of goods more. These 15T buy entire tankers of oil, metals, minerals and goods from other countries and this is what matters.
It's another time someone mentions the Plato's Cave. The reason this allegory often makes deep impression is that Plato was initiated, not just a philosopher, and thus actually knew what he was talking about and that allegory is a carefully worded model of reality, as accurate as it could be told at that time.
And once these expensive SW engineers get the pay cut, they'll start defaulting on their expensive mortgages. A year from now?
The software industry consists has the organizational layer - all these managers and vps - that relies on face to face communications, and the technical layer - all these engineers and devops - who can work remotely. The former will stay and retain their high pay. The latter will be outsourced at a fraction of the current price.
I like how an innocent person needs to have a criminal mindset to avoid going to jail for a made up charge. I mean this attitude "never talk to the police" seems backwards until you realise why. Someone made a good analogy that police is the HR department of the state and you know that if an HR wants to talk to you, it's rarely for your benefit.
The sophisticated types who can carry out such plans tend to do their machinations in the corporate or business world, where it's much more profitable and even legal on paper.