simplestats

I cant think of the last time I saw the word "corporations" used in a post that wasn't part of an attack on them as inferior/evil/villanous etc. Speaking of NLP, your post would be very easy to classify sentiment of using a simple keyword approach.

Anyway, I've worked both in academia and industry. Industry is simply more practical and better at technology. In tech areas, academia desperately needs industry to provide the feedback they provide. Especially in AI areas. You are thinking of CEO's or salespeople or something, but the people that matter here are the engineers. And I'd place their assessment over that of grad students any day. If the engineers can't make it work, then yes there's a problem here. Doesn't always mean it can't work, but for most ideas it probably does.

By the way industry research labs certainly still exist. But long-term self-funded research has to compete with govt funding of research. Why throw your investor money at a high-risk idea when Stanford, MIT, and 100 other R1's are throwing taxpayer money at it? Otherwise industry labs end up just competing for govt gants ultimately. Meanwhile nowadays we see academia chasing short-term problems that industry leads in (and trying to patent them too).

I'm sure they're hiring anyone they can in India too. If they could completely cover their technical staffing needs there (both in terms of numbers but also the higher skill levels that are hardest to find) you'd be in trouble.

I have worked in niches in the past that are now almost completely handled in India. And I had to move on to doing something new, despite the fact that my employer still has tons of tech staff (in fact most of it) in the US too.

They just blame both the need for the regulation and the effects of the regulation on companies. The solution? More regulations!

In tech jobs the same job posting could just have a range that goes from basic engineer all the way to the highest possible principal engineer pay, since the posting is for the domain area not the specific level of experience. Govt jobs are often like this too, giving a range of levels and a big range of possible salaries, especially when they include the possible geographic variation in pay.

You still wouldn't know whether others with 8 years experience and a MS or whatever, make more or less than you do.

It used to travel a lot and have had the full range of issues with taxis. In NYC it seemed pretty common for them to try to get you to give them cash for tolls (like at the toll booth, asking you to pay it) which were already added to your fare automatically.

I once had a harrowing experience in a foreign country where I didn't speak the language and my roaming didn't work, where I needed to direct the taxi driver using the gps from my phone's dying battery, since he want off in the completely wrong direction and had no idea about the area I was headed to (and I only was barely aware enough to interpret the minimally-labeled map the gps provides when you don't have data access).

> In a taxi, it is.

In what app? You mean the fixed prices many cities set for airport taxi rides based on zones?

Levying of unlimited additional charges based on fine print seems like a generally unethical practice. But there should be some process for being able to break the contract without unlimited liability on the part of the business either.

Roughly that percentage of people don't take sufficiently-good care of their teeth, yes. But brushing one's teeth (and bathing) is easier than resisting food cravings.

The value of fiber (apart from keeping some nutrients indigistible and hence less calories for obese people who need to eat less) is still a matter of debate.

Probably the other way around. Obsessive behavior leads to high achievements when channeled into the right activity. Before it gets misdirected at Jews.

It's not like he was caught by a hot mike or something. This guy widely sent out an emotional email to politicans and others pleading them to consider his "discovery". This in a world where you are advised to never say "you guys".

> then she goes on a rant about how people don't want to work because "unemployment" during A PANDEMIC!

She specifically says "I don't blame them" (emphasis hers) referring to those people on unemployment. she is complaining about the incentives created by the govt program, which I referred to.

> Some of my sentiment was informed by the article-in-question's supposition that workers were being too demanding in terms of wages and a plea for sympathy that rang hollow in terms of her arguments (IMO at least).

She complained about being screwed and left out by govt programs, and about Facebook commenters who called for higher pay like it was something she hadn't thought of. Didn't notice any bashing of workers.

The "common sense" about healthy eating in those countries is essentially the same as it has always been in the US, in my lifetime. Where a home-cooked meal is the only healthy option, and that those who consume processed/fast food are ignoring their health in favor of instant gratification (something that has never been seen as a good thing or even ok). The grocery store carries whole grain options like wheat bread (for many decades), butter vs margarine, and half an aisle of vitamins, because such healthy choices are very popular among people who care.

If you ignore common knowledge about food, then just as with ignoring advice about exercise, maintaining your teeth, and many other things, you will probably suffer. Good health was never presumed to be the baseline regardless of what one ate, it always took persistence and impulse control. The question is why people are doing such a poor job at it now.

Not a great example. The Japanese will tell you that train technology was copied and/or stolen from them.

The internet itself is one commonly-used example of a "wild west" without protection and with prolific art nonetheless.

The incentive to continue wasting your life doing unprofitable concerts is not removed in a world where you can only profit via concerts. It simply changes to hoping for a future of profitable concerts, rather than hoping for a future of profitable record sales.

And while you may cling to one system becasue you like certain facets of it which might change, you also don't know what you are missing in a system without copyright. Policies always have a hidden cost.

This is a pretty common argument in fact, that places which lack copyright protections often have as much or more art. It's a very competitive endeavor no matter how low the stakes get.

Also the new business models adopted by those adapting to a lack of copyright may well involve more creative production. For example holding concerts instead of just selling reproductions.

> Just out of curiosity, is it the norm in the US to be able to exceed a third of your income in rents ?

Landlords usually want proof of income, and the most typical cutoff stated is gross income must be 3x rent. Though it may be a somewhat higher fraction of your net (after tax) income.

In Manhattan, and perhaps other extreme markets, the factors are even higher.

It can get very expensive for the landlord if a tenant can't pay. Plus for larger firms such as apartment complexes and rental agencies, they may be forbidden from making subjective judgements of tenants due to laws against dicrimination. Meaning they use one-size-fits-all rules like income cutoff.

Presumably the noise. It's a pretty common source of friction between neighbors.

Or even a "how hard do you throw yourself into overcoming hurdles" test, which would be more useful. Because the attraction of a job inversely correlates somewhat with your value to the company, since weaker applicants would be outperforming their ability in terms of pay.

In my experience, "no solution at all" is already the default. When people choke on questions it is because they get stuck trying to guess at what you want, and panic thinking it must be some clever trick they don't recognize. Becasue we've all seen a million tricks and forgotten most of them.

If you're happy with just getting it done quick and dirty, at least as a start, then telling them so is obviously better than not doing so. Beyond that, anything more about what you want will help trigger their thinking in terms of the right approach. Unless of course you really are looking for some clever trick (and I have certainly seen those annoying questions).

The point of the thread is that these algorithms are not a special new threat, but it's the availability of content itself, targetted or not.

Since we're analyzing each other's psychology now, I do think that insecure and defensive behavior like your post is a real problem with social media. I am not trying to bully or hurt you personally, but simply share some thoughts on a topic.

I'm not sure "randomness" is the general property, but rather unexpectedness. The content-provider may well be following a "formula" like with fiction plots, that give the protagonist setbacks and victories. Facebook uses approaches which try to profit within the constraints of a relatively small group of programmers trying to make money off billions of users. It doesn't mean these approaches are the best overall at serving the most desirable content to any given niche of users. Or even the best at making money qwithin those constraints. If are to believe in "network effects" (the other popular basis for calling for a breakup of Facebook) Facebook is simply succeeding because it is there first. Rather independent of this claim that they are winning by being the most competant.

But isn't chess one subset within that network, which would indeed be covered by any law regulating addictiveness of social media? Or will you allow people to be caught up on their own "otaku" like obsession with whatever niche area, but it is simply verboten to notify them of the existence of a different niche?

I also don't see how people can separate "optimizing addictiveness" (e.g. making your junk food too yummy or whatever) versus simply trying to make a better product that gives your customers what they want. The main criteria for who gets described in this way seems to be the corporate structure of the seller.

This doesn't require algorithmic feedback loops. People simply would seek out (and create) content which provides inconsistent rewards. A slot machine simply needs a random number generator with a certain small chance of jackpot. The null model here is what can be achieved without individualization.

Perhaps you just got lucky. Mine suggests tons of people from India and the middle east who I couldn't possibly know. I also check it very rarely. Presumably the algorithm must be picking the (very-slightly) best from many many low-probability guesses.

The analogy fits in terms of what you're doing in the biggest job category is the shortest-term and perhaps smallest modifications. But if you're the software analog of an architect who is actually trained well enough to be able to do both the "less inspiring" stuff as well as more desirable creative projects, then you can probably get into a different field of programming (VR, data science, security) that also pays better too.

If you live in Japan without a car you will probably end up taking a taxi from time to time. They are lined up outside the major train stations. Overall, relying on mass-transit probably is more pleasant there, and takes less lifestyle-modifications, but you still have less freedom than owning a car. And probably take longer to get around usually. Also in plenty of Japan, by the way, you definitely need a car to get by reasonably. It's not like countries in Europe where half the population lives in the capital city.

If your goal is to avoid any sort of exercise (and the "forced" exercise is one of the biggest reasons to go carless in my opinion) then yes large sections of US cities may seem inacccessible without a car. But if you like walking like I do (at least up to a half-mile or so) then you can live just fine in US cities without a car, in my experience. I've done it all over.

They have pricing plans for business users: https://mapsplatform.google.com/pricing/

I suspect if anyone uses it too much per hour or something, they will block you awhile and ask you to sign up for a plan. This is what google translate does.

It's the asymmetrical information problem. The worse danger for the interviewer is ending up with a bad programmer who also can't get anything done. The system is optimal for hiring barely-capable people desperately operating at their max. Especially when the software projects and startups fail in the market anyway, before they every need to deal with the mounting technical debt.

Microsoft is certainly evil and all, but I use MSVC on windows and clang on linux and the Windows tools for my project are much smarter and faster when it comes to compiling. Not counting times when the windows machine decides it has more important priorities to attend to rather than doing what I need.

The incentives are identical, less jail time. The fact that one is guaranteed deal while one is a standard sentencing practice is a distinction without a difference. The effect will be the same, innocent people "admitting" guilt. In Japan, plea bargains were illegal until recently. Yet standard police behavior when arresting someone was to notify them how much more lenient the system wold be on them if they admited guilt. And they were just stating facts about how the system works, not guaranteeing you anything... and racking up a 99.9% conviction rate. A lawyer in any country would tell you the same thing if your chances didn't look good.