stoneman24

If I remember correctly, the visa free travel (esta) asks about arrests as part of the information. Even if you were never charged, never trialled, declared innocent at trial. I would imagine that this would include a uk police caution as well. For all matters, even if under uk law, these are minor and spent (no longer needed to be declared within the uk).

Just mention the UK, but I am sure that other countries have thier own procedures but the US wants all the details for thier own examination.

There was recently a crisis in older publicly constructed buildings in the UK that were built [0].The aerated concrete had a limited lifespan especially if it was damaged and had contact with water.

Lots of people looking for compensation and claiming mis-representation.

[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-66669239

A Merry Christmas to everyone !

Do you if there has been any work how lasers affect other animals and insects?

Am I being catastrophically pessimistic to think that in addition to swatting insects as it moves forward, the cars lidar is blinding insects in a several hundred meter path ?

I’m very optimistic about automated cars being better than most humans but wonder about side effects.

My dilemma as a student in Glasgow (a long time) at the start of term when I had some money, Fish supper or deep fried Pizza & chips. With the mandatory bottle of Irn Bru.

Delicious but excessive consumption would certainly reduce your life expectancy.

I would really like to send this article out to all the developers in my small company (only 120+ people, about 40 dev & test) but the political path has been chosen and the new shiny tech has people entranced.

What we do (physics simulation software) doesn’t need all the complexity (in my option as a long time software developer & tester) and software engineering knowledge that splitting stuff into micro services require.

Only have as much complexity as you absolutely need, the old saying “Keep it simple, stupid” still has a lot of truth.

But the path is set, so I’ll just do my best as an individual contributor for the company and the clients who I work with.

Yep, I’m sitting on the same fence. We can all see the circular deals in the high tech sector which has been the recent engine of the stock market. It’s all uncertainty, everywhere you look.

The article details the story of a business that tried to change their address in NZ. Thier documents (while correct to NZ) didn’t match the criteria of Wise and then Wise effectively closed the account. The support and appeal process was basically nonexistent and even by the end article it is unclear that the business owner were even able to retrieve the funds in the Wise accounts. Also the author’s personal account with Wise was also closed.

I hope this is a very brief overview of the article, which I would encourage people to read. In speaks to the huge imbalance in power and accountability in dealing with some companies

I suppose it’s what you are used to. A company that I worked with had under 100 staff, very profitable but had a staff turnover of about 10% per year.

People joined, some stayed, some left and it was fine.

Perhaps as the departures were staff decisions not some faceless corporate executive, dropping X% cos that’s what he thinks would please the markets or his boss. Or the department is making profits but as much as his MBA says that’s sufficient. That’s the really depressing and infuriating aspect.

From the article, Amazon has 1.5 million employees across offices and warehouses. With about 350,000 corporate employees in executive, managerial and sales.

So that’s about 4% of the non-warehouse staff. What’s their normal staff turnover rate per year?

I wonder if it’s another staff reduction (cos we over hired and want to remove people who didn’t impress) under the cover of improving business productivity using AI

Hat tip to raziel2p who was going down the same in thier comment

Wouldn’t say best but he is certainly world class for his short stories. While the film “Arrival” was excellent, it was based on his short story “Story of your life” which was even better.

“ how are you able to manage conflict between org builders and your technical vision?”

That for me, is the core of the issue. I have been in a few places where senior management (up to c level) still code and are critical parts of the project team.

The problem is who keeps them to schedules and co-ordination with the other people on the project. Hard to complain about team level issues if the failing person is also the boss of the technical staff.

Build a demo perhaps to illustrate the idea/vision but don’t code, focus on the high level management and direct the ICs to build out the production version.

Both roles (management and coding) are difficult, demanding positions to do well, deserving of respect and commitment.

Just my opinion after bad experiences.

In addition, Team Dynamics 301: A course in Blame Management Handling the traditional “innocent punished, guilty escape/promoted” issue. With explanation of the meme “Success has 100 fathers/mothers while failure is a orphan.

If the cost to the UK is reported to be 42 billion per year [0] (need to do more verification on this) and I quickly couldn’t see a figure for the US, then I believe there is an argument for a nationalisation policy where the government writes a very large cheque to the company and then makes the treatment free to everyone.

A bit socialisation of health care for some but the benefits to the economy may well be worth the trade alone, never mind the individual benefits

[0] https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/blog/how-much-does-dementia-ca...

Actually Other submarines are also prospective targets until proven to be allies.

Great profession for the paranoid, everyone else trying to find you.

Worked in shipyard with submariners, who are great people once you get to know them.

Good point, this leads to current issue in the UK (and other countries).

In a general sense, UK car owners would pay a relatively small amount tax in road tax and then tax on petrol/diesel purchased to drive the car (the amount would vary on use). Trucks etc would pay more as they would have more maintenance impact on the roads.

So the money raised would be collected by government and distributed locally to maintain the road network.

But now more vehicles are electric so the fuel tax is decreasing so how’s the government going to fund the roads?

Perhaps to a “pay per mile” tax. With different rates depending on where and when. Taxing the utility of a mile driven in your vehicle.

Doesn’t have to force you to drive for uber, as it’s defined on the utility to you of a mile driven in your car. No miles, very little tax ( at peak times in the city rush, the bus might be better)

<Making skyscraper owner pay the same tax as the next door owner of a small bodega just doesn't make sense>

I kind of agree, just tax the land as to the utility value of the land (not what is built on it). If you want to tax what’s on the land (or what it’s being used for) then that’s a different tax basis (perhaps more of a wealth tax or social benefit tax)

Both a farmer and I have 500 acres (his farm, my golf course). There is a basic land tax perhaps but I might get taxed for the golf course but he might get benefits for the socially beneficial food production.

Would like to see the stats behind the 5% complication rate. My understanding was under the NHS in the UK, the major complication rate was under 1%

My private surgeon was quoting well under that. 6 weeks post op on both eyes and it’s slightly weird not needing glasses (unless I have small print in a book) as he fixed the cataracts and the astigmatism due to the more expensive than standard lens implants.

Just a pity there wasn’t a option to have HUD display built into the new lenses

I will echo the recommendation. Though some of the puzzles do require local knowledge, there are quite a few based on the US.

Though not really applicable to LLM, the last rapid fire round (missing vowels, work out what the words/phrase without any vowels, on the buzzer) is a favourite.

Currently Monday evening on BBC 2 is Mastermind, Only Connect and then University Challenge. This excellent sequence will stretch pretty much anyone's knowledge.

Some more information about the psychological impact of drone warfare [0]

Massive stress factor when you are in the field leading to hyper vigilance when on leave (or at home) with lots of trigger events.

[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c23gjk7dlvlo.amp

For me, any position which requires the full maximum 20 moves to solve would qualify as the perfect shuffle.

I wonder how many positions qualify (perhaps only 1 discounting symmetry as there is 1 fully solved cube, again discounting symmetry). But that’s a rabbit hole that I am not going down.

But I can appreciate the choice made in the article.

A long time ago, I solved a 5 by 5 version of this with a genetic algorithm. Wasn’t the most efficient way.

As you say, Gaussian elimination can be used for a more systematic approach.

Not sure how to do it, but a history of the campaign from the different viewpoints would be an interesting read.

Perhaps a journalist piecing together the information, 6 months to a year after the events. Once the ripples have settled, more or less.

I might be biased as I have been reading 3 part history of the American Civil War, which also suffered from the fog of war and very slow information propagation.

Of course, history is always written by the victors after their glorious triumph has been consolidated and the losers comprehensively defeated.

Every war needs Heroes. Gotta sell those war bonds! Boost favourable public opinion and control the positive narrative.

I believe that Stalin set 2 field marshals (Georgy Zhukov and Ivan Konev) on a race to Berlin in the last weeks of WW2 in Europe. Don’t think Stalin cared who won.

Sounds like a really interesting and delightfully frustrating game. Bit busy to join at the moment but it’s going on my list for the future.

The comments about the loyalty of the sub-commanders being very strong due to the extremely restrictive information environment reminded me of opposite within the history book Nemesis by Max Hastings.

He covers the end of the Second World War in the pacific. One veteran commented that it seemed that the different commanders and services within the US armed forces were more at conflict with each other than with the Japanese, all trying to get the resources and credit for the successes. (Especially MacArthur in the Philippines).

The radio and news reels of the days could both provide fast information about what is/was happening and also ensure fame and fortune in the domestic environment if your narrative could prevail

Yes, that was a point that my twilight imperium host was very keen on, keeping everyone engaged in the game.

Even when a player situation wasn’t looking good, he took them aside and pointed out options for them to get back in the hunt for victory points.

It’s very easy for a player to go “rogue” and spoil the game for the other players.

I recently joined a board game club after many years away from the hobby. I’ll echo the recommendations above. Scored wins in Azul and Loot. Played Isle of cats and Wingspan.

Games around the 3-4 players seem to have best flow and pace. I may buy wyrm (sister game to wingspan) just for the card designs.

I did play a game of Twilight Imperium for 12 hours, which I won. Mostly newbie’s but with a host who’s provided guidance on the rules. Great fun but perhaps something to work up to.

I agree modern cars are much better engineered to increase passenger survivablity.

Can’t remember the program (it was a very long time ago) but the crash investigation expert said a 6 inch spike on the driver steering wheel would improve driver’s perception of risk as it would be a very pointed reminder of risk.

I think that in the fullness of time, at the appropriate juncture, I could circle back to that. Leveraging such a resource would confer significant benefits to my own abilities to contribute my opinions to the woefully inadequate management outreach program.

My current style of communication has failed to gain much traction when managers have run it up the flag pole. That’s always assuming that people had any interest in other viewpoints, rather than their own sacred long standing beliefs.

I agree, some people are trying to determine some grand clever plan behind the trump actions. I don’t think there is one. He has a history of believing that tariffs work and the position & cabinet (specifically selected fellow ideological devotees) to implement the policies that he wants.

He believes that the American economy can weather the storm and other countries will fold in any further negotiations in order to reduce the tariffs. But the world economy is more interconnected than ever with complex multinational supply chains. He has certainly made the rest of the world re-evaluate America whether is a stable economic friend.

He is a reality TV star wanting the headlines, with a very limited economic understanding and no concern for the small people that will be hit.

Some of the entourage believe and others just to be in room for the economic benefit/power that they and their friends can extract. If you know the massive uncertainty is coming, then you (or someone you know) can make money. Even if it’s cashing out at the top, watching the crash and buying the dip on the recovery.

Not sure where we will end up but I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a painful journey to a unhappy state that someone else will need spend time, energy and resources to try to recover from. I am certain that the ordinary Joe and Jane will be hit hardest.