1,911 karma · joined August 28, 2018
* What portion of the population will have reduced lung capacity post-COVID? How long will it last?
* What about other long-term effects, such as chronic fatigue? What puts me at risk? What causes it? How long does it last?
* What about other organ damage?
Please give me some semblance of an idea of what portion of the population will have long-term disability due to COVID?
The relatively known risks of some types of a vaccine seem a lot better than the unknown ones of COVID.
I would want to wait for full phase III before we had a mandatory vaccine, relied on this fully, or otherwise did too much with it. But we can't ramp up production that quickly regardless. A pilot with a few million volunteers seems as good as any phase III. And with the right few million, it could potentially really curb spread.
The wifi is robust when it goes to make desktop in my bedroom, which has a PCI wireless card with a proper antenna. Where it fails are things like laptops. That's why I'm pretty sure a good mesh network would get us there.
100mbit was with Netgear+Intel equipment, and swapping several cables. I even bought a fancy new cable on Amazon, just in case that was an issue. The equipment isn't 2020, but it's definitely not bargain-basement either.
I don't think I'm allowed to punch holes in the walls as would be needed to run Ethernet.
As a point of curiosity: Typical wifi is now faster than typical ethernet. I did benchmarks. Although both my computer and router advertise gigabit, they typically negotiate to 100M. I tried swapping cables, so it's not just random cable issues. Wifi gives consistently higher speeds than ethernet. Of course, 100M is plenty, and as you point out, does give better reliability.
> However you are also taking on the effort of upgrading things yourself as necessary to maintain security.
That's my concern. Cost of maintenance becomes astronomical. I'm not a sysadmin by trade, and I'd need to stay on top of zero-days and similar. Plug-and-forget is nice.
I'm comfortable with the middle ground of trusting the vendor, so long as they say they're not monitoring things and they're reasonably credible. Thing is, most vendors seem to advertise cell phone apps, Alexa integration, and other stuff which necessitates sending my privates all over the web.
That's not to say that it hasn't been used as an insult -- it has -- but as far as I know, it's the preferred term. More background:
https://incels.wiki/w/Etymology
I'll mention that the current obsession with which words are used is not actually culturally sensitive. Words vary in meaning based on culture, and being exclusive on what words one can and cannot say isn't helpful. What's important is the meaning behind the word. The same word can be a nasty slur when used by one person, a term of endearment by another, a word of praise by a third, and academically neutral by a fourth. Policing words is the opposite of cultural competency.
People who can bridge technical, business, marketing, and sales are extremely highly valued.
I've learned to adapt, and I have a choice of jobs spanning about a 10x salary range as a result.
The choice I made: I chose the job which was the most fun and fulfilling, while still paying enough to where I don't need to stress about money (so long as I live a modest life). At the time, I had an offer at 2x that salary, and was being recruited into jobs at 2x that in turn. I also had more academic job offers where I could financially scrape by, but /with/ financial stress, which didn't seem worthwhile.
Also: If financial institutions were so conservative, we wouldn't have regular meltdowns like the subprime mortgage crisis.
Glad to pay a modest amount for hosting on AWS or similar, if I'm in control of my data. Not so glad to do another corporate lock-in.
It also varies by department.
I'd agree with them!
Seriously. I can't get good at all of those -- there isn't enough time in my life -- but I could get good at any one of those given time and effort. I'm really bad at art. Would I be Van Gogh? No. But I could get up to the same level as a professional illustrator in a few years. Anyone* can. Could I learn to sing? Sure, again, given a few years of hard training. I wouldn't be the next Susan Boyle, but I could definitely go from zero to where I could perform in a local performance or sing as well as a professional backup singer or chorist.
Going back to quantum field theory, I'm not claiming anyone can make the next breakthrough in physics, but anyone* can learn quantum field theory at the level of a e.g. a typical grad student in the field.
And a perfect weld just ain't that hard. Anyone can learn to do that. I've seen welding artwork which is hard (people building up metal to make beautiful artwork completely additively, for example), but you could be a professional welder if you set your mind to it.
* Standard exclusions apply. No, a blind quadriplegic with cerebral palsy might not be able to train to run a marathon, or by "everyone," I mean everyone from, say, the 20th percentile up.
Mathematical maturity takes about a half-decade to develop, maybe a little more. Working through physics up to QFT takes a bit under a half-decade, in my experience. It's slow-going at first, and then accelerates.
I've seen people go through very similar transitions before.
The problem is many people don't know how to learn, or haven't developed good habits-of-mind. That goes under the terms executive function and metacognitive skills. They are force multipliers throughout your education, and you're right that schools don't teach them.
If I can do it, so can you! It just takes a few years developing those skills, and ideally a little bit of mentorship to point you on the way.
And no, people don't learn differently. That's one of the biggest lies fleeced upon us. The reference there is: "Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence." Turns out we all learn more-or-less the same way. Many of us believe we learn differently, but we actually don't. A big part of executive function is differentiating between activities which /feel/ like learning, and ones where skills actually grow.
Would you consider an AGPL dual-license for the (non-free) illustrations? Right now, the license prohibits redistribution of any sort, which makes these unusable in free software.
An AGPL dual-license would:
1) Allow redistribution with open source / free software projects, which would be awesome.
2) Require anyone who integrated these into a proprietary system to buy a normal commercial-use license from you.
It's amazing how badly the free software community needs your talent!
Given you reading comprehension skills, though, I'm beginning to question your analysis. If you can't understand a 6-paragraph post, I can't imagine why you'd be qualified to analyze ROI for an investment.
Go back and re-read what I wrote a few times until you understand it, and then we can talk.
* In my hometown, racism would have nothing to do with it. The math doesn't work out for the investment, he was denied, case closed.
* In my current town, racism has everything to do with it. We've set up structural barriers to success, which correlate strongly with race. We have a moral duty to remove those barriers.
The difference comes down to different definitions of the word 'racism.'
It's not a question of precision either. Just as the same sound might mean something different in Italian than in English, the same word will mean something different in Seattle than in Alabama. The differences tend to be more subtle, so people don't recognize that they're talking about completely different things. That goes for a lot of words ("white supremacy" especially).
The high-level problem, though, is if we did invest in lower-income communities in the way the author describes, we'd be wealthier as a nation as a whole. Individual investments might not come out ahead (so private banks wouldn't necessarily want to finance that), but the net wealth generated in the community would more than make up for the new risk. If the federal government ran banks, even human element aside and just looking at likely expected impact on taxes, those loans would make sense. That's a problem it makes sense to fix. And the article gets back into reparations. Even if we did come out behind, morally, those risks would probably make sense too -- the multiplier of a loan like this which might be defaulted on is far greater than hand-outs. If nothing else, we've improved a few buildings and a community. But I don't think we would come out behind. Even back-of-the-envelope numbers place us well ahead.
Minor UX quirk: I need to hit <enter> twice to search. That's probably enough friction to lose a lot of people.
With Android, we're already seeing forks in China. A bit more stickiness, but not great stickiness.
Ads is still a big two-sided market.
I'd /never/ use GCP in any sort of business setting. Too high odds an automated Google algorithm would take out my business.
Googley automation worked well enough for B2C, and when Google hired the best people. When Google has a mid-tier workforce, buggy algorithms, and bugs can take out entire businesses, you run into problems. Combined with the old culture of arrogance, I don't see GCP ever competing with Amazon, or even Azure.
1) Hiring standards have drifted downwards over the past 15 years. Google used to be super-elite, compact, do-no-evil, massive-profit-per-employee. It's now a 140,000 person organization, and at that scale, standards just aren't high. You have a team of dozens of incompetent people doing what one person used to do.
2) With COVID19, ad revenues have crashed. It's not clear the impact on Google.
3) The smart, ethical folks on top (folks like Larry, Sergei, and Eric) are gone, and replaced with professional managers. They were smart to pick an internal CEO, but most of their executive team comes from places like Microsoft, Oracle, or Morgan. Having known a number of professional executives, the key skill is climbing executive ladders and moving into positions of power, not running successful companies.
4) Their products are increasingly starting to crash-and-burn, especially in B2B. Their culture relies on automated systems over people, and their automated systems have taken down tons of mission-critical businesses. Automated works well at 1000 people supporting 7 billion in B2C (small elite team model), and not so well for a massive, 100k person company.
5) I've switched mostly to non-Google products because they're better for what I need. AOL was massive too at one point. Losing the tech edge is not good. I still use gmail.
On the other hand, their revenues have continued to rise exponentially since they started. So perhaps they're doing fine?
But rationally, you wouldn't make determinations like the ones you're making. False->True isn't a helpful argument. COVID19 isn't the flu, and it isn't driving. Unfortunately, COVID is very, very dangerous, both in terms of death and in terms of long-term disability.
America has already lost more than the combat deaths of WWI and Vietnam combined, and that's with the level of shutdowns we've had. Many of the people who live seem to have horrible symptoms for months; it's too early to know long-term outcomes. In New York, 7.5% of the people who we know caught it died. You can apply whatever corrections you like for underreporting, etc. (and conversely, people who haven't died yet) but the death rate doesn't approach that of the flus or of driving.
If 20 million weren't unemployed, we didn't have achievement gaps, and the nation wasn't saddled with crippling fixed costs like debt, leases, and rents, we'd all be staying home. As is, it's a question of values.
Your statement: "I wouldn't frame it as pro reopening school people prioritize schooling over life though. That sounds pretty bad and doesn't seem fair" takes a very specific cultural frame as well.
Plenty of people choose to risk their lives (or the lives of others) for all sorts of causes. I have as well. This statement sounds bad only if you take the position that staying alive trumps all other considerations. That's a very modern, Western perspective. Which is not to say Americans and Western Europeans act to protect lives at all costs, but to slightly generalize, Americans and Western Europeans morally believe that protecting lives is worth all costs. When that's not done, that's a moral compromise.
People risk lives to volunteer in dangerous countries, to skydive, for ideological causes, for God and country, to be #1 in athletics competitions, or to earn enough to feed their families. All of those reflect different value systems. The exact same statement: "Would you risk you life to protect your honor by ____?" will make you sound like a horrible person if you say "yes" in some cultures and "no" in others.
I don't think saying "I am glad to risk a few lives to make sure kids get an education" sound bad or seems unfair, and I don't think any less of people who say it. It's just a different value system from mine.
Where I do have problems is where people push their value system on others. I understand see the public health perspective, where your actions affect my health and my decisions affect your health.
But when my actions don't effect you (for example, keeping my child home), I should be able to follow my values. That goes broadly too -- if you decide not to teach your kids evolution, that should be your choice too.
If I were a teacher, I wouldn't want to be in a position where a mistake I make can make people die.
I can run the numbers as well as the next guy, and I know the risks. I don't want my schools to reopen. If you're from a different culture, you can run the same numbers, get the same risk profile, and say "Heck, if n people die to keep m more kids in school, that's worth it," for the exact same values of n and m.
On questions of values and culture, reasonable people can disagree. Every fiber of my being can scream to prioritize life, and every fiber of your being can scream to prioritize schooling. It's entirely a question of values and culture.
As a footnote, my concern is less about death and more about long-term disability. There, we can more-or-less speculate about the risks.
My experience is a bit different; the trick is to:
1) first expose kids to the general concepts
2) build them out in as broad a range of contexts as possible, slowly and gradually. Write some code. Do some engineering problems. Etc.
3) Go back and formalize it once the intuition is there
The earlier you start, the better. But you want a different calculus book for a college student, as for a high school student, as for a middle school student, as for an elementary school student. The earlier you go, the more you want pictures and intuition (and the more time you then have to build out the formalism later).
Thus far, my favorite is Cartoon Guide to Calculus.
1) It costs $300 for a paper copy 2) There are no previous. I have no idea if it's actually illustrated
I'm looking for something which is intuitive, and illustrated. A lot of pictures, good example, and perhaps less math and text (in this case, assuming the educator will be talking through most of this, and the learner doing things together).
For reliability, where that trade-off sits depends on the application. Aerospace, medical, consumer electronics, and disposable toys will sit in different places. If I lose a mission to Mars saving $100 on part which had a 5% chance of failure within a year, that's very poor engineering. If I include that same part in a $3 toy, bringing the price to $103, that's equally poor engineering.
Whether I trust or trust-and-verify depends on how much the "verify" part costs, how strong my trust is, and what the costs of failure are. Normally, the ROI calculation is easy; capitalist markets work well for this. I can ballpark expected costs.
When working with a customer like the government, the boundaries might be a little bit distorted, since the customer is process-oriented. The government might have a hard salary cap which makes it impossible to bring in qualified engineers, and I might take 3 years with a team of 5 people at $100k to do what one person at $300k could do in 6 months. At the same time, I might have hard requirements on process, such as origin-tracing every part.
The danger is when that becomes in-cultured and spills over to other places. If I'm working for the government, I'll follow government processes, and I understand why those are there. But I won't confuse those processes with good engineering. Once people do, they become poor engineers.
If I've shipped a toy which unwittingly has thousands of fake parts which I thought you made, we'll both have been cheated, and I'll expect you to solve that with me cooperatively. If you hack into my product and brick it, even if you were legally in the right (and you're not), you've lost a customer. That's bad business too.
To answer your questions:
(1) Yes, driver code can do things like this. If you don't believe me, buy an HP printer, and see the driver code pop up all sorts of advertisements, deals, and other crap. Driver code has access to your system's low-level internals. From there, it can do whatever it likes.
(2) The parties at fault here are multiple. One of the keys to building robust systems is to understand failures can take place anywhere in the system. In medical device, the terminology is "single point of failure." If one failure can kill a person, a medical device won't be certified by the FDA. In the same way you want the hardware to be tolerant of a single-point-of-failure, you want your organizational processes, logistics, etc. to also be tolerant. Mistakes will happen, and when they do, people shouldn't die.
(3) No one would hold FTDI responsible for making sure clones work properly. Plenty of people would hold FTDI responsible for intentionally attacking my hardware because I had a clone, if things go wrong. Two wrongs don't make a right. There is plenty of case law around this. Here's a nice chain for you to go down to get you started:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...
https://www.cs.uaf.edu/~cs393/CACHE/Wired_RIAA.pdf
If FTDI's drivers stop working with my device incidentally, they're not responsible. If they intentionally brick a piece of hardware I own, for any reason, including believing I violated or contributed to a violation of their IP, that's a pretty clearly digital trespass under CFAA.
Would I pursue FTDI for breaking a cheap consumer device? That's not worth anyone's time. Had it, as in your example, killed someone or took down a planeload of people, you can bet your butt there would be both civil and criminal prosecutions for stuff like that.
(4) Any regarding supply chains, whenever I've done this, I've worked for small companies that wanted to keep logistics simple. We'd try to make sure complete designs could be sourced from one distributor (usually Newark, sometimes Digikey). And no one had resources to do any kind of tracing of parts. I understand that's done in aerospace, but that's not done in hardly anything else.
If there's some mixup in the supply chain, and I've shipped a thousand consumer widgets with a bad FTDI chip, FTDI should go after the parties responsible: my distributor, and the pirate company. Not me. Not my customer. And it should do it properly through the legal system and pursue damages, not break devices vigilante-style.