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willhslade

631 karma · joined August 23, 2016

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willhslade··on How to Train Your Robot
Well, it was invented by and for us, but your point still stands.
willhslade··on 1 in 8 cancer cases worldwide are caused by infections, study finds
A few things. 1) Canada is not as wealthy, per capita, as the USA. Per Google: > The GDP per capita in the United States is roughly $94,400 USD, compared to Canada's roughly $60,300 USD (as of 2026 estimates), creating a significant and widening economic gap.

2) Canadian healthcare spends less per capita. Per Google: > The United States spends roughly double per capita on healthcare compared to Canada. Cost Comparison Per Capita • United States: Approximately $14,885 USD per person. • Canada: Approximately $7,301 USD per person (varies by estimates, with public-only spending around $5,000 USD). • Percentage of GDP: The U.S. spends about 17.2% of its GDP on healthcare, while Canada spends about 11.3%.

3) The USA believes in diagnostic testing at a higher level than Canada. Per Google: > Utilization and Intensity: The U.S. tends to utilize higher volumes of intensive diagnostic testing and specialized medical interventions.

4) Related: hospitals are private in the USA, and they buy MRI machines to bill for high-margin diagnostic tests. As you noted, the Boston CMA is a world leader in healthcare and education, and thus has a higher concentration of MRI machines.

5) Canadian healthcare simply is not as sophisticated as the health care in the USA. There have been multiple episodes of high profile / wealthier Canadians going to the US to skip waiting for treatment and getting procedures that are just not available in Canada at the present time.

So it's great, it's saved my life a couple times, but it's not a 1-1 drop in for American healthcare. Every system has trade offs, that's the lesson of engineering.

willhslade··on 1 in 8 cancer cases worldwide are caused by infections, study finds
Massachusets has more MRIs than Canada.
willhslade··on FCC wants to kill burner phones by forcing telecoms to get all customers' IDs
I think this is where Airalo shines. I've used it while travelling and I think eSIMs, as annoying as they are, are the way.
willhslade··on Meta's embrace of A.I. is making its employees miserable
I mean, dentristy and vaccines but ok.
willhslade··on VS Code inserting 'Co-Authored-by Copilot' into commits regardless of usage
Indeed fellow traveller. I do.
willhslade··on The West forgot how to make things, now it’s forgetting how to code
The bronze age collapse? The end of Rome?
willhslade··on AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it
Are compilers deterministic?
willhslade··on What's Your Political Unconscious?
I would really like some links as to all of the above.
willhslade··on Global warming has accelerated significantly
Soil is generally garbage though. Just saying.
willhslade··on British Columbia is permanently adopting daylight time
It's going to be hard for Toronto, home of our banking and stock exchange, to differ materially in operating hours from NYC.
willhslade··on Claude Code is being dumbed down?
What in Office has been a degradation? Just curious. I mostly agree about Windows.
willhslade··on Discord will require a face scan or ID for full access next month
Carney isn't a billionaire, right? He's been a bureaucrat, not a plutocrat.
willhslade··on Company as Code
Harvard Business Review's Office Politics. Or any intro Industrial Psychology textbook.
willhslade··on Surely the crash of the US economy has to be soon
Greece? How did it go after the crisis?
willhslade··on Y Combinator website no longer lists Canada as a country it invests in
Just want to post my favourite business interview of all time: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/wind-mobile-backer-regrets-...
willhslade··on France Aiming to Replace Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, etc.
Wasn't Carter a peanut farmer?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter

willhslade··on Canada
In 2023, the median Canadian income was roughly $44K CAD. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=111000...

Looks like the USA in 2024 was $51K USD. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_...

I know we need to adjust for health care, but I think the median income in the USA is higher.

willhslade··on Canada's deal with China signals it is serious about shift from US
We're wildly aware. Currently 80+% of our trade is with the good old USA. We're basically an economic colony. But when the ambassador to Canada and Trump himself note that they don't need Canada (both statements happened in the last 2 weeks) we don't really have a choice but to attempt to diversify. We don't want to do it, we were reasonably happy with the existing arrangement, but it's not up to us to decide what the US does. It's up to us to decide what we do.
willhslade··on Eight European countries face 10% tariff for opposing US control of Greenland
Careless People (the book about Facebook from a rogue insider) has literally a through line about all of this. Zuck is responsible and knew, both times.
willhslade··on The recurring dream of replacing developers
Doesn't every personal computing device on the planet have a browser and thus Javascript? Aren't there more mobile devices than laptops and desktops? I'm an Excel dev and I'm pretty sure that Javascript is the largest development language in the world.
willhslade··on Software engineers can no longer neglect their soft skills
Not OP, but I did work for a boss once that was technically very strong, but not as strong in terms of planning and scheduling work. It was a very difficult process, because I couldn't deliver what they wanted, as what they wanted changed both during and after delivery. Most things I delivered, which were what we agreed upon before delivery, were rewritten as they did not envision or plan work in advance. Technical skills are not a panacea; professionalism is a multidimensional skill matrix.
willhslade··on Canada's Carney called out for 'utilizing' British spelling
Harbour. Centre. https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/canadian-english-vs-ameri...
willhslade··on US tariff negotiations with Canada terminated over advertisement
What's a great overview of this phenomena in book form? I'm intensely curious about this.
willhslade··on Pharma is a small component of US health care spending
Hey! You got it right!
willhslade··on Postal traffic to US down by over 80% amid tariffs, UN says
I think you don't understand what has happened here. OP's wife has a DUI in the USA. Canada does not normally allow people with a DUI into Canada. In exchange for $250, they allowed her in. This is both a surprise and a nuisance for OP.
willhslade··on Anthropic raises $13B Series F
Rogue
willhslade··on Survey: a third of senior developers say over half their code is AI-generated
I know this is late to the party but I think, given that this topic comes up.every day, we should start including statistics in our posts to get a better sense of how AI is working or not for us. I imagine a years of experience / primary language used / tool used / AI positive or negative as a percentile estimate.

Personally for me it's 20 years of experience / Python / Copilot / 85% positive experience.

willhslade··on US Intel
So current management, who had proven incapable of running a business, will be trusted to ignore past political games and just retain talent? That's certainly a take
willhslade··on US Intel
I think you glossed over the question
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