corodra

Oh my shit, they don't claim to have an answer. They have a direction. Not an answer. There's a very large difference. The entire language in this is extremely aware and careful that they don't have a cure. Quit acting like this is a CNN article saying "Scientists cured all disease because of a 2 person study". They have some survey based evidence that it happens in humans too. With a potential replication in mice, they feel confident it's an avenue worth pursuing. No one is holding their breath. It's an interesting study, with interesting line of evidence thought that they think is worth seeing if completely true. That's it, don't make it out to more than that. They share this information so other people can be enlightened to the idea and with professionals who are actually apart of the field help poke actual holes in the issues or offer other ideas to help guide it further. Not just "Ugh, you used mice, like, it's totally not gonna work man because it's like this one programming bug I once had."

I get that, I'm 32, a millenial as well. I tried the urban lifestyle because... well, I guess I was supposed to. It was fun at first, and then I hated it. Three different cities and, just not for me. I like having a backyard (I like to garden) but I also don't like having to pay two to three times the price for living.

I don't need to hit downtown everyday. I'd rather invite friends over to grill/drink. While owning a car might be "more expensive" than using just public transit, the general lifestyle of not living urban is far cheaper. That and if we all pass out on the floor, it's not frowned upon when at someone's house. It is when you're at a bar. It's sort of like when people in some of the big Cali cities complain it's impossible to own a home or save enough money. No, where you live is terrible. There was an NPR story a year or so ago about a couple selling their home in san fran, then buying a bigger home in cash in Michigan (I think), paying off some debt and still had a savings left over, which they never could do before. They took "pay cuts" compared to their old jobs, but they were living far easier, with a savings in comparison to cost of living.

Personally, it took me way too long to realize salaries are not created equal depending on location. 60k in a place like San Fran or Seattle, does not equal 60k in let's say Tampa, FL. You can live far better in Tampa on 60k than you ever could in Seattle. That's something I think a lot of people aren't quite picking up on. There's a cost/benefit to location. You want to live urban? There are things you have to sacrifice (like a savings account unless you work finance or make a shit ton of cash). Don't want to sacrifice that? Then you can't live there. Simple as that. There are other places to live... with trees. I like trees.

Also, it's quiet away from the city. I get far better sleep these days.

"Although findings in mice do not always translate into human treatments, the study may help to guide the development of strategies that could help..."

Pulled right from the article. Studies in mice are simply a way to point in the, hopefully, "right" direction without having to shoot in the dark with human test subjects needlessly.

Yea, I'm not picking on you about the car culture thing (sorry if it seemed so). I'm just getting irked by it because I've been seeing that comment so often the past year as "America bad because America likes cars, car culture bad". There's just way many to these issues than just cars.

And, I agree, maybe too much reliance of cars in this country. I can totally agree we should focus on increasing the walk-ability of many communities. But, you can't deny having the ability to say at any moment, "I feel like going 30 miles somewhere, at my choosing and route" is a bad thing. I've been through 3 different public transit systems, (Portland, Seattle and Denver). Portland was the best out of the three. But knowing you are wasting 15 minutes waiting for public transit, then another 10-15 minutes of time to get there due to stops and general traffic (25-30 min) for essentially a 10 minute car ride... yea... It's great in plenty of situations, but is annoying as hell in just as many. The fact that my mobility is not dictated by someone else, yes, to me, is worth the extra monthly cost in comparison of daily use public transit tickets.

Yea, but if we're going to follow the logic of the article, the Harris Poll’s Alienation Index had American alienation at 29% in 1966. Car culture and the general structure of most towns were already mature at that point. I think the reliant of blaming car culture in America is a red herring to point away from not just the digital revolution but also the 90s media blitz. Late 80s and especially the 90s saw a real rapid change in the way we consume just about anything and everything. The VHS tape really came into power in the 90s, meaning most people didn't have to go out and sit in a large room of strangers to see hollywood movies anymore.

While I do understand (and personally do like) places being close together so I can walk around. Don't pretend that city life is the perfect solution. There's the Rat Park experiment that showed utopian cities are not the answer and it plays out in the human psyche as well. People who live in cities are not necessarily happier than those in rural communities. There's a few NGOs that do happiness surveys across the globe. While living in a city may make you richer and maybe even technically healthier in some aspects, very few are happier than their rural counterparts.

Just saying, it's definitely more complicated than just "car culture".

How are those technical impossibilities? They're all essentially what Snowden says the NSA has been doing. It's a perfectly logical concern of a country demanding apps to be installed. Hell, it's been a problem with the Facebook app getting information people didn't realize it was capable of collecting.

I'd just like to say something as someone that's sold/installed security cameras and software in both the private, gov and LE sectors.

Yes, there's a lot of "over priced" cameras (and software) out there that are pretty much no better than a $20 usb webcam. That includes the "security" aspect. In my experience (did it for about 3 years), most of these are the white labeled cameras. A majority from China, but Germany and the USA have put out some absolutely dogshit cameras as well. Especially when you factor in the price tag. At least with the Chinese ones, you get a discount for bottom barrel.

At the same time, there's something most people don't really understand about security cameras, longevity. These are like servers (and technically are). They're meant to run 24/7, without stop. Quite a few (if not all newly manufactured one at this point... I hope) can have weekly scheduled reboots, which I always recommend customers set. Most don't and actively refuse to allow a 2 minute block of downtime at an obscure hour. Camera manufacturers know that, and have to deal with it by having a product that just runs constantly.

Next up comes physical protection. You start getting into the $300+ per camera, it's supposed to survive someone hitting it with a baseball bat a few times. Then comes protection from weather and generally being able to survive 120 deg f outdoor conditions or -40 deg f conditions. Your standard camera and embedded board can't do that.

Now, there's a lot of asshole integrators that oversell to governments a lot. My career was primarily based around fixing the last integrator's complete fuck ups. I've seen how government agencies can be bent over and taken for a ride in that industry. Sad part is, none of these folks were even paid off. Just flat out duped. At least the ones I dealt with, I'm sure there's plenty that took money under the table.

On the software side, this is tricky. Yes, the basics of LPR can be done in a few lines of code. But there's more to law enforcement and government accountability, even private sector when developing a case to hand over to the police after an incident. The software company (video management system, VMS), has to guarantee the information has not been tampered. A chain of custody of information has to exist. Video from the VMS cannot be altered in anyway when exported or a lawyer can just wipe his ass with it and throw it out of court. Then there's usability, cross-platform support, driver support for a plethora of devices (there are hundreds of camera manufacturers with hundreds to thousands of SKUs each of devices that one software has to manage). And that's just the tip of the iceberg. I haven't even gotten into general security so it can't be hacked... at least easily (I think Genetec is still top dog in this, it's been 2 years, may have changed. They use to run really good bounty programs, don't know if they still do).

I think 86mil is still retarded as hell because there are plenty of off the shelf solutions that accomplish exactly what they want already, from 2+ years ago. Would only cost them a less than... maybe 8-10 mil in license fees. I don't know how big the city is or needs spec, so it'd take me a while to properly quote... eh, I also never did an international project. I don't know if some of the vendors I dealt with have a different pricing structure for Australia (I know some countries get charged more, for various reasons). So, there's that too.

So just saying, it's a much more complicated issue than most people imagine. The VMS companies do have a large workforce of programmers that have a job I'd never take and do need to be paid. I also over simplified quite a bit and left out other "fun" aspects of selling and deploying physical security... the reasons why I don't do it anymore. Hell, I didn't realize how much of a bitch of a problem it all was until I actually had to do it. I can't blame people for not knowing. Just... be aware, it's not a clear cut situation like this guy makes it out to be.

Not related to youtube, but related to the gilded cage thing. Back in the day when I worked at a print shop, there was a pharma-sales guy that had some cards and random brochures printed with us here and there. About a year later, he has me create the collateral and website for a new business he wanted to do, asphalt repaving. I thought he was out of his mind. But he explained, he and others in the area that do pharma-sales make about $160k-$200k a year (2009) without trying (middle of nowhere Virginia mind you). They all know each other and they all say the same thing about the job, golden handcuffs. They all hate doing it with a passion because they know half the shit they peddle is dogshit and the other half is overpriced compared to what it should be and they're just going with the motions of the business. But where else are they going to make the same kind of money? Before I left, almost a year later, I saw him again and to be honest, he was a lot happier (also seemed way less suicidal) owning and running an asphalt repaving truck. He also said once he buys his second truck and trains another crew, he'll make more than he did in pharma-sales. For him, that year was a total win. So yea, nothing is really free, even making lots of money has its price.

Something else about big bird, his costume is crazy expensive for upkeep. They have a high standard of quality for feathers, and the longer, iconic feathers are both delicate and expensive. Theres a good reason his screen time and physical interactions have been scaled back. Elmo was a perfect replacement, but was also an accident character. Cant blame them for their choices in my opinion.

I know, it makes no sense. Just because it takes a few more people, a little more time and just a hair more money to make a movie or TV show compared to a song, doesn't mean there should be complicated distribution contracts that navigate multiple investor and labor interests, and channel through international markets and regulations. I swear, capitalism these days. People need to stop demanding money for making entertainment. Just because they spend time making something doesn't mean they're entitled to be "compensated" for it.

Yea, but going through the list, a lot of the products are vain rebrands. Some of which still exist in one form or another. Some haven't exactly died either, they were just absorbed into "bigger" products.

Though, RT being put out to pasture.... I had to develop an app for that arbitrary lockout piece of trash. Whoever thought of RT and whoever approved it, deserves a life-long raging case of crabs and... like... a monthly visit of dysentery.

I think there's an inherent problem between programmers/software engineers and the rest of the science/math community when it comes to their outlook on life. There was a post, I think last year, on HN on famous science, math, dev, physics quotes. It was just a large list really. Anyways, when you read through them, you pick up that in other technical professions, they have a rather bright, happy outlook on life. Science is a way to bring joy to the world, some way some how. Even math is a way to find the beauty in the natural world. Humanity's pursuit in the sciences will make the sky bluer. Hope is powered by the study of physics.

Every quote by a dev/coder/cs quote amounted to, "The light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train."

I do agree it would be interesting for a computer science version of this and in practice would be online similar to a Slack Exchange or Reddit format... but reality is, it's going to be a dumpster fire without a nuclear-powered-iron-fist of keeping the peace.