njstraub608

Feels like what OP meant to say is, “you could rightly assume that a ball…” instead. Seems like a fair starting point if you’re just doubling things because if the height difference. I really liked cubic’s explanation overall.

> if companies like Apple really wanted to fund this work, I'm pretty sure they could figure something out.

Having spent the last ~6 years in big tech consistently frustrated by the rigidity of the processes and finding clever ways to navigate (see: wade through the bullshit), this isn’t as easy as you’d hope. The problem is that someone has to spend a non-trivial amount of time advocating internally for something like this (a “non-standard process”) which generally means asking pinging random people across finance, procurement, and legal how to deal with it and 99% of people will just throw up their hands (especially in this case because they don’t understand the importance of it). If things don’t fit a mold in these big companies, they fall into the event horizon and are stretched out to infinity.

Honestly just spend a few hours talking to Claude about them, I had a few breakthrough moments doing that.

Is there any research on consumer preferences and why, for example, people might PREFER to be alone vs. eating in a diner? It feels like socialization used to be a forced mechanism, regardless of whether that created positive feelings in both parties. People have such limited time now between caring for children and demanding careers that any time spent meeting new people generally feels wasted unless you have significant energy to invest in that relationship (which generally means less “me” time). I personally don’t feel like this is the fault of technology as much as it is the fault of rising costs and long, intense work hours to pay said costs.

The LLC isn't inactive, you just found the wrong one. EXPAND IT INC (4776106) is registered to the proper address. Guessing the website is down from traffic.

> If you doubt how much computers destroy productivity, then simply visit a hospital and you can see it with your own eyes. My mom was recently in the hospital so I got to see this myself. Mistake after mistake because of bad information either put into the computer, or codes being misinterpreted.

I would argue this isn’t necessarily because of computers but a byproduct of an antiquated system and process being codified into a computer. The reason for this seems to be that there are structural inefficiencies built into our healthcare system that create a ton of added complexity that is near impossible to unwind because of legal (contractual and privacy-related) risks. For example, any attempts at improving efficiency in patient care creates potential liabilities for medical professionals. People are scared to innovate in this space, so the programs are just digital translations of an existing process. This requires a time investment to learn the “new way” of doing the same thing, and builds inherit laziness because steps are still require that should have been automated away. Medical notes are a good example of this; it’s required to be documented in an extremely specific way and of a certain length because of insurance so it just ends up being copy and pasted, free text, by the physician to meet this requirement.

So true. This line was great, “And when you use Google Search or Google Play, we might have to give equal prominence to a raft of spammy and low-quality services.” I’ve had to help family members put locks on their credit report because of top-ranked, fake websites that offer global entry, DMV license and registration renewals, etc. Digging deeper, you can find troves of consumer complaints about these websites being scammy. If they can’t even prevent spam websites for critical government services from being recommended, I’m not sure how much worse it could get before people start dropping them faster than Ask Jeeves.

I like the author's analysis and appreciate the breakdown of his sources, but I think he took some shortcuts that makes me question his conclusion.

Some examples:

"With more money being saved, and investments yielding higher returns, the more there is to spend on homes."

I tried dig up more information about how exactly BEA calculations the Personal Savings Rate, but it seems to be an estimate based on aggregate consumption. This savings rate doesn't necessarily imply that this money is invested in the stock market. Even if it was and they bought and then sold investments to pay for their homes they still have to pay taxes on those short-term sales. An increasing savings rate by ~26% over < 12 months is interesting but doesn't seem to be a strong argument. I think we need to go deeper here to see if this is a median number and how it would break down by demographics.

"We are in a record low rate environment, we’ve experienced unprecedented support via fiscal stimulus, and mortgage underwriting standards are far stronger than in the oughts, which has lead to less leverage and reduced the likelihood that a pile of cards built on risky mortgages will collapse the economy."

Generally with more expensive homes people are left with fewer options with who underwrites large loans, driving them to jumbo mortgage lenders. People may have stretched themselves to be able to buy a home given the low rates and the need for more space.

"Older people are less likely to be tech-savvy, less likely to use ad-blockers, less likely to be able to understand the difference between legitimate news and lies, and they’re more likely to spend longer time on Facebook and share more information on Facebook."

While I would like to say I agree with this, it's due to confirmation bias and an availability heuristic. If you don't provide data to support these claims then you're assuming your readers are no better than the subject of your post.

I completely agree with this, and based on past research it seems it’s a highly cultural phenomenon. What it basically comes down to is that countries with strong public transportation infrastructure view public transportation as a basic human right, whereas the US views it as a social welfare program. It’s a bigger fight than just voting for better politicians, it’s deeply cultural.

This really isn't that outrageous, at most of the F500 companies I've consulted at they all have massive contractor workforces (including consultants) that don't have the same benefits as anyone else and are generally treated like second-class citizens. News like this that directs outrage at a specific company is just clickbait bullshit written by an amateur who doesn't understand how the broader workforce operates.

This ^^

And actually understanding the context of what you're trying to use OCR on can work backward to determine what the text actually is, i.e. if it's a "Name" field then the probabilities of ambiguous letters may change (in the case of handwriting rec).

Generally, these are stuffed in there for marketing and aren't very effective when used in actual business scenarios.

Source: I do a lot of post-sales consulting work implementing RPA solutions.