Recent submissions

Comment · 4 months ago
I don’t think the seatbelt analogy holds up when you have people saying they’re working on the next Manhattan Project.

Also no need for ad-hominem remarks referring to me as smug. I’m not smug about it and as I said I don’t agree with it.

However to my original point can you provide an analogy that showcases a private entity in this country that has previously told the public they’re essentially working on something akin to a doomsday device, whereby the government simply took a laissez faire attitude to it?

To me this just feels like Silicon Valley wants to use awful optics to their advantage and it’s backfired in a very predictable way. We don’t live in a perfect libertarian society that many in the valley wish we did, we never have. Not to mention many of the valley’s most prominent libertarians have backed the current administration, which is not one that believes in the philosophy, just like their counterparts don’t either.

I used to work with lobbyists. Watching as these guys go from telling the public what they’re making is dangerous, needs guardrails, will displace huge amounts of service workers, etc. is woefully shortsighted and only forces the hands of politicians to do something as they represent a populace that has started to poll negatively about it and no longer trust it. They only have themselves to blame. If you want that perfect libertarian society, then a good start would be realizing that they need to win over the public that controls the giant entity that can ruin them, and then maybe their representatives won’t do such things.

Here’s to hoping this is a nothing burger and access is restored soon.

Comment · 4 months ago
You fear monger and tell everyone you’re the next Oppenheimer and maybe you eventually catch someone’s ear, whether it’s bullshit or not.

Last I checked I can’t buy a tactical nuke at Walmart. Clearly the government and all states have some power to control private enterprise for the betterment of their citizenry.

For the record I don’t support this ban, but you cry wolf as a marketing tactic and this is what you get…

Comment · 11 months ago
We’re witnessing the globalization of television.

When all is said and done there’s going to be a few players left and they’re all going to be American by the current looks of things. You could argue movies were already like this, but for television that’s quite the change as most countries had many television production companies and stations.

Now it seems like they’ll be a few global media companies and maybe some local production houses that have to sell their stuff to these guys or setup their own services like the BBC does with iPlayer in the UK, with somewhat limited success compared to these giants.

Comment · 1 year ago
Wholeheartedly agreed. I used to work very closely with economists in asset management. What looks like efficiency on a spreadsheet can look very different on the ground.
Comment · 1 year ago
I think the issue is horizontal vs. vertical monopolies. Apple do have a monopoly, but it's vertically integrated one. That's arguably their unique selling point; tightly integrated products without a great deal of customization.

Google on the other hand have a monolithic market share in a number of key markets. There's really no competition to them in search or video for instance, whereby they command extremely dominant market share.

Apple on the other hand do not dominate any markets, they just have a locked down product. Pretty similar to luxury cars, Nintendo, and other companies that think their customers value the integration over an open ecosystem.

Comment · 3 years ago
I've been told in the past that the Japanese government would never let a national icon such as Nintendo be acquired by a foreign firm. I personally am not qualified to answer that though.

With that said I completely see where you're coming from and think that their games in particular match a lot of the ethos of Apple's own products. I do wonder if the internal cultures are vastly different though? The Bay and Japan have very different approaches to problem solving and business in general.

Comment · 3 years ago
I walk my dog two hours a day.

I just work around my meetings (sometimes can take the meeting whilst walking) and ensure I still work 5-8hrs on tasks.

Is your gripe that you think she should be glued to her desk 9-5?

I don’t know what her role is, but as a software engineer I can’t say I’d ever be interested in a job where someone wanted to micromanage me like that. As long as the work gets done why care?

Comment · 3 years ago
I worked for this NHS trust about 15 years ago as my first job after university.

One thing not mentioned here is how poorly run the administration is. Getting a process changed was an absolute nightmare and the place had very high levels of nepotism. Most managers had kids that worked there too for instance.

I ended up leaving after a couple of years and after working in finance and tech, I’ve never seen anything quite as poorly run.

Hopefully large scale reform, particularly on the hospital administration level will occur. For the sake of my friends and family still in the Romford area.

Comment · 3 years ago
Had the exact same experience. I actually got the role, but the feedback provided asked why I didn't build out something fully featured, despite them stressing to me the importance of doing it within 4 hours.

The worst part was that after working there I found them to be terribly unproductive and it would have likely taken a team there a week to build what they were suggesting...

But yeah as you said, either ignore the time constraints if you really want the role or just politely decline due to the red flag / inconsiderate nature.

Comment · 3 years ago
Ah that’s interesting!

I was surprised when he told ABC that he had heard they were trying to resurface and that they were probably aware that the hull was failing due to the alarm system the Titan was equipped with.

Comment · 3 years ago
Deep sea submersibles such as the Alvin.
Comment · 3 years ago
I’d strongly urge you to watch an interview with him or one of the many documentaries he’s been a part of.

Personally I think he knew the outcome earlier this week and waited to speak to the media out of respect for the families. His first interview was hours after the implosion announcement.

As he says, it’s a very tight knit community in which he is a part of and has been for almost 30 years. I think he’s trying to use his voice to ensure that collateral damage does not occur to other less reckless submersible makers, who in turn tried to warn OceanGate.

Comment · 3 years ago
I know a lot of people that will only use HN for that post alone. Don’t know if you’ll get a true representation here.
Comment · 3 years ago
I think that's a great idea and could be applied to a lot of industries with large offshore carbon footprints. Maybe tariffs or quota limits that are linked to carbon?
Comment · 3 years ago
I think cattown might be referring to statements such as this: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/mar/17/openai-sa...

Not sure if I'd say there's a conspiracy per se, but I do think generative AI players are going to be careful about the optics of the technology and how it works. Anecdotally from speaking to non-technical family members there's very little understanding for how the technology actually works, and it seems there's not a great deal of effort to emphasize the importance of training data, or the intellectual property considerations in these companies marketing materials.

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