shas3

I don't get what everyone sees in this post. It is just a sloppy rant. It just talks in generalities. There is no coherent argument, there are no examples, and we don't even know the problem space in which the author had bad coding assistant experience.

Always found it cool that the lab established by Howard Hughes is still quite competitive and does some very cool work.

What do you know about the caste system? Do you similarly police posts that say, “he grew up on a nobleman’s estate in England,” or “grew up on a farm in Alabama,” just because those are associated with historical oppression?

This smearing of Hindus and Indians with accusations about caste are ridiculous and par for the course on HN where Indo-phobia is pretty commonplace (see any discussion of US work visas, for example).

This is an ignorant generalization. Not sure if it is worth writing a rebuttal to a generalization that relies on one guy from 1000+ years ago.

On the contrary, the bookshop situation in Bengaluru is exceptional!

The old book shops have been disrupted. Sapna is one that has adapted well, with a publishing house, decent web-presence, and has grown too.

For the best technical books, you now go to Tata Book House (may be others, I am unaware of). Novels, and such, Blossom's on Church Street is one of the best. Then there are cafe-bookshop types like Crossword, etc.

Kannada and other language book stores are also thriving.

In 1999 on MG Road, it was more likely a roadside vendor with pirated books, Higginbotham, or unlikely, Gangarams. Blossom’s (Church St) wasn’t yet open IIRC.

Late 90s and early 2000s, I recall that Intel Inside, Lee Iacocca’s book, Who Moved my Cheese, Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, Jack Welch’s book, etc were commonly sold, in addition to the latest novels. I even remember buying Sylvia Nasar’s A Beautiful Mind (was popular because of the movie then) from a roadside vendor.

Tbh, I (and most Indians) don't know how 112 works.

In the US, if you dial 9-1-1 for a medical emergency, in most regions, it is highly likely that an ambulance with EMT/paramedics will arrive in < 10 min.

In my city of Bengaluru, there are, no exaggeration, good hospitals within 2-5 km of any point in the city. Most of these hospitals have ambulance fleets that can get to you fast, within 10-15 minutes. Anecdotally, people prefer calling these hospitals directly for ambulance.

Caveat: I am not recommending hospital ambulances over 112, but just saying that I am not aware of 1-1-2 response time and effectiveness.

In India, Google search for a pretty specific string, "<nearest hospital's name> ambulance phone number," showed up a bunch of scammy ads. In our distraught state (an elderly relative had just had a fall), we accidentally called the top ad which turned out to be a scam ambulance service.

A beat up van showed up, without any EMT, a sketchy stretcher without straps, and no tracks or fasteners to hold it down inside the van. We were outraged and asked them to leave immediately. They demanded money to leave, and left only when we threatened to call the police on them.

We realized our mistake and scrolled down to the actual results and called the reputed local hospital which sent a properly equipped legit ambulance. Thankfully it was a simple fracture and the lost time did not lead to dangerous complications. But this could have been fatal if the emergency was more serious.

When I returned to the US, I tried searching for ambulances, and Google conspicuously avoids showing ads and suggests calling 9-1-1.

Long pepper is an exceptional expectorant. Add it to soups when you have sniffles. In fact, in South India long pepper is used more for folk cures for colds and such than as a culinary ingredient.

I am surprised that there is no skepticism here about the cremation numbers.

1. Crematoriums usually have enough capacity to deal with average death rates. Anything above that and it starts to look horrific.

2. What is the definition of "covid protocol" for cremation? Does it mean the patient had covid? I don't see this clearly stated any where.

3. There might be a delay between the two numbers with crematorium numbers being more current. This also contributes to the "10x".

The numbers are bad enough even without unscientific exaggerations.

I am open-minded about this FT article's claims being accurate, but there

This is not true because it is a multi-agent problem. There is not just one professor, but there is a competitive pool of professors working in different areas. In some highly productive (or otherwise "hot") areas, some profs place every student in faculty positions. In some areas, this number is almost zero. So it is a competitive field.

The problem of pyramid-scheme, etc. occurs when people don't realize this and enter academia with an expectation of entering the tenure track. I find biomedical academia to be the principal culprit in this academic Ponzi scheme. They require high skilled labor, which they procure in the form of underpaid grad students and permanent post docs. Only a small minority of biomedical faculty care about their students entering the tenure track.

The other set of fields that are bad for post-PhD careers is liberal arts. Mainly because colleges started lots of liberal arts departments to boost enrollment and inflate grades. So the demand is artificial.

On the other extreme is b-school and econ PhDs who almost all enter academia.

Other hard sciences (physics, chemistry, etc.) fall in the middle: it is a struggle, but people end up landing well after PhD. Physics folks get finance, developer, etc. jobs. Chemistry folks are usually absorbed into pharma/chem companies.

Math and engineering academia works pretty well too: almost all engineering PhDs get good R&D/developer jobs that are reasonably high status and pay well. I don't know any super-star PhD in engineering who didn't get a reasonable academic position.

The defense industry is another big employer of math, engineering, and sciences PhDs.

In the US: culture is very important. If you have bad coworkers, no amount of technical excitement can compensate. I am willing to hypothetically trade technical excitement for great colleagues (up to a reasonable extent).

I have heard similar stories from other ethnic Czechs (they have obviously intermarried in the generations since) from Iowa. As mid-western cultures go, some people from Norwegian communities in North Dakota still speak archaic Norwegian. To a lesser extent (probably more melting-pot effect?), Swedes in Minnesota and Germans in Wisconsin.