Recent submissions

Comment · 3 months ago
The median working American earns something like 60k. Part time working adults are around 24k.

People might not have 20k in the bank, but if most are doing a part-time employment's worth of work which could be replaced by a machine, it would make sense on paper.

Granted, people aren't rational. Anecdotally, my partner and I probably could be hiring out some of this currently, but we choose not to as we don't want to have to work around a cleaning service's schedule. I think we'd be more apt to buy something which we own, have control over, always does things in the manner we'd like, doesn't have to work around our messy lives/schedules, etc.

Comment · 3 months ago
> I don't want to hire out a cleaning service and deal with the whole human component.

I've used on in the past, but I found that I was routinely dissatisfied with how they were doing things and I felt I needed to maintain a certain level of tidiness to allow them to clean properly. I think there is an intrinsic cost to having hired staff in one's home that most consumers would be factoring in, consciously or not.

Comment · 3 months ago
Eh, I'm a pretty social and outgoing guy. I think its fair to have some reservations about people in one's own home. I'll admit I'm slightly neurotic in my own household in that I like things to be done a certain way. I'd also feel like I needed to maintain certain levels of tidiness to enable a traditional cleaning service to perform well.
Comment · 3 months ago
I'm not sure.

I think house cleaning/chores require at least a "part-time" job's work of work for the average household (especially with children). We may be atypical, but my partner and I don't want to hire out a cleaning service and deal with the whole human component. But, I think we'd gladly pay 15k+ if it allowed us to take on the additional gainful workload. Even at a 20k price tag, I suspect we would likely have made up the difference in under a year.

Comment · 1 year ago
I'm a very satisfied home assistant user, but I don't run much in the way of addons. Any you'd recommend?
Comment · 2 years ago
Its hard to say what happened internally, but Biden could have stepped down in time for them to have a proper primary.
Comment · 2 years ago
Agreed. When I was younger, talking to older (40+ year age gap) people was a bit of a minor shift in vocab or syntax, but I wouldn't call it a "code switch."

If we have hit a point where communicating with people speaking the same language in the same region who are only a generation removed (or 2 at most) requires a "code switch" carrying substantial cognitive overhead... we have a problem.

I'm not claiming that it isn't happening, but it seems like a misstep to just accept it as inevitable. Communication with most of the rest of the same-dialect speaking population of a region should be an innate skill by the time someone is in middle/high school.

(non native speakers or transplants are a whole different ballgame, but I don't think that is what the author is discussing here)

Comment · 2 years ago
One could give themselves hyponatremia by overdrinking water, so might as well not have laws preventing children from buying alcohol.
Comment · 2 years ago
I think both can be true. Most liberal western economies are highly individualistic in terms of form and law, but large firms naturally come into being and thrive. I guess one could argue that this isn't due to the need for "bureaucracy" but instead "labor" and that the bureaucracy is an unavoidable side-effect, but there is undeniably large-scale organization.

Context seems like the most interesting thing to consider. I suspect the attitude and outlook of the individuals toward the organization is the key component (and their capacity to undermine the organization in some manner). All of this is to say that I don't believe organization is inherently against the human sentiment, it just needs to be seen as justified, sensible, and a net-positive to those involved.

Comment · 2 years ago
I had a similar question. I've been using fuse for years and have had almost no qualms with the data it returns after some light tuning.
Comment · 3 years ago
> Whereas if they have two separate $1 charges, that reduces the loss somehow

This is what is being questioned. I've spent several years working in merchant processing, and I've never heard of a billing structured offered by a processor in which it would be advantageous to split charges up. No one understands why Patreon would be losing money by bundling. It could be something with anti-fraud or anti-carding, but I'd have to chew on that a bit more.

Comment · 3 years ago
Schrödinger's refrigerator light.
Comment · 3 years ago
> I think companies not prone to this are ones where their product is a technical one like cloud services where the business really is the engineering and engineering isn't a means to an end.

I currently work for a company providing "cloud services" to other software shops. Part of what drew me here was that the ethos around how we get stuff done does encapsulate this. The engineering culture is pervasive. Here's to hoping we can maintain that as we grow.

Comment · 3 years ago
> All of this textual information is defined in a JSON object I describe to GPT

Do you get json back from chat gpt as well? Is this consistent? I hadn't really though about using it as an api platform.

Comment · 3 years ago
I think there is a crucial semantic disconnect here, that may be partially stemmed from how much heavy lifting the relatively new term "military industrial complex" is doing. I'm likely partially to blame.

I use the term to refer to the the status quo of the relationship between interest groups, legislative bodies, and the bureaucratic system. I don't think I've forgotten anything. Some degree of defense was, and still is, necessary. I'm not refuting that. But, I believe that current manifestations of this relationship has lead to a system that is largely driven by private interests that have little to do with the defense or security of the people.

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