specialist

It was for an internal system too...

Ya, in that case, IMHO, self QA can be fine.

Customer facing products (deliverables) need QA/Test. Again, IMHO.

For troubleshooting, esp blockers, I totally agree.

BYD's continued growth in R&D spending supports your conclusion.

Absolutely.

Every other player, especially domestic, would benefit if USA's monopolies get busted. Ditto usurers, trusts, monopsonies, cartels, etc.

It's an attack on USA's AI tech giants.

Destroy any hope of profitability, prevent further capitalization, ultimately bankrupt them.

Hasten the popping of the AI bubble.

Drag down the stock market.

Put a dent in the GDP (alleged growth).

Cause investors to pull back, further depressing economy.

Devalue the dollar. Kicking off an interest rate doom loop.

Challenge USA's hegemonic role in the emergent multi-polar (post neoliberal) world order. (Gleefully supported by the ruling coalition's anti-globalist America First faction.)

It all makes perfect sense.

the Democratic left polarized hard against

As I understand stuff, "abundance" is perceived as a threat to, a means to neuter, YIMBY urbanism advocacy (a la , Strong Towns, Sightline, War on Cars, etc).

Criticisms I've read are:

1) guilt by association

2) exasperation with neoliberal faith in markets, to the exclusion of other strategies

3) punching left, while ignoring the perfidy and obstructionism of the right, as though only "the left" has agency

4) being anti-democratic, by ignoring (or underplaying) the necessity of rebuilding state administrative capacity

Wanting a lot more housing, I'm pro "abundance" by default.

Even so, I've been hurt before. So I try to remain cognizant of "the left's" criticisms. Being confused by the food fight over abundance, I'd describe "the left" as being wary.

I'm sorry for your loss.

Too late for your endeavor, FCC is now a pay to play racket.

Perhaps you should try again?

What's the received wisdom for the USA to (re)build it's own chip supply chain? I dimly recall $500b, 30 years, invest in domestic educational pipeline.

I'm 100% on board with federal industrial policy, public-private partnership, etc. So while I favor the idea of CHIPS act, I have no idea what's realistic.

(And it kinda pisses me off that Intel shunts taxpayer money to their investors. Seems like they don't even want to succeed.)

invasion of Iraq which they were disastrously wrong about

They did publish a correction. Some pithy blurb like "Blah blah blah, we regret the error."

To their credit, most warmongers didn't have the stones to do a mea culpa.

Regardless, I unsubscribed and never looked back. (Ditto The Atlantic, for the same reason. Impotently, I didn't have a NY Times sub to cancel in protest.)

During the run up to Bush's Folly, one of their wizened writers related how The Economist regarded the Vietnam War, noting the similarities, noting The Economist's moral failings, wondering if they'd repeat the same mistake.

Campaigns, for sure, are more marketing than discourse. Their infinitesimal silver lining is they serve as a veneer of social proof, their outcomes represent (to some) a form of legitimacy.

From monarchs to pure direct democracy, decisions have to be made. But how?

I see "government" as a kind of consensus algorithm. Policy work, adjudicating, record keeping, legislating, appropriations, etc. It's all just one big data processing machine, trying to discern signal from noise (information), hopefully learning stuff (knowledge), and occasionally acting.

For all our history, we've experimented with strategies for reducing transaction costs. Building trust, predictability, and stability.

How do you think we've done so far?

IMHO: Government, and especially bureaucracy, ain't great. But the alternative of no government isn't acceptable.

For me, autocomplete is an unbearable distraction. I never took to pair programming either.

I've bounced off Claude Code (et al) multiple times.

But very recently I've had some successes. With some bulk bug fixes, it felt the same as scripting data quality fix ups. With proof of concepts in mind, tried 3 very different ideas.

Two quickly flamed out, revealing that I needed to chew on those ideas (a lot) more. If we're measuring how to "fail faster", I'd score these as useful efforts.

But one has been a very unexpected delight to work on. Almost addictive, like coding feels when you're in the flow.

Any way. The current mania for coding harnesses is total insanity. Mario of Pi.dev fame is spot on and far more insightful and articulate than me.

As you know, law lags behind. Even when defendants are found not guilty, these cases are (apparently) necessary precedent for future remedies. Not least of which is creating social stigma.

I'm thinking of how organized crime ('60s - '80s) were untouchable, and how prosecutors learned how to use then new RICO laws to bring (some) of them down.

Yes and: Given social media's scope and impact, felony seems inadequate. Something "crimes against humanity" scale is more appropriate. With real consequences.

As with tobacco, social media target all children. Not just these plantiffs in MS.

The tobacco settlements in the USA didn't protect the rest of the world. Further, the purveyors just pivoted.

We shape the tools that in turn shape us.

The repetition I learned (and try to practice) is counting 1 - 10, then repeat. Try to focus on the counting, not follow distractions. Its okay to restart at 1, to pull your focus back.

Worked great for me, when other techniques haven't. Just a good fit.

Much gratitude to you and u/phyzix5761. Sadly, I lost touch with that meditation group and I have been looking for something similar. Now I have your pointers.

+1 coconut cream

Before switching to daily steel cut oats, I made "oat milk" for my daily smoothie.

Rolled oats, water, and an enzyme (banana, honey, yogurt), quick frappé, let it sit in the fridge overnight. Add the rest of smoothie ingredients in the morning.

(I love almonds, but they don't love me.)

Agree with all. Very well written. Author learned these truths much faster than me. Esp "profit fron difference".

One minor "yes and"...

Quote

You’re challenging their sense of self.

More specifically, you're challenging their identity.

Further, people have identities, not beliefs.

Which is why persuassion (marketing, propganda, fads, fashion) works where agrument does not.

TBH I've struggled to accept all this squishy stuff. But it has made some things a lot easier to handle, so there is an upside.

FWIW, I experienced the same, and worse, with corporate managed Macs.

I've been binging Sarah Longwell's (of The Bulwark) Focus Group episodes. She shares quotes from participants. Typical average low information, low engagement voters.

So depressing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA_iob2pnFk&list=PLJNKzTkCZE...

I've long grudgingly accepted premise of Democracy for Realists. Yet my expectations remained stubbornly, inappropriately too optimistic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_theory_of_democracy

https://archive.org/details/democracyforreal0000ache

--

The silver lining may be that "hopelessly confused voters" is better than hyperpartisanship. Longwell uses the term "heterodoxy".

I appreciate any and all support for (independent) journalism. Craig Newmark Philanthropies has been very generous in that regard.

Were I king, I'd (also):

  - Create endowments for journalistic orgs. Sufficient that they can maintain financial, and therefore editorial, independence.

  - Award lots of grants to independent journalists, to simply do their thing, no strings attached. This ensures plenty of content for those independent orgs.

Currently, investments by non-right-wing donors to non-right-wing orgs are contingent. Metrics, strategy, ideology, blah blah blah. Whereas the right-wing ecosystem doesn't get bogged down by the money chase, endless self-justification, navel gazing, consensus building, etc.

Huh. Thank you! I had no idea. Prior to your share, I would have lumped all that stuff into "culture formation".

Not voting is much more insulting, by far.

Edit: "civic religion" aha. Sorry, I should have guessed you were trolling. Can't wait to see what kind of revolution you cook up.

The worse things get, the better they do. It's an insidious, vicious cycle.

huge incentive to deceive each other

Disagree.

Iterated prisoner's dilemma leads to cooperation.

Social media (et al) already know each user's age.

They could "protect the children" at will. They simply choose not to.

Why this kabuki?

  "Yes, please, regulate us" while making any formal regulation moot?

  Directing attention away from the bot plague?

  Pushing age verification to protect their algorithmic hate machines?

  Monkey motion to avoid talking about true privacy? (Specifically, all data encrypted *at rest* using translucent database strategies.)

Appreciate this share.

Whenever I hear about this new fangled AT protocol all the kids are jazzed about, I get all wistful for the BBS era.

FidoNet & PC-Relay were pretty fanfastic. For the time, obv.

Source: Was sysadmin for a hub.

Sure, some fraction of humanity will survive. Terrific.

If not Stripe (in this case), then who's serving that role?

Its UI looks amazing. Of course, I have no clue about its IRL UX.

I cannot fathom why his comments section isn't moderated. Principles?