RubberSoul
I ask because I've tinkered with some Ralph loops and found I can achieve similar results by handing Claude (Opus 4.6, 1M context) a PLAN.md file with a long checklist of tasks and telling it to sequentially complete them.
I don't seem to have the problems that Ralph solves. But like any tool, it would be good to have a mental model for when to reach for Ralph in the future should a need arise.
Improved enforcement can deter tax avoidance in addition to directly recovering money.
One issue with modern food production for consumers is that it can be difficult to determine whether a particular ingredient is safe or healthy. Information has public good qualities, and having each consumer make an individual determination about whether each ingredient is safe/healthy is costly. The obvious way to justify government intervention here is that it's more efficient for us to pool resources and empower a third-party to produce the information we need and ban/label products that are likely unsafe. The decisions won't always be right, but the approach might be much preferred to the alternatives.
Plus, conditional on socializing a lot of medical costs, it might make sense to put restrictions on behaviors that affect individual health.
Now, we want to know the standard error for our estimate of the bot proportion. That is sqrt(p(1-p)/n). Suppose 50% of accounts are bots (I assume that would be very high), then our estimate of p would be 0.5 and our standard error with a sample of 100 would be 0.05. Hence, our 95% confidence interval is roughly 0.4–0.6 in the worst case (with a sample of 100).
If the proportion is under 0.1 (let's assume 0.05), then the standard error would be sqrt(0.05(1-0.05)/100) = 0.022. Our 95% confidence interval in this case would be roughly 0.01–0.09.
These seem like large ranges to me. Hence, I would expect them to use a larger sample too.
I tell the story because I think it illustrates a lot of reasons companies can get away with bad behavior:
1. Only a subset of consumers recognize the bad behavior and know who to contact.
2. Most consumers are not motivated to complain. In the above story, most people would probably stop when the Intuit website doesn't work (I usually give up too). There is a free-rider problem. My complaint could benefit lots of people if a company changes its behavior, but I alone incur the cost of complaining.
3. When a consumer successfully complains, companies can sometimes quietly make the problem go away for the one consumer and avoid regulatory action. Intuit called me, resolved the issue only for me, and we both move on. With the issue resolved, the regulator has less reason to continue investigating.
4. Even when regulators get enough complaints and go after bad behavior, they are up against powerful attorneys and lobbyists. And even if the regulators win, the company probably has lots of substitute ways of achieving the same goals that weren't contemplated or prohibited by the settlement/law/etc.
An example of something that's not human subjects research would be emailing people who have websites and asking about their privacy policy.
An example of something that is human subjects research would be emailing people who have websites and asking what inspired them to start a website.
I realize that may seem like a subtle difference, but it's an important distinction from an IRB perspective. For reference, and because a lot of people seem confused on this thread, here's what the human subjects research training at my university says about this...
"...some research that involves interactions with people does not meet the regulatory definition of research with human subjects because the focus of the investigation is not the opinions, characteristics, or behavior of the individual. In other words, the information being elicited is not about the individual ('whom'), but rather is about 'what.' For example, if a researcher calls the director of a shelter for battered women and asks her for the average length of stay of the women who use the shelter, that inquiry would not meet the definition of research with human subjects because the information requested is not 'about' the director. If the researcher interviewed the director about her training, experience, and how she defines the problem of battering, then the inquiry becomes about her - and therefore 'about whom.'"
You can think the study is poorly designed, unethical, etc. But if they're not obtaining data about a living individual, then it's not human subjects research.
> On YouTube Music, playlists are stored on your channel. To continue transferring your Google Play Music playlists, create your channel now.
> All your Google services will display your channel name. Learn more
Huh? I don't really know what a YouTube channel is and probably don't want one. Does this mean my playlists will be public? What does the second part about all services displaying my channel name even mean? Clicking "Learn more" does not help. I'm having a hard time figuring out the privacy and other implications of transferring my music library. Why does listening to the music I uploaded have to impact all my other Google services? I don't want a YouTube channel, I don't want to be social, and I don't want other people seeing the music I listen to.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?473393-1/covid-19-response-reo...
Starts at 1:15:00.
That's a simple rule, but it's ridiculous. The costs and benefits of taking a new drug are heterogeneous. Do you think people who develop anti-psychotics should be required to take anti-psychotic medications they have no need for?
For me the trickiest thing is remembering how to deal with redirection. I find the --dry-run option to be super useful when setting up a command.
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL284C9FF2488BC6D1
I think consumers will widely adopt the practice when it lowers, or at least doesn't increase, their grocery bill.
Even going down to the police station voluntarily for a "friendly" talk might screw you. In Salinas v. United States a man cooperated by going to the station. He answered some questions but was silent when officers asked if his shotgun would match shells from a crime scene. His silence was then used as evidence of his guilt and the Supreme Court decided that's OK.
You need to know your rights and explicitly assert your rights. The legal system is not going to do that work for you.
Also, it sounds like you're referring to the penalty for underpayment, which I believe is currently 3.6% of the total underpayment for the year [0]. This only kicks in under certain circumstances.
Hopefully this parent and others in his community are now receiving better information. It's not mentioned below, but when I heard this interview it was longer and made the point that vaccine hesitant parents need to be approached with respect; the more confrontational the approach, the more defensive people with anti-vaccine views will become.
[0]: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/02/13/6944497...
This is work in progress, but I heard one of the scientists speak recently and he said the idea that starters differ based on location is not showing up in the data. Will be interesting to read updates as they learn more.
The median household income in Cambridge, MA (the city where most of Harvard's campus is) is $83,122 [0] and 8.4% of families and 14% of people live in poverty.
The source [1] the author links to regarding student family income at Harvard shows that 15.1% of students come from the top 1% (which I guess means top 1% in terms of national income). It's a good read by the way.
[0] https://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/cf/1.0/en/place/Cambridge...
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/18/upshot/some-c...
Also, move if you can. Do not limit yourself to local opportunities unless you must for family reasons. You will adjust to a new location quickly even if it's intimidating at first.
Sounds like converting interviews into offers is the problem. Being socially withdrawn probably makes that harder.
Have you considered meeting with a therapist/clinical social worker? Dealing with depression and mental issues is actually only one aspect of that job. Life coaching and developing social/interview skills is something they can do. It might be hard to take the first step, but find someone [0] and try it out. The first intake meeting might even be free.
Did nobody recognize the research opportunity inherent in launching these programs across so many schools? I assume the original studies used small samples. I would have been trying to collect new data from this large sample to re-test the original hypotheses.