latexr

It’s honestly a bit hard to continue the conversation with you, because it already seemed to me like some of your arguments where bordering on bad faith in the previous comment (but I gave you the benefit of the doubt) and I get that impression in this comment as well. But I don’t want to have an internet argument, I don’t care about “winning”, I want to have a conversation. I sometimes fail at that and I don’t like when that happens, so I’ll try to cover broad strokes instead of quoting specific sections.

You seem to be suggesting that being a government employee gives you near total job certainty and that to have that job security you need to be a government employee. That is not the case. At all. Maybe where you live, but certainly not everywhere. And yes, I am keenly aware of highly incompetent people (in healthcare no less!) who have job security. Is that a good situation? No. But throwing the baby out with the bathwater and making it a free-for-all where everyone is stressed all the time and can be kicked to the curb on a whim isn’t a better way to properly advance a society. Not if you care about something other than the unfettered pursuit of profit, anyway, and I believe we should care about more than that.

Because you edited your previous post, I’ll point out that I find the new examples (teachers and cops) to be even worse. Policemen are notorious for abuses of powers with no repercussions, I honestly don’t know what to tell you if you’re not aware of that. Teachers get the short end of the stick, and the best ones are seldom recognised. Again, if you're not aware of that I’m not really sure what to tell you.

Also, of course it’s not good to have incompetent doctors, and of course that was not the argument. I invite you to steel man if you want to have a productive conversation. Nowhere am I saying unrestricted job security is the right solution, I am instead pointing out that giving all the power to the employer causes worse problems, and that in general we should care about people’s well-being instead of trying to “advance” and being afraid of “being left behind” all the time. That’s not healthy, and it is stupid to chase “progress” if not to improve lives.

> I used an immense amount of personal time and money to make me a better employee, it was called getting a degree from a university.

You went to university to become a better employee?! Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I find that notion profoundly sad. Most people I interacted with in college did it for the experience, and I’m happy to report many are better people for it.

But hey, I’m not going to criticise you for doing that, you made your choice about what was right for you and that’s all I’m saying, that it is a good thing that people Have that choice. It’s good that you can do that if you want but also not do that if you don’t want.

> I still sometimes spend a bit of personal money and time to tinker with technology

So do I. And it’s always best when I can decide to do it or not do it, depending on the rest of the context in my life.

> It's like being surprised a chef likes to experiment a bit in their kitchen at home.

No, no, it’s nothing like that. Because I’m not at all surprised that people do it (like I said, I do it myself), all I’m saying is that it seems positive to me that you have the choice.

> Their point is with total job security there's no real drive to actually be good at your job and little incentive to improve.

Aren’t you yourself proof that that is not true? And nothing indicates those people aren’t getting better, they’re just not doing the specific thing the other person suggested as a means to that end. That’s not at all the same thing.

> Would you go to a doctor who hasn't bothered learning anything new about medicine for decades and still practices like it's the 1950s, or one which continually evolved their practice to stick with modern times?

Ooh, boy. If you think most doctors out there are continually improving, I have some very bad news for you. Those who do are the exception, not the norm.

> "I landed a job with job security, so I am not doing a thing more than I have to" is what drives germany into the ground...

That seems strange to me. A country is made of people, and people are more than their jobs. The fixation on work above everything to benefit an entity whose only purpose is to make money and that would chew and spit you out at the first opportunity seems unhealthy to me. I’d much rather we worked on making the people happy and not concentrate so much wealth in the hands of a few, that seems to me like a better way to improve a country. But hey, happy to disagree. Thank you for engaging and expressing and clarifying your views.

Thank you for attempting to clarify, but it doesn’t seem to me like I misunderstood the first time. Seems you are indeed suggesting they spend their own personal money for a skill to be used on work time, and that they use their work time for personal projects to ultimately benefit that work time.

I don’t see how working for a public entity is relevant. If anything, I sure hope (but I’m not deluding myself) the people who work for public entities work slowly, deliberately, and methodically. The last thing I want from public entities is a focus on “velocity” and merging code the authors don’t understand.

> But I guess that is the drawback for german job-security: each and all of them know they basically can't get laid off.

Help me understand what exactly is the drawback you’re mentioning. In your previous comment you were suggesting these people spend their own personal money and personal time on projects to benefit their work time. They (quite reasonably, it seems from the limited context) decided that no, they won’t dedicate life and resources from outside work to more work. Fortunately, it seems they have some job security (German, but probably some from the EU as well) which allows them to make whatever choice they believe is healthier to them, without fearing repercussions. What’s the drawback?

I may be misremembering, but my recollection is that Dart was written off in large part because of Google. Distrust with them was already high as they were abusing their dominance with things like AMP, and people felt it was a bad idea to give them even more control over the web.

> Everyone is just using Ubuntu for free of charge for the most part. You get what you pay for.

That ignores those paying for Ubuntu Pro. They are not getting what they paid for.

> If these all actually worked, I'd presume that there would have been a study on the miraculously healthy 80 year old mice.

That assumes the techniques compound additively, which is not necessarily the case. Even the best things for you, like water, become detrimental when you have too much. It may also be that some beneficial actions reduce the benefit of different ones.

> perhaps checking people that worked with pneumatic hammers or other vibration exposed workplaces.

Those probably add too much variance. For example, someone working with pneumatic hammers likely works in construction and has a likelier chance to also be exposed to harmful dust, or being in the sun a lot, or getting injured on the job. It may also be that too much vibration (too long and wor too strong) would be harmful.

> The goal is to find solutions and to advance the field

And why are we finding those solutions and advancing the field if not to improve lives? What’s the goal otherwise?

> so let's fire up whatever datacenter we can find

Because this is actively ruining our lives. This relentless, selfish drive for more and more data centres is hurting communities and the environment (you know, where people live), increasing prices of other things, consolidating wealth inequality, and much much more.

So no, let’s not “fire up whatever we can find”. How about we instead take a break from consuming vast resources, hurting people, and making everything worse, to work on the very solvable problems we have right now, which are very addressable with the things we already know.

> makes me think writing software by hand will soon be not only uneconomical, but mostly irresponsible.

Human-written code isn’t inherently buggy, and LLM-written code isn’t inherently bug free. What is irresponsible is shipping code you don’t understand, and that will only increase with LLM-written code. A major reason why so much of the world’s software sucks is precisely that we think of it in terms of what’s “economical” and not what’s good or right. What we need is to slow the fuck down and stop treating every facet of life like a transaction. Software is filled to the brim with dude bros who “move fast and break things” and actively exploit people as their business model and somehow are called “the brightest minds of our generation”. Our priorities aren’t right.

> So probably not very dissuasive all things considered.

The current fine isn’t a fixed value that’ll just be applied every time. As per the article:

> In case of non-compliance with the decision, Fnac Darty faces a daily penalty of €10,000.

And if they do it again, that is very likely to be taken into consideration into the next fine (or other actions).

In other words, it may not be sufficiently punitive but that doesn’t mean it won’t be dissuasive for them to continue. But sure, if you think they should’ve been fined more (and I agree), consider donating to noyb so they have the resources to fight more of these cases harder.

https://noyb.eu/en/support

> I'm trying not to have any important data to even lose

This is the way. Respect user privacy and keep as little data as possible, and not only do you become a less attractive target, if you are targeted the outcome won’t be so bad.

You obviously did this for fun, I don’t want to throw any shade on it and have no criticism, I also make fun things just because.¹

So take this as a genuine question, not a put-down, but why an app? Accessibility access is a big ask and I can see it being fun for about two minutes until the novelty wears off and the web version already does that (kudos for providing that).

So, what do you consider about the app to make it worth it over a web demo? Is this something you use yourself on the regular? For what?

¹ And I hate that HN is now the kind of website where one now needs such a disclaimer because interpreting things in bad faith has become the norm, but that’s not your fault.

² By the way, in Golden Gate they changed the name of that to something long and ridiculous I don’t recall off hand, but you can see it in System Settings.

Hear hear. It’s been my observation that HN in particular has become much more combative. It’s full on like the meme where someone says “I like strawberries” and someone else complains “oh, so you hate pineapples?! They’re a fruit too, you know?! My great-grandfather ate pineapples. You’re a monster”¹. Yeah, chill, no one said anything about pineapples, stop assuming things or thinking everyone is against you. Don’t succumb to the tribalism.

¹ Unfortunately, I feel I must point out that I’m (I hope obviously) exaggerating for comedic effect.

I regret that you took my comment as negative, please believe that was not my intention. I tried to be exceedingly clear about what was opinion and that I think we’re fine to disagree as long as we’re enjoying ourselves.

There was certainly no implication directed at you¹. I don’t know you and wouldn’t assume your tastes. Rather, I was sharing my excitement at Lower Decks. I’m glad that you liked it too.

I wish you a nice Saturday.

¹ And it saddens me that these days so many people on HN constantly assume implications which aren’t there, and always negatively, instead of taking comments as they’re written and defaulting to assuming kindness.

Lower Decks is canon, not “a form” of it (exaggerated or otherwise) but just as canon as any other show, and it’s my opinion (of course you may disagree) that it enriches Star Trek’s lore. Yes, that means the Koala is canon (it even shows up in the intro on the Strange New Worlds crossover episode!), but when you think about it, that’s not any more silly than Q or the myriad other bizarre things on other Star Trek shows.

https://www.reddit.com/r/startrek/comments/q0udro/comment/hf...

Ultimately it doesn’t matter. They’re fictional shows so all that’s important is that we enjoy them in our own way, but I don’t think Lower Decks exaggerated how dumb the Pakleds are, I think it explored them so much because them being dumb made them a good comedic fit. When I watch the TNG episode and Lower Decks, I see consistency. More than comedy, Lower Decks has an immense respect and care for the lore.

Urk. Man, people like you really take the joy out of life. Here everyone else is, just having fun with harmless geekery, but something just compels you to be pedantic and wrong.

“Big Strong City” is not “just vocabulary”, it’s an example of how they think and what they value, what they give importance to. “Red Alarm” is vocabulary, but that was not the example (that was to situate people who have seen the show), the relevant bit is “they didn’t really understand that’s an emergency”. Mixing up two people is not vocabulary.

Now, was it worth it to poo poo on everyone’s fun just to try to show how smart you are and embarrass yourself in the process by revealing a lack of understanding of the subject matter?

Don’t be that kid at the party who’s always calling for attention and all of the adults secretly wish their parents hadn’t brought him along. Do better.

No, they really were (hilariously) dumb and simple. Of the top of my head I remember their capital was named “Big Strong City”, their “Red Alert” was “Red Alarm” (it’s funny in context) and they didn’t really understand that’s an emergency, and despite being corrected multiple times by the woman herself, they kept thinking captain Carol Freeman was captain Kathryn Janeway. For reference, one of them in black and the other is white.

For reference: https://github.com/docker/cli/issues/267#issuecomment-695149...

> exactly what crime could they be prosecuted for?

Note that “crime” has a specific definition in law. You don’t have to be a criminal (commit a crime) to be rightfully sued, civil suits are a thing.

Anyway, your parent comment already answered the question, they would be sued by negligence.

> the aliens pretending to be dumb

Pretending? The Pakleds were genuinely dumb. If TNG’s episode left you with any doubts, watch Lower Decks and let them all be dispelled.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Pakled

Doesn’t matter, that’s not the point of the conversation, you’re the only one obsessing about that. It is perfectly congruent to e.g. believe they should have the right to report on whatever they want but that what they did still wasn’t worthwhile journalism.

Are you incapable of separating legality from rightness? You don’t have to e.g. believe that cutting in line should be illegal to also believe it’s not a nice thing to do.

Wordle is inspired by Mastermind, sure, but I don’t think it’s fair to call it a copy. I enjoy Mastermind; I do not enjoy Wordle¹.

Even the simplest details are different, like e.g. in Wordle you know which letters are in the right or wrong places but in Mastermind you only know some are but not which.

¹ And because this is HN, I have to point out that that is just a personal preference, it does not in any way reflect on you, the reader. You are free to enjoy or dislike whatever you want.

Holy shit, how much bad faith interpretation can you shove into one comment? That is not at all what is being said, and you’re being so obtuse that it’s hard to believe you’re not doing it on purpose.

I’m not even making an argument, I’m explaining to you what your parent comment (which you also chose to interpret in bad faith) was saying.

No one is out to get you. Chill. You’re taking everything out of proportion.

Freedom of the press, like freedom of speech, applies specifically to government intervention. As a private citizen, you are free to dislike or disapprove of what is being reported. That’s all your parent comment did, they didn’t call for censorship or infringing on freedom of the press, they simply displayed discontent with one case of tabloid-like news.

“You think the people [who own houses by the beach] aren’t just going to sell their homes and move?”

https://youtu.be/RLqXkYrdmjY?t=4m05s