steve_g

I interpret the article to say the "myth" is exactly true. It may also be true that Semmelweis could have done a better job communicating his findings and persuading others. But that doesn't take away from the truth of the basic story.

Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson

"We should be more like Columbo" is a great general rule for life.

I agree with you 100%. The average person now lives better than the richest kings a few hundred years ago.

But I think it's funny that you use Nick Cage as an example. Not to be mean - I like him too. But it's still funny.

Take about 20% off there, bud.

I meant "still use math" as a proxy for "still use formal languages to communicate".

Maybe in 100 years AI will be so powerful that we'll just ask our question in natural language and get the answer we need. Or maybe in 100 years AI will have harvested us for the iron in our blood. Either way we wouldn't need SQL anymore.

If we still use math 100 years from now, we'll still use SQL. It's a fine way to query relational data, and relational data is a fine way to model reality.

I'd like to hear from people that think I'm wrong.

Could this be a protected concerted activity? In the US, there are some basic protections when two or more employees work together to improve the conditions of their employment. I don't know what does or doesn't qualify for this protection, though.

I had the "oof" but I got rid of it by lifting weights, starting at age 51. I don't lift much anymore, because I kept hurting myself doing powerlifting. But it got rid of the "oof."

I'm sure there's a happy medium lifting enough to keep healthy but not so much that it causes injury. I've never been good at doing medium.

My initial thought was that I didn't like that prescription. But I'd like to know _why_ the author thinks "joke less, laugh less" would help with divisiveness.

Well, the two owners referenced in the articles both died - one from cancer and one from general old age (>90 years).

The article says that his Parkinson's tremor makes using the ATM difficult.

As a guy with tremor, I can tell you that it sucks. There are some things I can't physically do now, even though my brain works fine.

I think "my wife is a hospice worker who has provided care to over 5000 patients and hasn't heard these regrets" is a pretty decent argument. I'm not saying Hanson is right, but I wouldn't dismiss his wife's experience.

Contact your favorite lawyer first.

This was the argument made by Larry Lessig in Eldred vs Ashcroft - the extreme length of the US copyright term is well beyond what's necessary "to promote the progress of science and useful arts." 95 years is by no means a "limited time."

He lost. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldred_v._Ashcroft

There's a lot to unwrap in your questions, so I won't answer them fully. But I work in a job/industry that I consider to be meaningful and have done so for about 36 years. I work in the environmental industry, specifically waste management and air pollution control.

When I graduated with a ChemE degree, I decided that I wanted to do something positive for the environment. I didn't know how to start, so I just applied to companies with "environmental" in the name. That's how I got into the air pollution control field. Note: back then the internet was called "books", so I spent a lot of time in the library looking up companies.

Most companies have internal IT departments that write and manage line-of-business software. Find companies that do something _you_ find meaningful and try to get into their IT departments. Once you're in, recognize that no job is going to be seventh heaven every day. Make the best of whatever you're doing. It's a lot easier to do that if you're in tune with the company's mission.

My way is not the only way, of course, but that's what works for me. Good luck.

Isn't that the muppet version? That is a great one.

This is an interesting way to think about why utilitarianism doesn't alway comport with our moral intuitions. But I was really hoping this article would be about a user interface for business applications.

He says he's a subscriber to YouTube music. So he is paying.

I would be a combination of total mass of the items plus some terms that reflect inventory demand - like weight_factor* (actual_inventory - target inventory)*planned_production for an item category. If I have too much of a category, processing more of the category is rewarded.

A good way to think about it would be "useful" energy vs waste energy. The energy used by a chiller to cool a cellar is useful energy. The heat (energy) that is removed from the cellar and rejected to the atmosphere is waste energy.

The defendant was stealing useful energy and returning waste energy.

Consider getting fired gracefully. You don't have to take it personally, especially if you know it's a tactic the company is using against you. Use the time to prepare for a job search/job change.

Just make sure you behave in accordance with your values; don't do anything that _you_ believe is wrong.