benjaminjosephw

8 ms·

31.
by benjaminjosephw 5y ago
The realities of dread and pain are part of reality - no doubt about that. So are joy and love. A pure materialist view would have to accept these realities without judgement. We _want_ to be able to say that suffering and pain imply meanin
32.
by benjaminjosephw 5y ago
Individualism is a closed system. Any attempt to find meaning in isolation as a lone consciousness is subject to the same kind of force as the entropy of closed physical systems. It becomes almost impossible to pattern match on significance
33.
by benjaminjosephw 5y ago
PostgreSQL and even things like SQLite are fantastic tools for programmers with time to invest in learning them an their quirks. What a modern database could do that they can't is be comprehensible to a power-user. Modelling and queryi
34.
by benjaminjosephw 5y ago
I get your concern but is it possible that your idea of confidence is shaped by a male perspective on how that trait manifests? Encouraging a junior team member to have more self-assurance in their presentation style is one thing but routin
35.
by benjaminjosephw 5y ago
The possibility of a post-climate crisis feudal system is officially on the table. How terrifying.
36.
by benjaminjosephw 5y ago
Are they allowed to do that? It suggests a strong stance that the market rates of engineers is location specific not skill/capability specific. If you're part of a company that is built on a meritocratic culture, you should absolu
37.
by benjaminjosephw 5y ago
Building a data processing system that mitigates the WFH risks might be more expensive than exploiting workers but it is absolutely doable. The tasks performed in these contexts are mostly just different types of data transformations. Allow
38.
by benjaminjosephw 5y ago
You can't imagine other ways to protect data beyond such a dehumanizing denial of liberty? These workers seem forced to accept these conditions by the fear of losing their jobs. This isn't a free choice but an imposed one. Advocat
39.
by benjaminjosephw 5y ago
> the FTC supports efforts to shed light on opaque business practices, especially around surveillance-based advertising A glimmer of hope seems on the horizon for the open web and end-user freedoms in the face of corporate encroachment o
40.
by benjaminjosephw 5y ago
Boardroom greed might follow a logical rational but this behaviour isn't reasonable in the long run. Disregard of fairness and civil conduct won't be worth the eventual cost of a society that becomes increasingly opposed to the sy
41.
by benjaminjosephw 5y ago
But, of course, the fine isn't a price point for unlawful behaviour but a penalty levied in judgement of the fact that the company violated the social contract. Seeing fines simply as a business cost would be a serious distortion of th
42.
by benjaminjosephw 5y ago
It would be really interesting to know how many of these products have squeezed competitors out of the market before being axed. More than a few I bet.
43.
by benjaminjosephw 5y ago
People in technology have a far greater understanding of the depth, breadth and potential consequences of selling data and attention to advertising platforms than the average user. Even then, we still don't necessarily know exactly how
44.
by benjaminjosephw 5y ago
Wow, I thought you were about to object to the generalization of an end-usr denigrating HN perspective! Okay, even if it is "entitled" to expect something for nothing, it's dishonest not to be clear and upfront about the cost
45.
by benjaminjosephw 5y ago
Absolutely, but dogma and "best-practices" anchor design discussions around today's norms. People get very defensive about tools they've invested in and that kind of dogma stunts imagination for different and better solu
46.
by benjaminjosephw 5y ago
Do volunteer programmers (open source) depress other programmers wages? Arguably, high quality open source projects actually raises the bar for everyone. Good quality teaching isn't a scarce resource to be managed like a commodity. Pay
47.
by benjaminjosephw 5y ago
This is a plea for innovation if ever I heard one. Email has some great design properties but also some serious flaws. If a lot of people start sharing the same pain points that aren't being met by current tools, this means there'
48.
Optical Telegraphs(en.wikipedia.org)
1 points by benjaminjosephw 5y ago|0 comments
49.
by benjaminjosephw 5y ago
The latest technical report (is that different to the draft discussed here?) seems to hold to a more common sense approach: https://www.unicode.org/reports/tr51/tr51-20.html#Gender
50.
by benjaminjosephw 5y ago
I swing between "I'm just a software engineer, let's aim for logical consistency and let anyone define the world the way they want to" and "I am a software engineer and I play a meaningful and serious role in shapin
51.
by benjaminjosephw 5y ago
That sounds like another way of saying "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity". Ignoring so many people asking them to examine their bias and human fallibility is definitely a form of stupidity.
52.
by benjaminjosephw 5y ago
For an academic in a Divinity school, an uncaring but professional environment is a dead canary. It means something much worse than the lack of sympathy in that moment. But, if that doesn't make sense to you, how about being systematic
53.
by benjaminjosephw 5y ago
Maybe its also because good content is more frustrating to actually get to. Compared to a decade ago there's a lot more friction on a first visit to a site. All the marketing pop-ups, paywalls and surveillance consent boxes are a hassl
54.
by benjaminjosephw 5y ago
Imagining a change in the tech landscape isn't that absurd. If there's a vacuum in the market, do you not think there are capable technology startups in the UK that could fill it?
55.
by benjaminjosephw 5y ago
The UK has a relatively strong chance of creating decent competitive challengers to Apple if the UK market opens up with their exit. Even if a few consumers are frustrated in the short term this could lead to a fantastic outcome for a compe
56.
by benjaminjosephw 5y ago
Limit your use of it. Using it aimlessly or without intentional purpose is the biggest of all pitfalls.
57.
by benjaminjosephw 5y ago
Giants are more visible, I won't dispute that but I'm not sure I agree with a strategy of surrendering to them because of that fact. I don't think we need a real hero here, we need end-user solidarity perhaps in the form of p
58.
by benjaminjosephw 5y ago
Relying on giants to defend the interests of the rest of us mere humans sounds dangerous.
59.
by benjaminjosephw 5y ago
This is such a beautifully designed language. I came across Ink a few months ago and I was delighted with how small and concise it is. I can see this being a very interesting teaching language but it's also good to see that it has real
60.
by benjaminjosephw 5y ago
> A lot of people think Amazon saw buying and operating Whole Foods as a way to learn about the world of groceries and then to use that knowledge to launch a larger, more mainstream grocery chain. Now the company may be taking its first

More ›