ghaff

31 ms·

901.
by ghaff 10mo ago
The problem I have with the whole "licensing standards" thing is that, for everyday activities for most of the population, it's not realistic to regulate to the point that there are really substantial barriers to entry to the
902.
by ghaff 10mo ago
It could probably be vaguely useful in the kitchen/dining room/mudroom if I had pets/kids. As it is, a broom vac takes just a few minutes. Maybe if I had more day to day mess, I'd feel differently.
903.
by ghaff 10mo ago
Things were very locked down at the peak of COVID and some of us even semi-officially grumbled a bit to people we knew. The main public buildings are generally open again during the day at least. I don't go in as much as I used to. (An
904.
by ghaff 10mo ago
Not that there's not a lot of standardization in Japanese food, but if I order most French dishes, especially in France, I generally have a pretty good idea of what I'm going to get. One things I've heard about French food (a
905.
by ghaff 10mo ago
My somewhat anecdotal observation is that a lot of access has been tightened down. Some happened during COVID and was just never removed. It definitely varies. The campus I'm most familiar with, you could wander pretty freely and that
906.
by ghaff 10mo ago
Roombas just weren't that useful for most house layouts and situations (cords/toys/clutter/etc.) I seriously considered getting one and decided it just wouldn't be a win.
907.
by ghaff 10mo ago
I have found ebooks useful. Especially when I was traveling by air more. But certainly not essential for reading.
908.
by ghaff 10mo ago
My point was Kindles vanishing, not books vanishing. Kindles are in no way a prerequisite for reading books.
909.
by ghaff 11mo ago
Kindles are just books and books are already mostly fairly compact and inexpensive long-form entertainment and information. They're convenient but if they went away tomorrow, my life wouldn't really change in any material way. Tha
910.
by ghaff 11mo ago
Pretty much. This idea that you can never have done something and get something from a Masterworks is a bit silly. Inside the Actors Studio was great but essentially entertainment. As something that's likely to give any real insight in
911.
by ghaff 11mo ago
There's definitely novelty, fashion, and fads. There's no particular reason why rollerblading essentially went away in the US after being a pretty popular activity for a time. In consumer tech, auction sites didn't go away bu
912.
by ghaff 11mo ago
Because it wasn't making any money.
913.
by ghaff 11mo ago
Machine transcriptions are obviously better than they used to be. But requiring perfect human transcriptions in this day and age would IMO be unreasonable for most purposes. Certainly machine transcriptions are used these days for purposes
914.
by ghaff 11mo ago
And you probably don't have the chops to write screenplays like Aaron Sorkin and almost certainly won't develop them from a video.
915.
by ghaff 11mo ago
Gym membership for many.
916.
by ghaff 11mo ago
I agree. There are a lot of activities that you can get the basics of pretty quickly given some natural abilities/talents/interest. But most adults won't have the time or inclination to spend hundreds of hours (and probably m
917.
by ghaff 11mo ago
I largely disagree. If you look at the people involved (and what they said at the time), I think there was a legitimate "We can rethink higher education" which obviously didn't happen for a variety of reasons. It mostly morph
918.
by ghaff 11mo ago
It's not clear to me that independent tutors are generally getting rich. But there clearly are activities that benefit from individual training. I imagine music is one of those. But that mostly probably falls into the luxury goods cate
919.
by ghaff 11mo ago
You need forced exercises, you need grading, you need something of a schedule. Not to say people can't do it. But, especially for difficult material, even a lot of motivated people won't. I mean I remember what undergrad (and grad
920.
by ghaff 11mo ago
You and I may not like it, but the reality is that so much of "education" is about certifications. And MOOC certifications were never worth much. I have taken unrequired training courses over the years and did other self-guided tr
921.
by ghaff 11mo ago
You're probably in the small minority at least when it comes to forking over material dollars. Most people spending money, at least beyond trade paperback range, are probably looking for something that has at least a plausible connecti
922.
by ghaff 11mo ago
If I were a professor at a decent school, I'd probably look at the landscape of MOOCs and go "Why am I spending any time on this?" It seemed like something new and potentially exciting at one point. I certainly wouldn't
923.
by ghaff 11mo ago
I'm not sure offline certificates mean a whole lot when layoffs matter either. But MOOCs and other purely online options just didn't result in any meaningful certification especially outside of a connection to established univer
924.
by ghaff 11mo ago
I'm not sure how much it has to do with LLMs. It feels more like it was sort of a fad thing and, especially once any certification value essentially fell off the back of the truck (and therefore no one really willing to pay)--much less
925.
by ghaff 11mo ago
It helps to look for things that have some level of official backing. Dell has some models for Ubuntu and Red Hat uses various ThinkPads for employee Linux laptops. (Lot more Macs as well when I left but still plenty of ThinkPads that are
926.
by ghaff 11mo ago
I don't need to transport 8 people around and I can always get mulch or gravel delivered. But, yeah, it's not uncommon for me to want to easily stuff a mid-size SUV's worth of stuff into my vehicle for a weekend or longer tri
927.
by ghaff 11mo ago
I don't live in Boston--about 60 to 90 minutes outside. So, sure, I could pay for a delivery or rent something from Lowe's if I needed to for a specific purpose but I routinely use my mid-size SUV for weekend trips, transporting a
928.
by ghaff 11mo ago
>then relax as I bag them Around where I live (Boston area), there are almost universally baggers. This was something that went away for a bit but, while I will if needed, I almost never bag my own groceries.
929.
by ghaff 11mo ago
With sliding doors and different seat configuration. But, sure, just the same thing. But it's fine that you just don't like larger vehicles.
930.
by ghaff 11mo ago
I was actually surprised when I looked at what the current Siennas get. I have a friend with a, now, quite old Sienna who was really surprised at how high the mileage of my relatively new Honda Passport was. And the current hybrid Sienna is

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