pclowes

5 ms·

61.
by pclowes 4mo ago
They are already doing it. They just have a useless degree and if they went onto college, another worthless degree and likely a bunch of debt in order to do it. Whether or not our programs are rigorous, does not change the reality on the gr
62.
by pclowes 4mo ago
I am not saying it is simple. And yes technically the lenders are separate but the incentives align them so the effect is the same as if they weren’t. As examples: - loans are given equally for an English major and an electrical engineer. N
63.
by pclowes 4mo ago
High Schools don’t support teachers who are confronted by angry parents who are mad that you are ruining their kids chance at an Ivy by giving them a B- in HS algebra (meanwhile the ivies remedial math classes are packed more than ever)
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by pclowes 4mo ago
This is a big component of why we have objective grade level standards. They are a strong but imperfect defense against racism at the teacher level. If I am the teacher and I fail your kid but your kid crushes the blind rigorous and as obje
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by pclowes 4mo ago
Publicly funded colleges should not be able to loan 6 figures to people who don’t understand interest rates. I am happy to vote to take their funding away if they want to continue doing that.
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by pclowes 4mo ago
In short yes. Top 10% is not genius level. You see the outcome of this all the time at the PhD level. Even top 2% often just does not cut it when trying to do novel research. So many PhD’s get stuck in the post-doc adjunct cycle with never
67.
by pclowes 4mo ago
No, the people giving degrees that say a person can do basic math when the person can’t do math should not be able to give out degrees anymore. Similarly, the person with the credential that says they can do basic math that cannot do basic
68.
by pclowes 4mo ago
Yes. You can’t put equity before excellence or you erode both. Passing students to avoid “disparate impact” to me is highly ignorant and often deeply racist.
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by pclowes 4mo ago
Additionally any college grad that: 1. Takes out six figures of loans for a degree in a field with no hope of commensurate income 2. Pays minimum payments below interest 3. Whines on social media that after X years of not even covering the
70.
by pclowes 4mo ago
That’s my point. It is only so expensive because it is a gate to earning money. The concept that everybody should go to college and the Federal Pell grants and funding to that effect is what causes college to be expensive. So now we pay twi
71.
by pclowes 4mo ago
We really need to make high school diplomas mean something again. However, this means something like a 35% fail rate. Unfortunately, the populace would not accept that and so every credential gets inflated to worthlessness. 90%+ of all peop
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by pclowes 4mo ago
I think 13th grade is a stretch. It seems more like they are charging mid six figures to teach grades 6 through 10.
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by pclowes 5mo ago
Yes, but with an LLM can also say drop those links into a markdown file then use research agents to identify and stack rank the ones that are most relevant to this criteria. Add summaries and rationale for the ranking to the markdown etc. T
74.
by pclowes 5mo ago
I find it extremely useful. So much so that I am annoyed when I have to use it in a handicapped fashion such as on the phone. It makes me wonder why like 90% of the apps on my phone exist. I just want everything to be markdown files, skills
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by pclowes 5mo ago
I ask them for sources. It’s just a more efficient vector based search for most of my google search replacement use cases.
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by pclowes 5mo ago
Doesn’t classic search literally already do everything you fear LLM’s will?
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by pclowes 5mo ago
My thought here is that there are many. They have proven to be commodities in most use cases. As soon as one gets annoying, expensive, advertiser heavy etc. you just rip it out and replace it with the other one. AFAICT there is zero lock-in
78.
by pclowes 5mo ago
I understand why they are doing this. My Google search usage is easily down 50%+. I doubt I am unique here. While there are times where I want pure search (Kagi, Old Google) I mostly use LLMs to search now and have them provide me links for
79.
by pclowes 5mo ago
I am not saying that there isn’t inequality. I am also not saying that infinite inequality is good. I am saying it would be better to be poor now than poor in 1980 even though the inequality is higher now. I am saying that inequality by its
80.
by pclowes 5mo ago
Then why are global living standards rising rapidly? I also don’t think inequality is intrinsically bad. Depending on type and timeframe it may even be good. Especially if the inequality is increasing while everyone is also doing better tha
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by pclowes 5mo ago
Almost every global graph tells the opposite story. There are far fewer people in poverty. There are much better average outcomes on basically every metric you can imagine. Almost all directly attributed to global commerce
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by pclowes 5mo ago
RAM prices experiencing a spike due to a demand shock is not shrinkflation. Its a single COGS line item not a broad increase across all line items. Note: some single item shocks can lead to broad inflation (eg: oil) but that effect takes aw
83.
by pclowes 5mo ago
Good point, my understanding of a cubic function in 02 was totally stunted by the processor speed…
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by pclowes 5mo ago
IIRC You don’t use them in the dumb kids class much, you use them a fair amount in the sort of smart class, and you don’t use them much in the actually smart class.
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by pclowes 5mo ago
75” 4k OLED screens would have been unobtainable when I first used a TI. 10yrs ago they would have been 4 to 5 figures. Now they are what? A couple hundred? How in the world is a TI graphing calculator still $160? These 30yr old calculator
86.
by pclowes 6mo ago
The Prohibition was actually very effective and reasonable. Especially considering the rampant alcoholism of the time. Also, Singapore seems to have conclusively won the war on drugs. I would not mind those policies in San Francisco.
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by pclowes 6mo ago
Agree, I felt initial discomfort reading it because it goes against the grain of the simplistic technical style that is most of hacker news. Surprised it got to the front page.
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by pclowes 6mo ago
Interesting article. Assumes a fair amount of background knowledge of the reader that may not be reasonable and definitely has a unique style. It is interesting that many of the comments critique it for being meandering, lacking in utility.
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by pclowes 6mo ago
I don’t necessarily disagree with you here. However, there is a timing concern. Training doctors takes too long and the boomers are aging now.
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by pclowes 6mo ago
The economics of medical school cost, time, and capped residency spots (some would argue this is price-fixing with artificial scarcity) make it hard to just “make more doctors”. Combine this with a highly litigious society that always deman

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