ptero

76 ms·

811.
by ptero 6y ago
This agrees with what I see, but megacorps and in general many large organizations are often slow to move both in and out. They can take years to stop building up experience in areas that changed from being a new promising technology to mat
812.
by ptero 6y ago
> therefore the retailer is incentivised not to sell junk in the first place. Most retailers seldom care, as they have agreements and well established paths to dump the cost of returns onto the manufacturer.
813.
by ptero 6y ago
This is a different case -- usually in this, it not that the retailer would not accept the item back; it is the manufacturer trying to prevent you from asking the store to take it back, as the store would then charge the expenses to the man
814.
by ptero 6y ago
> I don't think that whether real students are interested in a topic is related to how well that choice of study does for them in the real world I think while the correlation may be weaker than what some claim, it is still there. To
815.
by ptero 6y ago
First, the article makes a claim about PDFs problems for the web, when read online, which is a lot less clickbait-y than "unfit for human consumption". On the technical claims: while I agree that PDFs are not ideal for many uses o
816.
by ptero 6y ago
It's not quite that drastic. Anywhere I lived I had at least two, often three options. But switching, especially if you have physical wiring and figured it out and working the way you want, is a hassle, so I would not do it lightly. My
817.
by ptero 6y ago
It is your business, but I personally would not do this. When wearing a business hat you need to respond to rudeness with polite firmness. "fix it!" -- "please give more details" or "sorry, this feature is not a nea
818.
by ptero 6y ago
I heard of tailoring findings to the preferences of the grant giver (advocate a wrong view and kiss your grant good-bye). This is very worrisome as a lot of experimental science labs are so grant dependent. I actually think this is partly a
819.
by ptero 6y ago
This is a very interesting point, thank you! I wonder though if another issue is at play: in the past both well-informed and random folks would mostly have "swayable" opinions (mostly certain, but leave room for a doubt; thus open
820.
by ptero 6y ago
> It’s sad that it’s come to this point but the end result may be better for everyone. You make a lot of good points, but I am afraid that when such organizations start caring the cure will be worse than the disease. Some of this alread
821.
by ptero 6y ago
The article seemed underwhelming to me. TLDR: college doesn't guarantee future happiness (uhm, what does guarantee it?) some kids would be happier just going to work. That's fair, but while some kids would thrive going to work a
822.
by ptero 6y ago
I think HN works pretty well. Yes, some wrong material may get upvoted to the top of HN, but then it usually gets corrected quickly. In fact, the correction is staying on top of HN longer than original and the comments correcting the erro
823.
by ptero 6y ago
There is no perfect solution, but requiring access to both the data and full methodology for experimental sciences should help. Even problem sof cherry picked data would be partially exposed eventually; and eventual exposure is still a very
824.
by ptero 6y ago
> Pretty soon the countries we outsourced to will come up with better designs too. Which, to me, would be a very good thing, so I wish them the best of luck. Many large companies that exist because of an earlier lead (established decades
825.
by ptero 6y ago
> The real issue here is the fact that the USPS is overloaded and requires extra government attention. I agree with this, and this attention needs to come in more ways than extra $$. As others said, USPS is stuck in a weird state: need t
826.
by ptero 6y ago
> I feel strongly that the aggressive conformists are gaining ground on several levels of society. ... the fact that sensible people are speaking out about it now is encouraging. It is, but I am afraid sensible people speaking out may be
827.
by ptero 6y ago
The legitimate concerns and justified anger tend to be characterized by long-term (multiple years), consistent pressure. People exerting it can listen to opposing views (without angry screams) and justify their own. What we see today are an
828.
by ptero 6y ago
Your "just count the cancelled" does not work. I have lived in the East Europe pre-Perestroyka and back then, it was "just count political prisoners; see how few there are!". And it was true -- there were not that many
829.
by ptero 6y ago
It seems like a good model, but probably because it helps you see things from a new angle. That is, the benefit is not focusing on (not (not A)) instead of A -- with the right choice of A you can flip those, but rather when everyone is thin
830.
by ptero 6y ago
I really liked the article which raises many valid points. You should not start a company without thinking those through. And have a cofounder who sees those in a similar fashion. On a flip side working for a large company has different cha
831.
by ptero 6y ago
My opinion is certainly skewed by my personal experience, so take it with a grain of salt. That said, engineers are a highly opinionated bunch and a group of 5 will have 5 different personal preferences. But they are smart and will quickly
832.
by ptero 6y ago
Some ideas that look poorly thought out are in fact pretty good, just different from what we would do ourselves. In my experience it is a key skill to objectively evaluate ideas that are different from my preferences and accept those that a
833.
by ptero 6y ago
In many cases in tech knowing something is underpriced is only possible after underpricing is gone.
834.
by ptero 6y ago
> But that's the very definition of insurance: spread the risk over the entire pool. But the devil is in the details, specifically in the definition of the "pool". To keep it fair (and subscription voluntary) generally req
835.
by ptero 6y ago
Just to clarify -- even in the US I think the proportion of cases that do go to lawyers is pretty small. But those that do can have a major financial impact. For example, over the last 20 years I saw maybe 10 car-related accidents in the ex
836.
by ptero 6y ago
Apology can go a long way, but in my experience (USA) all the successful ones that I have seen were done from a position of strength. That is, the person apologizing felt that after apology his opinions would still be respected and listened
837.
by ptero 6y ago
I think the reasoning behind advice for accidents (in the US) is completely separate because after the accident, there are big implications of who is at fault. As the lawyers and insurance on both sides would often battle on technicalities
838.
by ptero 6y ago
Can you give examples? I see absolutely no indications that many countries are doing a good job containing the virus. Many are delaying its spread, but they are nowhere near containment; in fact when those countries that supposedly got th
839.
by ptero 6y ago
> I’m not thinking I’ll die if i catch it but if i do catch it, how many people will i pass it on to, and how many will they infect. How many deaths would be attributable to me catching it? It’s pretty heavy when you think about it. That
840.
by ptero 6y ago
> If this virus ends up infecting 60% of the population, as it will if people carry on their pre-pandemic lives, we’ll end up with something on the order of 2–4 million deaths in the USA, and the aggregate healthcare costs over the next

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