rmk

35 ms·

301.
by rmk 5y ago
In 1822, there were no antibiotics. In 1922, people had them or were well on their way to having them be easily available. In 2022, we are looking at what may be the beginning of the end of the antibiotic era. Will mRNA replace the antibiot
302.
by rmk 5y ago
Well, the author does say that he's not making wild predictions, but only extrapolating trends that are already in motion and well-known to him and his 1922 audience.
303.
by rmk 5y ago
I doubt if your manager really had to miss the meeting to put out a fire. It feels like things were set up so that your skip-level manager could upbraid you about your work. One possibility that does explain it satisfactorily is that your m
304.
by rmk 5y ago
This was the way most software was built. In the past decade, there has been a heavy reliance on code reviews, perhaps because of the rise of dynamic languages where it helps to have test coverage and eyeballs on the code to get close to th
305.
by rmk 5y ago
I log into LinkedIn a few times a week. The posts are a parade of fakery and insincerity. Compared to that, HN has much better discourse, because the focus is on your ideas, not on you personally. There is no careerist agenda at work on HN.
306.
by rmk 5y ago
An interesting tidbit I learned about Kipling a few days ago. Kipling was born in India, and was raised by Indian servants in the household. As a result, he could speak the native language. Leaving India at age 6, he returned when he was 17
307.
by rmk 5y ago
There is one crucial difference. CA is a decade ahead of the rest of the United States in terms of both the lifestyle it offers and social problems it grapples with. In lifestyle, California is simply unmatched in the United States. It offe
308.
by rmk 5y ago
The article is by an immigrant worker in tech. It is exceedingly unlikely he votes in any sort of election, and is almost certainly not the kind to elect Chesa Boudin.
309.
by rmk 5y ago
The core of the problem is housing. The passage of recent bills that grant homeowners the right to subdivide their lots and potentially put 4 houses without objections from their neighbors is a good step. But it's too little, too late.
310.
by rmk 5y ago
> Yet in some of the world’s poorest nations, getting online can cost a staggering 20 per cent or more of per capita GNI. This statistic jumps out at me. Assuming that GNI per capita approximately equals average income, it may be the cas
311.
by rmk 5y ago
It's a pretty good book, and I very much enjoyed reading it. This and the other book by Jared Diamond (Guns, Germs and Steel) together account for a lot of the current state of world affairs.
312.
by rmk 5y ago
The Coral Island, by R M Ballantyne It was written a long time ago, and I read an abridged version as a kid. I got a copy to give away as a present, but got the unabridged version, which is not suitable for children. I decided to read it my
313.
by rmk 5y ago
Board members get equity compensation that can equal that of a pretty good high-level engineer, oftentimes way more. But they are responsible for the financial performance of the company and are also legally responsible for the company. The
314.
by rmk 5y ago
Well, one of the problems is the pronounced tilt toward family migration, which occurs at the expense of highly skilled migrants. There are no political points to be won by encouraging legal, high-skilled immigrants, so they are treated lik
315.
by rmk 5y ago
It is always embarrassing, even for a young child, to be asking for what he feels to be handouts. But, in your personal experience, was there enough assistance, and did it make a meaningful difference at the right time in your life? Was bei
316.
by rmk 5y ago
In what specific way is an imported poor person better than a local poor person? There are plenty of generationally poor people in America already, so how does America benefit vs. by helping the poor that are already here to a higher extent
317.
by rmk 5y ago
The Statue of Liberty does not dictate complex public policy. America provides more (no strings-attached) aid to poor countries than any other country, and it also takes in more immigrants than perhaps the rest of the world combined (almost
318.
by rmk 5y ago
I am curious: if you collect cans for a living, do you qualify for government assistance? Is it possible that Jessica Yauri receives aid earmarked for children so they can get proper nutrition, via her parents? She does not mention if she q
319.
by rmk 5y ago
As far as I can tell, Suarez is a joke. The county wields all the power, and the city itself is utterly reliant on the county. Furthermore, Miami, like a lot of Florida, is mostly driven by real estate and money laundering of illicit money,
320.
by rmk 5y ago
That's pedantic, and useless accuracy. Excess deaths stem primarily from the pandemic. It would be even more accurate to say that "The obfuscation of the true nature of what was a deadly pandemic by a corrupt totalitarian state ki
321.
by rmk 5y ago
Excess mortality is a rough proxy of death from COVID. In the bear attack example, the proximal cause of death is the Bear attack, and diabetes is a comorbidity. The death of the diabetic arose out of complications stemming from the bear at
322.
by rmk 5y ago
Unless there are more pandemics and wars that intervene. This pandemic has killed an estimated 10-12 million people, according to the Economist. I think we are perhaps 80% of the way to an endemic with successive mutations becoming less and
323.
by rmk 5y ago
Thank you for whoever wrote this, and whoever posted this. This is what makes HN special. Just spent a wonderful hour listening to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Alfred Brendel in the Winterreise: https://www.youtube.com/watch
324.
by rmk 5y ago
It depends on where you live. If you are in a place where this is true, then enjoy the bounty and count your blessings.
325.
by rmk 5y ago
In the Bay Area, what you have said in the second sentence is thankfully not the case at all. A few varieties that I have tasted in the Bay Area (most of them quite regularly): 1. Red Delicious 2. Gala 3. Fuji 4. Pippin 5. Macintosh 6. Gran
326.
by rmk 5y ago
Technical leadership is almost nonexistent, and frankly, not required, in most of the CRUD shops that are out to "disrupt" the industry du jour. If all you are doing is slapping together a website with a backend that serves up the
327.
by rmk 5y ago
This hits the nail on the head. Most younger devs do not even have a clue of how senior devs are to be evaluated. This is why there is such a huge reliance on Leetcode-style interviews: it's much easier to evaluate someone on that basi
328.
by rmk 5y ago
+1 to this. It no longer makes sense to stay longer than three years at a company as an individual software engineer. With the move to the cloud and the compressed dev cycles that come with it, the pace of technology adoption and obsolescen
329.
by rmk 5y ago
Is this true?
330.
by rmk 5y ago
Writing individual programs is often quite simple, but developing software products is often not. It's a combination of taste, hard-won experience, a feel for the organizational dynamics at play, and of course, raw programming ability.

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