WBrentWilliams

5 ms·

1.
by WBrentWilliams 4mo ago
I don't know... I read the article, and what I really saw was a simpler argument: The buy vs build decision had drifted so far to capture by vendor, where the vendor charged to gather the already in-existence in-house knowledge, that i
2.
by WBrentWilliams 5mo ago
Interesting idea. I cannot say that I can answer affirmatively nor negatively. There are also human elements to be considered. Humans are status-seeking social creatures. There will always be a stain of humanoid-delivered care, no matter ho
3.
by WBrentWilliams 5mo ago
The quickest way to rile up an existing mob is to make them fear their livelihood is being reduced or removed. The _robot_ is not taking away healthcare, but the effect of the robot existing hit directly at the livelihood of the masses. In
4.
by WBrentWilliams 5mo ago
Quick Wikipedia search: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zizians Like any group of humans, there are power structures and edge cases that can lead to horrific outcomes. Giving the person that posted the warning the benefi
5.
by WBrentWilliams 6mo ago
Ehh... US-centric. Better to use significance order: Country, then postal (most countries have postal), then region, city, and street address. Best, however, is to _not_ separate the address into fields. Instead, allow a free text field for
6.
by WBrentWilliams 11mo ago
I'm old. My boss (and mentor) from 25 years ago told me to think of the problems I was solving with a 3-step path: 1. Get a solution working 2. Make the solution correct 3. Make the solution efficient Most importantly, he emphasizes th
7.
by WBrentWilliams 1y ago
As noted above, I was working out of an academic lab developing new equipment. We had current-level commercial equipment at the time to use in comparisons. I matched data to the data dictionary, recovered backups, scripted backups, sent ale
8.
by WBrentWilliams 1y ago
I'll admit, my perspective is now 16, almost 17 years out-of-date, but my read of this article is that nothing much has advanced beyond what I was doing in the field back then. My job? Data plumber and analyst, same as now. I scripted
9.
by WBrentWilliams 1y ago
Writ-large, isn't what the article is referring to the plot of 生きる(Ikiru, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikiru )? My suspicion is that the solution to lack of ability for government to enable building in the US will
10.
by WBrentWilliams 1y ago
For my sins, I work in Education supporting PeopleSoft. That means that I do work in COBOL on occasion. I am not tasked with writing anything new in COBOL, but I so quite a bit of analysis and support. That is: I _read_ COBOL more than I wr
11.
by WBrentWilliams 2y ago
Humble brag: This brought back shades of 20 years ago to me. I went back to school to add a credential after my name to make myself employable. My experience running the back office for a long-distance reseller (FoxPro 2.6 database: applica
12.
by WBrentWilliams 2y ago
I'm not certain is if this is because I live in a city with a well-known law school, or if Lawrence Lessig dropped the idea into my thoughts first. The idea: The first duty of any court of law is to defend its own existence. My thesis
13.
by WBrentWilliams 2y ago
The argument you and the other poster are having has been useful to me. Thank you. For context, my family and I just returned from a lap around Lake Huron. I invite you and yours to take a similar trip in the US, just to see the differences
14.
by WBrentWilliams 2y ago
The machine from 30+ years ago that I regularly took apart and put back together had about 35 user-cleanable parts for the milkshake side and 12 for the ice cream side. The worst part of the ordeal was removing the rubber o-rings They went
15.
by WBrentWilliams 2y ago
A jaundiced, if not cataract-hazed view: This thing we call The Internet has always been "funny smelling" if not a bit crap. Dead? Not really. Just more and more obvious about the nature of the creation. It is the ultimate duality
16.
by WBrentWilliams 2y ago
Try the classic from 1976 to get an idea of what thinking on this was at the time funding for sleep science started: Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep (Dement, 1976, 1978): https://archive.org/details/somemustwatchw
17.
by WBrentWilliams 2y ago
My sympathies and commiseration. I am on a different infused medication and survived a couple of years of CVS Caremark acting as a Pharmacy Benefits Manager for "specialty drugs" before my insurance and the hospital system I work
18.
by WBrentWilliams 3y ago
Here are three reasons: 1. Rhetorical. They _want_ to be _married_. 2. In many places in the world, a "domestic partnership" is not recognized by everyone and requires quite a bit more legal paperwork (and associated fees) than a
19.
by WBrentWilliams 3y ago
I've seen more than a few of these kerfuffle happen now. Other commenters have mentioned other times in other directions that the voting has come out weird. All I can say is that while yes, these awards do matter, they don't have
20.
by WBrentWilliams 3y ago
Just a thought, based on a loose synthesis: I think the book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson offers a lens to look at why "anarchism" is betrayed. There is something about being human that creates hierarc
21.
by WBrentWilliams 3y ago
I offer a reflection on your idea of a strange irony: This is a question of attention and money flow. Molly White claimed ownership of Molly's work and took on providing the infrastructure to self-host. This means that _Molly_ does not
22.
by WBrentWilliams 3y ago
I remain cautiously optimistic. However, Windows will still be Windows. Have a throw-back to 1997: https://www.josephpalmer.com/view/box.shtml It is still dark inside that box. And the big boxes that count? Still loc
23.
by WBrentWilliams 3y ago
Your explanation of a bidirectional translation layer analogs a lot to where I am in my study of Japanese. Three years in, there are quite a lot of kanji where I see it and think the English word; the Japanese pronunciation takes a noticeab
24.
by WBrentWilliams 3y ago
As I said, the idea I posited _is_ impractical. It works fine if your band is playing small clubs and the like, but it admittedly falls apart at scale. I see plenty of technical solutions being proposed. They might even work. Except each on
25.
by WBrentWilliams 3y ago
Impractical, perhaps, but sale-to-person on day of show is the only way I see that can prevent scalping. That is, you can by as many tickets as you want in person, but you must present a body for each ticket purchased. Of course, this appro
26.
by WBrentWilliams 3y ago
I had to re-check what I said. I said alternatives to markets that create externalities. These are, in fact, markets. They just don't dump costs off the books. That said, I agree. No "socialist" economic system has been able
27.
by WBrentWilliams 3y ago
I find socialism amusing. It is best, I think, to consider socialism as a critique of capitalism. My working thesis is that capitalism is unavoidable. Markets do not solve every problem, but they solve many. The fact that socialism creates
28.
by WBrentWilliams 3y ago
A few confounding factors. Cross-checking and citation left and an exercise to the reader: Immigrants that get through the (metaphorical and literal) gauntlets to get into the US skew longevity via a Darwinian reading. Staying to any tradit
29.
by WBrentWilliams 3y ago
In the US, race is shorthand for class. In the US, class is not supposed to be noticed. Race is difficult (and insulting) to ignore. See also: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520261303/being-black-livin...
30.
by WBrentWilliams 4y ago
I've said this before: read the small print. The SAT (or similar) is no longer required to become admitted to Good School(tm). The donor class that subsidizes those without other means to attend the Good School(tm) have been explicit i

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