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Comment These People are Anti-Stability (Score 1) 94

"We're in a complex jobs market -- it's not falling apart but the lack of dynamism, the lack of churn and the lack of hiring has been punctuated in the first half of the year," says ADP chief economist Nela Richardson.

They're complaining about stability.

"Many employers are loath to lay off workers until they see the whites of the eyes of a recession, having had such problems finding suitable workers in the first place," David Kelly, chief global strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, wrote in a recent note.

Again, they're complaining about stability.

Remember-- these are people who make money from people buying and selling pieces of companies based on what changes they're able to foresee. If everything's stable, there's no money to be gained from sudden spikes in value or or shorting business failures. They will sometimes WANT mass layoffs because investors are taught that layoffs are simply reduction of expenses while maintaining output (resulting in greater profits).

These are vultures.

Comment Re:What do you expect? (Score 1) 157

1. Make college very expensive

Most public universities aren't that expensive. UCLA, for example, is $15,700 per year. Is that worth it? Well, let's consider what you get-- UCLA runs on the quarter system (10-week terms plus a week for final exams) and your average student takes 4 classes per quarter at 3 hours per week. That's approx. 396 hours of direct education or examination per year, so if you want to break it down to the simplest cost-per-hour for education, it's $40/hour. Of course, there's much more expense that goes into the education that the instructor. There are the buildings and their maintenance, the utilities, the physical infrastructure of the campus (pipes, conduits, roads, walkways, etc.) and its maintenance, the landscaping, and all of the administrative work that goes into managing the extremely variable schedules, goals, and actions of 50,000 people on a single campus.

When you look at the whole picture, the cost of the university is pretty darn defensible.

Where I find the most egregious expense is in the cost of housing near major universities. All around these schools, you'll find a mass of investors (big and small, corporate and mom & pop) who buy up all the housing, turn it into rentals, and crank up the rent at every single opportunity. Food and housing is expected to be around $20,000 for a UCLA undergraduate this coming year-- and "housing" implies a shared bedroom among other shared bedrooms of an apartment or house.

This is why college campuses put so much work into building on-campus housing for their students and why some campuses (like UC Irvine) house the majority of their faculty on campus.

2. Teach very little, build no usable experience

While there's a modicum of truth here, this the opinion of someone who knows nothing about universities. Honestly, a theater major will not have many job prospects after college by comparison to a civil engineering major. But, the arts are worthwhile and one's education at a major university is REQUIRED to be more than their major. History, math, writing, sciences, etc. -- those all take up ~1.5-2.0 years of a college education regardless of major as "breadth" courses or "general ed."

And then there's whole idea of "translatable experience". A person can go to school for a Computer Science degree, not actually like the exploitative patterns of the corporate world, and simply choose not to pursue the use of their degree in their career. Does that mean he's a useless human being? Of course not. There are MANY jobs out there that just require someone with an analytical mind to make/find solutions which those CS skills will directly benefit.

People with philosophy or English backgrounds tend to go into contracts, law, and policy because they're taught the importance of words, logic, meaning, and secondary effects. People with sociology degrees often move toward working with and for people in need. They use their education in more developed ways than simply being taught how to put a round thing in a round hole so that when they graduate they can put round things in round holes very quickly indeed.

I will say, thought, that too few students seek out on-campus jobs during their undergraduate careers. Yes, MANY do, but I think at least 80% of students should hold a campus job for at least 3 months prior to graduation. Mentorship, good wages, resume building, adjustable schedule, etc. It's hard to match that after graduation.

3. Make every graduate believe they're worth six figures out of the gate

I don't know how many undergraduates you speak with daily, but I speak to at least 20. None of them have the expectation of getting a 6-digit salary right after graduation. Most of them are painfully cognizant of the financial future that's been created for them and most are just hoping to be able to make rent.

For those that DO hold out for higher pay, that's their choice and hopefully mom and dad support them in that choice.

I've had significantly better luck hiring people who want to learn on their own, and providing them everything I can to help.

We have had very different experiences. My 20 years of professional life have shown that people with a 4-year degree from a brick-and-mortar school tend to be those people that are able to learn on their own and will only ever ask for help when they're stuck. The ruggedness or grit of the person comes out in their work experience and interview as well.

Comment They Intentionally Removed Ethical Controls (Score 1) 66

To be clear, current systems are generally not eager to cause harm, and preferred ethical ways to achieve their goals when possible. Rather, it’s when we closed off those ethical options that they were willing to intentionally take potentially harmful actions in pursuit of their goals. Our results demonstrate that current safety training does not reliably prevent such agentic misalignment.

Comment Economics Complete Absent from Article (Score 4, Interesting) 240

Mozilla is a 501(c)3 non-profit. It doesn't have a massive revenue source like Google, Microsoft, and Apple in the funding of their browsers. In fact, Mozilla has historically relied on Google for funds. Today, there's a lot less cash being thrown around. There's massive economic uncertainty due to the whims of some governmental executives, a long-slow war in Eastern Europe, and an expanding war in the Middle East. Interest rates are up. Very "up".

One of the few things people with too much money are willing to throw money at is "AI". 5 years ago it was "blockchain" and 5 years before that it was "VR", but today, it's AI. Mozilla NEEDS to look like they're going all in on AI to attract more funds because stupid people with money are told that AI will make everything more efficient, faster, and accessible.

In that time, while funds are being reduced, a non-profit needs to reduce its expenses. It's very likely that Pocket and Fakespot provide too little benefit to too little of a userbase for the expense to maintain the programs. About the two programs--

I used Fakespot to help shop on Amazon. I liked it and I'm sorry to see it go. I also know no one in the real world that knew about it. Amazon actively hated and submitted multiple complaints against Fakespot resulting it it being delisted from the Apple App store at least once. That said, there's a lot of computing power required to analyze and index ALL Amazon products. It seems like a very expensive product to maintain. It makes sense that it's getting cut.

Pocket is just a bookmark/article storage app. The principle is great "bookmark something to read later on any device", but that also means maintaining account infrastructure cloud storage, updating settings, etc. I think the most interesting thing about Pocket is to investigate just how many saved articles were visited later by their users. I'm willing to bet that fewer than 10% of articles saved for later reading were even clicked on ever again. That's not intended to be a dig at Pocket, Mozilla, or the users of Pocket, but more of a commentary of how we hoard things "just in case".

Lastly, let's talk about the sale of user data. Mozilla previously said, "Never" and now is saying, "Only safely". Before you call them traitors to life, consider asking "Why?". Might it be because they're desperately low on funds from prior contributors and need to find SOME sort of revenue to keep operations going? And if they have to sell user data to keep the doors open, isn't it best that they do so in such a way as to not be able to to personally identify any of their users?

It just seems that this article's author is quick to condemn Mozilla for being less righteous today than yesterday while it's trying to stay afloat in a sea of competitors who make no effort or illusion to righteousness. The article is akin to screaming at your child for getting a B+ after having missed 2 weeks of class while in the hospital.

Comment Re:What? (Score 1) 284

Correct. What we had until our latest president was ethical precedence-- an honor code of integrity that was enforced by the social pressures of other politicos. That has gone by the wayside.

In the future, should we get out of this mess, you can expect significantly stronger restrictions of the office of the president.

Comment Re:Emoluments clause? (Score 3, Interesting) 284

Article II, Section 1, Clause 7

The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them.

The strict reading suggests that the president shouldn't receive payments from the federal or state governments outside of his/her paycheck (see CREW v Trump and the self-dealing of Trump properties) and there is no strict prohibition of making money in business while serving as president. It just so happens that prior presidents have chosen (often under pressure) to relinquish control of their enterprises while president to avoid the accusation of partiality.

His actions go against long-standing historical norms and Congress can cite the actions as an undefined "high crime and misdemeanor", but there's no explicit prohibition against what he's doing. No one in the past realistically conceived the likely scenario where a president would do this and thus no law made it through Congress to create an enforceable crime.

Comment Re:Does it matter? (Score 4, Informative) 284

Yep. Trump's big claim to fame is using the due process of the legal system as a delay tactic to allow him/his business to extract value before enforcement actions are applied. He knows that if he'd doing something illegal and someone calls him out, he says, "Sue me," knowing it will be weeks, months, or years before his actions are fully sanctioned.

Comment WOW That is some shark-jumping. (Score 1) 37

FTFA:

Instead of flipping through manuals or accessing Starbucks’ intranet, baristas will be able to use a tablet behind the counter equipped with Green Dot Assist to get answers to a range of questions, from how to make an iced shaken espresso to troubleshooting equipment errors. Baristas can either type or verbally ask their queries in conversational language.

How complex do they think it is to follow an ordered list of drink assembly instructions can be? And if the drink so VERY complex, how long would Starbucks expect to actually offer it?

And why would the new Starbucks unions even consider allowing this since it's likely that it's just one step toward removing humans providing customer service?

Comment Good. The Law, Reason, and Intent are Clear. (Score 4, Insightful) 163

If you NEED to use your smartphone, pull over and use it. Set it to give audible driving directions. Need to change directions on the fly? No you don't. Pull over and use the phone at a safe location.

Impairment, distraction, and unsafe speed for the conditions are the biggest killers on the road. Don't be a killer.

Comment Re:The Reviewers Shouldn't Be Surprised (Score 1) 67

unless you're playing a game which is nothing more than an interactive movie, response time matters

100% correct. Additionally, it matters subjectively to the person experiencing the response time. Most people buying budget cards won't notice the latency increase of going from 70fps on pure raster to 120fps with DLSS/FSR. They're going to be freaking out over how smooth everything is.

Comment Re:The Reviewers Shouldn't Be Surprised (Score 1) 67

What are you talking about dude. The issue is simple - modern games BARELY fit within 8 GB (and sometimes don't even fit into 8 GB) and when you enable the AI-based enhancement features (DLSS, frame generation)

That's exactly what was said about the 8GB cards released LAST generation and people SOMEHOW continue to use 8GB cards to play modern video games. They simply reduce texture quality a little bit. Almost every single game can be played with 8GB of VRAM, you just have to adjust the texture quality and, most importantly, the people who are buying entry-level cards aren't concerned about seeing a couple more polygons in their environmental foliage.

Comment Re:The Reviewers Shouldn't Be Surprised (Score 1) 67

They also can't know what everyones setups are like, so try to isolate performance to the gpu only. Then they put it in a chart with other cards. They're not trying to optimize a game for getting to 70fps. They're showing the cards relative strength.

And that's exactly the problem. They're reviewing what the card can do in extreme circumstances and basing their "buy/don't buy" advice based on that. Those extreme circumstances, though, are in no way demonstrative of how the card will be used and thus should not be used as the basis for advice.

If you tested multiple commuter vehicles on a race track and critiqued them based on their ability to handle turns at 70mph, you would be providing zero benefit to those in the market for a commuter vehicle. And if you required that all of the hybrid commuter vehicles' electric motors be turned off for the test and then panned them all for crap performance, you could damn well expect the manufacturers to not invite you to review their cars in the future.
 

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