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didgetmaster

1,919 karmajoined 4 года назад
www.Didgets.com [email protected] Didgets.substack.com [email protected]

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didgetmaster
·6 дней назад·discuss
OP is probably referring to many engineering managers who think it is irrational to spend an hour in order to speed up a computing task that only shaves a few milliseconds off.

Even when that software is widely used so the few milliseconds add up to thousands of hours in collective time savings. 'We don't pay for user's time, only your's', is the attitude. Again 'irrational'.
didgetmaster
·8 дней назад·discuss
The vast majority of the homeless in the US, are homeless by choice. They are addicted to drugs and/or refuse to get a job.

You don't have to be able to afford to buy a nice house in order to escape living on the streets.

You might think that my story is tired, but literally millions of people in this country have done the same thing. Telling people who are struggling that they can't improve, certainly doesn't help.
didgetmaster
·8 дней назад·discuss
I think we have all written some code that looks bulletproof to us. We run a set of tests with all the inputs we can think of, and it passes with flying colors (after several iterations of course).

Then we give it to someone else and it fails on their first or second attempt. They simply tried to use it in a way that we did not anticipate. It doesn't mean that we are dumb for not thinking of those possibilities; it just means that we did not think of every one of them.
didgetmaster
·10 дней назад·discuss
Those numbers for 2026 may be right, but they absolutely do not mean that anyone who finds themselves in one of those categories must stay there.

While there are many people who are currently in the bottom 50% and will probably stay there; no one is a slave who has to stay there.

My original post (which is somehow unpopular on HN) points this out. I spent my first 30 years in that group and worked my way out of it.
didgetmaster
·10 дней назад·discuss
Every discussion about the 'top 10%' seems to make the underlying assumption that the set of people who fall under that category are consistent. While there are certainly individuals who enter the top 10% (or top 1%) and stay there; there are large numbers of people who move in and out of those categories.

For me personally, I am in the top 10%; but a few decades ago, I was not.
didgetmaster
·12 дней назад·discuss
>..War of the Worlds, where Earth is invaded by benevolent Martians.

I don't think I have heard the word benevolent used in that context before.
didgetmaster
·25 дней назад·discuss
You equate 'consciousness' with the brain's ability to store long term memories. I'm not sure if that definition fits.

Has anyone been able to determine at what age the brain gains this ability? I have a few vague memories from my early childhood, but I can't remember just how old I was when I experienced them.
didgetmaster
·26 дней назад·discuss
Every company, from the small business to mega-corps, needs to extract more value from their employees than the produce; otherwise it will likely go bankrupt.

Even within successful companies, it is a challenging task to figure out just how much value each employee produces. Some positions are required, but do not produce revenue. Sometimes whole departments are a sunk cost.

It is up to each employee at review time, to argue that the value they produce is far greater than their salary; in order to negotiate a raise. No one is automatically entitled to anything extra, just because the company had a good year.
didgetmaster
·27 дней назад·discuss
Your post implies that every employee of a successful company is entitled to a share of whatever wealth that company generates.

As a career programmer, I worked for several companies. Each time I took a job, I negotiated what I thought was a fair salary for my wages. Some companies also gave me stock options and one gave me founder's stock. When a company had a good year, they often gave generous bonuses.

Only when I took great personal risk, did I expect to share the rewards that come with a successful company. I was always grateful when I got more than I agreed to work for, but I never felt entitled to it.

A janitor working for a 10x company should not feel entitled to 10x of the salary as another janitor working down the street for another company that is struggling.
didgetmaster
·27 дней назад·discuss
Just because only 1 in 500 makes it to a billion, does not mean the other 499 are failures. Plenty of startup founders turn a few million into much more.

If someone has an idea that 'only' makes them 20 million, I would call that a great success; even if it takes dozens of years to get there.
didgetmaster
·29 дней назад·discuss
We all learned this back in first grade. The kids that behaved in class and did their homework did not command most of the teacher's time and effort. It was the problem children who refused to follow the rules and needed constant praise for every bit of actual effort that they put into their studies; that got the teacher's attention.
didgetmaster
·в прошлом месяце·discuss
[flagged]
didgetmaster
·в прошлом месяце·discuss
>Hopefully they were wrong.

Over a thousand years of history has shown that they were right.
didgetmaster
·в прошлом месяце·discuss
Just like with politics, you see large numbers of people dividing up into two different camps. Pretty soon every statement that raises a legitimate concern about AI will be seen as 'hating AI' and every observation about how AI helped in a particular situation will be seen as coming from an 'AI fanboy'.
didgetmaster
·в прошлом месяце·discuss
On the graph, you can clearly see the seasonal demand for power during the summer months as air conditioning kicks in. The electricity production for gas mimics this as well each year. But the solar output does not seem to have a spike each summer. Why is that? You would think that solar output would be significantly higher when the summer months are here.
didgetmaster
·2 месяца назад·discuss
GPUs have been in high demand since cryptocurrency became a thing? Are you saying that something built for AI can't be used for other workloads?
didgetmaster
·2 месяца назад·discuss
Just because a data center is way outside your neighborhood; doesn't mean it can't have a direct impact on you personally. Electrical and water resources used can affect your utility bills.

But there is also some hype about just how much it will affect you, that is not necessarily true.
didgetmaster
·2 месяца назад·discuss
What makes a data center an 'AI data center' vs other kinds? I am sure that certain workloads are better suited for a particular server rack vs another; but can't a data center built for other computing needs also do AI and vice-versa?
didgetmaster
·2 месяца назад·discuss
I remember playing Digger on my IBM PC clone sold by AT&T (6300) back in 1987 or 1988.

I also remember that the game speed was set to some factor of the computer's clock speed. When I later tried to run the same game after I upgraded my hardware, the game went so fast, you could not even play it.
didgetmaster
·2 месяца назад·discuss
There are apparently 20+ million of them who entered the U.S. illegally, along with millions more who think it is a crime to deport them (even the criminals).