Tech Nightmares: Ghostline the flux

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Tech Nightmares: Ghostline the flux

How many quarters after Q1 2016 till Marissa Mayer is unemployed?
	1 or fewer
	2
	4
	Her job is guaranteed; what are you even talking about?

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

Yeah the idea with VC seems to be that you're buying lottery tickets and if you lose or barely break even on 19 out of 20, it's fine because that twentieth one was Facebook.

e: Was VC involved with the rise of Google, Twitter, Facebook etc. at all?

# ¿ Feb 8, 2016 22:25

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 07:42

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

I had to use cabs for a few months to handle a short daily commute when I had busted-up legs. It was kind of costly but by the time I'd have gotten my handicap shuttle ticket from the city bus system I'd have been healed up anyway. I found them to be pleasant and prompt and the fellow even usually helped me out with my wheelchair or other appurtenance at the time. I am also large and hideous, though not a minority.

Are cabs particularly well regulated in Houston, somehow?

Anyway I wonder if the reason why these people are so hot for some kind of autonomous corporation car a la this:

is because they think it will be the perfect and eternal dodge for those pesky "labor" laws

# ¿ Sep 15, 2016 09:05

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Peztopiary posted:

DE people/Peter Thiel are legit afraid that the AI that creates the Singularity might be Communist.

I have to ask: Is this for real? Do you have a source?

# ¿ Sep 15, 2016 09:45

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Peztopiary posted:

Comrade, you must change your math because it seems to be reaching oppressive conclusions. Remember, Comrade, you are building a Friendly AI of Social Justice. It must be friendly to the people. -- Some Jagoff

(Dude is opposed to 'political meddling in algorithms' which is just impressively dumb.)

Obviously I can't prove Thiel is opposed to Friend Computer but his contributions to MIRI weren't done out of altruism.

Oh I love how they just gotta bring up the French Revolution there at the end. (Naturally, the American Revolution was acceptable, it was only the French Revolution's upsetting of monarchs that was a problem.) Never mind, of course, that the rise of the warfare they describe probably had more to do with the efficiency of various weapons - in other words, a... technology.

Nope. Gotta make that subtle play for monarchism. Does the AI get to be King, or what.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2016 11:23

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KittyEmpress posted:

Would I like Uber to obey the law and get cracked down on? Sure. But I'd also like to be able to sit in a cab without getting out and smelling like I smoked a pack before work, for the whole night. I sure wish there was some middle ground between 'disgusting but better treated cabs' and 'wonderful but terribly treated Ubers'.

Well if Uber manages to pull off its hat trick you'll get entirely automated cars which will probably manage to combine the worst of both worlds, BUT would definitely make Uber a great deal of money. It's also possible they might convince your city to get rid of that bus entirely.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2016 11:38

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Dr. Fishopolis posted:

I don't understand why people keep pumping money into "disruptors" who have a tiny, tiny chance of actually winning the fight against things like zoning laws and the FDA when there's billions of dollars floating around in completely unregulated markets. If I were a morally unhinged megabazillionaire i would just corner the supplement market or run a fine art scam. There's a hundred billion between those two markets alone, and literally nobody at the wheel of either.

Nothing else is offering a dramatic growth upside (even if that upside is very, very unlikely). Also, investors are fools, just rich fools

# ¿ Sep 16, 2016 02:12

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Platonicsolid posted:

It's a problem of which the tech sector is just one manifestation. The entire economy has been wrought into and engine to move wealth upwards, and now those at the top have so much money sloshing around that they're looking for anywhere to invest it. I mean what else are they going to do with it - improve living standards? Pay livable wages? Pshaw.

How did people rip off aristocrats in ancient times? That would seem to be the real growth sector. Then again, that's probably what's going on here.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2016 07:01

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OwlFancier posted:

I wonder if we could have some sort of state subsidized transportation service which could tax the wealthy and then spend their money to provide a good service to both employees and passengers.

That sounds democratic, man. The new hotness is in aristocracy, don't you know?

# ¿ Sep 19, 2016 00:13

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hobbesmaster posted:

The contracts for most developers actually precludes them from having a meaningful portfolio.

If they had a passion for programming, wouldn't they do a huge amount of free work that would also fill out that portfolio? Hm?

# ¿ Sep 21, 2016 23:14

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hobbesmaster posted:

That would be the property of the company they currently work for and a violation of their terms of employment to share that with another company.

I mean in their free time. Or do most of these companies say that even your "side hustle" (gag, choke) belongs to them?

# ¿ Sep 21, 2016 23:19

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ToxicSlurpee posted:

The requirements on even entry-level people are just absolutely onerous sometimes. Some of the interviews I had felt like they wanted somebody they could just slot into the team on day 1 and not even have to show them around the code base. It's like hey guys, I just graduated college and I am not an expert with deep knowledge of dozens of technologies. My fundamentals are strong but I'm going to ask stupid beginner questions because I'm a beginner.

It seems like just about every job wants you to have five years of experience, including in software that came out last year, but to also be excited at the prospect of working at entry-level wages.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2016 23:21

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Baby Babbeh posted:

Everywhere I've ever worked lets you exempt your personal projects from your work-for-hire clause. But it's also often true that your main job keeps you too busy to really hustle much on your side hustle, so it isn't the best example of your actual abilities when you're doing something as your job rather than dicking around with it in the evening every once in a while when you're not too tired.

Sounds like they need to be more energetic and care more about their field or else they're deadweight slackers.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2016 23:34

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ocrumsprug posted:

Would you really go through the effort write a novel if your employer has a (likely unenforceable) claim on it?

Novel-writing? Sounds like you aren't really focused on the team, Jim, if you have enough energy left to do something like that.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2016 00:01

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Baby Babbeh posted:

I think the industry is finally starting to realize this. I read not long ago that even Google is trying to make the "tell me about a time you did this" this question the basis for most of their interviewing rather than "do this thing on the spot" because all their data analysis about recruiting found it was the only class of question that was really predictive of anything. Also that most interviewers are no better than chance at spotting a good candidate unless they were hiring for something really narrowly focused in an area where they were one of the world's foremost experts.

Nonsense, all those interviewers created jobs in the resume management and preparation industries, you know, the ones which involve the bullshit that you have to deal with to get a job you're decent at! (Or, more accurately, one which pays well and which you aren't awful at, even if you hate it.)

# ¿ Sep 22, 2016 00:56

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blah_blah posted:

Some sort of auction for visas (w.r.t employee compensation, not visa cost), or a significantly higher pay floor, would go a long ways towards making the system more efficient.

Pretty sure "a low pay floor" is the definition of efficiency in this system

# ¿ Sep 22, 2016 05:53

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Business Octopus posted:

Quick and easy example is the Rapa nui of Easter island who managed to clear cut their entire island so that they could create more stupid statues. With no trees things started going pretty bad for them in terms of their food supply.

I've read that the current theory on why the Easter Island society collapsed wasn't actually "har har, consumerist society parable" but "rats loving up the ecology when the original islanders showed up, and then Europeans giving them a bunch of diseases and taking slaves later." The rats bit being around 1200, the Europeans, well, you know when that was.

http://www.livescience.com/616-view-easter-island-disaster-wrong-researchers.html

quote:

At a scientific meeting last year, Hunt presented evidence that the island's rat population spiked to 20 million from the years 1200 to 1300. Rats had no predators on the island other than humans and they would have made quick work of the island's palm seeds. After the trees were gone, the island's rat population dropped off to a mere one million.

Lipo thinks the story of Easter Island's civilization being responsible for its own demise might better reflect the psychological baggage of our own society than the archeological evidence.

e: drat you, Owl

# ¿ Sep 30, 2016 04:29

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I think a lot of this is looking at the general case of "Maybe we shouldn't weaken/remove safety regulations in order to let techlords tell investor storytimes and get billions of dollars" rather than any specific case where regulations may need a genuine review or whatever.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2016 22:23

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BarbarianElephant posted:

It's more a fight between the techlords and the old guard big business. A fight between Uber and the yellow cab companies is not a fight between David and Goliath. Both sides are Goliath. The yellow cab companies don't get to win just because they got there first, despite Uber having a more convenient product. The competition forced the yellow cab companies to build an app; previously they couldn't care less. Consumers win. We don't have to stand on street corners waving desperately anymore, or phoning a cab company while praying that they would turn up in 45 minutes or so if they didn't get a better fare.

I never had to do any of these things, so what good does all this ride-sharing poo poo do I, Nessus, other than the warm and fuzzy feeling that someone in California is making a billion dollars?

# ¿ Oct 5, 2016 23:03

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Sage Grimm posted:

Using Dublin as your example isn't really a sound one. The article you linked to pointed out early on that this city is a special case:

And then the article argues that deregulation hasn't helped all that much, which is contrary to your position! A year later they report quality of service remained static and they had more taxis than London had for a smaller population.

Sure it helped. It helped him get from the bar to his house a little faster. It also helped him by providing a cheap factoid in favor of de-regulation as a general topic. Both of these help ease the pain of existence in a godless universe!

# ¿ Oct 9, 2016 05:30

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Lead out in cuffs posted:

Donald Trump also loves Twitter though? As do coders. I mean I mostly only tweat about science programming-related stuff.

It's kinda useful, I just don't really see how it could grow much from what it is. But, hell, that balance sheet looks positive, especially if they cut down on R&D. It'd be nice if we lived in a world where something like Twitter could just settle into being a stable backbone service, returning dividend profits to shareholders, and not have to worry about having to eternally grow its share price.

Sounds like you hate ~~freedom~~ disruption, ~~Commie~~ lib.

# ¿ Oct 11, 2016 07:10

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It's possible that a relative dearth of big engineering/popular-science style technologies has something to do with shifts in R&D funding and popular fads, but it's also probable that we cherrypick the great treasures of the past and go "Look at all this stuff that happened over the course of the last hundred years. And what's happened in the last five? Pfah."

# ¿ Oct 30, 2016 00:01

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Owlofcreamcheese posted:

I think it's more that the fantastic has become commonplace.

Look at the "word lens" feature in google translate. It might as well be literal magic spells. It is unfathomably advanced technology. If you went back 10 years to 2006 there is maybe ten different ways that an app like this would be literally impossible at any cost.

But at the end of the day it's not even that impressive, I had to put word lens in quotes because when google bought the company they dropped the branding and just put it in as a minor free feature in their free google translate app. It's just a natural synthesis of a couple technologies that are already 2 or 3 or 5 years old and the much worse base app is 5 years old already so the whole thing might as well be from dinosaur times. It's barely even impressive anymore, not even impressive enough to get a good name in the app. I bet at least one person reading this has to go look what this feature even does that makes it so neat. While the concept is a thing that we have ascribed as a magical spell since ancient times. We invented a magic spell and don't even care because the parts of it already existed 2 or 3 years ago.

Fantastic stuff comes out so fast now the scale that something has to be new is growing bigger and bigger. I don't even think anyone should go stare at word lens and fall to the ground weeping or anything, it's neat, but it is totally just a side function of the app.

Looks like the big problem is it was on Google Glass, whose main market niche was SF techlords and the Frieza Force

# ¿ Oct 30, 2016 06:23

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Jan posted:

This seems all too complicated, I sense a startup opportunity. Let's design and market an electric car where the battery would be designed to be hot swapped easily, to the point it would be faster to battery swap than fueling up at a gas station.

How can you guarantee me that this fully charged battery has 200 miles of range on it for me, instead of 170 because it's somewhat older? To say nothing of all of the mechanical issues.

The idea of having power packs that work basically like plug in gas tanks makes a lot of sense for like little fleet vehicles in an installation or something though.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2020 23:38

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Yeah these things are bunkhouses, but more expensive and with an app.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2020 10:14

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 07:42

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

They could always do it. They filter out Nazi poo poo in Germany because there's a lot of German money to be had and they want to follow German law. They can do it. They just don't want to, because it drives engagement metrics.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2020 03:22

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Tech Nightmares: Ghostline the flux

Peztopiary posted:

Peztopiary posted:

KittyEmpress posted:

Dr. Fishopolis posted:

Platonicsolid posted:

OwlFancier posted:

hobbesmaster posted:

hobbesmaster posted:

ToxicSlurpee posted:

Baby Babbeh posted:

Popular Thug Drink posted:

ocrumsprug posted:

Baby Babbeh posted:

blah_blah posted:

Popular Thug Drink posted:

Business Octopus posted:

quote:

BarbarianElephant posted:

Sage Grimm posted:

Lead out in cuffs posted:

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

Jan posted: