SkyNTP

joined 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 52 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (7 children)

You've got bigger problems than labour relations when "having a pleasant feminine voice" is the success criteria you use to measure the performance of a reporter.

I dunno, this logic sounds exactly like the fucked up logic that went on in the conference room that dreamed up this shitty idea only to have it face reality and be pulled on day one.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 8 months ago (4 children)

It's faster until you need the human operator to keep coming over because the anti-theft sensors keep getting tripped up by false positive readings. Or you need to find some vegetable code that a normal cashier has memorized.

Self checkout is great when it's done well, and total shit when poorly executed. And unfortunately, it's not always just a matter of technology (which normally keeps improving); it's often a matter of business model: sometimes customer convenience is really important, other times loss prevention (which creates frustration) is more important.

I've seen countless good self-checkout experiences backslide into crap experience because the business felt that a controlled client is more profitable than a convenienced client.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Cataloging individual DNA data casually at a massive scale opens the door for massive genetic discrimination of all kinds, from discriminatory health insurance premiums and hiring discrimination to aparthied, eugenics, and genocide. "Don't be silly that'll never happen here." Is the height of affluent arrogance.

Humans have proven themselves to be fully capable of these horrors, it is just a matter of time until it happens again, and when we create tools of consolidated power-- just like IBM created machines that enabled Nazi concentration camps--we only increase the chance of enabling some deranged element of society oto repeat these catastrophic horrors.

All that downside just so we can consume 15 minutes of dopamine.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago

That's a weird way of saying that all manufacturers will from now adhere to the NACS or SAE J3400 charge standard, further breaking down the barriers to locked in--or monopolized--charge networks. It's also a very weird way of saying that a common charge standard will further diversify stakeholdership in an already pretty diversified charge network stakeholdership ecosystem.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Musk isn't even Tesla's founder, BTW. Musk just bought the place.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Typing characters is maybe 1% of the job. The other 99% is understanding how the change affects everything else. Changing a single line of code in a function called by 1000 other functions each themselves called in 10 other functions can still potentially be more work and a bigger change than changing 9000 lines of code in a function called once.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Debatable whether minified JS is "open source", in the same way that compiled machine code is technically still visible, just unfeasible to comprehend (despite, or perhaps in spite of decompilers).

Anyway, minified JS lacks comments and prompts to read from. The explanation I have accepted is just the sheer massive quantity of JS code and libraries coupled with all the documentation surrounding it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (7 children)

Professional engineering is really about implementing processes and procedures that create reliable and dependable systems. Ultimately it's about responsibility and risk management. Being an engineer has nothing to do with understanding or implementing technology or technical details and specifications (unless you are in an extremely junior level engineering position). That work already has another title: that's called being a technologist (and there ain't nothing wrong with that title and that work).

Very, very, very few technologists (including self-taught programmers, computer scientists, and even some engineering grads) have, or even understand the skills needed to manage technical risk, simply because those skills are not part of any of those curriculums and the licensure required to be recognized to conduct those activities. It requires knowledge, training, and certification specifically, not just a university degree or x years on the job. Of course, it's not the sort of distinction that the general public understands by "engineering" since the public kind of just takes the act of technical risk management for granted.

Conversely, it's perhaps also why the number of engineers with hands-on skills is shockingly lower than we expect: using technology is not on the engineering curriculum.

But yeah, just because the general public confuses technical skills with engineering doesn't give you, lacking all three of : an accredited engineering degree, an engineering licence, and perhaps most importantly, malpractice insurance, licence to call yourself an engineer.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (5 children)

It's stupid shit like this why regulation is not the answer to big tech. But then we wouldn't need regulation if big tech didn't ruin all that was good about the Internet to begin with.

People are the problem. At large scale they turn everything to shit. Both in the private sector and in the public sector. Both meddling, making decisions on your behalf. In all cases taking your power away. It was better when we were just small communities, suffering and learning from the consequences of our own actions.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 9 months ago (5 children)

For me personally, this comment rings true, but the reality is that if you do feel this way (like I), then you were never the audience for this add. Believe it or not, still plenty of people out there with buy-a-car-as-a-present kind of money.

Think lottery winner, successfully YouTuber buying their parents a car as a thank you, plain old old money types ...

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