0: https://euvs-vintage-cocktail-books.cld.bz/1867-Six-Hundred-...

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42393105

Points: 2

# Comments: 1

I also know very little about manufacturing Weber bars, but I could imagine it's cheaper to build 100s or 1000s of these and perform signal processing on them than building another LIGO. Or Weber bars in space?

Just spitballing here

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvwiH1DOK1M

I learned about WebTV while writing essays for my college applications more than ten years ago. I had stumbled on this memorial site[0] for an engineer at WebTV named Jos who passed well before his time. The site includes some of his college essays[1] as well as some other bits of writing like his guide to OOP programming[2] (complete with Spanish and Portuguese translations !). His writing style and sense of humor have stuck with me for years and years now, and I still visit the site to have a laugh. Seemed like a very dynamic individual, and I'm grateful to his family for keeping his memory alive.

[0]: https://sepwww.stanford.edu/sep/jon/family/jos/

[1]: https://sepwww.stanford.edu/sep/jon/family/jos/college/index...

[2]: https://sepwww.stanford.edu/sep/jon/family/jos/oop/index.htm...

https://ui.shadcn.com/

I’m so curious about how their graphing calculator and their geometric construction tools work. I’ve spent marginal amounts of time researching their stack, and it appears to be custom software. If anyone’s familiar with writing about how these systems are built (particularly the display side of things), I’d appreciate some links or titles!

Like, what’s the useful takeaway from the comparison? Cement getting left in a truck is like losing a loved one? Really? Striking workers performing something like sabotage is similar to pre-meditated murder? Are these useful comparisons? I don’t think so.

If I’m employing them directly, I doubt there would be reason for a strike - what are they striking against? I don’t have a construction company. They’re either doing the work as contractors, and I’ll pay for it, or they aren’t doing the work, and they don’t get paid. IANAL, but I doubt it’s considered a strike if contractors skip a job or abandon a job midway through. Also, it’s important to foster a good relationship with your contractors and to make sure both parties agree they’re benefiting from the business relationship. That’s just simple good business.

If they are under someone else’s employ, the comparison doesn’t add up - the cement-in-truck didn’t cause substantial damages to the customer. (Maybe delayed schedule? I don’t know the details of the case.) What you are describing harms the customer directly. Talk to folks that are striking, and they will almost unanimously say they don’t want to inconvenience the customer. Rather more often than not they’re seeking to change the terms of their employment to benefit the customer, whether that’s more staffing, more safety, or more manageable hours to provide better service. These are folks working closest to the customer touchpoints, and I’m inclined to trust their knowledge of customer service more than management’s.

Does that make sense?

  Wonder how the author here would feel about surgeons going on strike scheduled intentionally after beginning open heart surgery on a loved one?

Physicians take the Hippocratic Oath, and they otherwise generally care about the well-being of their patients. Also, it is illegal to strike at a health care facility without first giving 10-days notice (to plan how to continue care). I’ve talked to residents organizing at Mass General Brigham, and (though they aren’t planning a strike) my vague understanding is that the logistics of striking in health care are targeted more at paperwork rather than holding up care (e.g. provide the care but don’t sign the notes so billing can’t commence).

I recommend reading more about how organizing in health care works - it’s complex, very topical these days, and I think it’ll show you that folks tend to care for one another. Too easy for Silicon Valley edge-case thinkers to reach for ad absurdum armchair arguments like “what if a doctor let their patient die on the operating table because they want more money” - that’s not where their heads are at at all.

It’s also incredibly important that quality of life improves for health care workers. Med students are 3x more likely to die by suicide than the general population.

https://awhitty.me/fretcards/

Hoo - I remember that scene and the mix of feelings it brought up for me. It reminded me of an attachment to physical objects that I attribute to watching Toy Story growing up. I love the way she wrote, and I still have a long list of her books to dive into. Another scene that left its mark on me is from The Dispossessed when Shevek shares a moment with the pet otter at a dinner party:

  The otter sat up on its haunches and looked at him. Its eyes were dark, shot with gold, intelligent, curious, innocent. "Ammar," Shevek whispered, caught by that gaze across the gulf of being – "brother."

I can't help but mention the song "Spud Infinity" by Big Thief as well [2]! Definitely a song (and album) to get lost in:

  From way up there it looks so small
  From way down here it looks so small
  One peculiar organism aren't we all together?
  Everybody steps on ants
  Everybody eats the plants

  When I took another look
  The past was not a history book
  That was just some linear perception

  When I say celestial
  I mean extra-terrestrial
  I mean accepting the alien you've rejected in your own heart

  Kiss your body up and down other than your elbows
  'Cause as for your elbows, they're on their own
  Wandering like a rolling stone
  Rubbing up against the edges of experience

Thanks for reading!

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhMo4WlBmGM [2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYFBNA7uaJQ

(Edited for formatting)

I'm surprised you didn't stop at the idea that it also implies plants have hearing and can understand language and process some kind of human meaning - I feel like those are more absurd than the idea than a plant feels. (More organisms on this planet demonstrate something like feelings than the capacity to verbally communicate.) But yes, I project the idea the plants have something like human feelings, and that's definitely a product of that kind of education reverberating through my life. It was a kind of spiritual lesson, and the school incorporated other spiritual elements like performing the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address during some school assemblies and camping trips. I'm not confused about those as an adult.

I also know that a plant's experience on this planet is alien to mine, and it's silly to apply human meaning to what I think it's going through. I think our brains have enough space to hold these ideas up there though and reflect on them, and I think children deserve more than a functionalist education. I don't think I'm messed up as a result of that education, and I'm living a happy life - fair to say I had a heck of a time catching up on math and language in middle school though!