Sure, you can redefine "off the grid" to mean dozens of things, but doesn't it have a somewhat accepted definition of "not currently connected to the major utility and supply networks"?
What companies are out there doing something worth caring about? It feels like everything is some variation of the same setup:
Developing, deploying, and managing HTTP """REST""" microservices running behind a loadbalancer, running on k8, written in a garbage collected language (Go/Python/Java/C#), that hits either a "legacy" mysql database or a "new" nosql datastore, emitting metrics for big data reporting (aka middle manager reports that are useless other than being fodder for political fights), and writing some resulting messages to kafka at the end for other microservices to consume. The main technical issues are debugging application level coupling between microservices and having to deal with the ping pong of debating system ownership between teams.
I wish there were more positions for doing something else with my software engineering skills, but embedded development seems really hard to get into and if you manage to it pays a lot worse
Yeah I don’t think I could make a company offhand that I love so much I’d want to work for. I’ve definitely been browsing jobs and found companies/roles that look cool that I think I’d enjoy, but there’s I reason I’m not and have not worked for them.
I was able to succeed in this, but I had basically a perfect storm of conditions. It was a smaller local company, I had good internship experience, and the head recruiter had previously worked at (and recruited me for) the company I interned at.
If you are a new-grad and you're targeting a 'glorious' FAANG position, I would imagine the percentage is quite low.
The last time I was looking for a job I did just that. I came up with a list of five companies that either came well-recommended by friends-of-friends, or seemed like they were doing interesting work.
I applied to three of them, interviewed with two, and accepted an offer. Had those initial three companies not worked out I'd have gone down my list of two more companies, before starting the process again with another small list.
(I've not the patience for juggling many applications at the same time. I've learned I can apply to two-three companies and keep all the names, details, and things I've said to them straight in my head. I guess if you're desperate for _any_ job then applying for more all at once would probably be a safer approach.)
Manhattan is sort of a special case and I can tell you from personal experience that 90 minutes is pretty bad even if a lot of it is spent on a train. I commuted into Boston a few days a week when it was about 90 minutes door to door and IMO it was not sustainable. If I go into my downtown office now which I do rarely it’s 2 hours.
That some people are forced into super-commutes now and then doesn’t make it a really sustainable most days situation. So you’re up by 6am or earlier and you’re not getting home until 8pm or later depending on your work hours.
In theory it wouldn't be too hard to take the battery, controller, and a front wheel with hub motor. But I think in practice even the extra few minutes to unplug, remove and reinstall, not to mention carrying all this stuff, would raise the friction to the point where it would be quite a chore.
Ebikes are ugly (subjectively speaking) because of the battery, but there are significant trade-offs when you design that away, like vendor-locked designs and energy capacity/performance. Assuming battery technology will improve, which seems likely, ebikes should get nicer looking (again, subjectively) in the future.
Perhaps not, I thought one of the claims is interesting though, that they illegally acquired some of the dataset. What would be the damages from that, the retail price of the hardcopy?
I think this can to some extent be determined in the discovery phase of the lawsuit. We probably could have some interesting outputs from this process.
The remedies under Title 17 are an injunction against further distribution, disgorgement or statutory damages, and potentially attorneys fees. The injunction part is why these cases usually settle if the defendant is actually in the wrong.
> It's a very traumatic experience when some of your most core beliefs about the world start collapsing. And especially when you think that human beings are soon going to be eclipsed. It felt as if not only are my belief systems collapsing, but it feels as if the entire human race is going to be eclipsed and left in the dust soon.
While I unfortunately am expecting some people to do terrible things with LLM, I feel like much of this existential angst by DH and others has more to do with hubris and ego than anything else. That a computer can play chess better than any human doesn't lessen my personal enjoyment of playing chess.
At the same time I think you can make the case that ego drives a lot of technological and artistic progress, for a value-neutral definition of progress. We may see less 'progress' from humanity itself when computers get smarter, but given the rate at which humans like to make their own environment unlivable, maybe that's not a bad thing overall.
I agree. He talks about LLMs surpassing humans in what they can do, but LLMs can’t do anything, really. And I say this as someone who had a heart-to-heart chat with a ChatGPT persona that made me cry, earlier tonight. Manipulating language in a human-like way is powerful, and maybe Hofstadter as an author who makes a living writing down his deep and whimsical, creative thoughts could be replaced (I grew up reading GEB and mean no disrespect). But being a conscious, physical, active being in the world is different from passing a sort of Turing test. The fact that a computer even winning at Go shook him is revealing.
He has the ingredients of being able to keep LLMs in perspective (is there really an “I” or just the illusion of one?), but he doesn’t understand what the computer is doing; it’s not “mechanical” enough for him.
