When I was in college I got lured into one of those pyramid schemes advertised in the middle of the night hoping to make extra money. I wonder how much money I would have lost if I had instant access to betting on a "sure thing" back then.
I think about this a lot. How much anxiety do most people feel from the millions of options that are available to them daily, or young adults that are told they can be anything they want, but clam up and choose to do nothing instead.
Most people don't have millions of options available to them daily, at least not in any meaningful sense. Anxiety and choice paralysis is very much a first world privilege.
"This is so clearly a matter for government oversight: prevent abuse, protect the citizen's safety, rights, welfare, etc. It's not reasonable to expect consumers to figure out if the meat they buy is tainted, just as it's not to figure out if the APPS THEY INSTALL spies on them, manipulates information, or sells their data"
Do you see how quickly that argument can be flipped to support what google is doing here? Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if half the reason to to lock down phones is because governments keep pressuring them to do so.
I wasn't surprised to learn that when Linus Tech Tips released those new usb-c cables, that they all sold out almost instantly. They put their entire reputation on the line to claim (and label) the exact capabilities of their usb cables. Isn't that all we really want?
Twisted pair is good but it only gets your losses so low at these speeds. Keep in mind that USB cables have a very small budget for signal loss, and at 40Gbps they're carrying frequencies 25x higher than 10gig ethernet.
Yeah I don't see any problems with their stuff. It ain't exactly cheap, but a large part of that is their work in making sure you aren't just getting some random 2 dollar trash.
I agree. The biggest lesson I try to drive home to newer programmers that join my projects is that its always best to transform the data into the structure you need at the very end of the chain, not at the beginning or middle. Keep the data in it's purest form and then transform it right before displaying it to the user, or right before providing it in the final api for others to consume.
You never know how requirements are going to change over the next 5 years, and pure structures are always the most flexible to work with.
Related: your business logic should work on metric units. It is a UI concern if the user wants to see some other measurement system. Convert to feet, chains, cubits... or whatever obscure measurement system the user wants at display time. (if you do get an embedded device that reports non-metric units convert when it comes in - you will get a different device in the future that reports different units anyway)
You still have to worry about someone using kg when you use g, but you avoid a large class of problems and make your logic easier.
I grew up in a pretty religious household and my parents fully believed that Armageddon would happen in our lifetime. It wasn't until I was older that I realized there were a lot of American Christians that secretly held this belief, and that it has a meaningful influence on how voters want American politicians to deal with Israel and the Middle East in general.
It depends on the religion in the religious household. Its common among American evangelicals, but (unless American Catholics are very different from Catholics in the rest of the world) its not a common belief among Catholics, and its rarely discussed by them.
Why is Thiel, whose parents were American evangelical and whose own beliefs are described as "heterodox", trying to sell this in Catholic packaging outside the US?
I feel, his phrasing may come over as Catholic, but that is neglecting his history. His defining years as a child he lived in Swapokmund, today's Namibia, where a swastika flag was raised in celebration of Hitler's birthday.
Swakopmund was known for its continued glorification of Nazism after World War II, including the celebration of Hitler's birthday and "Heil Hitler" Nazi salutes given by residents.[13][14] In 1976, The New York Times quoted a German working in a Swakopmund hotel who described the city as "more German than Germany".[14] As of the 1980s, Nazi paraphernalia was available to buy in shops.[13]
To answer your question: I think his lectures being held in the backyard of the Vatican is a deliberate provocation. He is a philosophy student, after all and forcing the Angelicum and others to publicly deny involvement may be his goal.
>its not a common belief among Catholics, and its rarely discussed by them.
I'll do you one further, as someone from a deeply catholic country: Considering the triggering of Armaggedon in daily politics is seen as batshit crazy.
American Catholics aren't really a monolith on this matter...or any. There are substantial differences between Catholics who seek out Jesuit parishes and those who seek out the Tridentine Mass and people who are just achieving physical presence and thinking about kickoff at 5:00 PM Sunday Mass to fulfill obligation and get out ASAP (no choir please, keep that sermon snappy). All of these are spiritually valid approaches imho.
The same is true here, yes. You'll see widely different stances and practical approaches to topics like immigration, premarital sex, and so on. Some people are strict, some people self define as catholic but only see church during weddings and funerals.
Putting effort in triggering the end of the world is nowhere on the spectrum though. I think if you told a priest you're pushing for that he would be seriously alarmed, like calling the police alarmed if you hold power.
> American Catholics aren't really a monolith on this matter
No, but as a general rule, Catholics don’t and have never fretted about the end times the way all sorts of Protestant sects have, historically. Which is curious given Matthew 24:36 and all the hullabaloo Protestants make about being “scriptural”. And perhaps more importantly, because it has authority on such matters, Church teaching makes no claims about when the end of the world will occur and it never has, because it cannot.
there was a Catholic reason for this, the Fatima Sheppards. there was an "apparition" of Virgin Mary and some "Prophecies" that were really imprinted on all Catholics over 50 years old. pretty much anti-russian propaganda. they silently pedal back from them in the last 25 years. but last time I visited sn important catholic monument internationally, most of the people in the bus knew about them, how they talk about the end of the world but never realized the Vatican already made them public all and it was a sham.
> [...] If my requests are [not] heeded, Russia [...] will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated.
I'm not sure it is fair to call it propaganda when it is bang on the money. Even the Holy Father bit checks out, seeing how John Paul II narrowly survived a KGB-sponsored assassination attempt.
It is not even a universal belief among evangelicals. The denomination/overall group Peter Hegseth is part of (conservative Reformed Christianity) expressly teaches against this, or even makes fun of it.
I would venture that it is less than half of Christians who believe in this idea at all. It does seem to be the domain of wild eyed TV evangelists though.
I grew up in a religious household as a Roman Catholic, in an extremely religious country(Poland) and I've never heard anyone talk about apocalypse as something that might happen soon or well...ever. From my point of view, the "christianity" that American Evangelicals practice is almost unrecognizable as having the same base with the religion I grew up with. Like the core tennets of Jesus have been twisted and warped to serve a very narrow political agenda. That's not to say Roman Catholics don't use religion for politics, but Evangelism is just.....next level?
Well, even European Evangelicals are vastly different from their American counterparts. There's no megachurches, prosperity gospel, televangelism, and the religion is not as strongly intertwined with politics.
It’s almost like they reject the parts of the bible featuring Christ, and only cling on to the Old Testament and the parts after Christ as their guide.
In lack of a better word, that sounds more like anti-Cristian
Growing up I was exposed to Baptists and Evangelicals that talked about the coming "Rapture". It has always felt like a wild revenge fantasy for the "faithful". A kind of, "Oh, you'll see soon enough, then you'll be sorry!"
Out of curiosity, what grounds their belief that it's going to happen soon? Why not in a thousand years? As far as I know, there is no mention of the exact date in the Bible.
The land of Israel has been a vassal state or part of another state or empire for most of recorded history. Israel becoming an independent state in 1948 ties in with messianic prophesy.
New Apostolic Reformationists believe that there are increasing number of "new apostles" who are receiving messages from God, which they see as evidence of the end times.
It is also common among these folks to believe that the end times don't just happen and that instead it is our responsibility to create the circumstances that enable the end times. This can either mean creating a state of instability and violence or creating a worldwide christian theocracy that lasts for 1000 years. Both involve massive upheavals of global systems.
> The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many people died from the water, because it had been made bitter.
It's a Pascal's wager. If you're convinced Armageddon is going to happen at some point, then you should do all you can to prepare for it happening in your lifetime. And that approach is explicitly encouraged in the Bible: "You do not know the day or hour", etc.
Right "you do not know the day or the hour", not "you know that the day will be sometime between 2026 and 2076". I understand being prepared and whatnot. I don't understand the certainty of the date. Even the Bible says that it's unknown.
The closest we have to a "date" is Jesus claiming the current generation wouldn't pass away before the end times arrived, which obviously didn't happen. So even the "Son of God" got it wrong.
Wow thousands of years of theology all got it wrong, including Thomas Aquinas and some of the smartest people who ever lived. If only they had your brilliant HN thesis they could have saved so much time and understood so much more.
I believe it was related to both Israel gaining statehood after WW2, and the panic of nuclear disaster leading up to the end of the Cold War. It feels like a idea that really took root in the minds of evangelical Baby Boomers and early GenXers, but likely has lost all meaning to millenials.
I see/hear way more end times doomerism/blow it all up/end it all from my secular friends than I have ever heard Armageddon talk from Christians, but I don't live in the south.
That belief is very common in secular settings. Marx and current day offshoots believed in a war that will bring redemption and utopia, other complete atheists believe in the inevitable environmental disaster (not whether it is happening but the belief that it cannot be prevented or fixed)
To be clear, Marx believed in the 'march of progress', basically that the constant struggle between classes during the middle age as well as the scientific revolution killed feudal society to give birth to capitalism (which is a very reductionist view of what happened, because the knowledge we had on feudal society then was _extremely_ skewed, but for the time it wasn't that crazy), and that the struggle between the capital class and the worker class will kill capitalism to create socialism (which isn't what is called socialism in Europe right now, it is closer to what European call communism), which is the last step before communism (basically a state of nature where everything goes so well you don't need the state. An ordered anarchy where everyone works for themselves and the society, without coercion from other people or entity). He use violent term (struggle), but never talked about a violent war or revolution, on the opposite, he took the French revolution as an example to avoid if I remember correctly (it has been more than a decade now. I'm old as fuck).
Some of his offshot do believe in a necessary war though. Leninism and Stalinism are the most famous one. Some of them take the US revolution as an example to follow.
So, you (not you, a generic you) believe that Armageddon is happening in your lifetime, and the event is the literal moment when God will pour his Holy Wrath against unrepentant sinners in a final judgement as the world wraps up... And you, deeply religious as you are, will obviously go to Heaven, while all the annoying people you rightly hate will go to Hell, to be punished for eternity.
Considering this, is it not obvious that this hypothetical person would wish for Armageddon already? I mean, for you it is the final prize.
I believe these people don't want a future. They want the end.
Same, in fact the only reason right now that I would upgrade my m1 pro is if they threaten to change the design by getting rid of the hdmi or sd card slot, or doing something stupid like when they added the touch bar. I was locked into my old intel pro for so long because of all the bad hardware choices they were making.
The only useful thing I remember about the touch bar was the DJ trying to play some beats on the touch bar. That was just weird imo.
Barring removal of Esc key, I think the touch bar was useful because it showed contextual actions. But not every app used it so it didn't really get a chance to shine.
I guess I'm just a luddite that spends my life on a CLI or text editor. Taking my hands away from my keyboard to leave finger prints on my screen just doesn't make sense to me.
I think people that do do tasks where a touch screen makes sense are probably just doing most of their work on an iphone or an ipad anyway.
Now gesture control on VR/AR setups? Sure, that feels like a new human/computer interaction system that makes sense. Jabbing at my laptop screen with one hand on my keyboard, not so much.
It’s not. I had a thinkpad with a touchscreen and while I used the touchscreen seldomly, it was useful in some applications. Notably to easily develop touch based applications.
I have a M1 MacBook Pro with the touch bar since. It’s crap. I remember the keynote where they introduced it and a DJ mixed music using it. It was ridiculous that it got approved.
> Notably to easily develop touch based applications.
Ok, actually you're right, that's a use case where I'll agree it's probably useful. If you're writing iOS applications it might be nice to run it in Simulator and be able to do gestures without having to offload to your physical device for testing.
A touch screen could be useful! I love having one on my HP. It’s just another option that doesn’t hurt you if/when you aren’t using it. Unlike the Touch Bar that deleted 13 keys and replaced them with garbage.
The problem is that I'm afraid it will hurt everyone that isn't using it, as it will push MacOS further in the direction of iOS/iPadOS and optimizing for touch, which is not necessarily the best UI for the non-touch use case.
Hmm. It certainly doesn't have to be this way (in my humble opinion Windows, for all its recent stumbles, seems to have not let touch optimization cause harm to its UI)... However one look at Tahoe tells you everything you need to know about how good 'modern-day Apple' is at making considered UI decisions. So, you're right.
And yet I guarantee that with permanent DST, they will start pushing school start times later and later in the morning, then they're all right back to where they started.
Step 1 is to fix the time at any UTC+N. I don't particularly care what n.
Step 2 is adjust all times in society to work with whatever UTC+N we are now stuck with.
I think step 2 will sort itself out, as it has historically. Schools begin at a certain time because of whatever historical reason tied to what timezone we are in. If we change to a different timezone schools should naturally drift towards starting at some other time in the day, unless people for some unrelated reason changed their mind about what s good time for school start would be.
I really only care about fixing the clocks and stop doing the annual changes back and forth. What number should be seen on the clock for specific events during the day, like school starts, can be adjusted later.
At this point in my career, I can't go back to a language that doesn't have support for Optionals or compiler validation of nullable types. I can sacrifice async or fancy stream apis, but I will never go back to chasing null pointer exceptions on a daily basis.
Obj-C does have a "nonnull" annotation now (apparently added to assist Swift interop). One of the final jigsaw pieces turning it into a really pleasant language.
It is a really pleasant language, but I think the <nonnull> annotation is for initialization only - compiler checking against initializing an object ptr with a null value - and does not prevent crashing when addressing an already released object
> does not prevent crashing when addressing an already released object
I don’t know what behavior you’d expect here or in what situation you’d encounter this for a nonnull reference. You’d have to be really living dangerously I’d imagine. The footgun was that nonnull isn’t enforced. And anyway, leaks were more the issue.
GP mentioned ‘chasing null pointer exceptions’, then parent mentioned that the language ’now does have nonnull annotation’, prompting me to explain that that does not prevent null pointer exceptions.
So, not living a dangerously. All that can be held against me is being “dangerously” imprecise on HN - definitely not good either
nonnull doesn't really do anything in pure objc. It warns if you assign the nil literal to a nonnull pointer and that's it. The annotation is almost entirely for the sake of Swift interop (where it determines if the pointer is bridged as an Optional or not).
I don't think objc has the equivalent of a null pointer exception. You can freely send messages to a deallocated object. Since ARC, it is rare, at least in my experience, running into any memory related issues with objc.
That is an API choice from Apple that isn't something inherent to objc. This is true of any method. It is up to the person who wrote it to decide how to handle a nil being passed in.
Frankly, all of this is an API and ABI choice from Apple. It was not the case that sending a message to nil always returned nil/NULL/0 before Apple's Intel transition, and the subsequent introduction of their modern Objective-C ABI. From Apple's 2006 Cocoa coding guidelines:
> If the message sent to nil returns anything other than the aforementioned value types (for example, if it returns any struct type, any floating-point type, or any vector type) the return value is undefined
And from the Intel transition guide:
> messages to a nil object always return 0.0 for methods whose return type is float, double, long double, or long long. Methods whose return value is a struct, as defined by the Mac OS X ABI Function Call Guide to be returned in registers, will return 0.0 for every field in the data structure. Other struct data types will not be filled with zeros. This is also true under Rosetta. On PowerPC Macintosh computers, the behavior is undefined.
This wasn't just a theoretical issue, either. You could run the same Objective-C code on a PPC Mac, an Intel Mac, the iPhone Simulator, and an iPhone – you'd get a zero-filled struct on Intel and the Simulator, while you'd get garbage on PPC and on real iPhone hardware.
When Swift 1 came out, I was migrating an ObjC app that used CoreData to it and found a bug where nullable cols in the CoreData schema got non-nullable properties in the autogenerated Swift. Found out when I had a non-nullable property actually get set to null at runtime, and the compiler wouldn't let me add a check that it's null.
The Swift way is safer, but I don't like it much either. The ? explicitly says you want to ignore null, so that's fine. The problem is there's no convenient way to throw exception if null, so you're encouraged to overuse ?, as I think you alluded to. (! will crash the entire program instead.) Swift error handling is overall pretty complex too.
Ironically the JS or Py error handling is actually the safest for high-level code. Exceptions are easy to work with and hard to ignore by accident. Very few ways to crash entirely. And Rust's errors are good for systems code.
Not really, because doSomething is not called if reference/pointer is null, whereas in Objective-C there is still a message that is sent to the NULL recipient.
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