> Imagine if this was 20 years ago wondering whether ads would infect search engines or the web would be flooded with sites which are ads masquerading as actual content

Many of us - naively, in hindsight - really did hope this wouldn't happen at the scale it did, and were appalled at how many big players actively participated in speeding up the process.

I guess it's similar to how a lot of white folks thought racism was over until Obama came along and brought the bigots out of the woodwork.

> lock away that toxic waste

The jarring conclusion I keep trying to see a way around but no longer can is that the toxic waste is part of humanity. How do we get rid of it, or lock it away? One of the oldest questions our species has ever faced. Hard not to just throw up your hands and duck back into your hidey-hole once you realize this.

> Many of us - naively, in hindsight - really did hope this wouldn't happen at the scale it did, and were appalled at how many big players actively participated in speeding up the process.

Sure, maybe so. But now with hindsight we can see what happened and we should realize that it's going to happen again unless we do something.

> The jarring conclusion I keep trying to see a way around but no longer can is that the toxic waste is part of humanity. How do we get rid of it, or lock it away? One of the oldest questions our species has ever faced. Hard not to just throw up your hands and duck back into your hidey-hole once you realize this.

I think both bad and good are part of humanity. In a sense this "toxic" part is not that different from the part that leads us to, say, descend into drug addiction, steal when we think no one is looking, leave a mess for other people to clean up, etc. We can do these negative things on various scales, but when we do them on a large scale we can screw one another over quite egregiously. The unique thing about humans is our ability to intentionally leverage the good aspects of our nature to hold the bad aspects in check. We've had various ways of doing this throughout history. We just need to accept that setting rules and expectations and enforcing them to prevent bad outcomes is no less "natural" for humans than giving free rein to our more harmful urges.

> "Ok, I'm thinking of this approach, i'll probably have these sorts of functions or classes, this state will be owned here"

This is the gist of what I've always wanted from a programming mentor, instructor, or tutor.

It can be surprisingly hard to find. Knowing that current LLMs still struggle with it perhaps helps explain why.

Absolute madness.

I'm glad the guy did okay-- it's nice that so many unwise decisions didn't lead to total disaster, and makes for a great story... but I certainly hope no one tries to emulate this. Almost seems irresponsible to promote in the current social media climate. He's lucky to be alive.

I had a friend who would intentionally put on two different songs at the same time and claimed they enjoyed it. I always suspected it was just another way of being provocative or to stimulate creativity (they were a creative person who liked provoking others), but maybe there was more to it.

I do try not to if others are around... But I have been known to do that. Sometimes a couple songs, a TV show, and a game all going at once.

I've figured its just the sensory-seeking stuff going out of control - usually indicating I'm going a bit stir crazy and need to go for a walk.

I think it's rather likely that Waymo has not recouped its initial investment, and even if you completely ignored that I'd be surprised if it doesn't currently still operate at a net loss.

The whole situation is artificial and propped up by external funding right now. Making this a viable industry is going to take a lot more time, if it's possible at all.

They are barely operating. 250,000 rides a week.

That translates into hundreds of millions of annual revenues, obviously not enough to pay back the billions invested.

I don't disagree, it is just interesting to me that Waymo has actually "made it" and it does seem to work, more or less.

Planning is absolutely essential.

However, "no plan survives contact with [the enemy]/[reality]/[stakeholders]/[users]/[etc.]"

You have to start doing things at some point, and revise your plans continuously. It's a delicate, interdependent dance.

The worst working situations I've been in almost all had to do with either lack of planning or refusal to abandon a clearly flawed plan. It's exhausting how many people fail to recognize when they need to change their behavior in one area or the other. It's not one or the other, it's both.

I have great respect for anyone who does this type of work.

Far too many people acquire animals that they aren't able or willing to take proper care of, and parrots have very long lives.

Agreed, I respect those folks a lot, not exactly a high paying job / seems like a very personal calling kinda job.

They also get to know the birds in a very personal way it seemed. One bird was "upset" with one of the handlers so she didn't want to participate when we met the birds that day. Apparently that handler had broken up a fight between upset bird and another that morning. Upset bird took that personally.

At the same time upset bird didn't want to miss out on meeting everyone so she came along with two other birds who met us.... upset bird just sorts of sat on the periphery and made sure that everyone knew she wasn't participating. She wanted folks to know she was there, but was not going to perform.

hacker news is so much fun.

I've always thought there should be a 'minimum viable existence' option for those who are willing to forego most luxuries in exchange for not being required to do anything specific other than abide by reasonable laws.

It would be very interesting to see the percentage breakdowns of how such people chose to spend their time. In my opinion, there would be enough benefit to society at large to make it worthwhile. For a large group (if not the majority), I'm certain the situation would turn out to be completely temporary-- they would have the option to prepare themselves for some type of work they're better adapted to perform and/or enjoy, ultimately enhancing the culture and economy. Most of the rest could be useful as research subjects, if they were willing of course.

Obviously this is a bit of a utopian fantasy, but what can I say, Star Trek primed me to hope for such a future.

Those are pretty extreme horror stories, but in general everything I've heard from small time landlords makes it sound like a terrible value proposition even under normal circumstances. The ones it works out well for are the exception.

The dwelling rental niche is far beyond over-farmed and is definitely overhyped. As with so many other things in our economy, the big players are usually the only ones with decent margins, and even they have to cut corners and be somewhat lucky on dice rolls to get them.