I’m not surprised.
The attitude of build a prototype and ship it fast, we can fix problems with software updates only works if the hardware and the UX are really compelling.
IMHO humane pin was dead on arrival, using a pin to interact with an AI sounds great on paper until we realize it’s awkward and slow in real life use
Its one thing to lay-off employees, I understand executives not wanting to take responsibility of the problems they created, human selfish behaviour and such.
Its a whole another thing to kick those workers when they are down. Imagine trying to find a job in this difficult tech market and being labelled as an underperformer! That's just plain evil !
Not sure if its possible, but I hope this turns into a defamation class action lawsuit by the former employees against Intuit.
As frustrating as the US visa system is, large numbers of people are still applying for visas which is funding USCIS. Until either the numbers drop, or congress changes how USCIS is funded, I unfortunately think this is not going to change.
I agree that obesity can be a chronic condition for many people, especially when combined with societal pressures causing mental harm.
> And now for the bad news, her insurance no longer covers it.
This is one of the reasons why I think these GLP-1 drugs are going to be classified by insurance as a temporary tool to help people improve their health. Rather than a long term medical necessity like insulin.
> I think we need more time to see
I agree with this statement, we definitely need more time. We don't fully understand the long term effects of GLP-1 in large populations.
I'm in the camp of, if its possible to use GLP-1 as a ramp to building sustainable habits and then wean off the drug, then as many people as possible should be weaned off.
My hot take on these GLP-1 drugs is that they won't work long term for most people. If the plan is to give the drug to as many obese people as possible and take a victory lap, thats going to fail.
I don't think its resonable for most people to continue taking GLP-1 antagonists all their lives. Its been widely shown that most people rapdily gain back ~2/3 of their weight after stopping semaglutide. This means that the people who lost weight did not build sustainable weight management habits during their time on these drugs.
IMHO a better solution would be to design individualized weight loss programs which would help people build sustainable healthy eating habits, and change their relationship to food while using GLP-1 as a tool to help the process and motivate people. I understand that is much easier said than done, especially at such a large scale.
Maybe the answer lies in a combination of various actions, some ideas include,
- Medicare and Medicaid negotiating to reduce the cost
- Possibly offering lower/higher dosages based on needs to better manage cost
- Offering incentives/discounts when GLP-1 is used in-combination with health coaching.
- Offering GLP-1 drugs with lifetime maximums similar to Orthodontic procedures such as braces or clear aligners, with some exceptions based on medical needs.
- Reduce food deserts, especially in rural and low income areas.
- Penalize companies which sell seriously addictive / unhealthy foods. We did that with Cigarettes! Unhealthy diets filled with addictive sugary processed foods cause similar harm to families, society, and future generations.
I'm not an expert, but I see some major flaws in this post doesn't make sense to me. Please feel free to correct me if I've misunderstood any concept.
>At 22,870 inhabitants per km², Macau is the densest jurisdiction in the world, denser than Singapore which itself suffers ultra-low fertility. Virtually everyone in Macau lives in an apartment tower. Studies (see below for a thread reviewing the literature) find that density is linked to low fertility, so perhaps we shouldn't be surprised if the densest place on Earth also has the lowest birthrates.
Exteremly high density will obviously lead to lower fertility since most residents barely have space for themselves. This is not what most people are talking about when asking for higher density housing. Looking at extreme cases does not mean moderate density will have the same outlook.
> Tokyo, Japan, provides a great natural experiment. What happens when you build urban high-rise towers in abundance? We once thought of Tokyo as expensive, but that is no longer true. Apartment towers have been added to the Tokyo skyline at a rapid clip, making it eminently affordable for young people.
This statement ignores a lot of the socio-economic problems in Japan. Problems such as decades economic stagnation, the extreme work culture, younger people being straddled with the burden of caring for older generations. These and many other problems combined are the reason for low fertility.
> Australia, where the pricey suburbs are much more fertile
I wonder who can afford to move to expensive suburbs ? Oh right its wealthy people.
I wonder who can afford to have enough free time to take care of children and also afford expensive child care services ? Oh right its wealthy people.
The problem isn't density, the problem is that people in child bearing age cannot afford to have children.
> New Zealand may not show what people think it does
Similar problems to Australia, people in child bearing age cannot afford to have children.
> After the war, Korea saw a housing crisis and resolved to build huge apartment towers as fast as possible. China too has gone the path of ultra-dense apartment blocks. Now both countries are stuck in an ultra-low fertility regime. They desperately try to pivot to higher birth rates, but their built housing stock dooms them. Young people in both countries are drawn to low fertility city life, and the depopulation conveyor belt runs hot.
These countries have problems similar to Japan, extreme work culture, lack of free time, lack of affordable housing, younger people being constantly burnt out. Mostly wealthy people with free time are having children.
> My only regret was going with a Rheem heat-pump water heater in this mix. It does not perform well at all.
Heat-pump water heater's performance depends a lot on where its installed and the airflow+heat available. If the water heater is undersized or if there isn't enough heat in the air, it would perform worse than a standard gas/electric water heater.
Mine is installed in a closet under the stairs, which is not ideal, but as long as I keep the water heater in eco mode, and keep closet door slightly open, it works good enough for our usecase. Our annual water heating costs went down from ~$500 to ~$100 after switching to the heat pump water heater.
> Wondering how this affects Apple employees. Back in the day, working for Apple seemed cool.
Most employees are trying to pay bills and keep ar roof. Especially in today's tech job market, people are trying to avoid getting laid off. Very few people have the luxury of being able to think about apple seeming like a cool place to work or not.
So I would say this doesn't affect most apple employees in anyway.
This is a problem in many developed nations, the general reasoning boils down to
1. Cost of living and child care
2. Work, stress and lack of free time
3. Little to no support from society and community.
The reason this is affecting Korea, Japan and China so much is that there aren't many immigrants to offset the lack of new children being born.
There is a lot of wealth being generated but most of it goes to people who are already wealthy, so most people don't have the "luxury" of enough disposable income, free time, and support to have children.
> According to a recent research paper published by University of Pittsburgh, compelling evidence suggests that organizations are leveraging Return-To-Office mandates not to enhance firm value, but rather to reassert control and shift blame for poor performance onto employees.
At the risk of sounding cyncial, this is to be expected. Management, especially C-suites have put themselves on a pedastal where they can do no harm. Its almost always blamed on the employees.
Example, the recent Boeing fiasco is being portrayed as an employee failure[1] by giving employees safety lessons, while ignoring the years mismanagement and cost cutting.
As much as I don't like apple's walled garden, reliability and consistency are exteremly valuable for users like my mom who's currently a pixel user.
I hate being worried about her calling from a neighbor's phone one day because her phone is unusable. I'm aware that this issue doesn't affect all pixels, but an issue like this affecting even 1% of devices is not okay.
I'm holding on to hope that google hasn't agressively pushed out this update, and my mom's phone won't auto update until this is resolved.
Someone may have explained to him that this was witness tampering, but as my mother likes to say “went into one ear came out the other” for SBF. He’s rarely faced consequences for his actions until now.
What’s even better is less cars and more alternative means of travel. This comes in the form of biking, especially e-bikes, public transport, especially a large variety to serve various needs, and finally better zoning to create walkable neighborhoods and promote movement for going from place to place.
For the remaining trips not covered by the above, aka the exception case, using cars. Most car trips can even be PHEV and our non-freight transportation emissions would be substantially lower.
Even in the worst case scenario of everyone having to drive, PHEVs are a much better option as we transition to a fully society EV. I’m disappointed that most car manufacturers are trying to go through this all or nothing mindset of jumping directly from Gas to EV. A large portion of the population drives less than 50miles a day so a PHEV with ~50miles or range would make a huge dent in our emissions.
Complexity is often cited as the reason for not adopting PHEV, and I think that’s an easy scapegoat, as humans we’ve solved many complex at scale, if we can build massive fleets of Priuses over decades, why can’t we build more of them with a slightly larger battery.
I’ve also heard the economics don’t work out argument against PHEV, and we could say the same thing about EVs, they’re cool now but can we manufacture, and recycle enough batteries to keep up with demand?
EVs are heavy, Can we maintain road infrastructure that was built using fuel consumption taxes, for lighter weight cars?
Taking these concerns into consideration, I feel that PHEVs are awesome and we should all demand more of them, they are lighter than EVs, cause significantly less emissions and are a wonderful bridge technology that improves the car trips that we do need to take.
Can we also talk about the fact that the fastest growing EV market isn't for cars, its for e-bikes[1], and e-bikes are crazy efficient, and 20x-30x cheaper, compared to electric cars. Example, an e-bike with 400wh ~5 charges of a laptop battery, can get 30 miles of range, compared to ~250wh/mi of a car[2].
Cities are slowly waking up to the fact that more people are biking, and more biking infrastructure leads to even more people biking.
I'm not trying to say that the problem highlighted here isn't valid, I'm merely trying to highlight that the scale of the problem might be lower than we expect.
The point is not about eliminating cars. Cars are, and will continue to remain, an important form of transportation, especially in rural or remote areas.
Public transit and alternative forms of transportation such as bikes, are about
1. Reducing traffic, less people driving means less traffic for those that need to drive.
2. Improving safety within cities and suburbs, a car is far more dangerous than a bike or public transit
3. Reducing the cost of infrastructure maintenance, cars are heavy, especially EVs, a reduction in the number of cars on the road would lead to massive savings in the cost of maintaining our roads.
4. Removing the car burden, cars are a expensive depreciating asset, and for low-income folks they are a massive tax just to be able to travel to work. So folks who don't want to, or don't have the means to own a car, they should be able to travel without paying a huge time penalty.
5. Health benefits, less cars on the road means people who prefer to walk, bike can do so safely and gain some health benefits.
6. Cars are noisy, noise pollution is linked to bad health outcomes, less cars = less noise on public areas.
IMHO humane pin was dead on arrival, using a pin to interact with an AI sounds great on paper until we realize it’s awkward and slow in real life use