sojsurf · HackerTrans

7 maanden geledendiscuss

This thread was a follow-up to squibonpig's comment about the parental responsibility and the value of giving young people access to things that are dangerous when it's done with proper guidance. I agree with him, with the caveat that "the internet" is dangerous more like a city at night than a gun.

sojsurf

7 maanden geledendiscuss

> Are you implying one cannot be taught those skills if they have access to games?

Nah, I think games can be very valuable, especially communal, in-person games. I don't mind access to games at all... I think I look at the various forces around children and teens today, and it feels like we've taken away a lot of the things that were very valuable for development because they might be dangerous, and replaced them with replicas that are safe but lack some of the value and experience that came with the dangerous thing.

As an example, hunting games are safer than hunting, but hunting games do not teach you to be patient and still for hours, they do not teach gun safety, they do not teach you to stick it out when things get cold and uncomfortable. They do not teach you how to do something useful with the animal after you shot it, and there is no real cost to being sloppy and injuring but not killing an animal that is now suffering in the woods.

I'm sure you've heard people talk about the "infantilization" of young adults. What factors do you see behind this? How would you suggest we teach young people how to do hard things?

sojsurf

7 maanden geledendiscuss

A few thoughts:

- Perhaps we have different ideas of the appropriate age to wean kids off of toys and teach them to use real (and sometimes dangerous) things. Today's discussion is about guns, but the same could be said for boats, motorcycles, woodworking equipment, etc. I would like my children to be well rounded and well equipped when they become adults. However, I acknowledge that this may not be normal anymore: Many families seem to be content with their teenagers playing games all day long (ironically, games with guns!)

- It sounds like you have the gun in a "toy" category. For my kids, guns are absolutely not in the toy category. They are tools, used for hunting and protection, and access to these tools comes with guard rails and significant responsibility. I would rather my kids never get used to guns as toys.

- This is bigger than just personal decisions: In my state, teenagers used to be allowed to work on construction sites in the summers. By the time they graduated, many of these guys had real skills they could support their family with. In our rush to protect kids, this kind of work is no longer taught in classes or available as summer work for young people. We have made it increasingly hard for young people to "grow up"!

sojsurf

7 maanden geledendiscuss

Well written, and I agree with you on everything you wrote.

That said, "the internet" is a large place, and I think parents would find more clarity thinking of it the way they think of a physical place. In my mind, letting my son loose on the internet is not like letting him run around the woods unsupervised (which he does). It is more like dropping him off in a large city every night.

As you said, guidance is imperative, and in the real world we would not give only verbal guidance. We would, if we lived in the city, walk our kid to the library, the museum, the coffee shop, the park. We would talk about what parts of town to avoid. We would talk about what "free" means and about not trusting strangers and not just going into any door.

That last part is tricky. On the internet, every link is a door into a neighborhood, and there are a lot of neighborhoods even adults are not well prepared for.

sojsurf

8 maanden geledendiscuss

Probably using off-the-shelf analytics because rolling your own analytics takes time away from solving the central problems your users are paying you for. No one is _using_ the data. It's often not even really PII except that GDPR's net is incredibly broad.

I have not seen GDPR reduce the amount of data people track. It's just resulted in piles of cash being burned on lawyers' advice to make sure the company has as little GDPR-related liability as possible. Subprocessor agreements, updated Terms and Conditions, etc.

Some good has come out of it, such as less backup retention, and some basic data breach plans, but a lot of it is theater.

sojsurf

9 maanden geledendiscuss

hah, thanks. It's a bit more nuanced than that. Let me try again.

I completely support Apple's right to publish software that makes it difficult for unapproved software to run on it.

Similarly, I support your right to try running something else on it.

Just like my neighbor has the right to publish a browser that makes it difficult to run extensions in it, and I have the right to use a different browser.

Some people would like the phone OS to be regulated like a public utility. I do not support that, and if we _had_ to have it that way, it would be important to have the same standards for everyone and regulate _all_ phone OSes equally. I don't like the thought of what that would do to the chances of any "open" offering.

sojsurf

9 maanden geledendiscuss

I bought an iphone knowing that Apple has a review process and that I'm limited to apps sold in their store. Similarly, when I had an Android device I knew what I was getting in to.

I appreciate the fairly high level of review that apps get and I completely back Apple's right to control what runs on the OS they developed. Similarly, if _you_ want to run an OS you got from XDA on your Android device and install random stuff, I'll be the last person to stop you.

Hacker news readers are part of the small circle of people who have probably developed a decent intuition for whether software we download is clean or not. Most folks I know do not have this intuition, and many will not bat an eyelash when their new app asks for access to their contacts, etc. Sideload should absolutely continue to be a term that discourages the average person from doing it.

sojsurf

9 maanden geledendiscuss

One thing I've noticed is that our current economic model, which builds in constant inflation, forces buyers and sellers to have this conversation non-stop. Why are prices higher? Because our costs are higher. Or because everyone else is charging more. Didn't you just raise prices recently? Yes...

If you don't increase your prices with inflation, your business will not be sustainable in the long term.

sojsurf

9 maanden geledendiscuss

93,000 new homes per year?

That's an impressive figure: The second largest city/settlement in Ireland, Belfast, has a population of about 350,000. If these new homes house three people each (a family with one child), it means that Ireland is growing at a speed of almost a new Belfast per year.

Is the economy growing at a similar speed to support eight or nine more Belfasts in the next 10 years?

sojsurf

9 maanden geledendiscuss

Interesting idea. What are your thoughts on the following questions:

- Who decides who gets the valuable land (high rent value) and who gets the land no one wants to use?

- What happens when the population changes due to birth/death/immigration? Do you rebalance every 10 years? Can children inherit their parents' land?

- If we rebalance regularly, how do we protect people who built a business on land they had been renting but which is no longer available?

sojsurf

10 maanden geledendiscuss

I live near Detroit, not Hollywood. Most union workers are not movie stars, directors, staring quarterbacks or soccer stars. Most are cops, teachers and automotive workers.

Speaking with a friend around me who worked in automotive, the unions are a double edged sword. They provide security for you, but they also provide security for a bunch of folks who realized they won't get fired if they put in the bare minimum. My friend found this incredibly frustrating.

Many unions here put large amounts of money toward political goals I don't support. If I want a job at such a company, under Michigan state law I can be compelled to pay the dues, even if the union is working against me politically. Until I can work somewhere without being forced to pay union dues, I am not interested in those jobs, even if they pay more.

sojsurf

vorig jaardiscuss

I was just reading up on wifi 7 today. It sounds like the spec was designed with WIFI sensing in mind.

sojsurf

vorig jaardiscuss

> I think there is value though in carriers saying "no, wait, I'll do the lookup when I am ready to deliver!", because then I order something today with a 3-month lead time and if I move house, the delivery "follows me" to my new location.

The downside for carriers is that costs are unpredictable. Will they be shipping it a few miles or to the other side of the country?

The downside for the person ordering is that there is a race condition that makes it difficult for you to know where the thing will get delivered to. Perhaps you changed your location two days ago, and you are expecting a piece of furniture sometime soon. Did the furniture delivery process kick off before or after you changed your address?

sojsurf

vorig jaardiscuss

I have used Google meet exclusively for a number of years, multiple times a day on the cheapest Internet connection I can buy in my area. It is consistently a better experience then Zoom or Teams.

The only caveat is that the experience is not good on Firefox. Google meet is the only thing I use Chrome/Brave for.

sojsurf

vorig jaardiscuss

I went back recently. Maybe I'm in the wrong circles, but I'm seeing neither of these.

I _am_ still seeing lots of recycled content looking for clicks.

sojsurf

2 jaar geledendiscuss

Air pressure differentials, to be precise!

sojsurf

2 jaar geledendiscuss

Henry Ford did something similar with a beautiful English cottage from the early 1600s.

> In 1929, Henry purchased the property for $5,000 and immediately hired a team of local builders to restore the structures to more accurately reflect the era in which they were built. Upon completion, the workers dismantled them stone by stone, numbering each one individually and packing them in gravel sacks that were transported to the United States via train and boat.

https://victoriamag.com/touch-england-cotswold-cottage/

sojsurf

2 jaar geledendiscuss

> basic fiscal responsibility currently exists at odds with the reality most people need to exist within to be content.

Thanks for pointing that out. There are expenses that have gone up significantly compared to the average income. At the same time, the bar for "contentment" has gone up significantly

I live in the Midwest. Many of these neighborhoods have homes in the 1200 sq ft range (111 m^2), with two bedrooms, maybe a third small one, one bathroom and a basement. Talking to older neighbors, it used to be normal for a family with five or more children to live in a house like this. Cars were simpler and more affordable. There was one phone line per household, not per person. There was no internet access or cable TV subscription. You mowed your lawn with a mechanical, human powered device.

There's nothing wrong with having a bedroom for each child, but is it necessary for contentment? Definitely not.

sojsurf

2 jaar geledendiscuss

I disagree with the statement that credit is basically mandatory. The issues you raised may be real, but borrowing money does not solve any of them, it just hides them. My experience is that credit cards are predatory and offer an easy alternative to basic fiscal responsibility: Living within your means (more humbly than you might want), knowing what expenses you should expect and planning for them.

Utility bills, rent, taxes are predictable. Even most car repairs should not be an emergency. If you buy a car, or know anyone that has ever owned a car, you can confidently know that you will have unexpected car-related expenses. It happens to everyone and it should not be a surprise. If you own a car, immediately start putting some money aside so that when you get a flat, or crack the windshield, or need a new bearing, it's not an emergency.

If you have children, teach them money management. It's one of the most valuable skills for adult life. Additionally, talk to your local school district about teaching financial literacy courses!

sojsurf

2 jaar geledendiscuss

Under President Johnson, government funding began to incentivize single (predominantly black) mothers not to marry the father of their children. IMO this had disastrous effects on our urban centers. Before the social welfare solutions of the Johnson era, 25% of black children were born without two parents. Now the number is nearly 75%, and the effect on young men has been tragic, in a way that affects the whole community.

comments