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I think this is a very useful framework for "choosing the right tool for the job".

For me personally, there isn't much difference between the Chef's Hat and the Teacher's Hat; the way I make code presentable is the same as how I make it self-documenting. I can tell I did a good job if the person reading my code feels smart.


The difference is that code designed to be easy to read is not the same as code written to aesthetic principles. The easiest example of this I can think of is the difference between code that follows formal whitespace rules and code that gives variables long names so that it is easier to understand them. Or the difference between ensuring that none of the declarations at the top of a file are redundant vs ordering all of the function definitions such that they tell some kind of narrative.

Code can be aesthetic and yet hard to understand or ugly but obvious.


I see one key difference. Teaching code should be stripped down to only what is required for what is being taught. Everything else must go.

You can see this dichotomy in Scheme. Versions <= 5 were teaching first, everything else second. Versions 6+ tried to do both.


> Self diagnosis is not reliable

Professional diagnosis is not reliable either. ADHD and autism are often misdiagnosed as one-another, especially in girls.

> If you don't have an official diagnosis you can't be certain you really have ADHD

A lot of the time, the mental health professional making the determination doesn't have specialty in ADHD/Autism. All they're doing is looking at symptoms and making their best guess. Which is exactly what people are doing when they make a self-determination. In many cases, people with high-functioning autism know more about autism than the people who are supposed to know. And it's not like the diagnoses can be validated when we're still figuring out what autism even is.


Professional assessors should know much more about the condition for which they are assessing and its signs than any one person who may or may not have the condition. A professional should also know the other conditions with similar symptoms.

I learned about ADHD for six months until I first consulted an expert about the possibility of my having it. He was able to recognise symptoms in me that I hadn't noticed.


Glad you got a good provider, but that’s anecdata. You kind of acknowledge this with the word choice “should.”

As the old joke goes, “what do you call the person who graduated last in their medical school class?”

One estimate [1] states that over 400,000 people die due to medical errors in the US every year.

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23860193/


Press X to not be violated


Why put "feeling unsafe" in scare quotes? There's a lot to feel unsafe about right now.


Because it’s a ridiculous notion. National crime is at an all time low and gets lower every year. You haven’t been safer more than you are today. Mental safety is feel good progressive nonsense. If you can’t handle reality, you are eventually going to snap.


Crime isn't the only thing that impacts people's health.

- Difficulty getting insurance to see the doctor impacts peoples' safety and sense of safety. - Fear of gaps in insurance coverage keeps people in toxic jobs where they feel unsafe. - Many people can't get prescription medicines they need, impacting health. - Homelessness is increasing - Polarized political speech, including hate speech, causes legitimate anxiety, contributing to poor psychological health.

None of the above things were as big of a problem 20 years ago. Using "crime" as a measure of unsafety only makes sense if you have access to healthcare, a stable job, and don't face discrimination.


Do anything of those things affect you personally though? Do most people get affected by that? People make things worse in their heads. Life is fine.


People can't just choose to stop feeling unsafe. Chronic stress causes brain damage and reduces tolerance to further stress. This is a fact. Calling people in this situation irrational accomplishes nothing.


We live in the safest time in human history by a margin so wide it's remarkable.


I can't imagine what it would be like to actually have to deal with the scenario you described.


Customized deepfake attacks are definitely happening:

https://www.npr.org/2023/03/22/1165448073/voice-clones-ai-sc...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2021/10/14/huge-...

My thinking is, you might as well get in the habit of defending yourself now. The alternative is to monitor how widespread the attack is and only adjust your policy once it becomes "sufficiently" widespread. But I don't think that's even a labor savings, since defending yourself isn't actually that hard.


This feels like a J-class SCP


They probably know that it doesn't hold water legally. The hope is to victim blame as much as possible so that fewer people sue them in the first place. The next step will be to "remind" people about the TOS that they totally agreed to.


This looks like a perfect class action case. There's really no physical harm or financial harm to the users, but a class action might be the only way for it to hurt. But IANAL, and probably have it all wrong in my head???


Why is it that in the US individuals have to band together and privately launch a class action to stop these types of parasitic behaviours. The government is supposed to represent the interests of citizens.


That's exactly why - we have a largely dysfunctional federal government (and most state governments aren't much better).

The biggest downside is the lawyers take a massive chunk of any award and the actual victims are often left with very little. Or, even worse, the victims get worthless coupons (like with many credit/PII breaches - the award will be 1-year of credit monitoring from the company that allowed the breach in the first place).


This credit score system in the US always made me curious. Say some point I had a proposition to move to the US and I asked the company offering the job how they will ensure that I immediately get the best possible score. They said it was not possible because it was a personal score.

I told them that I will certainly not start to build a credit score at 40 yo so they will have to find someone else.


You refused a job because the company would not assist you in obtaining a perfect ("best possible") credit score?

a) nobody has a perfect score b) FICO algorithms are proprietary from third-party companies, how would your potential employer have any influence?


Yes, and this is when I discovered this system which looks quite crazy to me.

I am coming from abroad with experience nedded in a US company (and therefore in the US at large) and I start my finance as if I was 18.

Then if there is a problem with my PII I have to worry about why it was lost. The company that lot it is going to give me a year of some kind of monitoring.

Well, no. I am not really interested to depend on some proprietary system that can make my life difficult just because someone fucked up. Or go through hoops to build it without consideration of my past outside the US or my job.


Honest question, what do other nations do to determine credit-worthiness? There has to be some sort of risk assessment on the part of banks and other financial institutions. And that risk assessment would have to be made for immigrants there as well, presumably with less/zero data?

FWIW, as much as Americans complain about the credit score system, it's mostly not a problem (for most people, most of the time). It's not hard for a middle-income person to earn and maintain a top-tier score (800+) and the lowest possible APRs when borrowing.

And assuming a prospective employer would assist you with finding housing, it's not hard for an immigrant to begin building their credit score. Just make sure your landlord reports rent to the credit agencies and take out a credit card. 3-6 months later, you have a decent score.

Identity theft is a real problem, but that extends well beyond the credit agencies.


You go to a bank (people often go their bank with some expectation of a better rate) or you use check online comparator to see what deal you can get.

Then the bank will look at your current funds, the job you have, the earnings you have and after some abracadabra they will say yes or no.

There is no building of trust the assessment is on what you have and what you are capable of.

The credit is usually 1/3 of your salary (at least in France) and you novadays have to provide about 20-30% of the total amount.


It's also worth noting there is no singular credit score in the US. There are (at least) 3 agencies that generate credit reports. The "score" is usually the FICO score, but there are versions of FICO Score, and other scores.

In France, how doe a lender know if you have other loans/debt outstanding? Or if you have a history of non-payment? Those two make up the majority of a credit score (35% payment history, 30% debt burden). And the credit score is just one piece of an overall credit report.


There is the "trust" component first: in your request, you list all your credits and the fact that you have failed a payment.

Then you provide the bank with your last three bank statements and your salary. They match the money movements with what they expect to see (a salary coming in, a payment going out, ...)

Finally, there is a centralized database of failed payments.

It works well, we do no have special problems with credits and how they are paid off (what helps is that there are compulsory insurances and protections for the credit-taker)


Honestly, I have no idea how other countries' banks make loan decisions. But I wouldn't be surprised if "after some abracadabra" involves reviewing some kind of centralized credit history.


(copied from a sibling comment)

There is the "trust" component first: in your request, you list all your credits and the fact that you have failed a payment. Then you provide the bank with your last three bank statements and your salary. They match the money movements with what they expect to see (a salary coming in, a payment going out, ...)

Finally, there is a centralized database of failed payments.

It works well, we do no have special problems with credits and how they are paid off (what helps is that there are compulsory insurances and protections for the credit-taker)


> some kind of centralized credit history

> there is a centralized database of failed payments

exactly what I assumed, and pretty much the same as how the US credit-check system works.


The difference is that we do not have a score and that there is an implicit trust in your declarations. These declarations are somehow checked for major inconsistencies but that's all.

There is no history of credit and the note in the centralized database is removed when you actually pay (this is then rather a "database of people who are currently late in their payments")

The other thing is that we do not have the problem of "I know your SS# so I can take a credit" - it requires all kinds of bureaucratic gymnastics.


> we do not have a score

of course you have a score, it's just implied rather than explicit. how many missed payments? how much were those missed payments? that's the score.

> an implicit trust in your declarations

...but we still look you up in the central database ;-) sure, we trust you


OK, let's put it another way then.

Whenever there is a hack there is panic in the US about credits and credit scores. You are provided a "monitoring" for a year in case things south (and hopefully a way to recover).

You hear about what to do to have/keep a credit score in the US.

So this is something important.

These considerations do not exist in Europe, nobody ever discusses this. It means there is a fundamental difference about how credits are apprised in Europe and the US.

I do not even mention the fact that we virtually do not have credit cards. That is cards where there is a minimum amount to pay back and the rest is credited.

So this is really different.


[flagged]


This seems like the perfect reasoning to build a country upon. The US brain drain was hugely accelerated by WW2 and is in steady decline. Having a system that encourages new people to take out loans/credit just to build a score probably doesn't make it better, don't think that won't affect the US economy long term.

On a single individuals level it doesn't matter ofc, but don't be ignorant towards how that might affect your future if you're young enough to live through brilliant people leaving.


When you come from a place where in order to get a credit the banks look at your finance, job etc. and based on that they give you one or not, the US system is weird to say the least.

I am glad you are happy building a credit score and then when your SS number is lost (or some other PII) you have to go through hoops to maintain it. This is a place I do not want to be in.


I thought our government was dysfunctional on purpose?


working as intended. won't fix. <closes ticket>


1) Common law versus civil law. We rely a lot more on private lawsuits than on regulator action. This is probably a mistake, given that it sure looks like it adds costs to common law countries with little to no benefit (and, arguably, harm) but it’s what we have.

2) The consumer protection laws we do have, and the bodies to enforce them, are relatively weak and enforcement is spotty at best. The most recent serious attempt to kinda fix this is the formation of the CFPB, and one of our two relevant political parties deliberately prevents it from working when they hold the White House (sample size of one, admittedly) and has been trying to totally kill it, in the legislature or (better, because it’s popular and this is deniable) in the courts.


> consumer protection laws we do have, and the bodies to enforce them, are relatively weak

IANL - however, in the US and in US States, many serious cases have been decided in favor of the consumer, over decades. It is the most recent waves of privacy versus ad revenue that are indeed, very weak. It is awkward to defend these regulators since their failures are sometimes glaring, however it is my impression that serious settlements against industry can have silence or "gag orders" attached, and they often do. The industry lawyers can argue that the news of the settlement alone constitutes additional commercial damage to the company, and of course they are right in a narrow sense.


> The government is supposed to represent the interests of citizens.

I'm not sure that's ever happened in this country. They pay all sorts of lip service, but when challenged or under pressure, the US makes a lot of excuses for leaving its own people behind.

Thankfully we can repay that favor and see how they like it when there's nobody left to defend them.


Who is "we" and "them" in your statement?


It's not true that individuals need to band together. A single individual can kick off a class action lawsuit, private litigators can even kick start a lawsuit themselves (though ultimately the lawsuit will bring in impacted individuals).

The idea of private litigators is to complement the innate limitations of federal/state lawyers, by offering profit as an incentive.

Ideally yeah Americans would have stronger laws around TOS, customer privacy, data handling and security, and robustly funded state lawyers... but we don't.

Practically speaking, such gaps are not unique to technology. Every industry has this same problem, and your awareness of those problems is reflective of the general public's political engagement with this thread's topic. So having gaps that private litigators address is really quite normal and part of the incremental progress of legislation and state enforcement.


Lobbying. Citizens United. Disinterested populace.

Do you need a longer list?


First Past The Post voting discouraging competition in the electoral system.


Exactly. Same reason construction vehicles have "Stay back 200 feet: not responsible for broken windshields" written on the back.


Yep. A small tangent for anyone who has seen these: they’re very clearly not specifically enforceable. I got a window banged up by things falling off a truck with this signage, and the first thing they said when I called their “How Am I Driving” number the first thing they said was that they were not responsible citing this sign. Fortunately that sign was non binding. :)


Georgia (state) takes it a step further. They wrote an exemption to the license plate law that allows dump truck owners to display the plate only on the front of the vehicle. Makes it that much harder to hold them accountable.


Its like they don't know drivers and their willingness to make "for damn sure" the other side is made aware of their displeasure. lol


“If you can read this bumper sticker, the occupants of your vehicle agree to…”


"Private sign, DO NOT READ"


At least in California, its illegal for anything to fall from a vehicle except water and bird feathers so not sure how that sign help them.


If I'm not mistaken, that's the point the person above you was making. Those stickers on dump trucks that say "Stay back 200 feet. Not responsible for broken windshields" are worthless from a legal perspective.

They do absolutely nothing to remove liability from the truck driver/company. If a rock falls from their truck and cracks your windshield, they absolutely are responsible for any damages.

Rather, their sole value is to convince drivers that the trucking companies aren't at fault, so that drivers whose vehicles are damaged from falling rocks erroneously elect not to press charges or pursue damages.


Isn't their sole value to keep most people back far enough so they don't get their windshields broken?


Actually yeah, you're probably right. That's probably their main value followed by what I commented originally (in the case drivers aren't far enough back and get hit by a rock).


i’m guessing you have a problem with signs that say “danger, do not enter” as well


Such a lawsuit, if one was filed, would be in civil court, where nothing is guaranteed. If, in the unlikely case that the suit was not settled and it actually went to jury, no judge would direct that jury that truckers "absolutely are responsible for any damages."

If you are tailgating directly behind a rock truck with a big sign "stay back 200 feet" for an extended period of time, or end up right behind the truck because you're in a big hurry, or because you thought you could squeeze through an empty lane, a good lawyer could absolutely argue, successfully, that you are at least halfway responsible for the damage, if not 100%.


I disagree. Likely this type of suite would be handled in small claims court so there is no jury and no lawyers. Also, the law is really clear. There is no scenario where trucks are allowed to spill stuff on the road. The only argument they might try is to say that the rock didn't come from the truck but was kicked up off the road as they drove. But you know, that's probably not going to work if the truck was indeed carrying rocks. I think you might be giving lawyers too much credit. Really all they will do, is make it so painful for you to get in front of a judge, that you give up.


Small claims court is civil court

> the law is really clear

what law are you quoting? in what city/state/country?

I certainly agree that in many cases a rock truck causes damage to entirely innocent drivers who happened to get in the vicinity of spilled rocks without ever intending to (for example if the rock truck passes them, or at intersections, etc.

However -- you said "they absolutely are responsible" and I'm saying, no, it depends. Rock trucks are annoying and dangerous but are clearly necessary for cities to build roads and other infrastructure. Unfortunately, it seems impossible to fully, absolutely secure a rock truck. If a rock truck company came to court prepared with evidence that it had followed (or exceeded) every safety and regulatory procedure, and perhaps that its accident rate is lower than industry average, and further, that the "victim" was tailgating right behind the rock truck (probably in attempt to pass) despite a prominent "stay back 200 feet" sign, even a small-claims judge might say, it's half-and-half, or -- especially if the truck had video of the other driver performing a dangerous maneuver -- that it's actually the driver's fault and therefore no liability from the rock truck company.

> Really all they will do, is make it so painful for you to get in front of a judge, that you give up.

because a dangerous driver will realize that their case is extremely weak due to failing to follow the 200-ft sign. mission accomplished.


The point being that while it’s not at all enforceable there’s a non zero number of people who will think it is and not fight it


What about fallen leaves?


Straight to jail!


Or at least probable cause for a search :-)


or the "Warranty void if removed" stickers on electronics, which are not legally enforceable in the US.


“Not responsible for black eye if something falls from your vehicle and damages my vehicle.”


Except that the truck driver has zero fault for the gravel on the road and the spacing between the tires and the mud guard of the truck his employer maintains.

Or did you mean you’d seek out the ceo of the truck company and give them a black eye?


If it's gravel they are transporting it's obviously their fault, it's the responsibility of the driver to secure the load (with some blame falling on truck companies for providing insufficient equipment).

If it's random gravel from the road it's more understandable. But even then the driver is very much responsible for the mud guards on the truck they are operating, just as the police would write a ticket to the driver for worn down tires or broken lights.


But are they “a punch in the face”-responsible?

I lived in Boston for a while. Cracked windshields were extremely common. No one was ever upset at another person.


I think you're missing the joke. If truck drivers could actually put up a sign saying they are not liable for any debris falling from their vehicle, and have it be a valid defense in court. Then they would just put up a sign saying they are not liable for any black eyes given when they see debris falling off a truck.

They're taking the unrealistic expectation of the truck driver's sign protecting them from doing something illegal and flipping it. In other words "If you coul just put up your own sign and get legal protection to break my windshield, then I could just as easily put up a sign giving me legal protection to break your nose."


A driver has a legal obligation to not drive a vehicle that is spreading debris on the road, which they are often doing and that debris often comes from their construction sites. There are places that use track washing stations at entrances and exits to prevent this.


This is usually related to drivers who do not use the cover of their truck they are legally supposed to. So rocks fly out the top.


And usually because the truck is over full too. For almost any load, if you fill the truck to the brim you have overloaded it. (Unless you're moving styrofoam)


Or dump trucks, which leak out the seams as they go over bumps


Or smaller contractor type trucks with tools in them.

Ever have to dodge an axe at 35MPH? Not fun.


Also mud flaps


Does this apply to shopping carts in parking lots?


I wish a class action could include those of us who have never used their service, but whose relatives have.


Help us, European Union. You're our only hope.


Why does about half the country keep voting for a party that is clearly against the EU then? Is it because of their unwavering love of ransomware and other frauds?


I would love a search engine that only catalogs pages without ads.


Humans and AIs both evolve as the result of some iterations dying. In both cases, we tacitly erase the ones who don't make it (by framing the discussion around the successful, alive ones). The difference is that humans have had a broader training set.


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