jlos (u/jlos) - Readit News

jlos commented on The strangest letter of the alphabet: The rise and fall of yogh deadlanguagesociety.com/p... · Posted by u/penetralium

efitz · 3 months ago

I want to see English become mor fonetik and mor regular.

As I watched my son learn to speak, then later to read and write, I paid attention to his misspellings and they all made perfect sense if you approached the language phonetically.

The first sentence he wrote for me was:

“my daddy and i tocd on d woki toki” (“My Daddy and I talked on the walkie talkie.”)

At first confusing, but it omits all the silent, or effectively silent because native speakers usually omit the sound, or abbreviate it so much that non-native speakers would miss it if they didn’t know it was there. Like “l” in “talked”.

And don’t get me started on irregular conjugations.

jlos · 3 months ago

You want ENGLISH to be more phonetic?

English, a language with over 40 different dialects in its country of origin.

English, the official language of over 60 countries?

English, the bastard child of millenia of Roman, Germanic, and French colonization?

English, a language with documented vowel shift that occured over 200-300 years?

THAT language would be easier if the words were spelled how they were pronounced?

jlos commented on A shift in developer culture is impacting innovation and creativity dayvster.com/blog/dev-cul... · Posted by u/ibobev

jlos · 3 months ago

Taking a contrarian point here, I went into software to make money doing a craft I can enjoy. I love software because its *useful*. Useful enough I can finance a lifestyle I enjoy for myself and my family, while still feeling moments of creativity and autonomy.

I think there needs to be a distinction between artist and artisan. Art exists for its own sake, code exists because its useful. I don't want code that reads like poetry, I want code that works so I read actual poetry later.

> Have a project in mind that you’ve always wanted to tackle but it never made sense to you to do it because it would never be used by anyone else or it would never make you any money?

I appreciate the tinker's and hobbyists, software is endlessly interesting as a career, and I'm thankful to be here. But I only want to build code that is useful.

jlos commented on The Gang Has a Mid-Life Crisis chris-martin.org/2025/the... · Posted by u/dralley

jlos · 8 months ago

Why is James Damore listed alongside Andreesen and Zuckerberg? Andreesen and Zuckerberg have hundreds of billions at their disposal and Damore was an employee fired for giving feedback on a company diversity program.

I mean I know why, but the antipathy underlying the article undermines an otherwise interesting point.

jlos commented on Justin Trudeau promises to resign as PM cbc.ca/news/politics/trud... · Posted by u/sirteno

jlos · a year ago

As a close watcher of Canadian politics, here's the best summary I can offer for those not familiar:

Overal Picture

Canada has seen gdp-per-capita decline for nearly every quarter over the past 3 years. Large stimulus spending during the pandemic fueled the housing crisis and added massive inflation. Stimulating the economy through similarly massive increases in Non-Permanent Residents has kept GDP afloat, but come at the cost of over-burdening public institutions and housing. Contiuing either policy is not possible and deeply unpopular. Canadians now pay more taxes than any US state, have housing more expensive than New York, but with productivity below that of the poorest state and our dollar running a major discount. This while our public instutions are struggling to meet demand.

1. Recurring themes in Canadian Politics

2. Recent history of the federal liberals

3. Current issues facing the government

Recurring Themes in Canadian Politics

- Unlike the U.S. where there are multiple strong centers of politics and commerce (East Cost, West Coast, Texas), Canada political power is centered largely along the St. Lawrence River where most of the country's population lives.

- Trends arising from this include: Quebec receiving, relative to its population, outsized benefits and influence in exchange for remaining part of the country and as result of French speaking requirements for the federal government. Quebec has nearly exited the country several times

- Canada is still largely a resource-based economy and possess an impressive amount of natural resources: oil, natural gas, largest uranium reserves in the world, more freshwater than all other countries combined, etc.

- The concentration of power in the East while most resource development happening in the West, creates a quasi-colonial between the Ontario/Quebec and the younger and resource heavy provinces, particularly the Prairies.

- Economically, Canada priviledges large incumbent businesses and most of its sectors are oligopolies. The reasoning for doing so historically has been to fend of larger, well funded US competitors.

Recent History of the federal liberals

- Liberals have historically have been centrist party, taking popular ideas from both socialist NDP (who have yet to win a federal election) and the federal Conservative party (itself a coaltion of social and fiscal conservatives created by Harper in the 90s).

- 2015 Justin Trudeau came in as the most popular Prime Minister in history with a majority government. Major legislation included legalizing weed and improvements to Child Benefits. The majority was lost in 2019 with Conservatives gaining the popular vote.

Overall Picture - In Detail

- Economic Issue #1: Lagging economy. Canada is still largely a resource based economy (see above) and business investment in that sector, and Canada overall, declined drastically starting in 2015, arguably due to increasing opportunities for resource development in the U.S. and the Canadian Federal Government stance towards non-reweables. Business investment is more a leading indicator, but still a major economic issue for Canada.

- Economic Issue #2: Increased cost of housing. Canadian housing costs in major cities has reached crisis levels even leading up to the pandemic. Our major cities like Toronto and Vancouver are some of the most unaffordable in the world. Most people who have been in Canada have seen housing in their cities go from achieveable-if-expensive (in major regions) to impossibly unaffordable. Most major cities now require 30+ of saving (at the average income) for a downpayment with a salary in the top 1% to purchase a home.

- Economic issue #3: Large inflation, combined with increased costs from consolidated markets with little competition. Not unlike other countries post-pandemic, but reports show major costs of living such as groceries have seen above-inflation levels of price increases due to industry consolidation. I.E. Many parts of Canada have one 2 major suppliers of grociers

- Immigration Issue #1: Non-permanent Residents. Canada has 2 classes of immigrants (aside from Refugees, whih make up a small number): Permanent Residents (PR's) and Non-permanent residents (NPR's). Our PR system is what is widely hailed as one of the best in the world and a point of Canadian pride. The NPR system has been substantially expanded under the Trudeau government and arguably exploited with millions of NPR's entering as temporary workers and university students. NPR's now consist of over 7% of the population (larger than then Indigenous population).

- Social Cohesion: most of Canada's public services (healthcare, teaching, even postal services, etc) have seen substantial degradation and a struggle to meet capacity.

- Lastly, it should be noted that Canada has tax system well above any US state. Historically, most Canadians have not have a problem with this because of the relative strength of our public institutions.

Current Issues facing the Goverment

- If the federal liberals have an election, they will lost most of their seats. They may even lose party status. They will likely avoid this at all costs.

- The federal NDP are not projected to lose seats, but will lose influence they gain by upholding the minority government. They gain little from a federal election.

- Given an early election is not likely and Trudeau is facing revolts internally (his key finance minister and deputy PM resigned publicly in the past few weeks), the choice is to stop parliment while they look for a new PM (trudeau may act as the interim). If they choose an existing MP for PM (maybe Freeland) they risk being associated with a deeply unpopular party. If they chose an outsider (like Mark Carney), they risk just as much backlash for an unelected PM.

jlos commented on The ambiguous witness of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2014) newcriterion.com/article/... · Posted by u/Pamar

bloomingeek · a year ago

Is history repeating itself in the evangelical church today? Instead of doctrines and creeds, has it become politics and power?

Bonhoeffer went against the churches of his day because the Jesus of the bible wasn't being followed. Today it's the "warrior" Jesus that's being touted, one who never existed. When politics and power take over any Christian entity, it always led to disaster.

jlos · a year ago

Religion and politics have always been mixed. Prior to the founding of the U.S., religious and political identity was one and the same. Which is why heresy was often treated in civil courts as sedition.

Even when the U.S. introduced the concept of seperation of church and state, it was for the explicit purpose of promoting religion. The U.S. founders axiomatically assumed religion was necessary for morality and self-governance and believed that a free market of religions (as opposed to state religion) would lead to increased religiosity [0]. And, interestingly, it seems they were right as the countries with state churches have all seen massive religious decline while the U.S. is one of the most religious countries in the world (especially when you filter out the elite class, who as secular as Europeans).

The danger is that politicians co-opt religious institutions to help legitimize their regime and bolster support. Marsh's biography of Bonhoffer describes exactly this process.

[0] George Washington's Final Address: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/farewell-address "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. . . Let it simply be asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."

jlos commented on My Social Anxiety Cheatsheet for Mingling adamgrant.info/my-social-... · Posted by u/hidelooktropic

jlos · a year ago

Nice tidbits here. I'd summarize good conversation as balancing:

(1) Creating conversations that are fun and interesting for you. (2) Give attention to the person. Make them feel comfortable, seen, and understood.

More details:

- The better you get at creating you're own good time (and it is a skill), the more you 'energy' you have to give.

- If you feel akward, you'll make the other person uncomfortable. Being comfortable with yourself is the foundation to having a sense of presence and charisma. Even if an interaction is going poorly and its feels like your fault, it can be funny. So many sitcoms are based around comedically bad interactions.

- Focusing on giving attention and comfort to the other person helps take away the anxiety of "what are they thinking about me?". Your focused on doing something for them instead of what they think of you.

- Seeking validation is a form of trying to get something from somebody. When you seek validation, you bring an agenda to the conversation, even if unconsciously, and thats why it feels uncomfortable.

- Most people just talk to be heard, so its a real gift to give someone your genuine interest and attention.

Other tricks:

Take a guess instead of asking a question:

- "You look like your having a good day" instead of "how are you?".

- "Do you work in {field}?" instead of "what do you do?"

- "Are you from {place}"

- You're guess should be educated, something you notice about the person (remember how attention is a gift?). If you're right, you make an immediate connection. If you're wrong, the conversation has a natural place to go.

Pay attention to your body:

- Notice the sensations in your feet, hands, shoulders, etc. Don't change them, just notice them. Especially your breathe. It helps you be connected with the person in the moment instead of in your head.

jlos commented on Ask HN: What breakthrough helped you build and maintain better relationships? · Posted by u/beadey

jlos · a year ago

(1) Live and Speak Honestly

(2) Be Childlike in your approach to life and relationships

(1) Honest Living

If your boring (and I don't know if you are), its probably because you stopped pursuing things that you wanted and excited you for something safe. Boring people also mask their emotions when speaking to people to avoid rejection.

To find people you genuinely connect with, you need to express yourself fully. Honest expressions will make you more polarizing, and you will experience rejection. But the people you connect with will be much deeper because they see who you actually are.

Honest living usually means some therapy or self reflection to identify the things in your life you stopped purusing. A simple litmus test: you are in a social situation and see a person you find attractive. Do you make excuses for not talking to them or go and talk to them, openly stating your interest?

(2) Childlike

Children play until they get hurt or get in trouble. Do you approach relationships with this attitude? Is your heart open to loving other people even if it hurts and they reject you?

jlos commented on Show HN: Container Desktop – Podman Desktop Companion container-desktop.com/... · Posted by u/istoica

jlos · a year ago

My team switched our medium sized org over to Rancher Desktop with no major issues after about 10 months. We don't need kubernetes though.

jlos commented on Project Hammer: reduce collusion in the Canadian grocery sector jacobfilipp.com/hammer/... · Posted by u/surprisetalk

a13n · a year ago

Love this project. I just moved from Toronto, and compared to the US was frustrated by how every major industry in Canada was basically an oligopoly.

In Canada if you look at telecoms, banks, insurance, grocers, airlines, etc – there are a few major competitors and that's about it. It's very difficult to start a competitor, often for regulatory reasons, and most smaller competitors end up getting bought out by the big guys.

As a result, they have crazy shitty experiences. Telecoms are frustratingly expensive for cable and mobile services. Banks are dreadful and charge fees left and right, for basic things that are free in the US. Customer support with any of these companies is terrible.

I'm not surprised that they are colluding on pricing. It's quite obvious in the telecom market at least.

It seems tricky from the gov's perspective because this oligopoly/collusion behavior likely fuels higher GDP and more tax revenue... but ultimately more competition and consumer protection would make for a better country to live in.

jlos · a year ago

Canada is intentionally setup to produce oligopolies as a defense against large American companies:

"Canada was, in a lot of ways, built on monopolies — think about the Hudson’s Bay Company or Canadian Pacific Rail. Canada has always feared that if we don’t let our homegrown companies get huge, we’ll get swamped by American competitors. That’s why there’s a tension between Canadian politicians, who often say they’re pro-competition, and the law, which incentivizes consolidation."

I think this strategy work well-enough until about 20 years ago. And by well enough I mean Canadian consumers weren't in an ideal situation, but things were good enough for most Canadians. Now the oligopolies have become basically predatory, gobbling up goverment funds and market capture wherever possible.

Case in point: our Temporary Foreign Worker program (who now make up 7% of the Canadian population) have not only strained housing, healthcare, and the job market it has even been called a "breeding ground for slavery" by the U.N. [1].

[0] https://www.wealthsimple.com/en-ca/magazine/canada-monopolie... [1] https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/g24/120/97/pdf/g24120...

jlos commented on The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community afterbabel.com/p/the-upst... · Posted by u/throwup238

kelseyfrog · a year ago

Well, yes, we've doubled down on mediating social interactions through economic relationships. Most of the interactions adults have in their lives are with or in the framing of economic relations. Homes, are being invaded with tablets and mobile devices which bring along with them framing interactions as economic relations through ad and consumer frames. Workplaces are inherently settings of economic relations, and third places outside of the consumer setting are becoming extinct because they are non-monetizable.

This last category, non-consumer third places are formerly the domain of kid-friendly community-building activities. When we talk about creating more of these and the response is, "they aren't economically viable," it's exactly the kind of economic calculus framing that I'm talking about.

jlos · a year ago

> we've doubled down on mediating social interactions through economic relationships

We've doubled down on marketplaces to mediate interactions because they are rational systems. Rational systems like marketplaces, elections, and bureaucracies are the sine qua non of liberalism, which both ends of the political spectrum advocate for in their own ways. The right typically advocates more for marketplaces and corporations (i.e. market-based bureaucracies) and the left typically advocates for more government managemeant (election based bureaucracies).

Rational systems are in constrast to local cultures based on tradition, biology, and shared history. Its why there is so much homogenization in farming, music, clothing, architecture, etc.

The upside is that rational systems allow for scale, propserity, and individual liberty on an unprecedented level. On the downside, rational systems are fundamentally dehumanizing.

We mediate everything through marketplaces because we've don't have any place for non-rational organizing principles (locality, biology, shared history, etc)