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jmcgough commented on Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants   mathstodon.xyz/@tao/11495... · Posted by u/dargscisyhp
numbers_guy · 24 days ago
There is nowhere to run and hide. Europe is worse than the US on this front. China also demands party loyalty. In a sense this is just the human condition. The ruling faction demands loyalty. Only a very advanced human civilization could move past that and allow criticism of the ruling class. Maybe the US had achieved that for a brief movement in the past or maybe it was just an illusion.

EDIT: For people wondering why I think it's worse in Europe, it's because in Europe the ruling class and the universities are on the same side. And when I say Europe, I mean UK, France and Germany.

jmcgough · 24 days ago
My PhD friends are moving to Canada and Hong Kong now. Neither are perfect, but they are better than America now in terms of academic freedom, and won't yank your funding in the middle of a 5 year research project just for petty revenge. Half of what you hear about China is propaganda - America is the bad place now.
jmcgough commented on Pony: An actor-model, capabilities-secure, high-performance programming language   ponylang.io/... · Posted by u/RossBencina
anacrolix · a month ago
It's a great concept but the ecosystem, tooling, and stewardship are really crap.
jmcgough · a month ago
It's sad that the only company using it in production switched to using Rust.
jmcgough commented on Why does a fire truck cost $2m   thehustle.co/originals/wh... · Posted by u/Guid_NewGuid
Animats · a month ago
So why not M A N fire trucks? Those are widely used in the European Union, and are considered good quality.
jmcgough · a month ago
We have strict regulations and standards set by the NFPA, EPA, and DOT for fire trucks. Would need to make significant modifications for it to meet standards.
jmcgough commented on Why does a fire truck cost $2m   thehustle.co/originals/wh... · Posted by u/Guid_NewGuid
therein · a month ago
With the amount of money printing going on, it is really insincere for them to create that false dichotomy anyway. It was never about which one out of the two we could afford.
jmcgough · a month ago
The federal bank performed quantitative easing between 2008 and 2014 as well, during the last economic crisis, but no one complained about "money printing" then. Inflation over the last few years has been a largely global phenomenon, which most economists attribute to supply chain disruptions, increased demand, and rising energy costs.
jmcgough commented on Cancer DNA is detectable in blood years before diagnosis   sciencenews.org/article/c... · Posted by u/bookofjoe
mikert89 · a month ago
Yeah, after a detection there is alot of work to determine if what they detected should be worried about. But this doesnt take away from the fact that cancer can be detected very early, and these screenings could easily save your life
jmcgough · a month ago
There's not a lot of evidence that full body MRIs are beneficial. A lot of people have pre-cancerous growths that may or may not become cancer in the future, so you may just be giving them unnecessary surgery, and surgeries are not risk-free. If you don't operate, they might develop an anxiety disorder.

We do a lot of CT imaging in the emergency department and it sucks if we incidentally find an abnormal growth in a young patient's CT head. These are usually benign and often not worth performing brain surgery to get a biopsy.

jmcgough commented on NIH is cheaper than the wrong dependency   lewiscampbell.tech/blog/2... · Posted by u/todsacerdoti
barisozmen · a month ago
Completely agree. It's one of the most important skills to know which dependency is good and which is bad.

My two cents. If a dependency is paid, than it is usually bad. Because the company providing that dependency has an incentive to lock you in.

As another point, "dependency minimalism" is a nice name for it. https://x.com/VitalikButerin/status/1880324753170256005

jmcgough · a month ago
I've experienced some bad paid dependencies forced on us by a non-engineering team. I've had a few good experiences with "open core" kinds of dependencies that are widely used by the community, e.g. sidekiq, and therefore less likely to suddenly vanish one day as they would almost certainly get forked and maintained by others in the same boat.

The upside of paying for something is that, assuming the owner or company is stable, I don't have to worry about some unpaid solo maintainer burning out and never logging back in.

jmcgough commented on Woman takes 10x dose of turmeric, gets hospitalized for liver damage   arstechnica.com/health/20... · Posted by u/burnt-resistor
burnt-resistor · 2 months ago
In the Next on chubbyemu department of lack of moderation...
jmcgough · 2 months ago
Presenting to the emergency department
jmcgough commented on LLMs should not replace therapists   arxiv.org/abs/2504.18412... · Posted by u/layer8
Lerc · 2 months ago
I think the argument isn't if LLM can do as good a job as a therapist, (maybe one day, but I don't expect soon).

The real question is can they do a better job than no therapist. That's the option people face.

The answer to that question might still be no, but at least it's the right question.

Until we answer the question "Why can't people get good mental health support?" Anyway.

jmcgough · 2 months ago
> The real question is can they do a better job than no therapist. That's the option people face.

The same thing is being argued for primary care providers right now. It makes sense on the surface, as there are large parts of the country where it's difficult or impossible to get a PCP, but feels like a slippery slope.

jmcgough commented on U.S. Chemical Safety Board could be eliminated   ishn.com/articles/114776-... · Posted by u/z991
almosthere · 2 months ago
That's how the FDA works, so, should we just shut them down?
jmcgough · 2 months ago
There are chemicals that are routinely used but aren't considered foods or drugs
jmcgough commented on What is the most realistic submarine movie? (2019)   usni.org/magazines/procee... · Posted by u/bookofjoe
jmcgough · 2 months ago
Very amused that someone picked Down Periscope, which for some reason is where my mind immediately went.

u/jmcgough

KarmaCake day6281October 6, 2011View Original