pcai (u/pcai) - Readit News

pcai commented on AI is Dunning-Kruger as a service christianheilmann.com/202... · Posted by u/freediver

jryio · a month ago

I would like to see AI usage regulated in the same way that vehicles are: license required.

Be that an aptitude test or anything else... unfettered usage of vehicles is dangerous in the same way that unfettered access to AI is as well.

As a society, we have multiple different levels of certification and protection for our own well-being in the public's when certain technologies may be used to cause harm.

Why is knowledge or AI any different? This is not in opposition at all to access information or individual liberties. No rights are violated by their being a minimum age in which you can operate a vehicle.

pcai · a month ago

A vehicle is driven on public roads and can kill people, that’s why licenses are required.

Outlawing certain kinds of math is a level of totalitarianism we should never accept under any circumstances in a free society

pcai commented on Denver rent is back to 2022 prices after 20k new units hit the market denverite.com/2025/07/25/... · Posted by u/matthest

tptacek · 5 months ago

For this argument to work you have to believe that decreasing the price of service delivery wouldn't decrease the price of health insurance. Provider costs dominate US national health expenditure, like it's not even close; it's not a full order of magnitude difference but it's close to one.

pcai · 4 months ago

> For this argument to work you have to believe that decreasing the price of service delivery wouldn't decrease the price of health insurance.

I think we are talking past each other. My argument is not that lower prices for medical services wouldn’t lead to lower insurance costs. My argument is specifically that increasing supply doesn’t necessarily lead to lower prices for medical services. It would be quite a finding if US cities with more doctors per capita have cheaper medical services but if anything the opposite is true

pcai commented on Denver rent is back to 2022 prices after 20k new units hit the market denverite.com/2025/07/25/... · Posted by u/matthest

koolba · 5 months ago

> It isn't as simple as supply and demand.

It really is that simple.

Giving people insurance without actually increasing the supply of doctors or clinics increases the number of people willing and able to seek treatment. It does nothing for lowering costs of said treatment. Per basic economics, that’s shifting the demand curve (i.e., increasing demand).

With no changes to supply that leads to higher prices. So every time the government makes a new program or expands anny existing one that provides insurance coverage, costs for everyone will go up.

In contrast, my proposal for explicitly bringing in doctors and creating clinics increases supply. People who would have gone to see a doctor elsewhere may now choose to go to this new free clinic.

The demand curve itself would not change, though with the lower cost due to the supply curve shift you would have a larger overall market.

This is clearly oversimplified. There’s some second order effects where if primary care market increases, you’ll need more X-rays and CAT scans. So there could be an increase in those prices. But that’s could be solved in the same way too.

pcai · 5 months ago

I think you’re still missing the point - it’s NOT classic supply and demand because the mechanism by which that works is prices, and in many healthcare markets including the US — the buyer isn’t the payer, and shortages lead to rationing (via wait times) rather than increased prices, so often increasing supply doesn’t change prices even as it increases aggregate costs (because there’s still excess demand and rationing).

pcai commented on Let me pay for Firefox discourse.mozilla.org/t/l... · Posted by u/csmantle

Diti · 5 months ago

We all cannot afford job instability, with mortgages to pay.

pcai · 5 months ago

I 100% agree! It's almost like income stability is valuable!

pcai commented on Let me pay for Firefox discourse.mozilla.org/t/l... · Posted by u/csmantle

hajile · 5 months ago

If salaries were based on value added, a lot of software dev salaries would be orders of magnitude higher.

pcai · 5 months ago

Hmm if this is true why is it so rare that software devs quit their jobs and make more money freelancing or starting their own companies?

pcai commented on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (February 2025) · Posted by u/whoishiring

pcai · 10 months ago

Sigma Squared | Senior Software Engineer | Cambridge, MA | Full time | ONSITE

Sigma Squared is a mission-driven data science platform for making better people decisions. Companies use our software to make better hiring and promotion decisions - based on merit, not intuitions. This leads to fairer outcomes and less bias.

We recently raised $10MM series A from 8vc and are launching in food&bev and law enforcement this year.

We're hiring senior (full stack) engineers (and in customer success, sales, marketing, and product management).

Our stack: React, Typescript, AWS (we also work closely with data scientists so we dabble in python)

To apply: https://sigmasquared.io/careers?ashby_jid=92adf2c5-8bed-466b...

pcai commented on Ruby Meetups rubyconferences.org/meetu... · Posted by u/mooreds

mooreds · a year ago

> Interestingly, Sydney does not seem to have an event listed on this site when I checked.

To be fair, Boulder Ruby is pretty active, and we aren't on that list. Just moved to Luma from meetup but have had meetings 10 months a year since 2016.

https://boulder-ruby.org/

https://lu.ma/boulder-ruby

pcai · a year ago

Note this is hosted on gh so you can open a pr to add yours: https://github.com/ruby-conferences/ruby-conferences.github....

I’m on mobile at the moment otherwise I’d do it myself

pcai commented on Ruby Meetups rubyconferences.org/meetu... · Posted by u/mooreds

pcai · a year ago

This list is hosted on github, contributions are welcome: https://github.com/ruby-conferences/ruby-conferences.github....

pcai commented on FCC wants all phones unlocked in sixty days, AT&T and T-Mobile aren't so keen androidauthority.com/fcc-... · Posted by u/miles

lolinder · a year ago

A) This isn't what OP was asking about. They're pretty clearly asking about stolen devices from a consumer, not consumers stealing devices from carriers.

B) Your take is complicated by the fact that there actually is a secondary market for locked phones [0], so this isn't just about people rent-to-owning a phone with an explicit installment plan.

[0] https://www.ebay.com/itm/186656753206

pcai · a year ago

My point is that carrier locking is about managing credit risk and fraud, not an evil plot to trap customers, and not a mechanism for discouraging street theft.

It’s only complicated if people conflate issues or fail to understand the mechanics of carrier locking. You can just call up a carrier and ask to have the phone unlocked and they’ll oblige if its paid off. Sometimes people confuse carrier locking with imei blacklists, which is for stolen handsets. Sometimes people confuse phones with modems or firmware that only work with specific carriers as “carrier locked” but again, that’s not the same thing

pcai commented on FCC wants all phones unlocked in sixty days, AT&T and T-Mobile aren't so keen androidauthority.com/fcc-... · Posted by u/miles

zaptheimpaler · a year ago

That sounds like a speculation on a tangential benefit instead of the major consideration in locking phones. The carriers can blacklist any phone's IMEI at any point (in addition to the usual collections attempts, credit reporting etc) which achieves the same effect but better if a phone is stolen from them.

pcai · a year ago

It’s not speculation - this is literally why cell phone locking was invented. The imei blacklists were created much later specifically for theft, not to manage credit risk of customers getting subsidized phones.

You can literally just call your carrier to ask how to get your subsidized phone unlocked. There’s no need to speculate- it’s not a secret!