I lose my cards like you wouldn’t believe. I break my phones…but less often than I lose my cards. All cards on phone would be a dream for me. Especially if I could just have my cards tucked away somewhere as a backup.

I’ve never heard of butyric acid but I’m wondering is that what gives American chocolate it’s plastic taste and even texture? Because I can’t stand it.

Even in Kraft singles…it’s like there’s this similar thing going on there. It’s different but there’s this common plastic tasting thing going on there that I can’t stand either.

I feel bad because my kid loves cooking grilled cheeses and always wants me to try them but I can’t stomach it. At the same time though…it’s so much cheaper, that I still buy it for him. I’m kind of like this with wine- like, I’m not buying the expensive stuff because I already like the cheap stuff and the last thing I’m going to do is develop more expensive tastes if the cheap thing is fine for me right now.

I can say as a Brit living in the US, Ribena is increasingly easy to find. I’m the south, pretty much every Publix has it now. They also have Bisto, which I mean, praise Jesus. The latter has been a hit with everyone I’ve shown it to.

I had blackcurrants in things, but I’m not sure that I ever had them fresh in England. But it’s definitely…it’s weird for such a common flavour to be missing here.

I think many Americans are skeptical because of the reputation British cuisine has…but I mean…the packaged goods are different and call be biased but they’re almost always better than their American equivalents.

Now if we could just get the marris pipers here…that’d be great.

Interesting. I think I agree with you. But I second guess it as well. Think about it: you might genuinely like the way these things taste. But what if your body has built up a positive association because of the way it makes you feel? Isn’t it possible that even if it were identical in taste, you’d grow indifferent unless you mix it up?

I love wine, I love the taste. But I don’t really know why I love the way it tastes.

I agree with your last statement and with my close friends, I do try to broach this subject occasionally. I think there are many people who genuinely don’t want with kid. But there are many other people who just don’t really seem to have a good perspective on the timeline for these things. This is especially true with men. The idea that you can simply date younger strikes me as a bit foolish- I’ve got a ten year age split with my husband, I’m by no means against it, but I think these age differences come with issues of their own. I think 27 -33, both people around the same age. Is going the sweet spot for most people even it comes to children.

The reality is: the decision to start a family it isn’t just about you. It’s also about your future grand kids. And while 40 might seem like it’s the right time for some…it’s rarely ideal in the grand scheme of things- that puts you at a strong chance of having health issues while your kids start families of their own. But meeting your grandkids if your kids make that same choice. It’s best I think to be at that phase in life when your kids are a bit more settled.

On the other hand I think normalising most men marrying 30 year olds at 45 opens society up for a variety of problems. And that seems obvious to me even if I don’t think it’s true for everyone- or my relationship. That on a larger scale…it would cause problems. And perhaps aggravate things for the younger generation of men quite considerably.

Both genders let themselves get lulled into "I still have time, nowadays it's different" WAY too much. They're not just completely ignoring the normal decline of fertility ratios with age just because they see some other people getting their first children in their 30s or even 40s. They're also ignoring fertility ratios declining even stronger due to environmental factors.

Just because so many people are successfully postponing children doesn't mean it gets any easier after the age of 30 or your children are going to be as healthy as others. Statistically the probability of chromosome defects roughly increases by one factor for every year parents are older than 25. ~7 times higher at 35, 15 times at 40.

If you are generally open to having children, the best time is in your mid-20s. You still have much more options, support and energy and your children will be healthier. By the time you're out of the education system and your career takes off, your children are already in school and mostly taken care of. That also makes you much more attractive to employers. Nobody likes a 30-something who's been a reliable employee for the last years and might even be up for a promotion to a higher role, but now suddenly has kids and will be tired and unreliable for the next ten years.

> I'd fail an interview candidate that suggested adding 1 each time for subsequent prime testing

The problem a team that always seeks the optimal solution is that never they get shit done. And that’s rarely optimal in a business context. Your view does not strike me to be nearly as arrogant as it is short-sighted.

I think on a team of one I want the guy who gets it done without thinking. On a team of two I want a guy that’s somewhere in the middle. And on a team of three, that’s when I want my optimiser. Because in the time that guy number 3 has written let’s say 3 files of optimal code, guy number 10 files of not optimal code. And you rarely need guy number 3 to fix all ten, you just need him to fix the one or two files that actually matter.

Clients rarely ask “is this optimal?”. But they always ask “is this done?”.

All three developers have different approaches. All three are assets.

I think on some level then you’re making the same mistake that we could say the “just add one guy” made if your comment is honest- not factoring in (his) speed.

I think code readability, rather than code optimisation is far more important thing to get hung up on in an interview (and is, I must remind some of you, not to be confused with conciseness). And you can see this in the end result. But if you’re following along and the interviewee already knows you know what’s going on because of that, you can see it in smaller ways- it could be as simple as going back and changing a variable name such as open (maybe a function?) to isOpen (almost always a Boolean value).

I think most of us are in this position pretty often where we’re writing and figuring out something at the same time, maybe we just see if it works first and don’t give a name much thought or maybe we change the actual value or type of a variable in the process and the variable name becomes ambiguous. I’d look for small indicators that shoe me that this person is considering readability. But I still don’t necessarily expect it to be as readable as it would be in a more natural setting I mean I think 90% of these sorts of things start off with the person saying “I swear I can type” within the first five minutes of being watched- if they get flustered while being watched that it effects their typing, it certainly also effects their coding as well.

I think it depends on your goal. If it’s to communicate, I think it’s fine to use machine translations especially in limited situations like directions or something like that. But language is also a social act, and you can’t really build the same rapport with someone using a translator as you can by speaking their language- especially in person.

But the machine translations are not (and will probably never be) perfect I’ll show you why:

Habló con su jefa y le dijo que le tiene ganas.

Google translate: He spoke to his boss and told her that he feels like it.

Well in Spanish this could mean:

(He/she/you) talked to (his/her/your) (boss/wife) and told (him/he)r that (he/she/it/you) (somewhere between wants and craves) (him/her/you/it).

This sentence mind you, isn’t especially contrived. It’s just how people talk in Spanish. And while all of these potential translations are good, only one is actually accurate. The only thing that it certainly doesn’t mean is:

He spoke to his boss and told her that he feels like it.

Which is what Google said it meant.

The problem is that what may be and can be ambiguous in one language, often needs to be explicit in another language. And when it must be explicit, the translator or whatever’s translating makes a choice and you don’t know what’s being said on your behalf. And while you can certainly improve a machines ability to guess what’s meant, you’d have to change the languages themselves to actually solve this problem.

What I find most amusing is when English speakers complain about why Spanish uses genders and say its pointless. Because Spanish uses genders for precisely the same reason English does. To add specificity and make things less ambiguous.

I realise this is a very long way to both agree with what you said and disagree.

I think this failing is as much a policy failure as it is a failing of their society as a whole. Let’s not forget that society as a whole (or half- in the US) is what largely drives policy and that people, even half the population, are capable of driving policies that aren’t in the interest of the country- and often not even their own. Lobbyist, by contrast, don’t fail so easily with the latter. To a lesser degree there are similar social views that will prove problematic in the long run if not adequately addressed in South Korea and China although neither country is anywhere as deep in it as Japan is today.

I, personally, see Vietnam and Indonesia, as having better long term prospects, and China, as potentially uniquely able to address this problem, as well as uniquely likely to exacerbate it- if they choose to redirect their populations grievances.

Still, it must be said, that I’m 33 years old, and while Japan was the it country in Asia, South Korea took their place by storm by recognising their nascent but growing popularity and then making an effort to having a much more outward facing look about it

100 years ago, we’re told, cars took the jobs of millions of horses, coachman, and the like. An it seems obvious, that this was the case because because cars could do many things that a horse simply couldn’t. I’d be remiss to point out, however, that humans took the horses jobs, because horses couldn’t drive. I do not know when or when we’ll see this technology start taking jobs, and much of the hype surrounding this innovation is coming from CEO’s who haven’t used it. However, when it comes to developing software, I do know that those least at risk will be those who learn how to use this technology effectively. As someone who uses it everyday for software development, I think the scale of the job replacements we’ll see in the next few years is either being greatly over exaggerated, or, I’ll be caught off guard by how quickly it gets to that point and I’m simply having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that I wont be cut out for this job when that time comes.

The same could have been said about AI / LLMs in general- and get openAI rose to the top.

I think the game changer with openAI wasn’t necessarily the model itself, but their decision to allow the public to use it- and so cheaply to boot.

It was the fact that openAI did not have a lot to lose by making it so easily available, I think, that made them what they are today in this field we see today. The larger companies, by contrast, largely saw this field as a means to make their existing products more lucrative rather than as a product in and of itself. I think FAANG companies certainly have an advantage overall, but but smaller players, however disadvantaged they may be overall, nevertheless have some advantages in the industry and perhaps the company that rises to the top in the space, won’t be the company who can through millions and millions of dollars at it, but rather, the companies who are small, competent, and talented companies- who can’t afford to not think outside the box.