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If a state environmental agency asks you for your location on photos that you volunteered to upload and you freak out, you might be mentally ill.

I wouldn't take it that far. For most users we spoke to, its often a reflex to deny location privilege popups, and on mobile it wasn't easy enough to fix once denied. However for some of the less-engaged folks who might be out in the park casually and stumbled on something worth sharing, the idea that we need their exact location probably sounded overbearing. "I told them which park I was in, that should be enough!"

Yeah no kidding the vulnerable animal population is in the park, that's where all their threats are removed. But sometimes "the park" is 60,000 acres and it would be nice if you could help narrow it down.


Or the permission prompt isn't clearly worded or precise enough to understand whether you are allowing the location of this one photo to be shared, versus agreeing to some ongoing tracking...

You have way more faith in the government not using any information it has against you than I do….

You have been paying attention to what’s going on haven’t you?


A government agency, which might even have good use for the data, isn't the problem. The problem is sending your precise location to Facebook and a two dozen silly little games and a note app, which all sell this data to anyone and their brother.

By framing the problem as being with untrustworthy government agencies rather than with greedy data brokers selling data everywhere, you are part of the problem. You may distrust your government as much as you'd like, but before we solve the problems with private data brokers, we can never improve the situation.


If I were to visit or migrate to the US, I'd have to take every precaution to avoid ICE mistaking me for an illegal immigrant.

The difference is that private brokers don’t have “a monopoly on [legslized] violence”. Facebook doesn’t have an army of masked jack booted thugs with military gear.

so aaron schwartz is alive?

Yeah I don't get why people don't understand this- there is not enough gold to base the entire global economy on it.

There is also not enough paper money to base the entire global economy in it, so I fail to see the problem.

That makes no sense, do you think people are talking about using gold coins instead of paper money in their wallet?

In effect, some of them are. Look how many decry the death Breton Woods. They don't want to necessarily have good coins on them, but they want them to be tethered as a proxy. Why?

In effect, some of them are.

No, not in effect, no one is talking about physically exchanging gold coins, so it doesn't make sense to say "there isn't enough".

but they want them to be tethered as a proxy. Why?

That's a completely separate issue. People want to not have to deal with inflation where they are on a treadmill of needing to get paid more to support the fact that companies can raise their prices easily.


> No, not in effect, no one is talking about physically exchanging gold coins, so it doesn't make sense to say "there isn't enough".

I think my point still stands. If you can't create more gold [1] and you say - I am pegging 35 dollars to an ounce of gold. Then you are limiting the amount of dollars to the mass of gold[2]. The money works as an IOU for gold. You aren't exchanging pieces of gold, but the idea that you have 35$ is as if you have 1 ounce of gold, _that is what people pine for_. It's effectively, an IOU for 1 ounce of gold that you keep in a safe. Yes. I think the point still stands that in effect, that's what people are asking for.

[1] - You can, but it's a much slower process, deff rate limited, it's actually what people really seem to like about gold.

[2] - Yes, I am aware about the concept of fractional reserve, but that's exactly the part that goldbugs want to avoid.


I think my point still stands. I think the point still stands

I'm not sure what point you are making, it seems like you're just describing a gold backed currency and repeating the same things multiple times.

If you aren't using gold directly how would there ever be "not enough" unless a penny became worth too much? People did this for hundreds of years, this isn't some theory or experiment, it's basically how the world worked for most of human history.


> If you aren't using gold directly how would there ever be "not enough" unless a penny became worth too much?

If you peg an amount of money to a mass of gold, would you or would you not limit the amount of money in existence?


It worked before, you do know money is divisible right?

There is already a quantifiable amount of money in existence, can we at least establish that?


Mild inflation is a good thing, at least according to modern economists. In a deflationary environment, money is worth more when you don’t spend them. And when people don’t spend them, there’s no economic growth. It’s just like having very high interest rates but the central bank cannot act to lower them.

This thread was someone saying you can't peg a currency to something else because "there isn't enough of it" which is nonsense.

there’s no economic growth

Printing money doesn't create economic growth, it just inflates assets and depresses nominal wages.

money is worth more when you don’t spend them

People say this stuff like it's gospel, but if someone understands currency dynamics in the first place they would have their money in investments, which already should appreciate and act like a deflationary currency. People can already buy stocks and leave money there to get more valuable, so why does anyone spend money now?

You also have to figure out why it already worked for hundreds of years. People act like it would be an experiment. Floating currency is the experiment and it has lasted 50 years so far. Currency has lost almost all of it's value from before the 70s and minimum wage is a fraction of what it was nominally while asset prices are sky high, then people wonder why people can't afford a house or beef or gas or just to live alone.


Economic growth comes from spending. Households must be incentivized to spend either through inflation or low interest rates.

Buying stocks hoping that it would appreciate doesn’t work when there is no economic growth. So we are back to square one.

And for hundreds of years we didn’t have the same kind of international trade, or the same financial markets. One must wonder whether a new kind of currency must accompany a new era of economy and trade.

Currency losing almost all its value is by design. Modern economists target a 2% inflation rate. This means currency is supposed to lose value. It’s another mechanism to encourage spending to increase economic growth.


> Buying stocks hoping that it would appreciate doesn’t work when there is no economic growth

Why? If you and I earn $100 per year, every year, that means there is no economic growth. We spend half of it on food, clothes, and other necessities and buy stocks with the other half, stocks will go up in value.

An non-growing economy has aspects of a zero-sum game. Speculation can still occur, and can continue unbounded. Stocks, gold, bitcoin, have historically all been deflationary.


Economic growth comes from spending.

Who told you that?

Households must be incentivized to spend

Says who? What about governments and companies? People are already incentivized to spend because they need things.

Buying stocks hoping that it would appreciate doesn’t work when there is no economic growth.

You're contradicting yourself and going around in circles. If there is "economic growth" according to you, then stocks will go up, which means they end up being a deflationary currency, which means people will put there money there and not spend it.

They already go up due to inflation, people do buy stocks and other liquid assets, people still spend money anyway.

Also, gold still exists. By your own logic, because anyone can still buy gold or gold futures they should park their money there and never spend it.

Currency losing almost all its value is by design.

It is by design by governments and for governments. No person wants an inflationary currency, governments want it because they can they can borrow and print money they don't have and hand it out to people who in turn help with political power.

People don't want their currency to inflate away unless they own a business that can raise prices while their employees make less nominally.


Agreed, pensions are obviously better but the private sector collectively decided not to have them much anymore.


Defined benefit pensions are obviously worse. They introduce agency risk where there does not need to be any. I prefer having control of my assets over some fund manager controlling them, it's all going to the same place anyway. Plus you have to pay extra for the fund manager.

Taxpayer funded DB pensions are a little bit better, since they offer outsized benefits due to being able to hose future taxpayers.


There is a definite disconnect, I cannot think of ANY scenario in which I (as a developer and power user) would want the Start menu to search the internet.


If I need to google something and I'm working in another app, it's easier for me to just type a search term into the start menu than it is to find the browser to click on, open a new tab and then enter the search terms.


Anyone else feel like bloat is usually not an algorithmic problem, but rather a library or environment issue most of the time?


Wanted to chime in that, at my job, hand-writing code has been massively helpful when debugging it. My mental model of what can go wrong is much easier to form if I wrote the code. A LLM will not always be able to solve these incidents, no matter how many logs you throw at it.


Damage Control theme park?


For sure, there are a bunch of cases of agents deleting files, leaking secrets, and wiping databases even when told not to.


Feels terrible to be an American rn, I'm preparing for major errors and delays in the processing of my tax return.


Atleast americans haven't lost their sense of humor.


My god, static text with no graphics!? In 2026!?


They have a long tradition of keeping it simple going back long before the web. The annual reports had no pictures or puffery unlike most companies, though much better writing.


Except geicoimg.gif, lol

I almost want to let Warren know he could have an entire extra egg McMuffin per year if he switches to SVG rendering of the Geico logo on the site.


8.3 naming scheme too


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