Viewing profile — bwestergard

"People weren't their strongest even when most did manual labor." Is there good historical data on some measure of strength across representative populations over time in the moder…

The worse the experience of working life gets, the more important an idealized family life becomes for many downwardly mobile or precarious people. Most people's family lives canno…

It is remarkable that we cannot figure out how to organize ourselves politically in a manner that would ensure everyone had access to this ordinary abundance. Instead, our institut…

I'm not sure the extended imaginary friend metaphor will catch on with professionals.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology studies wild birds.

"the overall strategy of undercutting American frontier labs’ profit margins" I don't doubt that's an unregretted side-effect for political leaders in China. But the major motivati…

A counter argument: A strong distinction between "intelligence" (understanding what is) and "values/principles" (understanding what ought to be) was characteristic of much early mo…

All good advice. I'm a unionized software engineer (CWA at National Public Radio) in a unit with all my tech worker colleagues. Happy to answer questions. https://news.ycombinator.…

I don't understand how the throttle and RPM can be modified independently. Surely the RPM depends on the throttle?

About $153k a year gross take home pay, or around $180k total compensation (including retirement contributions, healthcare, etc). You can see the wage brackets in our collective ba…

I'm a unionized software developer, and have been part of two separate organizing campaigns at two different employers. Happy to answer questions about how it all works - there are…

Git annex is a remarkable piece of software and I've been inspired by lead developer joeyh's approach to both FOSS and life. For example: https://joeyh.name/offgrid/

This made my day. These workers will be better stewards of Wikipedia than management.

Former BLS officials still believe the numbers are reliable, because the methodology is public and there are lots of ways for well-financed actors (e.g. wall street traders) to spo…

To go by the numbers, it's pretty good. Not as good as the truly anomalous post-pandemic peak of hiring. But still good compared to almost every other occupational group. https://w…

I think many of these problems still arise if inference is effectively free in monetary terms to the end user. In many economic processes, time to getting the final and correct ans…

I could only laugh out loud at this. I'm no expert in European religious history, but it is an interest of mine and I've read a fair bit more than the typical American about it. I …

"There’s a lot of boring work AI can automate with minimal risk. There’s also the potential to decrease risk with AI too, including ensembles of different AIs modals and AI + human…

Birding is also a great way to discover interesting environments in your home locale.

Why prove the Pythagorean theorem rather than just prove 3^2 + 4^2 = 5^2? For any practical application, you are only interested in finite set of concrete identities, so anything b…

Seems right, ship it.

I am very sympathetic to your situation, and fear something similar happening to me. But the article is addressed to investors, who are interested in aggregate labor demand decline…

They do track median and 25th/75th percentiles.

The decline in junior hiring began before ChatGPT had wide adoption, so AI is not a likely cause. https://www.employamerica.org/labor-market-analysis/dont-bla... The New York Fed h…

Not really a question of linear versus non-linear change when we see, in aggregates, almost no change at all.