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Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation

mitchellh.com

191–200 of 313 posts

Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it out of touch? I donated much more than Hashimoto did relative to our net worths, but I cannot deny that I would have felt much more satisfied making a 1000x impact if I was a billionaire. I donated $6000 to a halfway house last year and that doesn’t even come close to covering a single bed for a year. If I was a billionaire I could have built an entire halfway house.

The problem is that when government spends $1,000,000 on your halfway house, it provides instant relief. It creates beds. The next year the government does it, the number of employees has doubled and it creates 20% more beds instead of the original amount. The third year it creates no beds and we find that 10% of the beds are gone, and the number of employees is now 1000. The government didn't care how well the money…

This is just bad government, not government.

Public spending on things that require (a) maintainance (as almost all things do) (b) are massively less functional if the investment is not sustained (as many things are) is inherently going to lead to suboptimal results. It's equally bad if private entities do this, but for one reason or another, people seem to bitch about this less, because, well "freedom" etc.

Public spending (private too!) is also bad if it creates unnecessary bureaucracies and unnecessary obstacles. This can be tricky because defining "unnecessary" requires a set of values and these may not be universally accepted.

So, if you have a government program that behaves as in your hypothetical example, then the problem is inefficiency, corruption and waste, not government.

Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's a good polished piece of software no doubt. I'm not denying that, but the hype it gets is just... I don't know.

Agreed, though it hasn’t been excessive in my experience. Just that the devs are better at marketing than others. Really shows how important that side of the equation is. Wish I was better at it myself.

> Just that the devs are better at marketing than others.

I will "quietly" self-plug Terminal Click [0] because Ghostty and TC have discussed their differences in the past (check out the Media page.)

I'm definitely not ready to do splashes of any kind, because what Ghostty lacks in novelty Terminal Click lacks in polish.

[0] https://terminal.click

Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it out of touch? I donated much more than Hashimoto did relative to our net worths, but I cannot deny that I would have felt much more satisfied making a 1000x impact if I was a billionaire. I donated $6000 to a halfway house last year and that doesn’t even come close to covering a single bed for a year. If I was a billionaire I could have built an entire halfway house.

Hashimoto did more valuable work than you and then he is in position to do more impact wherever he pleases. >>I donated $6000 to a halfway house last year and that doesn’t even come close to covering a single bed for a year. If I was a billionaire I could have built an entire halfway house. We need some mechanism to select people who makes the choice. Popularity/lying contest (politics) ain't it. People making money…

Why would I believe for one moment that someone who is successful at selling widgets should be deciding what resources to allocate to a homeless shelter?

Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation

#195
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i don't think my bank will let me withdraw 400k in cash with the reasoning of "I want to throw it"

your bank owns your money?

Think of it less as "the bank owns your money" and more "the government likes to watch large cash flows moving around".

Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation

#196
post #38
post #2

It must be pretty satisfying to be able to throw that kind of money at stuff you admire.

You can 'throw' what you can afford and it will feel as satisfying. Just try it.

Somehow I feel it’s probably less satisfying if your contribution pays for a couple hours of developer time compared with the annual salary for an entire team. It’s probably more satisfying to be able to move the needle than not.

Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is increasingly important to be able to see that many things are true. There is no single "truth". Many things are true at the same time , and in all aspects of life. Each brain is like a band pass filter, and the effort we should make is to try to imagine the points of view of others, which are just different slices of the same world. Then embrace the slices we like, and just ignore the ones we don't, but don't a…

There is only a single source of truth and that is objective reality. Maybe you agree with that, but your wording is messy. It's true that different perspectives can yield their own particular bits of truth, if that's what you're saying.

"Objective reality" is only the source for the least interesting truth. The truths that really get people fighting over concern best courses of action, moral matters, aesthetic issues, and things like that, where there isn't some singular objective truth (and even if there was, nobody has access to it).

Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is increasingly important to be able to see that many things are true. There is no single "truth". Many things are true at the same time , and in all aspects of life. Each brain is like a band pass filter, and the effort we should make is to try to imagine the points of view of others, which are just different slices of the same world. Then embrace the slices we like, and just ignore the ones we don't, but don't a…

To clarify, there are formal truths: widely-accepted hard science, e.g. “2 + 2 = 4”. Technically, there’s a point where we can’t fundamentally prove anything (“if a tree falls and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?”), and rarely we get things wrong (e.g. classical physics)….but in practice, these are true, end of discussion. Then there are informal truths: e.g. “the Earth is round”, “the sky is blue”, “Gala apple…

>widely-accepted hard science, e.g. “2 + 2 = 4”.

Except we live in a world where people do argue 2+2 could also be 22 ( Because they use Javascript /s ) Which is basically people believe what they want to believe in. Rationale rarely works.

Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation

#199
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

your bank owns your money?

yes, I have to apply in advance if I want to withdraw large amounts of cash and it has to be approved.

> I have to apply in advance

Banks try to avoid holding excessive amounts of cash in suburban branches because it makes them attractive armed robbery targets. If you have a need for a large amount of cash, you can let them know (my bank says 24-48 hours in advance), go to multiple branches, or to a large city branch. Inconvenient, perhaps, though temporary. If it's for a business or a recurring need your bank is generally happy to make that part of their regular logistics, "Monday's cash delivery needs X because asimovDev regularly wants $50,000 in cash every Wednesday".

> it has to be approved

I'm not sure what you mean by this, but I don't think it's "approved" in the sense of the bank deciding if you're allowed to do so. But hmm: multiple ID checks, or a specific seniority of bank employee doing the check. Or if you decide you want to take out $250,000 and you have to do it in cash, they might a) want a day or two to physically acquire the cash, and/or b) have additional security due to their insurance policy. They certainly might try to suggest you look at a cashier's check or wire transfer or other instrument to do so. There's going to be a CAR for any transaction involving more than $10,000 in cash.

But I'd challenge the assertion that the bank tells you you're "not allowed" to withdraw "large amounts of cash" from an otherwise unencumbered bank account.

Re: Pledging another $400k to the Zig software foundation

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zig has multiple issues, but syntax is definitely not it. It might take a little bit of time getting used to, if you are coming from another language, but it's one of the most readable languages I've ever worked with.

That is an opinion framed as a fact. There's plenty to rub a coder the wrong way, such as the sigil in builtin functions like @import, the dot syntax in structures (.{}, Timestamp{ .seconds = 0, .nanos = 0, };), triple slash comments (///), and multiline strings (beginning each with \\ - good luck grepping for escaped backslashes). However, that is just like any programming language - none is immune to this criticism…

the triple slash is only for doc comments, not normal code comments - those are still double slashes. also, why would you want to grep for escaped backslashes?
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