Respectfully, I worked for Alexa AI on compositional ML, and we were largely able to do exactly this with customer utterances, so to say it is impossible is simply not true. Many companies have to have some degree of ability to remove troublesome data, and while tracing data inside a model is rather difficult (historically it would be done during the building of datasets or measured at evaluation time) it’s definitely something that most big tech companies will do.
I’m fine with that, but let’s put some rules against this.
To be fair, outside of London you’ll find that the starting salary for many degree-level jobs is around that, including jobs like software developer. I’m in Bristol, and the pay disparity is hilariously bad - a senior designer will earn less than a manager at Burger King…
I think the “underpaid teacher” thing isn’t necessarily rooted in reality,. especially outside of the US. My wife is a teacher in the UK, and she’s a head of her subject. For many years her pay was similar to mine as a software engineer, but everyone often treated her as if she was poor and that I was rich.
I remember joining the industry and switching our company over to full Continuous Integration and Deployment. Instead of uploading DLL’s directly to prod via FTP, we could verify each build, deploy to each environment, run some service tests to see if pages were loading, all the way up to prod - with rollback. I showed my manager, and he shrugged. He didn’t see the benefit of this happening when, in his eyes, all he needed to do was drag and drop, and load the page to make sure all is fine.
Unsurprisingly, I found out that this is how he builds websites to this day…
From a company perspective, it’s a common sentiment. Google and Amazon have mantras around trying to stay agile and relevant despite being behemoths, and both have arguably kept into boomer tech territory the second they made a poor CEO hire. Microsoft had their Ballmer era, and while Nadella did a lot of good at Microsoft they’ve had a lot of failures in established divisions to be soaked up by AI and sales.
I think that all of big tech has struggled over the last 3 years. Sacrificing employee skill for shareholder value has ultimately moved them all into IBM territory, whereas the cool tech is happening at startups again. If AI is a bust, and another company comes along and eats their lunch in their established markets like consumer devices, web tooling, or cloud computing, they’re in real danger of another huge set of layoffs and resetting their businesses to only core profit-making ventures. What I think we’ve seen companies shift towards death, Day 2, rotting from the inside, or whatever your business calls stagnation.
In the UK, the training requirements for police is still surprising to me, as I had assumed it would take years to train as police.
Either way, our police meet a lot of the criteria here. The budgets are nonexistent, they aren’t armed outside of specific circumstances, and they all go through regular de-escalation training.
It hasn’t stopped many of the issues we see that are also shared in law enforcement in the states. Our force often uses force unnecessarily, there is institutional corruption and racism, and even in instances where the police have done something bad AND there is evidence it’s very hard to find justice.
I think that a degree would help, or a training programme that takes many years and involves extensive training. It’s depressing to say, but the demand for good jobs with decent pay and employment protection would probably result in people becoming police just for the pension. I would also add that a good avenue to policing would be for it to link heavily with the law profession. Add a route for police to train part-time to be criminal lawyers, or for lawyers to join the police force.
My dream is an “internet archive” for all video games, modded to run offline. If the game becomes unavailable for purchase, the archive opens that game and makes it available for all.
The next step is for this kind of release to become law, and supported by manufacturers.
I can somewhat understand this. I have IBS, and most people with a bowel issue will tell you that IBS is basically your doctor saying ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Instead of getting help from your doctor, you go online and you hear about people finding relief through taking weird supplements, or eating only rice, or taking pre and probiotics of varying types. None of it has any proof, but it’s better to try something than to struggle - and sometimes you’re lucky or you find some short-lived relief.
The difference is that there often isn’t evidence for these things working, whereas there is plenty of evidence out there that says that chiropractors are doing legitimately dangerous practices to your body. The difference is that someone is trying to make a profit from this lack of knowledge.
I’ve told this story before, but newborn chiropractors are a thing, and many new parents will take their BABIES to get their neck and back snapped around. It’s frankly fucking disgusting.
The same goes for pregnancy, where you essentially gain a deficiency because you’re building another person inside you.
My understanding is that while you’re 100% being terminated (and are ineligible for rehire) what you sign indicates that you’re actually volunteering to resign.
For more info on it, look up Amazon’s Focus and Pivot programs.
For many, it’s the severance offered that makes them sign. If you’re about to lose your job, a few months pay, and free relocation back home if your visa is due to be cancelled is likely enough to make you sign something.
I’m not condoning it, at all. I think the practice is fucking disgusting, and have seen it wreck lives, but it’s a reality in many tech companies, including Google under Sundar.
I think that Amazon and Meta (where this is a known practice) do both. I’ve not signed anything in tech that stops me talking about internal company practices or any work that might have resulted in “voluntary” dismissal, but others in these companies that do the Jack Walsh thing and fire their employees do…
Some companies have you sign things after leaving.
Obviously, when you start laying people off, or do stupid shit like stack ranking, some people are going to walk out and just blab about all the dumb shit your employer does/did - and they’re heroes for doing so.
That’s not fair. The switch is a great console for indie games.
Obviously, so is the Steam Deck, but that doesn’t discount the Switch for having a solid library of games outside of the usual Nintendo shite.
Given that this was the prime time for Bonzi Buddy, I’m inclined to say I agree with you. People chose these things years ago, because it added more to the experience outside of “here is your word processor, here is notepad, here are the three games you have to play”.
It’s surprising how being stuck on music from your youth is common. While I do listen to new bands, I was reminded the other day that Futures by Jimmy Eat World is almost twenty years old.
I don’t know why Amazon hasn’t bought TikTok yet.
Lots of data, access to the Chinese market, a social media app under their wing, and an aligned work culture. Alongside the gains for ads, moving their shit to AWS, and retail gains, it seems like a better idea than throwing money into the AI fire.