LangChain approach struck me as interesting, but I never really saw much inherent utility in it. For our production code we went with direct use of LLM runtime libraries and it was more than enough.
We've had success with non-developers using some of the visual tools built on top of LangChain to build exploratory models in order to prove a concept. LangChain does seem well suited to providing the "backend" for that type of visual node-based modelling.
Of course, once the model is proven it is handed off to developers to build something more production-worthy.
Not all foreigners in Rome were slaves. Far from it. However, path to becoming a citizen was not easy, and even if you were a citizen your rights were dependent on wealth, sex and reputation.
Not that there were no rights for other people. But it was very different from what we've come to expect.
Right, but imagine a bunch of foreigners arriving without any possession. Do you really think they would've been welcomed into society? I think that's just not believable,they would start from the "bottom" which in those times was slavery, if they didn't get killed right away (as it could be quite threatening to see a large number of people coming towards your village, that could be easily mistaken by an invasion).
"Rome was still an empire of immigrants in those years. Many immigrants advanced their families’ reputations and their own careers by settling inside the Roman Empire’s borders: Franks, Armenians, Vandals, Moors, Ethiopians, and more. Unless conquered and enslaved in war, every man and woman who lived inside the empire’s territorial border held the status of a free person...
Being forced to leave one’s home is an ordeal no one should be forced to endure, Plutarch began. Geographical dislocation causes undeniable suffering. Everyone admires how the ancient bards channeled that emotion into their soulful poetry and music, he acknowledged. But, he went on, fortunately hardships are never immutable, and one’s circumstances can often improve...
Ambitious foreigners, both men and women, sensed the possibilities. Despite the limitations of not being a citizen, an immigrant to the fourth-century empire could legally go anywhere, work any craft, and be anything."
> Right, but imagine a bunch of foreigners arriving without any possession. Do you really think they would've been welcomed into society
that is literally how they were integrated, especially during the empire era. We have records of a bunch of barbarians showing up and the emperor sending them to farm in various areas of the empire. They were not citizens (unless they went in the army) but they were not slaves.
My understanding is that the emperor only allowed other peoples to come into the Empire in large numbers when they made deals with them, usually because they wanted protection against a more ruthless enemy, while the Romans needed more men in their armies, so it was a win-win for both. I had never heard that people could just migrate into the Empire without hassle before, and the would be really surprising to me as it seems to contradict everything I've read about the time.
Leetcode test would be fine, if they were formalized with automated scoring and nobody giving you hints/silent treatment. Unfortunately, proponents of "normal" interview process will tell you that it's necessary to observe engineer working on a problem to know how good they are.
Maybe they are right. After all, I'm not an expert on the matter of recruitment.
But from my experience, I felt far better when the process was not "personal", even if I didn't get accepted in the end.
> Leetcode test would be fine, if they were formalized with automated scoring
You understand how this goes completely against the very purpose of the interview which is to evaluate how they think about the problem rather than about the final outcome, right?
I couldn't care less about whether your code compiles or not if you were able to figure out the perfect solution, walk me through it, explain why it is the best, and looked like you had some experience writing code when it came to that part.
That sounds like the exact opposite of what one wants, form the interviewer standpoint.
The goal of coding interviews is to probe the candidate, have them explain their thought process, and see how they interact with you. Are they able to formulate the problem? Gather specs? Are they able to consider constraints?
The last thing I want is some automated system where you have no idea how the applicant came to their answer, what their thought process was, etc.
If that was the goal, then just bring back brain teasers, or better yet, just use thinly veiled IQ tests.
None. Which is kind of the point. Unlike US, Chinese government doesn't even pretend to be about anything else than it's own benefit.
When US took over Afghanistan, it tried to set up local government modeled on western democracies. That totally failed.
I don't know what China would have done. But I'm pretty sure they wouldn't try to build anything of the sort.
Their most recent conflict is a nice counter point. Spratly Islands in South Chinese sea. It's an obvious land grab in an area that is vital for commercial shipping, important for food production and very good starting point if you needed to pressure Vietnam, Philippines or Taiwan. The only justification is some old map. International arbitration has ruled against them, and they don't really care.
In the meantime they are ramming foreign fishing boats, building military facilities (airports, depots, etc.) and generally acting like they own the area.
In summary, their approach is pragmatic, with obvious material benefit and no pretense of lofty goals. Also very low on casualties, at least for now. It is, in many ways, call back to days of gunboat diplomacy.
China isn't the global military hegemon. They see themselves as inheritors of the position, but they're not it currently and they are the beneficiaries of the fact the US is - i.e. the US Navy is the size it is because that provides guarantees against piracy, which is an expense the Chinese have not had to pay to enjoy the trade boone a shipping economy to the US benefits from.
It's a mistake to compare the US and China's decisions like-for-like, because they're two countries with very different strategic situations and thus opportunities (i.e. China benefits from the US's middle east involvement via a number of means, namely though that stable oil prices are of a huge benefit because oil is a fungible commodity - there's no such thing as "having your own supply" unless you're literally at war and under a command economy - and at that point you're paying for that in a large number of other ways).
> It's a mistake to compare the US and China's decisions like-for-like, because they're two countries with very different strategic situations and thus opportunities
China is making a huge push into EVs because they don't want to be subject to the whims of Middle Eastern instability (and do not produce any significant amount of oil on their own). America, in contrast, has much more interest in oil since they produce a lot of it on their own, and their EV uptake is slower, with lots of resistance from conservatives (who want to see oil persevere as a strategic commodity due to financial self interest).
China could really be in a much better place a decade or two from now given their constraints. We still have a lot of advantages, but they are quickly eroding due to pigheaded politics.
They really don’t have a choice but to control the South China Sea. Taiwan, Japan, Korea, otherwise block them from open ocean access. If a war occurred, they are easily blockaded, a disaster for them economically, except maybe if they can control the South China Sea.
Afghanistan and Iraq were stupid quagmires that the USA shouldn’t have involved themselves in, but 9-11 happened and somehow this was the way to deal with it? China’s national security problems are really 100% internal, so they need to garrison the PLA all throughout the country ready to act on say Beijing rather than Kabul. They have an impressive body count, just not of foreigners.
In principle it is possible. But shutdown isn't what you want. Because that would cause job losses, collapse of supply chain and all of that horror.
You need restructuring. Replace management, take control over the direction. Keep things running while the mess is resolved. It's not going to be fast, an it's not going to look nice. But at this point there are no other options.
I vote for the servitors. Either that or an arco-flagellant on quick dispatch for the entire room.
That aside, yes, Boeing and in EU Airbus are very much intertwined with government. It's inevitable when their products are strategically important and barriers to entry high.
It's unfortunate, but that's how it is.
Imported plants may be out of order because of biosafety and liability laws, but is there a ban anywhere on genetic manipulation of house plants, if done by an EU company?
In principle there isn't. But there are laws about introduction of such organisms. So it's fine to do that in a lab. But the moment you put the plant in a pot on your balcony you are in trouble.
You need official approval for that. But obtaining it is borderline impossible. Not even the biggest agrotech corporations are trying anymore. There are only a handful of approved organisms, and some countries in EU go even further and ban them as well.
So nobody can use them, so nobody will sell them, so nobody will develop them.
There is an ongoing effort to bypass these restrictions for CRISPR based technologies. But who knows how effective will that be.
New Sun by Gene Wolfe is a great example of that genre.
Also of the unreliable narrator, as the protagonist is writing his autobiography, is not well educated and suffers from rather interesting neurological divergence (he forgets nothing).
All in all, it makes for a very good series. Especially once you realize that you are reading about sci-fi world, as written about by a person living in essentially ancient society.
Great series. If I'm not mistaken, there's an additional layer to the unreliable narrator part because the book is supposed to be a translation of that biography. So, when certain words are used, the reader knows that they don't necessarily represent the literal meaning and it's only an approximation for the actual thing in the book universe (for example, a "horse" is not actually a "horse" as we know it). It certainly helped me digest the more outlandish ideas.
> Also of the unreliable narrator, as the protagonist is writing his autobiography, is not well educated and suffers from rather interesting neurological divergence (he forgets nothing).
And also he's a pretty terrible person trying to make himself (unsuccessfully) sound a bit less terrible.
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