I am not so sure about that. .net core is the moment they opened up, making it cross platform, going against the grain of owning it as a platform.
If they see a gap in .net, which is filled in by a third party, they would have no problem qualms about implementing their own solution in .net that meets their quality requirements. And to be fair, .net delivers on that.
This might anger some, but the philosophy is that it should be a batteries included one-stop shop, maybe driven by the culture of quite some ms shops that wouldn't eat anything unless ms feeds it them.
This has a consequence that the third-party ecosystem is a lot smaller, but I doubt MS regrets that.
If you compare that to F#, things are quite different wrt filling in the gaps, as MS does not focus on F#. A lot of good stuff for F# comes from the community.
My motto wrt language choices: "It's the standard lib, stupid!"
My ultra hot take: there are only¹ two² programming ecosystems suitable for serious³ work:
- .net (either run on CLR or compile as an AOT standalone binary)
- jvm
The reason why is because they have a vast and vetted std lib. A good standard lib is a bigger boost then any other syntactic niceties.
__
1. I don't want other programming languages to die, so I am happy if you disagree with me. Other valid objection: some problems are better served by niche languages. Still, both .net and java support a plethora of niche languages.
2. Shades of gr[e|a]y, some languages are more complete out of the box than others.
3. cf «pick boring tools»
Arguably both Go and Python also have great stdlibs. The only advantage that JVM and .NET have is a default GUI package. Which is fair, but keeps getting less and less relevant as people rely more on web UIs.
Respectfully disagree. Python and Go std lib do not even play in the same league. I had to help someone with datetime¹ handling in Python a while back. The stdlib is so poor, you have to reach out for a thirdparty lib for even the most basic of tasks².
Don't take my word for it, take a dive. You wouldn't be the first to have adjust their view.
1. This might be a poor example as .net has NodaTime and the jvm has YodaTime as 3rd-party libs, for if one has really strict needs. Still, the builtin DateTime constructs offer way more than what Python had to offer.
2. Don't get me started on the ORM side of things. I know, you don't have to use one, but if you do, it better does a great job. And I wouldn't bat an eye if the ORM is not in the standard, but boy was I disappointed in Python's ecosystem. EF Core come batteries included and is so much better, it isn't fun anymore.
>When your AirPods Pro are connected to your device, you can use Conversation Boost to focus on the person talking in front of you. This makes it easier to hear in a face-to-face conversation.
Interesting! Can you expand a bit on that? I am interested in the theory and practical applications. I guess affected grown-ups would love to learn about how it works as well.
> Unfortunately their therapy only works in prepubescent children. (...) but nobody is ready emotionally to predict how they will change after puberty hits.
I don't understand why it wouldn't work with people when they are older though. If, during education, young people change in such a way they wouldn't need it anymore, then at worst they might gain superior executive control, no?
The theory is simple. When the thought of should comes reinforced by want, desire reinforces executive control, and makes you more likely to do that thing. This causes executive control, which actually issues those shoulds, to become more effective.
Here is my understanding of the issue with the therapy based on my experience with it.
They have created a therapeutic environment with so many rules and demands that the child encounters a constant stream of shoulds. They also implement a carefully thought out set of rewards that gives constant positive feedback for those who are succeeding.
But that positive feedback loop only gets started after the child is succeeding. And therefore it is essential that children enter the program with an overwhelming desire to succeed, and in a state where every one of those shoulds will connect to that overwhelming desire. They have a carefully optimized intake process that creates this initial state. That results in a child who is absolutely emotionally committed to a two year very difficult program.
The problem that I see with people who are older is that once we enter puberty, we become more resistant to receiving constant demands from adults. This undermines that initial commitment. It also undermines the positive feedback loop that is essential to maintaining the commitment into the second year.
Even if I am wrong about why it happens, the program told me that they have an age cutoff because the therapy program doesn't work after kids hit puberty. It isn't just an abstract theory. They tried it, and concluded that it doesn't work.
Thanks! That sounds like the intake process is quite critical.
> The problem that I see with people who are older is that once we enter puberty, we become more resistant to receiving constant demands from adults.
I see, I can imagine that the success rate for teenagers would be less that way. Still gives me food for thought. If it depends on the overwhelming desire to succeed, than I can see how an innate "want" arises when people grow older.
It was only years later that I went back and tried to understand the intake process. I was blown away by what I realized.
The key to it is this. These kids absolutely HATE the experience of lacking executive control, in a classroom. Teachers have no idea how often they launch verbal attacks, but it is sheer misery for the kids.
Then they encounter this program. The program sits them down. Explains how it works. Lets them poke around. Talk to the kids in the program. Verify that it really works. And lets them know every rule, and every reward.
Then the program tells them, "You can't come unless you have completely internalized it. Every time you fail, you must remember how badly you wanted to succeed. We can't give you a second chance. If you have any doubt, prepare yourself longer."
Separately we parents are told, "This has to be your child's choice. You cannot try to convince them in any way. If you try, we will know and your child will fail. If your child asks questions, answer them honestly. If your child says that they are ready, ask them if they are SURE. If they say yes, then they can come. Not until."
And now the kids are caught. They absolutely know the tiger that they want to escape. It is their daily life. They absolutely know that there is an escape. They know how it works. They know that it works. And they know that it won't work if they have any doubt. Every last rule. Every time they hear it. They must WANT it. For 2 years.
It took my son about a month and half to declare himself ready. The first few months were misery for him. But I'd never seen anyone so determined to succeed. And succeed he did.
Wow, thanks for following up! Great to hear your kid did succeed. Hopefully he will be the master of his own executive control for the rest of his life.
Pretty impressive that they can get these kids to this level of awareness, making it feel like it is their own choice. When I look back at my childhood, I can't remember I had any agency like that, nor awareness that you could have one.
Honestly, he's struggled with it at times. But he does a lot better when he goes back to creating positive self-reinforcement for why he wants to accomplish the goals that he has set for himself. He's now doing fairly well in college. He wants to experience more of the world, and to that end will be a transfer student to Beijing next semester
For ADD/ADHD it is easy to go off the rails. But if the stereotype of asian discipline and expectations of overachievement holds, than that surrounding might offset the possible distracting experience of an uncommon environment I guess.
They are increasingly revealing their ugly face. We had Sieg Heils on Republic and conservative public events. We have Miller in power. The groypers are being enabled to push out the old guard.
It is all necessary as Trump can't be the future. For it to survive, they will have to double down, and so extreme ideological idiocy will take its place.
But people still think they can wait it out. But alas, that is not how fascism works. Those concentration camps will never become vacant.
> They are increasingly revealing their ugly face. We had Sieg Heils on Republic and conservative public events. We have Miller in power. The groypers are being enabled to push out the old guard.
You list all those things like they're part of the same thing, but isn't Stephen Miller Jewish? It's easy to lump people together into an undifferentiated "enemy," but there's a tension there that needs some explanation. I don't think a Jewish guy could ever be an unironic neo-Nazi.
Noted Nazi Richard Spencer was Stephen Miller's mentor while they were both at Duke [1]. Miller repeatedly pushed Breitbart News editors to promote content from explicitly white nationalist sources such as VDare and American Renaissance [2]. He recommended The Camp of the Saints, a notoriously racist novel beloved by many white supremacists and some neo-Nazis, which features "white genocide" themes [3].
At this point, asking whether Miller is a card-carrying Nazi, or just pals around with them and espouses their beliefs, is a distinction without a difference. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck...
> At this point, asking whether Miller is a card-carrying Nazi, or just pals around with them and espouses their beliefs, is a distinction without a difference. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck...
I think you're conflating white supremacy with Naziism. They're not the same thing. All Nazis are white supremacists, but not all white supremacists are Nazis.
The defining feature of pre WWII era German National Socialists (literal Nazi's by definition) was ultranationalism originated in pan-Germanism coupled with an ethno-nationalist faction. (Also, politically, a strong anti Marxist streak expressed via redefining socialism).
The specific focus on antisemitism in that first iteration was something that worked, something that struck a chord, and something that grew with wider support from Germans at large.
In any reuse of Nazi, as in central north american post Cold War Nazi 2.0's it's the ultra nationalism and "USA culture nationalism" that again comes as a core feature. There are strongly anti jewish factions, sure, but the strong binding "fear and hatred of outsiders" is well satisfied by brown people, immigrants, Latin X non english speakers, etc.
Miller draping himself in a US flag as he unironically recreates pogroms his grandparents escaped doesn't erase his actions
As noted by others, the deportations, the smash and grab storm trooper tactics, the Us v. them attitudes and camps on US soil and off all fit the patterns of behaviour set by original OG Nazi's. This time around jewish people by descent can clearly fit in and lead pan-USAism actions.
Post Y2K USofA identity isn't the same as 1930s German identity, but ultranationism is still kill the outsider.
> I don't think a Jewish guy could ever be an unironic neo-Nazi.
> A Jew, for obvious reasons, isn't going to be an antisemite let alone a particularly virulent one.
There have been multiple instances of Jewish Nazis:
- The father of Field Marshal Erhard Milch (2nd-highest rank in the Luftwaffe) was Jewish. Hermann Göring arranged falsified documents declaring his mother’s husband (non-Jewish) to be his "real" father. [1]
- Helmut Wilberg was a half-Jewish Luftwaffe general who was declared an "Honorary Aryan" by Hitler himself. [2]
- Back in the 1960s, a guy named Dan Burros was the 3rd-highest-ranking member of the American Nazi Party, yet went to Hebrew school and had his bar mitzvah. When the New York Times published an article about him and his background, he shot himself that same day. [3]
- Frank Collin (born Francis Cohen) was the founder of the National Socialist Party of America and led the planning of the 1977 Nazi march in Skokie, Illinois (which had a largely Jewish community). [4]. His grandparents were murdered in the Holocaust and his dad was a survivor of Dachau.
Because the sine qua non of Naziism is antisemitism of a particularly virulent type. One could imagine a Jewish white supremacist, but that's not the same as a Nazi. A Jew, for obvious reasons, isn't going to be an antisemite let alone a particularly virulent one.
Valid question. What the OP talks about though is that these things were not for sale normally. My takeaway from his essay is that a few oligarchs get a pass to take over all energy, by means of a manufactured crisis.
When a private company can construct what is essentially a new energy city with no people and no elected representation, and do this dozens of times a year across a nation to the point that half a century of national energy policy suddenly gets turned on its head and nuclear reactors are back in style, you have a sudden imbalance of power that looks like a cancer spreading within a national body.
He could have explained that better. Try to not look at the media drama the political actors give you each day, but look at the agenda the real powers laid bare
- Trump is threatening an oil rich neighbor with war. A complete expensive as hell army blowing up 'drug boats' (claim) to make help the press sell it as a war on drugs. Yeah right.
- Green energy projects, even running ones, get cancelled. Energy from oil and nuclear are both capital intensive and at the same time completely out-shined by solar and battery tech. So the energy card is a strong one to direct policy towards your interests.
If you can turn the USA into a resource economy like Russia, than you can rule like a Russian oligarch. That is also why the admin sees no problem in destroying academia or other industries via tariffs; controlling resources is easier and more predictable than having to rely on an educated populace that might start to doubt the promise of the American Dream.
I did not think about it that way, but it makes perfect sense. And it is really scary. It hasn't even been a year since Trump's second term started. We still have three more years left.
> But then I wonder about the true purpose of AI. As in, is it really for what they say it’s for?
> There is a vast chasm between what we, the users, and them, the investors, are “sold” in AI. We are told that AI will do our tasks faster and better than we can — that there is no future of work without AI. And that is a huge sell, one I’ve spent the majority of this post deconstructing from my, albeit limited, perspective. But they — the people who commit billions toward AI — are sold something entirely different. They are sold AGI, the idea of a transformative artificial intelligence, an idea so big that it can accommodate any hope or fear a billionaire might have. Their billions buy them ownership over what they are told will remake a future world nearly entirely monetized for them. And if not them, someone else. That’s where the fear comes in. It leads to Manhattan Project rationale, where any lingering doubt over the prudence of pursuing this technology is overpowered by the conviction of its inexorability. Someone will make it, so it should be them, because they can trust them.
If they see a gap in .net, which is filled in by a third party, they would have no problem qualms about implementing their own solution in .net that meets their quality requirements. And to be fair, .net delivers on that. This might anger some, but the philosophy is that it should be a batteries included one-stop shop, maybe driven by the culture of quite some ms shops that wouldn't eat anything unless ms feeds it them.
This has a consequence that the third-party ecosystem is a lot smaller, but I doubt MS regrets that. If you compare that to F#, things are quite different wrt filling in the gaps, as MS does not focus on F#. A lot of good stuff for F# comes from the community.
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