Might be harder to track but what about CFR or some other metric to measure how many bugs are getting through review before versus after the introduction of your product?
You might respond that ultimately, developers need to stay in charge of the review process, but tracking that kind of thing reflects how the product is actually getting used. If you can prove it helps to ship features faster as opposed to just allowing more LOC to get past review (these are not the same thing!) then your product has a much stronger demonstrable value.
Despite worries about creeping prices, coffee in Italy averages around €1.20 for an espresso or €1.50 for a cappuccino [1]. Way different than in a major American city.
Another personal suggestion in this vein: The Queue by Vladimir Sorokin (trans. Sally Laird), which consists entirely of unattributed dialogue. It's challenging at first but once you get a feel for the rhythm and start recognizing characters by how they speak, it becomes a really charming read.
Let me add also Blindness by José Saramago, it has pages-long paragraphs and sentences, characters have no names just descriptions… it’s surprising at first but not hard to get into. Amazing book!
I also recommend "Death with Interruptions" by the same author. I too was blindsided by how it was written but once you get used to the style it just flows.
Much of the dialogue is between father and son, so the dialogue is easy to keep track of. It is a great book for the bleak days of winter. Easily one of the most devastating endings to a book.
> Extremely difficult for no reason whatsoever. Terrible book.
Many people believe this is the mythical "Great American Novel" we've been arguing about and/or anticipating forever. Strong argument for that because it's actually very Hollywood, isn't it? It's an absurdly action-packed cowboy-horror mashup that's full of gratuitous violence and manifest destiny.
I know several people that thought it was "extremely gory for no reason whatsoever" and did not finish for that reason, but none that thought it was difficult. I was surprised TFA mentioned it in that light, because I remember Child of God being more of a slog and BM being a page-turner.
I just finished Blood Meridian and consulted AI as-needed to cover the many, many metaphors. The funny thing was that Google AI got a lot of the book wrong, getting the fate of some characters mixed up as well as confusing some faceless deaths with others. Too much wanton violence to keep track of.
The book definitely covers evil and nihilism thoroughly, so why would you want to read something like that? Well, for every bad decision someone makes in the book, the reader has the opposite response of, "oh crap, don't do that!" So reading about nihilism doesn't make you more nihilistic. While I thought it was a great book it isn't something you should just read without consulting outside sources.
Last time I read it, I did not find it challenging outside of some of the more obscure words used (particularly things like names of types of buildings and similar mundane objects), and my Kindle's built-in dictionary was able to define all of those in one tap.
As far as "for no reason", I would say that McCarthy's impressionist prose that meanders, leaves out some details while focusing on others, etc., is some of the best English language prose ever written. It's beautiful and conveys affect better than almost anything else I've encountered. All the "reason" I needed.
Different strokes for different folks. I'm a fashion lover but a fan of cheap cars, and I could equally say something similar about people who drive new luxury cars when there's plenty of reliable functionality to be had under $10k. There's a lot of craftsmanship that goes into nice clothes, and you can get way more expensive than $500. And fashion is a form of art in a way. What makes a painting worth thousands of dollars?
For clothes as a rule of thumb if you're not interested in doing a lot of research, items made in Portugal or Japan are more often than not priced fine enough, yes you'll pay some markup for a designer, but on average should last if you look after them.
The giveaway is almost always an over-dependence on "Not 'x' but 'y'" structure. Even when the author changes the wording so that the phrase doesn't read exactly like that, they tend to leave the structure intact, and the bots really like to lead with the inverse of what the author wants to say to create contrast.
A human author might have used this technique once to really emphasize a strong point, but today's LLMs use it so often that it loses its emphasis, and instead becomes a distinct stylistic fingerprint.
As a human who's written like that for decades, this witch-hunt makes it really hard to participate online anymore. This was a standard expository device taught in school, some of us latched onto it, and now it's impossible to argue that we're human because someone's conviction that we're AI is just an opinion and there is no evidence that will convince them, nor do they deserve the effort it would take even if it were possible.
Keep using that structure. The bots use it so much, and in ways that human authors wouldn't, that it becomes self-parodying. As long as you're not using the same device over and over again in the same piece you'll be fine.
yeah it's a crazy trend. suspicion that everything is AI is a poison to forums. have no idea how this moves forward. secretly hoping it destroys the entire internet, and rapidly. so we can go back to conspiring in smoke-filled rooms.
> So far, the biggest way Americans have leveraged AI in politics is in self-expression.
Most people, in my experience, use LLMs to help them write stuff or just to ask questions. While it might be neat to see the little ways in which some political movements are using new tools to help them do what they were already doing, the real paradigm shifting "use" of LLMs in politics will be generating content to bias the training sets the big companies use to create their models. If you could do that successfully, you would basically have free, 24/7 propaganda bots presenting your viewpoint to millions as a "neutral observer".
The use to "ask questions" is where the vulnerability lies. Let's face it, outside of whatever expertise and direct experiences we have, all we know is based on what we learned in school or have read/heard about. It's often said that history is written by the winners but increasingly it's written by those who run the AI models. Very few of us know any history by direct experience. Very few of us are equipped to replicate scientific research or even critically evaluate scientific publications. We trust credible sources. As people become more and more accepting of what AI tells them when they "ask questions" the easier it will be for those who control the AI to rewrite history or push their own version of facts. How many of us are going to go to the library and pull a dusty book off a shelf to learn any differently?
But you have that now. The gov't just turns up the heat on taxes or whatever influencing your (vous, not tu) perception. You don't really need much more.
People here are rightly pointing out that there's still room for improvement with this (and almost any) kind of surgery, and the article talks about the accessibility challenges of making procedures like these more widely available, but after reading up on the history of this procedure it's hard not to see modern surgical techniques as a kind of man-made miracle. Great read.
It's nuts to read this technology has only been around since 2008. It seems like it's been around forever.
I'm not that old, so that's part of it. And also, 17 years is a long time in tech.
Regardless, it is a modern miracle that there's been this much progress in that short of a time period.
The article stats a 95% success rate - which doesn't seem great, but <0.5% of incidents have serious complications, most of the other 5% are temporary minor complications.
Eye surgeon here:
FLACS isn't really that amazing. I would actually argue that a man made incision using steel or diamond (yes, diamond) is better than the incision made using the femto laser for long term safety/sealing. Number of studies have borne this out.
95% success rate seems low. you need to define success in this scenario. Are we aiming for 20/20 vision outcomes? Just getting the cataract out in full?
It's here already - at least for the developed countries. It's both thanks to this multitool used to handle the surgery - destroying, removing natural lens and replacing it with an implant, and technology that allowed creating customized intraocular lenses pretty fast.
My mother had her eyes done 2 years ago with one month break between. I did set timer on second surgery and it was just 20 minutes once she was inside. The only thing we had to care about were drops administered 4 times a day before and after the procedure - for once multiple alarms on my phone were useful. And of course control visit with dressing removal that happens for every patient on second day.
In my city a duet of two doctors runs an ophthalmology clinic and seems they have some good contracts with health services because they're always busy and have shorter waiting lists than clinic at our local hospital. Both women handle a queue of about 20 people and each weekday is dedicated to a different issues, with serious surgeries reserved for weekends.
I ask one of doctors if failed cataract surgeries happen because I was concerned before the first time my mum had it. She said that these are extremely rare but if a patient needs another it happens again pretty fast. The issue might be with lens that moved inside due to e.g. patient activity shortly after the procedure.
I do remember some short documentary about probably an Indian surgeon who treated eyes of North Korean elderly people. He also visited other places around the world as sort of personal goal to give new eye care technology in places where is needed but socio-economic conditions do not allow it. I'll try to find that unless someone happen to know that man's name.
The miracle is when they put a _graduated_ lens and you get cured of cataracts and myopia in a procedure where you are awake and can perfectly ntoice how while the lens is being inserted the blinding lights on top of you become more and more defined.
It's nothing short of a man-made miracle but I have to say it's also very umconfortable and stressful for the patient.
The surgery is not fun. The worst part was the cannula for the subtenon block - not painful, but my anxiety at something being poked into my eye socket went through the roof. My sister opted for sedation after she heard of my experience.
The second operation was easier as I told the surgeon about my reaction to the subtenon block and he put some topical in the right place making it much easier. However the residual anxiety from the first operation remained. All that said, I've had rougher times at the dentist.
I opted for optimal vision at arm's length with a monofocal lens. We spend most of our days around the house. Bifocals with plano below work fine for outdoors, driving and flying (check with your aviation doctor before lens selection as aviation authorities are strict in what lens options are allowed). The depth of field has turned out better than I expected, but I use 1.25 diopter drug store readers when I'm using my tablet at home and put it at arm's length in the coffee shop.
The results are absolutely wonderful and I feel gratitude every time I step outside.
Most people don't get blocks nowadays for cataract surgery. I will do so for patients with wandering eye movements or for more difficult cases, or for more invasive surgery besides cataract surgery. I just did a cataract surgery on a young patient today using topical numbing drops. But I have them monitored by an anesthetist with mild sedation during the entire case.
For my second operation the surgeon basically suggested using some drug ending in -pam (perhaps it was Valium) and they wouldn't provide it over the counter so I had to get a proper prescription, which somehow pissed the surgeon off. At the end of the day, yes, a dentist is worse but the phobia of someone tinkering with your eye remains.
I wanted something simple and didn't want to mess with multifocal lens inside my eye, so opted for monofocal and high myopia correction like around -12 diopters, so after a couple of weeks my far vision felt like I was Superman and my near vision remains poor with zero accommodation.
5 years down the line, it seems the myopia is keeping its course and I need some small correction for far, middle, and reading distances so my drawers are a mess of glasses.
But I keep being grateful for this, I can walk the streets without anything in my eyes and this is something I don't have any memories I can recall. So it's a wonder.
I would gladly go again for that surgery even through the discomfort!
I had it done about eight years ago... there's nothing quite like waking up after a fifteen minute procedure and seeing better than you have without correction since you were five.
> It's nothing short of a man-made miracle but I have to say it's also very umconfortable and stressful for the patient.
I think I must be strange, either in my reaction to the stress or the way I chose to manage it during my surgery.
I explicitly wanted to be somewhat awake during the procedure to see what was going on (how many chances do you get to see your lens emulsified from the inside)... and I remember having short conversations with the surgeon during the procedure. (She'd been concerned about zonular laxity, and we discussed during the procedure that she didn't see evidence.)
This is not something I'd want to reproduce if I didn't have to, nor would I suggest it as a general approach, but given that it was necessary for me, it was amazing to see it first hand.
My second procedure (second eye) was a little more stressful than the first, but for me all the material stress (which was significant) was in the run up and anticipation.
> it's also very umconfortable and stressful for the patient.
This is what concerns me. If someone took a blade to my eye, I would be screaming, vomiting, and thrashing until I lose consciousness even though my rational brain knows the surgeons are helping. Are there options for the irrationally mutilation-averse people such as myself (like general anesthesia) or are my options just go blind or re-enact a Saw movie?
I worried about this too. I had surgery for a congenital cataract at 27 or so. I was conscious-ish and remember hearing the surgeon talking and doing something to my eye, but they put you on some _wild_ drugs and I absolutely did not care.
Not to worry there, either! I think the drugs are pretty standard, are not opiates, and honestly I think that most humans understand that “if you’re gonna poke me in the eye, at least make sure I’m good and sloshed” is a pretty reasonable ask.
I swear there would be nothing but heaps of smoking machinery and mangled human limbs and entrails in the operating theatre in my wake and they'd find me cowering in some far corner of the building curled up in a foetal position.
I can't even tolerate a glaucoma test and cut the optometrist off mid-sentence when he starts to suggests it.
But that's me. I think my wife would do her own eye surgery with just a mirror and some kitchen knives. Ugh, I wish I hadn't thought of that. Excuse me while I go try to stop the panic.
At least cataract surgery once done won't be likely repeated. But there's also the age-related macular degeneration that goes by... AMD acronym. The treatment method for wet form involves intraocular injections, which basically means a series of shots in the affected eye, up until a "pocket" seen during eye tomography scan sizes down and vision improves.
My mother is going to have 8th shot this year and 13th total since doctor decides to test her. She describes the injection as "potent hard pop". All patients gets the anesthetics and some moisturising-softening agent so needle could get in easier.
Seeing the queues many times I can tell this problem concerns senior women, less frequently men and people of both sexes below 60. Tho, I once saw a guy who was around mid 40.
It's surely not fun to get a needle into your eye month by month but mum and all the other people in the clinic are beyond that already.
Me and you think the same. For me, even just knowing they’re going to be cutting on my eye and or using lasers to burn parts of my eye, combined with the nonzero risk of permanent vision worsening has made me permanently uninterested in eye surgery (such as lasik). Even if I could be put under for it.
General anestesia is pretty secure, but 1:100.000 still end deadly.
Thats why general anesthesia is avoided whenever possible, especially for small procedures like that.
It’s also way more complicated, requiring a pre-medication talk, an anesthetist being present and supervised rooms where patients can wake up.
I've wondered quite a lot about this. Look, the last thing you want to hear while the procedure is being performed is the surgeon saying: "Please, stop moving your eye. Help me out here".
You're not going to get new clothing for TEMU prices without the de minimis exception. In theory, the higher price of these goods will decrease the amount they're purchased and lessen impact of pollution.
As others in this thread point out, though, there are other casualties of this change.
Temu should already be paying the tariffs on China-origin goods. De minims for China origin stuff ended May 2nd.
Unless they’re sending it all via China Post and US CBP is letting it pass through anyway. Anecdotally, most of their stuff in major cities is arriving by Gig couriers or from US warehouses (ie: not postal imports) = tariffs applied.
Where Temu and big retailers win the game is that they can structure it to exclude last-mile delivery/logistic cost in their tariff calculations, and that’s a lot of the price.
You might respond that ultimately, developers need to stay in charge of the review process, but tracking that kind of thing reflects how the product is actually getting used. If you can prove it helps to ship features faster as opposed to just allowing more LOC to get past review (these are not the same thing!) then your product has a much stronger demonstrable value.
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