I find it very much unsettling that you're portraying as capricious or arbitrary things that I would consider basic human decency. We're not talking about Facebook's font choice here, we're talking about intolerable content that foments racial hatred.
Also, it seems like many people in HN politics threads over the last couple of months are in such a rush to talk about everything in terms of a clash over speech and censorship that they seem to forget about the actual clash over racial equality. There's a ton of important and complicated context around why norms for acceptable speech should change. That context is why the Facebook moderation concerns are able to come from a place of universal values, and not arbitrary zero-sum disagreement.
All these high-minded ideals you're appealing to sound wonderful. Who would be opposed to individual rights? The idea of suppressing opposing viewpoints seems insane. And nobody likes people who act like they're morally superior.
But hang on. What rights, and which viewpoints, and what are people acting morally superior about? Your appeal to those ideals is not as universally applicable as you make it sound. I mean, this is pretty self-evident - one can easily pick examples of completely reprehensible beliefs that almost no one would tolerate.
Let's make this concrete. Someone who supports a policy of the government killing all American Jews could make an impassioned argument about the injustice done when a tyrannical moral orthodoxy imposes its views on a free man and vilifies him for daring to think differently, and about the tragedy of the fact that in its zeal to stamp out the dissenter it would betray its own cherished value of free thought. But it wouldn't be a very convincing argument.
And similarly the left is increasingly unconvinced by people who say that their reasonable disagreements are being demonized and complain that the usual framework of liberal democracy should protect them from that kind of treatment. When someone - anyone - finds a position monstrous enough, they're no longer going to be willing to tolerate it. That's what's happening. The human costs of our current status quo are so emotionally and ethically explosive that people come to see these issues as non-negotiable. Your appeal to those norms of civil disagreement and compromise is just not convincing if you're no longer willing to accept the consequences of playing by those rules.
I'm a Photo (and Designer) user too, just for casual use. The only features I really miss from GIMP are animated gif editing, a "crop to selection" function, and to a lesser extent a click-and-drag perspective transform. The Affinity forums have helpful information for working around missing features, but it seems like some people there have a weirdly defensive attitude about how there are good reasons for every missing thing...
Designer was a bigger win for me because I've always found the Inkscape UI baffling.
It may be a technically superior API but even so I'm not thrilled that if I want to stay current with MacOS updates past the phase-out period then I have to pay for a Little Snitch 5 license. v4 works fine for me and without this API deprecation issue I almost certainly wouldn't be interested in upgrading.
> The point of a compiler is not to try to show off that who ever implemented it knows more loop holes in the C standard, then the user, but to help the programmer write a program that does that the programmer wants.
The author makes it sound like the people working on optimizing compilers are deliberately seeking out these weird corner cases and selecting some random surprising behavior for them out of a hat, gleefully imagining how confusing it will be for end users. That's not how it works. Optimizers can be extraordinarily complex and need to maximize this ill-defined thing called "performance" in a highly multi-dimensional solution space. They ping-pong around inside this space constrained only by the specific requirements of the standard, and it's not surprising that some of the techniques used would produce some counter-intuitive results if the programmer is breaking the rules and relying on undefined behavior. It's kind of like if you trained a neural network to classify cat and dog pictures, and then you showed it a picture of a fire truck and expected it to give you a useful result.
The idea of a new version of the C standard that defines some of the most surprising undefined behavior is an interesting one though, and I'd be interested to see how much that really impacts the ability of the optimizer to do its work.
I'd love it if the C standard just removed undefined behavior, replaced explicit instances ("the behavior is undefined" to "the behavior is implementation defined") and put in a blanket "Any behavior not specified by this standard is implementation defined". Keep the rest the same, just document the footguns. Implementation defined is exactly as powerful as undefined, it just makes the compiler writer describe what will happen.
The Fed's move to cut to zero has been expected by everybody over the last few sessions. This is not new information.
As for why they're doing this, well, monetary stimulus is really all the Fed can do, ineffective as it is, and in the vacuum of fiscal intervention from Washington I guess they feel that someone has to do something. By cutting all the way to zero they also put the ball in the government's/congress's court so the focus is on their inaction, where it should be.
> It may be possible that a person can get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes, but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.
> In general, because of poor survivability of these coronaviruses on surfaces, there is likely very low risk of spread from food products or packaging that are shipped over a period of days or weeks at ambient, refrigerated, or frozen temperatures.
The CDC themselves were involved in the study that says you're wrong.
If someone is able to find the source for this info I'd really appreciate it. Just spent like 10 minutes trying to find the paper they're citing but I can't find it and I don't have time to keep looking now. Maybe it isn't published?
I'm just going to quote the CDC again, because public health authorities are really the best sources of information we have and I don't want to participate in the "telephone" effect that paraphrasing begets:
> The virus is thought to spread mainly from person-to-person.
> * Between people who are in close contact with one another (within about 6 feet).
> * Through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes.
> These droplets can land in the mouths or noses of people who are nearby or possibly be inhaled into the lungs.
As a non-expert on coughing dynamics, it seems incredible that one person can infect 50 others by this mechanism (reported New Rochelle transmission from one patient, confirmed by contact tracing and testing contacts).
At a carnival party in Germany with 350 guests, more than 40 were infected by a single guest. That gives an idea how well it spreads in enclosed spaces. You can assume there was somewhat close contact, but I've been to business meetings with also at least 5-10 people <6ft from me. That's how it can spread through a company within days.
I have not been to carnival parties for 20 odd years, but as I remember them (in NL/border with DE), everyone is drunk, hugging, kissing (often on the mouth with perfect strangers), vomiting, not washing hands after toilet (is there a toilet even??), falling over each other and also having sex. Maybe times have changed, but if it still is remotely like that I can definitely see someone infecting 40+ other people.
I mean, we have city parties here 'for all the family' which result in everyone touching each other (just as friends mostly of course but still touching hands, shoulders, neck, face, back), kissing (mostly on cheeks with strangers, but you mostly 'friendly' kiss everyone meet/talk/dance with and otherwise shake hands or even both) but all the other factors do apply as well; bad/no toilets, no soap/water, everyone drunk so who washes their hands anyway, vomiting and not being so careful with putting your sleeve in front of your face when you sneeze or cough... I only go during the day to such things if I go at all (when most people can still walk up straight) because it is rather disgusting after a while (I am old; I used to like that when I was young), but I can see a few people infecting basically everyone if they are popular/drunk enough.
Thanks, that's interesting and not something I've heard before. I think the CDC etc should make this clear : it isn't "an infected person sneezing near you" but "a volume of air into which someone has sneezed in the past few hours". If people knew this I think they would be more inclined to accept the distancing measures.
So there's a constant conflict between simple and easy to understand but not totally correct info, and scientifically correct but incomprehensible to most info.
Someone sneezing in your face = really bad. Someone sneezing an hour ago vs. touching something they just sneezed on... hard to say which is worse.
I get the statistical mechanics aspect, but surely saying "It can spread through the air in enclosed spaces up to <x> m and for <y> s" is understandable by anyone?
That study isn't saying anything contrary to what the CDC is saying. Or am I the parent that you're agreeing with, and you meant "regardless of whatever the CDC is saying?"
Maybe I misinterpreted what you meant. Your quote from the CDC said that the virus has poor survivability on surfaces, but the study I linked concluded it can survive for 2-3 days.
These are not mutually exclusive statements. It probably can survive for weeks in rare cases, but if it doesn't do that often it doesn't matter.
Any method of transmission that infects fewer than one additional person on average are effectively negligible on the overall exponential curve.
So yes, it is likely possible that symptomatic people can infect others, and it is likely possible that a contaminated doorknob can infect people for a week, but if these things happen rarely enough, it doesn't matter. The virus will die out if other routes of infection (e.g. the more typical person to person transmission) can also be made rare enough.
I see the point you're making from an epidemiological perspective but, because it's so important to people from an individual perspective to avoid contracting the virus, I have to take issue with your claim that it is likely possible to contract the virus from a surface after a period of a week or even weeks. I haven't seen evidence that would substantiate such a claim. According to that preprint linked above, even a period of one week on a steel door handle is more than six half-lives past the "death" of the last detectable viable COVID-19 virus. The science is not all in yet, and it may indeed turn out that COVID-19 is much hardier than we thought, but until then I don't see how you can say that it "probably can" survive for weeks in some cases.
I apologize if this is coming off as pedantic but the damage being done by misinformation and speculation about the coronavirus is significant, and I don't think it's possible to be too zealous about precision here. Trump's claims that fears were overblown and a "hoax" have been amplified into widespread and potentially deadly skepticism that coronavirus is even a danger. People have suggested various quack cures that at best drain the resources of vulnerable people. Even saying something as seemingly-innocuous as "wear a face mask to reduce your risk" ends up having a devastating impact on healthcare providers who really need the masks but can't source them. We should be listening to public health authorities and mainstream health experts, and taking reasonable precautions, but absolutely refraining from speculation that might have unforeseeable consequences.
The relevant part of the CDC quote was "because of poor survivability of these coronaviruses on surfaces, there is likely very low risk of spread from food products or packaging that are shipped over a period of days or weeks" and the study preprint you linked showed that in the worst case (polypropylene surfaces) no live virus at all was detected after 72 hours while on cardboard it was more like a third of that time (with large error bars).
That might be so, however there are enough names from enough reputable research centers to take it at face value. If we need to wait for printed peer-reviewed journal papers to combat an active pandemic then we might be waiting a while!
I'm excited to be starting in Mountain View soon but I'm pretty apprehensive about having an effective orientation and getting up to speed if everyone's working from home. I've read that orientation is supposed to be a big event where you meet tons of people from around the world and learn together about internal Google tech and culture. I would hate to miss out on that experience because of the coronavirus fears.
Yes, orientation week is nice and you do get to meet a lot of people from offices around the world. You'd sit through a lot of training that introduces you to Google culture. You get to be in a room of a whole bunch of people that are experiencing the same impostor syndrome as you are.
So, yes, missing it will be a bummer.
You will, however, have plenty of other chances. There's still plenty of opportunity to learn, and your team will give you lots of guidance. It'll feel like you are lost, but believe me, most people will feel like that during their first few months at Google anyway.
Take your time, and invest in yourself. Ask for help when you need it. Have a plan for feeling like you are not contributing. You will be; it just takes time.
The best thing you can do as a Noogler now is stay home unless asked. The fewer people who are on main campus makes it safer for the people that do really need to be there. I'll be at home also.
Or, as Sundar tweeted: "Contributing to social distancing if you are able to, helps the overall community spread and most importantly, will help offset the peak loads through critical healthcare systems and also saves it for people in need."
I went through big-global-company orientation three times (intern, FTE, 6 month follow up). Every single time I got sick. Spending all day in a room with unfamiliar pathogens from 50 countries is risky under the best of circumstances.
Another Googler (joined late 2016). I would say that the orientation has been pretty scripted for a while given the volume of new candidates. It's actually other of the things I would expect to go most smoothly over GVC (video conference) or live stream. Meeting your actual team and learning from them by overhearing conversations and answering questions is going to be the real challenge. I recommend asking to be added to more meetings than you usually would, so you have maximum opportunity to call in and absorb information.
It's mostly training classes that are equally valuable some remotely, plus some "forced fun" events and playing with the campus toys. It might be healthier to miss it and avoid getting the misleading summer college experience of (dis)orientation.
Yes, it's not optimal, but based on my experience I think you'll be fine without the normal orientation.
I would worry more about the actual crisis the world is going through (not that I'm saying you need to be overly worried, just that in context, that's the bigger issue).
Please try not to escalate unnecessarily, be it in this post or this health crisis.
I don't detect any disrespect or lack of empathy. It's acknowledgement of the seriousness of the situation combined with concern for secondary adverse effect on their experience/career.
Also, it seems like many people in HN politics threads over the last couple of months are in such a rush to talk about everything in terms of a clash over speech and censorship that they seem to forget about the actual clash over racial equality. There's a ton of important and complicated context around why norms for acceptable speech should change. That context is why the Facebook moderation concerns are able to come from a place of universal values, and not arbitrary zero-sum disagreement.