[HN Gopher] What Happened In 2020
___________________________________________________________________
What Happened In 2020
Author : pixelmonkey
Score : 67 points
Date : 2020-12-31 12:52 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (avc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (avc.com)
| hyko wrote:
| Bit of slight of hand there tacking _Cryptocurrency_ onto
| videoconferencing, electric cars, and online shopping.
|
| Cryptocurrency did not prove more useful in 2020 than it did in
| 2019.
| inthewoods wrote:
| Yes well said - I'm not a Bitcoin hater or skeptic, but it does
| not seem any closer to being a currency to actually transact
| in. Happy to be proven wrong here - are there now a significant
| number of places to spend Bitcoin?
| nostrademons wrote:
| The thinking in here echoes Carlota Perez, which shouldn't
| surprise anyone since Fred Wilson has been a known Perez devotee
| since c. 2012. In the Perez model, this marks the transition from
| "irruption" to "frenzy" for the general constellation of 21st
| century technologies ("the sun, the genome, and the Internet", to
| take the title of a Freeman Dyson book). Perez's book doesn't
| really touch on the fractal nature of technological revolutions:
| published in 2002, it described the WWw as having just moved from
| "frenzy" to "deployment", which was true for the specific case of
| the WWw but missed the bigger forest of how software in general
| would eat the world. We're now starting to see many of the
| technological developments spawned by the Internet (cloud
| computing, AI, cryptocurrency, drones, etc.) get more mainstream
| attention.
| arkj wrote:
| > Odd as it may seem, a lot more people want to buy Bitcoin at
| $28,000 than wanted to buy it at $5000. That's just how things
| are. And it is important to understand that.
|
| This is a classic line.
| paulpauper wrote:
| then by that logic it should go to infinity.
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| As the first sentence in that paragraph says, it's explicitly
| discussing a speculative bubble.
|
| "There is no question that crypto is in yet another
| speculative bubble"
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| > There is no question that crypto is in yet another speculative
| bubble, but like I said, it is speculative bubbles that allow
| emerging technologies to go mainstream and finance themselves.
| Odd as it may seem, a lot more people want to buy Bitcoin at
| $28,000 than wanted to buy it at $5000.
|
| Yes, but: if most of that money comes from the pocket of ordinary
| people, and a bunch of geeks (or the usual Winklevoss twins, Tim
| Draper [0], etc) will cash out and drive the cost down again, the
| ones losing a ton of money will be - as usual - the ordinary
| people.
|
| As much as I like Fred Wilson, sometimes I'm really surprised by
| comments like this one. It seems he's not realizing the danger of
| this new crypto "bubble", and who's going to pay for it. But "we
| all have to eat". [1]
|
| [0]: https://www.wired.com/2014/07/vaurum/
|
| [1]: https://simone.substack.com/p/we-all-have-to-eat
| ttul wrote:
| Secondly, how much of the surge in the Bitcoin price is due to
| manipulation and fraud? Fred states that more people want to
| buy Bitcoin at $28,000 than at $500. Is that true? Or is it
| that a handful of market manipulators are printing USD coins
| and using this fraudulent leverage to boost the value that
| buyers perceive Bitcoin to have?
| fourstar wrote:
| Less fraud than the US treasury.
| nostrademons wrote:
| The point of his analysis is that you should be taking the
| other side of the trade. Become a tech person, or a crypto
| person, or some other recipient of primary capital that's doing
| something with it. That's how the economy advances: speculative
| bubbles greatly increase the rewards for doing anything
| potentially useful related to the new technologies, smart
| people respond to these incentives by entering the market, the
| market selects for the best of these "potentially useful"
| innovations, and then an eventual financial crisis prunes out
| everything that wasn't useful and reallocates resources to the
| winners.
| jgalt212 wrote:
| My 2020 Summary:
|
| Powell tricked all the VC's into thinking they were geniuses.
| benjaminwootton wrote:
| Are people on the ground outside of Silicon Valley seeing this
| technology boom?
|
| I know that Tesla etc are going to the moon, but from my
| perspective as a small IT services company and many peers in a
| similar situation, the market is pretty slow and fundraising
| sounds pretty hard.
|
| I think some of this commentary is disconnected from reality.
| Gravityloss wrote:
| How is online retail more "tech" than physical stores?
|
| How does people not driving hurt gasoline car makers but help
| electric car makers?
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| Great, largely because it is short, synopsis of last year. Author
| nailed down what have been my random thoughts on the new economy
| and ways to do business. I started work at a medical AI company
| in September that will never reopen its offices again.
|
| I also liked the acknowledgment that so many people are hurting
| badly financially now, the problem just keeps getting worse.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| >>> wasted on commuting and how much more productive we have all
| become without it.
|
| Woah there. As a father to young children I have become
| _massively less_ productive and realise both the uncaptured value
| of parent provided childcare in the GDP stats plus the role that
| education plays in releasing workers for the rest of the economy.
|
| Teachers unions - the time to push for raises is now!
| k__ wrote:
| I always had the feeling (as a child and later as adult) that
| (pre-)schools were mostly for the benefit of the parents and
| not the children.
|
| The more I think about it, even with the danger of (religious)
| indoctrination, I'd say props to all the home schooling
| parents.
| jbaber wrote:
| Contrasting my kids' experience with an au pair and daycare,
| I think the daycare model of a few adults watching a gaggle
| of kids playing with each other is more "natural" than one
| kid alone in a nuclear household mostly interacting with
| adults and arranged "playdates" with other kids.
| Hedepig wrote:
| I have an 8 month old, my productivity has definitely increased
| working from home, granted there is the odd moment I am taken
| away from my work, on the whole though it is a net gain. Not to
| mention the lack of commuting having a positive effect on my
| wallet
|
| Perhaps with toddlers things will be more difficult, but my
| spouse and I have an agreement to treat my work space as an
| office and only disturb when absolutely necessary.
|
| I do miss the office environment though
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| Oh you have a live-in nanny and housekeeper already.
|
| But don't worry, after a couple more "start-ups" the live-in
| Nanny will hit scalability issues, and will need you to
| concentrate on the Ops side as well, andI warn you that easy
| solutions like hiring a young underpaid intern may result in
| industrial action !
| Hedepig wrote:
| I mustn't have explained my situation clearly
|
| I'm a junior/mid Web dev who has an 8 month old, my wife is
| on maternity leave, when she goes back to work he will go
| to nursery.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| I dont think I signalled my (gentle) sarcasm clearly.
|
| I wish you and your wife all the best.
| Hedepig wrote:
| Blast! No I almost had it, but decided against my
| intuition.
|
| Thank you.
| curlypaul924 wrote:
| My productivity increased when my son was that age. This was
| before COVID-19; I was working from home a lot for other
| reasons.
|
| With two kids I have to schedule my time a lot more carefully
| to reach the same level of productivity. Even typing this
| comment I have to compromise on getting the exact wording I
| want lest I get interrupted before I finish typing.
| [deleted]
| minot wrote:
| We won't even buy them office supplies. Teachers sometimes buy
| everything from Kleenex to stationery for use by students in
| the classroom out of pocket. I don't think how demanding raises
| will work unless we somehow convince the public to pay (much)
| higher property taxes.
| moron4hire wrote:
| The problem is not how much tax we collect. It's how the
| money is spent.
| minot wrote:
| > The problem is not how much tax we collect. It's how the
| money is spent.
|
| Thank you. I clearly didn't know enough about the problem
| space.
|
| For others like me:
|
| > MAY 11, 2020 --The amount spent per pupil for public
| elementary and secondary education (pre-K through 12th
| grade) for all 50 states and the District of Columbia
| increased by 3.4% to $12,612 per pupil during the 2018
| fiscal year, compared to $12,201 per pupil in 2017,
| according to new tables released today by the U.S. Census
| Bureau.
|
| > The increase in spending was due in part to an overall
| increase in revenue. In 2018, public elementary and
| secondary schools received $720.9 billion from all revenue
| sources, up 3.8% from $694.3 billion in 2017.
|
| > New York ($24,040), the District of Columbia ($22,759),
| Connecticut ($20,635), New Jersey ($20,021) and Vermont
| ($19,340) spent the most per pupil in FY 2018.
|
| > Public school systems in Alaska (15.8%), Mississippi
| (13.8%), South Dakota (13.6%), New Mexico (13.4%) and
| Arizona (13.2%) received the highest percentage of their
| revenue from the federal government while public school
| systems in Massachusetts (3.9%), New Jersey (4.0%),
| Connecticut (4.2%), New York (4.3%) and Minnesota (5.1%)
| received the lowest.
|
| > https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-
| releases/2020/school-s...
|
| I've always been skeptical of New York (City?) policy
| requiring advanced degrees and certification for public
| school teachers as well as how involved New York Police
| Department is with the whole business.
|
| How much of the USD 24,040 figure of New York goes to New
| York Police Department?
|
| and then there are the football stadiums: how is this
| legal?
|
| > Eagle Stadium is a football stadium in Allen, Texas. It
| is owned and operated by the Allen Independent School
| District and is home of the Allen High School Eagles.
|
| > Construction cost $ 60 million
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_Stadium_(Allen,_Texas)
|
| How does this money break down? Would it be better to have
| a permanent school from home instead? I know I for one
| would not miss middle school. But yeah, the goal has to be
| clear: what do we want to achieve? If it is simply a place
| to park children, we can do that for a lot cheaper. If we
| actually want to educate, we need to spend better.
| phil21 wrote:
| > How much of the USD 24,040 figure of New York goes to
| New York Police Department?
|
| Not much, if any. It's a rounding error and only brought
| up as a political point really. In terms of budgets it's
| immaterial - ignoring entirely of course the social
| aspects of the situation.
|
| The football stuff is also highly annoying and
| problematic, but those do tend (in my limited experience
| at least) to be built in high performing districts simply
| due to the tax demographics needed to build such things.
| Again, in the context of this discussion it's pretty much
| immaterial.
|
| The massive waste is almost all administrative burden and
| in my (again, limited) experience almost outright fraud.
| Just the small amount of interaction I've had with major
| public school districts show the incompetence of the
| administrative layers is endemic - massive amounts of
| wasteful and outright fraudulent spending is done each
| year that in no way makes it to the students.
|
| Look into how many >$120k/yr admins the NYC public school
| district has.
|
| Then in the US we also have a major problem of turning
| schools into defacto social welfare centers. Schools are
| now expected to provide free meals, social services, etc.
| where in other countries those are handled by other
| sectors of public service for the most part. All public
| schools are also expected to have trained and licensed
| special ed teachers (for a rapidly growing special ed
| student population), and in the US inner cities in
| particular teachers largely act more as behavioral
| mediators than teachers in many classrooms. Then we get
| into the insane amount of lawsuits and liability said
| special ed and social services gets schools into and the
| incompetent administrators terrified of anyone with a
| lawyer.
|
| All adds up to just waste billions of dollars on things
| that are not directly related to teaching students.
|
| The problems are multifaceted and deep, but the easy
| headline outrages like you pulled out usually are pretty
| inconsequential - and in my jaded mind are argued about
| to keep folks too preoccupied to dig into the real
| issues.
| clairity wrote:
| LA built the $600M high school[0] (to be fair, it's a
| collection of smaller schools). we don't lack for money.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy_Comm
| unity_Sc...
| xyzzyz wrote:
| US school spending is already one of the highest in the
| developed world, and the complaints from the teachers that
| you quote typically also come from the teachers in highest
| spending areas too.
|
| If there is anything US school system doesn't lack, it's
| money.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Having worked in a school district, I feel like this is
| true. The number of administrators, many of whom didn't
| seem to do anything, was staggering.
| enraged_camel wrote:
| I think this is a common cognitive bias though: just
| because someone seems to you as if they don't do anything
| does not actually mean that they don't do anything. It
| might be that you, yourself, are not affected by their
| output.
| maxerickson wrote:
| The fun thing is that much of the administrative overhead
| is built into the system. My county has less than 40,000
| people (not students, people) and 5 school districts (and
| private schools).
|
| 2 of them do share an administrator, but in general,
| there's lots of places where a single district has ~8,000
| students. There's not any thought of combining them (I
| guess largely because funding is so local...).
| [deleted]
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Funding is extremely local.
|
| The other reason districts are so territorial is that a
| lot of them were founded specifically for their people
| and to keep the "others" out.
| jeremyw wrote:
| Echo the (young) kids & productivity penalty. I gave up all
| long-concentration work for short-cycle wins that fit in-
| between the kid's nervous energy / social interruptions. I have
| tremendous sympathy for parents that didn't have that
| flexibility.
| keyle wrote:
| Programming & kids do not go together.
|
| _Deep thinking and juggling complex structures in mind with
| past and future states..._
|
| "Hey dad, check out my new dress and ring I stole from mum!"
| <gone>
|
| ... 15 mins later.
|
| _Where was I... Ah yes, deep thinking and juggling complex
| structures in mind with past and future states..._
|
| "Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad! She took my toys" <gone>
|
| I literally end up jotting pseudocode as fast as possible and
| then translate it for the simplest things.
|
| So I work when they sleep.
|
| You'd think these constant interruptions would make you super
| efficient with focus and time, but it's the opposite.
| Concentration is much harder to obtain and retain because of
| the constant potential for interruption looming.
| ironmagma wrote:
| I worked in an environment like this once, except the
| interruptions were a little less silly and were from PMs,
| managers and designers who had no concept of flow. It never
| was ideal, but I still feel it's possible to adapt to the
| situation by adopting a mindset that doesn't get as bothered
| by interruptions. This is said with no evidence of course, so
| take it as you may.
| keyle wrote:
| Your pm doesn't tap you on the leg, scream in your ears
| like the world ended and start poking things on your
| desk... I hope.
| ironmagma wrote:
| Yes, the idea of the comment was not to say that PMs are
| comparable to children. But then again, the 3 year old in
| our house doesn't do that either.
| cosmodisk wrote:
| You can always tell the PM or designer to crawl back where
| they came from and give you some space. it's not an option
| with children. I still remember Peppa Pig playing on a full
| blast while I'm trying to bulkify some parts of the code.
| aaron-santos wrote:
| I feel the same. Resuming flow state is a skill just like
| any other. I've seen my own ability to resume flow increase
| while working from home with two young children.
|
| There's also something to be said for improving one's
| ability to do serious work in a non-flow state. All other
| things being equal, people who can improve both of these
| abilities have an advantage over those who can't.
| aspaceman wrote:
| Or the suspense of, "wait it's quiet... too quiet, oh no
| what's wrong"
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| Yes ! Years ago I took a remote job and started in the
| spare room upstairs.
|
| Hear them shout - wish they would be quiet.
|
| Hear them cry - wish I could comfort them.
|
| Hear them laugh - wish I could join them.
|
| Not hear them at all - OMG they died suddenly!
|
| Yeah I rented an office for the next two years.
| majkinetor wrote:
| I suggest best noise/human cancelation headphones.
|
| It makes tremendous difference.
| burlesona wrote:
| Unfortunately noise canceling headphones to nothing about a
| child tugging on your shirt. When children are little, they
| truly need attention. If there's no one else around to
| provide it, then there's really no way to deep work,
| because you will have to help them with something at least
| a few times per hour.
|
| There are some kinds of work that aren't too disrupted by
| this, but programming isn't one of those.
| keyle wrote:
| You can't noise canceling your children. They know you're
| ignoring them and it's just unleashing the kraken.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-01-01 23:02 UTC)