Bridgewater is famous for valuing a culture of almost brutal honesty and fierce internecine warring over ideas. It argues this combination is vital to reaching the deep understanding that is critical to the success of its investments. While Bridgewater has experimented with leadership transitions multiple times, changing directions and reversing course seems consistent and faithful to its internal DNA. Life doesn't always go in neat straight lines. Forcing a simple story line isn't always best.
I use HN Search, which is linked from the bottom of most HN pages. That's definitely a text indexing tool that helps! The search company Algolia provides it for free—a major service to this community, because not only does it help users find things, we rely on it heavily for all kinds of moderation tasks.
It's particularly helpful to include "comments > N" or "points > N" if looking for old threads.
This is Dan Abadi we're talking about. More importantly, the points he makes are important, clear and true. If that causes heartburn for Vendor A and pride for Vendor B, that's secondary. The primary goal is to help users of distributed database systems understand the kind of trouble they can encounter with anything less than strict serializability.
NB: there are important applications where correctness in specific situations is not paramount. Double-click and ad-serving companies in general are more concerned about speed and throughput and are generally willing to have approximate correctness. Strict serializability isn't a universal value, but it's good to know about when you DO care about the kinds of anomalies Dan illustrates.
The only problem with singular nouns for table names is that they occasionally conflict with SQL keywords. The canonical example of this is from the TPC-H benchmark which has tables named REGION, NATION, SUPPLIER, CUSTOMER, PART, PARTSUPP, LINEITEM ... AND ORDERS <- plural because ORDER is a SQL keyword.
I like the singular guidance for all the reasons given. I like the consistency guidance. But the real world sometimes gets in the way.
So true. And so deliciously snarky. Confession: I'm guilty of far greater stupidity. I've asked "Ship of Theseus" questions when interviewing candidates for object database companies, and conservation puzzles, like tessellating a chessboard missing diagonal corners with dominoes. Because "Thank goodness I hired coders who can discuss philosophical identity problems". At least people who can reverse a b tree on a whiteboard can code an algorithm.
Do you have any insight into the reason for the unequal access? Is it that poorer or uninsured patients cannot afford non-emergency healthcare? Is it that they are too far away? Is it education/knowledge/social - belief that they shouldn't go to a doctor for "nothing". Are they "too busy".
Also, are there any studies to show that populations in other countries use their medical systems more frequently across the board, or that they use more frequent preventative visits?
You mention the problem with obesity and its co-morbidities. Are there any studies or plots that show health outcomes (lifespan, infant mortality, maternal mortality) as a function of % of population who are obese? I wonder if poor health is linearly correlated with obesity, without regard to healthcare spending...
> Do you have any insight into the reason for the unequal access? Is it that poorer or uninsured patients cannot afford non-emergency healthcare? Is it that they are too far away? Is it education/knowledge/social - belief that they shouldn't go to a doctor for "nothing". Are they "too busy".
I am not a Doctor observing patient populations, but I have lived and worked in East Palo Alto, CA for the last few years, which from my perspective, is a stark case study in all sorts of inequalities (For non-SV residents, East Palo Alto is a small historically socio-economically depressed city wedged between Palo Alto, Facebook, and Google. Zuck's house is a stone throw away from crack houses)
Anecdotally, what I have seen regarding poorer/uninsured people not utilizing health services involves all the things you have mentioned.
Non-emergency healthcare without insurance is pretty much out of the question. Even with insurance, co-pays can be prohibitively expensive. There are people I know living paycheck to paycheck with zero savings and like 50%+ of income going to housing expenses. Even a $50 unplanned-for copay is a painful blow.
Distance is also an issue for a population that may not have consistent access to a car--and the bus system takes too much time. If you are working a few jobs, it's nigh-impossible to take a random 1hr+ bus ride to a medical facility.
Education/knowledge is, unfortunately, also a huge issue. I have observed some astonishingly unhealthy habits that stem primarily from ignorance. Additionally, even navigating our health system requires some level of education, literacy, and time that often seems prohibitive for many in the population I have interacted with. And, with regards to distrust of the medical system, I have observed that as well. I have also seen this coupled with exploitative homeopathic "care" providers...which is doubly sad. These are more complex issues that I don't feel well-equipped to begin to speculate the underlying reasons for. Perhaps some of it is cultural. I am not sure if that is the primary story though.
Generalized ambient anxiety and depression is also, I believe, the more ultimate, albeit distal, cause here, rather these more proximate poverty mechanics. The emotional toll of living in poverty, primarily extreme _relative_ poverty (remember Zuck across the freeway and the swarms of Tesla commuting through your city on their way to high-paying tech jobs that are inaccessible to you) results in all sorts of extremely unhealthy compensatory behaviors. Heavy alcohol and drug use--even if just Marijuana, binge eating fast-food, violent communication styles that contribute to always-on fight or flight reactions, dangerous activities like racing cars or weaving bikes through traffic--perhaps done as some way to "feel something" or perhaps find identity in the only way available--acting out anti-social power displays as a way to reify self-worth contra a system that clearly treats them like shit on nearly all levels. And more.
Frankly, unequal access is both a moral failure and also, I believe, soon to be an instrumental failure for the strength of the United States. Having a large population of enfeebled, diseased people does not bode well for nice things we care about like innovation, improved quality of life, stability of our governance systems, or even things like the strength of our fighting force.
However you want to cut it, the issue of unequal health access is a shame.
