That paper is about mandatory masking and social distancing at the population level. It does not speak to the question of whether it's "worth it" to wear a mask on the train if you're the only one who is doing it.
A 3-year maternity/paternity leave guaranteed by law sounds so completely crazy and unworkable to me that I think I must be misunderstanding what you mean. Before I start pelting you with objections that might be based on a misunderstanding, do you want to fill in a bit more detail on how you envision such a policy working in practice?
I've tried to research this, because I am honestly trying to understand it. It has been surprisingly difficult to verify what the current parental rights are for Canada Post. The most recent info on the union website is dated 2004, but I think the same basic agreement is still in force? Correct me if I'm wrong.
Also, it's worth noting that the Canada Post leave policy it's obviously the result of a union negotiation, not a blanket government policy that applies to all jobs. The post office is the epitome of a stable job that doesn't change much, so is probably optimally able to offer longer parental benefits.
Anyway, it says:
> All pregnant employees are entitled to 17 weeks of unpaid maternity leave.... If you have worked for the post office for six months of continuous service, and if you are eligible for the Employment Insurance (EI) maternity leave benefits, you are eligible to receive paid maternity leave.... EI [government program] pays a basic rate of 55% of your average earnings, up to a maximum of $413 per week.... This amount is topped up with the SUB [Supplementary Unemployment Benefit from the union contract] to 93% of your weekly wage.
> If your spouse is giving birth, you are entitled to one day of leave with pay.
> Parental leave [without pay)] can be split between two parents, but the total number of weeks must not be more than 37. The total number of weeks or paternity and maternity leave must not be more than 52 weeks.
That's a far, far cry from 3 years of leave, much less 5. Like I said, it may be outdated, but I can't find any indication that it has changed, and I don't want to spend my whole day on this.
Where are you getting this 5 year number? 5 years sounds truly insane and I have real trouble believing it. Even assuming that's split between the two parents, can a family have 6 children 2.5 years apart and spend a continuous 15 years of their careers on leave?
I don't know about Canada Post, but Wikipedia has a handy table listing the duration of parental leave. 3 years is a common option across various European countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave#Europe_and_Cent... Yes, parents with a lot of children could potentially spend a very long time out of work while still keeping their jobs, but it's rather rare to have so many children that it would become an issue.
Or maybe this wasn't a surprise to anyone and was already priced in, and then the final numbers were slightly better than the general consensus expectation? Could be that too.
But you're right, everyone who owns stock in Tesla is probably the member of a cult, no need to think any harder about it.
Yes but are those the marginal buyers and sellers that drive price movements? Most people in index funds are probably not flitting in and out of index positions at anything approaching even medium frequency.
The result was not, and could never have been, known a priori. All sorts of random things could have gone wrong with the operation causing the raid to fail and Maduro to remain in power. Trump could have just randomly changed his mind, or postponed the raid to beyond the end of January (the cutoff for the betting market). The person placing the bet was still taking a chance, but it was an informed chance that shifted the market probability more in line with reality.
If it helps, you can think of the money made as the payment to a confidential informant for information that contributed to a more complete picture of the world. It just happens via a distributed algorithm, using market forces, rather than at the discretion of some intelligence officer or whoever. The more important the information you have to share, the more it moves the market and the bigger your "fee". It's not being a "grifter" to provide true information that moves the market correctly. In fact, this mechanism filters out the actual grifters - you can't make money (in expectation) by providing false information, like traditional informants sometimes can.
This "intelligence gathering" function is the primary goal of a prediction market. It's the only reason it makes sense to even have them. If you turn it into some parlor game where everybody who participates has access to all the same information, then what are we even doing here?
> This "intelligence gathering" function is the primary goal of a prediction market. It's the only reason it makes sense to even have them. If you turn it into some parlor game where everybody who participates has access to all the same information, then what are we even doing here?
If everyone has the same information, then whoever does better analysis wins. That's far from a parlor game.
Ideally people with good info and people with good analysis can both make money. (And ideally nobody takes real-world actions to make their bet come true.)
> The result was not, and could never have been, known a priori.
This is a level of solipsism not worth discussing.
Yes, Superman could be a real person and we all had our minds altered to think he’s a superhero.
Yes, when someone pulls the trigger of a gun pointed at someone’s head, it could misfire and explode in their hand.
The point is that someone influencing prediction markets can push this probability to very, very near zero. So much so, as to make the outcome effectively certain for all intents and purposes.
Literally everyone can burn their neighbor's house down! Everyone has access to "valuable predictive information" when that information is being created by the person making the bet.
Get the last word in if you must. We're going in circles.
OK, I see now that you're specifically referring to the case where someone places a bet and then actively goes out and causes the event to happen themselves. I was specifically replying to the people who were saying it was unfair for insiders to profit on the information they already possess.
I agree, I can see how that's a potential edge case, though I don't think it's as likely to happen in practice as you do. Certainly, anybody who commits a crime to cause a payout should be barred from receiving that payout, though you can tell a plausible story where someone manages to conceal it. I also really really doubt that that's what happened in this particular case.
I mean, yes, unironically. If the goal of a prediction market is to find out the truth about the world, that's what will get you there faster.
Google might feel differently about whether it's OK in that case, but that's their prerogative.
Ask yourself: If the CIA really needed to know in advance what the top search result was going to be with as much accuracy as possible (for some weird reason, doesn't matter why), how would they go about doing it? Would they spend a bunch of time evaluating all of the public information, or would they just bribe (or otherwise convince) an insider at Google to tell them?
It's interesting how the article is written in the past tense, and the Society (presumably) no longer exists, but there's nothing in the article about the decline and fall. The history just basically ends in the 1950s, at the height (?) of the society's cultural relevance. Most articles that are this well sourced and detailed include at least a bit of "late history", but not here. I guess people just stopped writing about it so there are no sources that chronicle how it petered out?
When it's built into the game engine and is used as part of the game loop, responding to user input in some way, and evolving as the game unfolds. (As opposed to just using AI as a tool in the game creation process.)
Various other viral (and even less commonly, microbial) challenges, though it's rare. HIV is special in this regard because it's the only example (so far as I know) that's transmissible.
This is one of those situations where the video is just an insane value-add above and beyond the Wikipedia article that this sort of response is baffling to me. The well thought out presentation and progression of the concepts. Just enough context to keep the non math grad students following along without wasting time or talking down to the audience.The incredible visualizations that are both beautiful and insightful. Someone spent months of their life making this video as good as it could be, and it shows.
> This is one of those situations where the video is just an insane value-add above and beyond the Wikipedia article that this sort of response is baffling to me. The well thought out presentation and progression of the concepts.
This is good to know, for this video. Unfortunately, HN doesn't have a way to indicate this other than linking to a YouTube video; and in my experience very few YouTube videos are a superior way to absorb information than reading. To find that out, I'd have to either watch the video (negative expected value), or wait for a comment from someone like you -- and now that the latter has happened, perhaps I'll actually try to watch it. In the meantime, I do think there's value in providing information without a (sometimes literal) song and dance around it for those interested in learning over entertainment, on average.
All you have done is contribute a wikipedia article which is the second google result if you search the title of the video. Another user made a comment referencing a textbook they used to learn this material as well as some extended comments of their own - this actually provides information unlike a bare wikipedia link presented with a dismissive attitude.
I'm struggling to understand the negative tone in your reply to the parent comment. They simply offered an additional resource on the topic. Rather than welcoming it, you seem to have taken issue with it. One of the strengths of HN threads is that people often contribute further material that others may find helpful.
The video is useful but so is the Wiki article. Some readers will prefer the video, some the article, and some both. Why object to someone sharing another link?
In fairness to the GP, the OP has now admitted that they made the post without having watched the video and that they did so out of prejudice against YouTube videos. GP wasn’t objecting to the additional resource but the implication via “Without video:” that the video itself is less valuable.
As the OP, I agree with everything you said, but I suggest an alternate characterization: Some subset of people, including me, prefer written communication to video (regardless of whether the video is on YouTube or elsewhere). Since my favorite HN threads delve into a topic, rather than into the details of a particular presentation of a topic, and since on seeing this topic raised I hopped over to Wikipedia to refresh my memory on this topic, I thought I would provide a breadcrumb for others of similar mindset to help jumpstart the topical discussion. Which, clearly, I was not quite successful in doing -- so, lesson learned.
The link you posted is different content from the video. You link has, in your language, "negative expected value". Someone who trusted you would be deeply frustrated and misled by trying to read that Wikipedia page instead of the watching the video. Some humility and introspection would serve you well.
The current top comment by u/steppi is a stellar example of how to offer an additional resource on the topic in a way that adds value to the discussion. This was not that.
I (correctly) interpreted the terse, dismissive tone of their comment, which implied that the video added no value beyond what was found in the Wikipedia page. Other comments here confirm that I'm not the only one who read it that way. The clear subtext was "don't waste your time with that slop, just read this." I was certain that, if that was their takeaway, then they hadn't even bothered to watch the video (which turned out to be correct). But I only knew that because I had already watched the video the previous day and was deeply impressed by it.
At the time I replied, it was the only comment here, and was therefore setting the tone of the discussion. I didn't want all the people who only follow the link after checking the comments to assume that the video was just a lazy Wikipedia summary, upvote the comment for "saving them time", and then move on. My primary goal was to actually describe the video and encourage anyone out there who likes this sort of thing to give it a shot. In order to do that effectively, I felt I also had to push back on the impression left by the comment I replied to.
reply