@apt-apt-apt-apt pointed out in a separate comment that:
>A simple translation of keywords seems straightforward, I wonder why it's not standard.
I replied that for Japanese at least, probably due to symbol input being too tedious. However I think it's worth mentioning a potential mitigation, and maybe even an advantage.
As a mitigation, full-width symbols could be used instead, which are typically the default in Japanese input. Japanese itself is also fixed-width so if done across the board the language itself becomes fixed-width, not just by virtue of a font selection.
As an advantage, some logical symbols, greek letters, other rare characters are easy to input in Japanese mode, and this could lend itself to a more symbol-heavy language design. I already take advantage of this myself with Δ, φ, and τ use selectively in a few projects. Symbols with easy entry may differ by OS, but here are a few other examples that could be useful:
Japanese input system do allow use of arbitrary UTF-8 symbols, but you have to type out the "pronunciation" for symbols, e.g. "nottoiko-ru" for ≠, "goudou" for ≡, "yueni" for ∴, "ramuda" for λ, etc. Just using "!=" is faster.
In case it was not clear, that is exactly my point: a language designed for Japanese could open up the possibility of incorporating symbols other than those readily available on QWERTY keyboards.
And my other point is that != is _harder_ to type in Japanese input mode because you constantly have to manage full-width vs half-width input.
I can't speak to Korean, but thinking about Japanese, one probable reason it wouldn't catch on is how tedious and inefficient it would be to constantly switch between input modes. Japanese input mode is designed for prose, and isn't well-suited to efficiently entering the symbols commonly used in programming. Even spaces. It results in needing a lot of extra keystrokes.
Often had the same thought, if not shared same opinion. On the other hand, stiffer penalties have the trade off of incentivizing cover-ups, i.e. disincentivize honest disclosure.
And that’s where I’d need other SMEs in the room to help craft policy. Enough of us agree that the status quo is untenable, but we lack a clear vision to change it still. I know where I stand, but I don’t know what I don’t know.
Zooming out before taking screenshot and the text is no longer obfuscated. I tried and confirmed it works. In fact, the text is perhaps even more readable than the original.
It depends how fast or slow your GPU is. I tried it and saw the effect you described, but within a second or two it started moving and was obscured again. Obviously you could automate the problem away.
What I meant was that even if it only freezes for a second, you could automate the screenshots to be captured during that time instead of trying to beat the clock manually
Japan has required amortization of capitalized software over five years for qualifying internal-use software since at least 2000. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe most other countries have similar rules.
Until 2022, U.S. companies had a real competitive advantage.
Software developer salaries in Japan are depressed—other roles too, but especially engineers. Without digging too deep, perhaps the previously unfavorable (now roughly equal) tax treatment of was perhaps a contributing factor.
Dev here working in Japan for few years, I don't think the main reason software salaries are low in Japan is financial, but social/cultural. Software has traditionally not seen as valued as hardware, it was just an "extra" added on top of the hardware part. Basically never went through the startup revolution of the 2000s in US.
Also Japan is still very hierarchical, so old ideas change much slower. I would say the combination of these 2 are the main reason software is not as valued as in e.g. America, but there are many others like lack of international competitiveness due to the low English skill, ZIRP, and the ones you note seem totally valid ofc.
This is a very interesting recent report about salaries in Japan (e.g. foreigners, and/or foreigner companies get paid/pay a lot more):
Nonetheless, if reports are to be believed the post-rule change decline is significant, and I can’t help but wonder how big of a positive feedback loop—in other words a bubble—was being created. The gap was, after all, built up over several decades.
The usual culprit you mentioned, perhaps aren’t as much of a factor as we usually ascribe to them.
This is the first instance I’ve heard of where salaries aren’t considered remuneration for basic labour. It’s a fairly weird interpretation of reality that spending $200k on a human’s availability results in a guaranteed $200k of capital being created, regardless of which country this kind of tax law exists in.
I've suggested this elsewhere too, but have you considered a mailing list instead?
It ticks the boxes about notoriety—which appears to be the main concern of the OP author—with the added benefit of being more difficult for AI systems to crawl for training data.
Perhaps we'll see more bloggers going the way of a bespoke mailing list.
That's no guarantee it won't get slurped up by an AI at some point. Anything that goes into, say, GMail is ripe for plucking. And there's always a good chance your newsletters will get publicly archived on some web page somewhere, whether intentional or not.
I had the same thought. Still, perfect or not, I bet it'll be an attractive option for some.
I guess our gmail content has been fed into an AI of sorts since many years ago. I would surely hope, however, that Google would not use it for any sort of non-private LLM training data.
I don’t think there has to be some practical economic business justification to a) feel bummed out by your creative output getting munged up into something that, for all its better uses, will feed the great fire hoses spraying trillions of gallons of bullshit all over our information landscape, or b) reduce your creative output because of it. It’s weird how entitled people feel to other people’s creative work and get mad when people don’t freely create for and share with them, while simultaneously minimizing the value that work and its authors bring to our society. Despite what many say, the way people receive and interact with your work mentally/emotionally is really important, and all your work being sucked up into these models— often to create commercial products that are openly antagonistic to the people that created the work that made it possible— changes that. It’s sad that AI has devalued creative processes even to the creators themselves.
You could hack the email addresses out of a website, make disposable email addresses and send your writings to everyone including the replies from the previous newsletter with your response to them.
Anecdotally, I once shared a house with a Russian student in Monterey, California. He told me he was amazed by the quality of our roads compared to those in his homeland, though I don't recall which part of Russia he was from.
I grew up in rural California. Despite living quite remote—about 25 kilometers from the nearest town—by my standards our main roads were well-maintained. However, numerous smaller side roads branching off to serve sparse residential areas, sometimes leading to just a handful of houses, were another matter. I wonder if California has a larger proportion of these minor roads skewing the results. Yet paradoxically, two major urban centers, San Francisco and Los Angeles, are it would seem quite terrible.
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