It's so weird that cats are still so feline, basically miniature tigers/lions but that dogs went so much off the rails compared to majestic wolves. Sure, some dogs are wolves-like but many just lot the plot: chihuahuas, daschhunds (my mom always had those: friendly but... not wolves-like), pugs, sharpeis, etc.

So many are just... Not badass? A wolf is badass. Cats are totally badass: they're natural born killers, hunting billions of poor preys yearly.

My parents are divorced. Father always had huge dogs (St. Bernard, Leonberg, Newfoundland, etc.) while mother always had tiny dogs (daschunds). I loved these dogs but I really hate having to take care of dog poo. So I'm a cat person.

As a bonus my miniature tiger takes care of itself and goes shitting where nobody can see it.

Dogs get bred for specific personality traits and to develop physical traits. My border collie was a maniac that just wanted to work all day every day. That herding part of his personality was extremely prevalent. Even if I tossed a treat on the ground, it never would occur to him to use his nose, he'd frantically look all around. Even if it was right under his nose if he didn't see it then it's as if it didn't exist. Likewise, from 1000 yards away I could make subtle hand jesture and he knew to go get his ball that was 1000 yards in another direction and bring it to me; over half our communication was body language and it even had context. Like if we were out somewhere and he was off leash, also 1000 yards away, I could nod my head slightly and he knew it was time to go and he jumped in the truck. Same head nod elsewhere meant something else. It's hard to explain but that was the most connected I've ever been to another creature (even my wife in many ways if I'm being honest, he never misunderstood me :)).

Likewise, I now have a golden doodle. It's like having a giant 5 year old puppy. They've been bred to be docile, kid friendly, playful, cute, non-shedding, and the perfect family/instagram dog. But they're extremely dopey when compared to a border collie.

I'm not sure what cats get bred for. Fur length? Ability to shit in a box? I'm guessing they've not been bred too much on their personality, which is why they are mostly the same and still miniature tigers.

Putting aside the greater variety of physical traits that you describe, dogs generally are more adaptable than cats. They are estimated to have twice the number of neurons and are much more malleable whereas cats feel more hardwired into a set of cat behaviours.

I’ve assumed that this greater learning capacity and malleability is both the best part of a dog and a vulnerability that can lead them to become highly anxious and dependent animals.

I’ve had both cats and dogs, and loved them both, but my goodness they are so wildly completely different animals.

> ... if you don’t want to go insane in this society of ours where you are allowed to have physical contact with at most one person ...

There are animals where the male and female only ever live together and are loyal (and not for the sake of the idea of loyalty, they're animals). It's not something speficic to some human societies.

I don't disagree with you about a new browser being a good thing but ...

> If not, it will be a secondary browser for documentation reading only.

I don't even have sound on my main desktop PC: the one I use the most. The one I do all my "life admin" stuff from (banking, real estate, etc.), all my work emails, all my coding. I think sound works but I haven't bothered to plug in speakers to check (since three years, when I assembled the PC).

That's a bit more than documentation reading.

There are work environments where even just a sound emitted by a PC is frowned upon.

People who aren't into media consumption are not just "reading documentation".

Yeah, that was a bit harsh on my part. I removed that bit, apologies. Had no intention of coming across as crude.

It is an indicator and it's not totally non-meaningful. But GDP growth, when it's at the price of increasing the public debt and inflation, is no real growth.

Instead of looking at the US, let's look at what used to be a relevant ally...

In the eurozone, for example, politicians are hiding the lack of growth behind a growing mountain of public debt and the GDP growth ain't even beating inflation since the 2008 crisis. In 2008 the eurozone represented about 25% of the world's GDP. Now it's not even 15% anymore.

Falling into irrelevancy doesn't begin to describe the state of things for the eurozone: from 25% of the world's GDP to less than 15% in 17 years is more than alarming.

And yet if you look at the eurozone in Euro, it looks like it's been growing since 2008. But it's actually been stuck since nearly two decades now and there aren't signs of anything getting any better in the eurozone. German carmarkers, the number one export of the eurozone, are in huge trouble (with China eating their lunch).

The US and China are, obviously, less fucked than the eurozone but the USA's growth has also been achieved at the cost of a runaway public debt and runaway inflation.

I don't know what protectionism can and cannot do for the US and it's not clear if manufacturing can really come back to the US but one thing is certain: the eurozone is a failure and whatever it is that they did or do should definitely not be copied. Unelected bureaucrats have managed, in 17 years, to drive the eurozone into the ground. It's mostly true for non-eurozone EU countries as well but some, like Poland (which is in the EU but not in the eurozone), are doing fine.

Basically: if you want to slash your part of the world's GDP by 40% in 17 years, do what the eurozone did.

Now we must understand this: the eurozone didn't just slash it's part of the global GDP by 40% in 17 years... They did so while, at the same time, creating a gigantic mountain of public debt and experiencing inflation.

Another 17 years of this, so another 40% loss, and the eurozone would only represent 9% of the world's GDP. And these unelected bureaucrats are so incompetent that I don't discard the possibility that they'll actually be able to crash the eurozone even faster than that. For example at the moment, while german carmarkers are in trouble, EU bureaucrats are hard at work trying to kill them for good.

Anti-americanism and anti-trumpism is a thing on HN but people should really look more closely at what's happening elsewhere.

What about an article from The Economist as to the reasons the eurozone managed to lose 40% of their share of the world's GDP since the 2008 financial crisis?

Share of the world's GDP is a flawed metric. It tells us we're getting a smaller slice, but it doesn't tell us if the pie grew or shrunk. If the EU grew by 50% while India and China became 200% richer, then on paper the share of the world's GDP would be dramatically lower, while everyone would be better off.

I don't disagree with the sentiment you expressed at all though.

Ok but did that happen? And that's always been the case, what happens when EU shrinks to <1% of global GDP?

Yeah but it wasn’t the unelected bureaucrats that fucked the EU. It was the German attitude towards debt and the redistribution of surplus. The Eurogroup sheepishly followed whatever Austerity fever dream of Schauble, tanked the Greek economy to teach every other Med country a lesson and by doing so, crippled any chance of post 2009 recovery

The euro group did not follow austerity measures.

Italy's debt has ballooned to 150% of it's GDP, France is heading for 130% in the near future. Whatever happened in the EU, was not Germany's responsibility. Even Greece's debt is way higher than it should be after the Euro zone austerity "cure".

If there had been real austerity and real slashing of the national budgets so that all countries of the euro-zone actually complied with the fiscal pact that says that euro countries should not have a level of debt higher than 60% of it's GDP, then the Euro-zone would actually have some dry powder left to face these uncertain times.

Instead, the only country who seems to try to do something currently is Germany, precisely because it's debt is lower than most Euro-zone countries and therefore it can afford to spend more to try to create growth.

France is running 5%+++ deficit each year and it has not complied with the euro-zone fiscal rules for the last 20 years. Finland has 10% unemployment, Italy is not doing much better.

Where do these countries go from here? Do they cut social services and risk getting ousted in the next election? Do they borrow more and more with not much to show for it? That is the question that is facing these countries and nobody has the answers.

Treating share of global gdp as meaningful is bizarre. It doesn't have to be bad for your share to shrink as long as the overall pie is growing.

When we talk about that in people terms, it goes one way. But then the same people defend the same argument on a country basis?

Aren't they the same thing?

I don't know - GDP has a few counter intuitive cases.

One example is when the same stuff gets more expensive. If I have something, like a loaf of bread, a house, a smartphone all of them the exact same get more expensive, GDP increases if demand doesn't change (let's say because its inflexible).

You could argue this is due to some increased foreign demand for said product and the price increase legit represents increased economic output.

But in the case of tariffs for example, we know that's not the case - stuff became more expensive because of levied taxes. No new stuff got produced, no foreigners are buying up this stuff, demand likely decreased for said product, yet the GDP contribution increased.

Another very typical example are things with inflexible supply, such as housing, where due to the increased volume of money, the exact same house now costs more. But since transactions still happen, that means the economy got better, right?

The Eurozone isn't a failure at all, and as a Polish person it annoys me that we have zloty and not Euro, it's very inconvenient when trying to do business beyond polish borders. It impacts me every month and creates quite some bureaucracy.

In any case where the European union keeps failing is that it keeps not focusing on creating as many common rules and regulations across the EU, so, yet again, scaling your french business beyond your borders, or bulgarian one, is always very difficult.

Most countries in Europe are ridden by pointless nationalism on so many matters when our biggest issue is creating a strong internal market in Europe, but our biggest economies are still manufacturing and exporting ones, with little focus on the strengthening of our internal markets.

GDP growth figures are adjusted for inflation.

US looks everything except being "less fucked" as eurozone. It is actively self destructing while mounting debt while, true, trying to destruct everyone else.

We are talking economically if you ignore all the pollical stuff the Eurozone is looks rather questionable at best compared to the USA.

American debt is huge and growing unprecedently bigger. The economy is captured by rather small group of people completely intent on making this forever. It also seems to favor monopolization - one player capturing market and being able to prevent real competition. It has few sectors (ai, gambling, crypto) that do well and kind of hide the fact that other sectors are struggling.

Both countries have high Debt to GDP, US being much higher is also a reserve currency which makes it slightly more complicated.

The point being is that the US should NOT follow ANY economic advice from EU leaders, it is a recipe for disaster.

> It's great that westerners are exploring these things ...

> This is literally yoga and meditation practice and has been studied for at least a couple thousand years.

> Even if we exclude the modern invention of yoga as exercise in the 20th century, there are seated practices of releasing these tensions in the body.

You are very clearly opposing eastern meditation practice and science, saying science held westerners back but let me give an example...

I've got a tense spot somewhere, I do practice meditation since a long time and I definitely can relax myself using breathing techniques etc. That's great.

But one of my very best friend lost, 15 years ago, both kidneys and had a kidney transplanted from his mom (she was compatible and willing to give one). As to my wife, she suffers from an auto-immune disease: but thanks to medication she lives a normal life (and thankfully doesn't have a reduced life expectancy).

So my questions is simple: you talk about "thousands of years". Easterners had "thousands of years" and they can... Release tension in the body?

Shall we now have a talk about science and ask the inverse question: weren't easterners held back by their meditation practice while westerners invented: MRI, X-ray, antibiotics, insulin, kidney transplantation, heart transplantation, artificial heart, in vitro fecondation, polio vaccine, anesthesia, chemotherapy, stethoscope, microscope, ...

And that's just a tiny list. I could go on and on. Versus... Relaxing tension in the body?

I'm not exactly sure who's been held back by what here.

> So my questions is simple: you talk about "thousands of years". Easterners had "thousands of years" and they can... Release tension in the body?

This is a common misconception among those used to modern “western” medicine: while “eastern” medicine does have a range of options to deal with existing medical conditions the emphasis is always on prevention (there’s a famous Chinese medical maxim along the lines of it being better to fight the enemy outside the city walls than inside) whereas Western medicine mostly pays lip service to the idea (for reasons that unfortunately mostly come down to money).

There is no denying that our modern medicine is superior in treating the immediate symptoms (which may well be life threatening) including surgery.

The relaxation exercises being discussed are really there just for the purpose of making sitting meditation effective, essential to stop the body getting in the way of the practice and that is all. In a way the body (and the associated work required to keep it in health) is seen as a necessary evil by those on the spiritual cultivation path.

I never said they're in opposition to each other. I'm an advocate of science and I think we should absolutely be studying what's going on with the body as we undertake these practices. If anything I find the Buddha's teachings on self-investigation and not taking any of his words at face value to be very compatible with scientific curiosity [1]. There is no "because I said so" on this path.

As I said elsewhere in the thread, what I take issue with is that many westerners try to ignore thousands of years of investigation and practice, to only waste a lot of time trying to come up with things on their own. And not even by following a map already laid out while collecting data or whatever, they're trying to discover the map on their own.

The author was contemplating an idea that is a pretty basic, known concept. Like absolutely, let's collect a bunch of data with some meditators doing various practices and see what's going on with transformations of smooth muscle over time. But let's not push away the millions of people that have done these practices just because they're Asian or wearing robes or talk about Nirvana/Samsara and that makes you feel uncomfortable.

I'm grateful to modern scientific discovery and I'm also grateful to all the teachers on this path that have helped liberate my mind. Both can be true at the same time. We shouldn't get caught up in thinking of things in binaries.

[1] https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an03/an03.065.th...

> ... wouldn't "progressive retirement" make much more sense ?

Of course it does. I've seen it in my parents' generation: many wanted to reach retirement do "do nothing" and, well, they just lost their marbles. Doing nothing is neither good for the body, nor for the mind. Endless TV watching or endless pina colada drinking in the pool (or both at the same time): idleness brings absolutely nothing good.

But my parents' friends who kept working a bit (like my godmother who kept supervising her real estate agency): she stayed sharp and fit.

People think they're going to read and do exercice etc. but truth is: most are going to do jack absolutely shit. And turn to the latter.

So keeping partially active is the best thing possible.

I see it with my mother-in-law: 70 y/o, still working, daily, with my wife (they own a little SME). It keeps her in the loop: she still knows how to use a computer, her mind is quick. She's not idling.

The financial aspect of it all is something else: but people doing nothing is not what a society needs.

Why think about nefarious intent instead of just user error? In this case LLM error instead of programmer error.

Most RCEs, 0-days, and whatnots are not due to the NSA hiding behind the "Jia Tan" pseudo to try to backdoor all the SSH servers on all the systemd [1] Linuxes in the world: they're just programmer errors.

I think accidental security holes with LLMs are way, way, way more likely than actual malicious attempts.

And with the amount of code spoutted by LLMs, it is indeed --and the lack of audit is-- an issue.

[1] I know, I know: it's totally unrelated to systemd. Yet only systems using systemd would have been pwned. If you're pro-systemd you've got your point of view on this but I've got mine and you won't change my mind so don't bother.

> Most software engineers are seriously sleeping on how good LLM agents are right now, especially something like Claude Code.

Nobody is sleeping. I'm using LLMs daily to help me in simple coding tasks.

But really where is the hurry? At this point not a few weeks go by without the next best thing since sliced bread to come out. Why would I bother "learning" (and there's really nothing to learn here) some tool/workflow that is already outdated by the time it comes out?

> 2026 is going to be a wake-up call

Do you honestly think a developer not using AI won't be able to adapt to a LLM workflow in, say, 2028 or 2029? It has to be 2026 or... What exactly?

There is literally no hurry.

You're using the equivalent of the first portable CD-player in the 80s: it was huge, clunky, had hiccups, had a huge battery attached to it. It was shiny though, for those who find new things shiny. Others are waiting for a portable CD player that is slim, that buffers, that works fine. And you're saying that people won't be able to learn how to put a CD in a slim CD player because they didn't use a clunky one first.

I think getting proficient at using coding agents effectively takes a few months of practice.

It's also a skill that compounds over time, so if you have two years of experience with them you'll be able to use them more effectively than someone with two months of experience.

In that respect, they're just normal technology. A Python programmer with two years of Python experience will be more effective than a programmer with two months of Python.

> Nobody is sleeping. I'm using LLMs daily to help me in simple coding tasks.

That is sleeping.

> But really where is the hurry? At this point not a few weeks go by without the next best thing since sliced bread to come out. Why would I bother "learning" (and there's really nothing to learn here) some tool/workflow that is already outdated by the time it comes out?

You're jumping to conclusions that haven't been justified by any of the development in this space. The learning compounds.

> Do you honestly think a developer not using AI won't be able to adapt to a LLM workflow in, say, 2028 or 2029? It has to be 2026 or... What exactly?

They will, but they'll be competing against people with 2-3 more years of experience in understanding how to leverage these tools.

"But really where is the hurry?" It just depends on why you're programming. For many of us not learning and using up to date products leads to a disadvantage relative to our competition. I personally would very much rather go back to a world without AI, but we're forced to adapt. I didn't like when pagers/cell phones came out either, but it became clear very quickly not having one put me at a disadvantage at work.

UX is okay but the search functionality, which is definitely part of the UX, sucks fat balls on Qobuz.

But Qobuz is still king. I gladly pay their monthly subscription even though their programmers can't even be bothered to code a proper search functionality (that is: unless you enter precisely, with every single character being correct, the name of what you're looking for, Qobuz won't find it... And then weird, just plain weird non-matching matches do show up).

But I don't despair: I take it that at some point they'll find the time to figure out how to implement a better song/artist/track search functionality.