I worked for a while selling fractional nurses into for-profit nursing/retirement homes at the end of Covid, got to interview some industry experts, who told me that these for-profit homes are the 21st century equivalent of 19th century insane asylums. If you or your loved ones have to enter one, seek at all costs a home that is not for profit (Catholic orders run some, Jewish organizations others, the VA also offers these homes to vets). Every single one will uphold higher values than the for-profit entities sucking resources from people who are no longer in a position to advocate for themselves.
100% agree- the Jewish home for the aged is the nicest facility I ever saw in my career as a medic. I asked some of the nurses I worked with about why they were on such a different level - better than even the fanciest most expensive $30k a month places in Portola Valley or Palo Alto - and was told it's because taking care of the elderly is a fundamental tenet of Judaism.
In my own quest in the SF East Bay, right before COVID stole the scene, I ended with choosing a board and care for my parents that is owned and administrated by a retired nurse with a Filipino background. It is a family-run affair rather than some corporate warehouse. It is a converted small motel, with about 15 rooms, not the typical converted single-family home. This means they are just large enough to have an overnight staff shift and multiple daytime staff roles, instead of one person struggling to handle everything.
It's by no means one of these places that puts on a facade of being a retirement resort. A first impression might be that it is dingy. But, for the combination of dementia and other care needs we have had on our plate, they have provided just about the best care I could hope for.
Along the way, I've had to disregard superficial judgements from some extended family or family friends, who seem to harbor a fantasy image of elder care as an elevated experience with the trappings of a luxury hotel stay and experiences fit for aristocrats. In a dream, I too wish my mom could have stimulation and education in her final years like immersion in an artist colony combined with a Parisian salon from a novel.
I settled for a place that consistently keeps her safe, gives her communal meals, manages her hygiene, manages her medications, monitors her health, and communicates reasonably well with me on these topics. I also visit weekly and take her to all her medical appointments etc., so I think I have an accurate view of how things really go there.
My biggest lesson from this, applicable to future generations, is to find your enriching experiences and setup your end of life plans while you are young. By the time you or your family realize you are in decline, you likely have lost the cognitive and/or emotional flexibility and/or agency to really adopt the most enjoyable lifestyle or life setting. Your more basic care needs will start to dominate all decision-making.
> taking care of the elderly is a fundamental tenet of Judaism
As it's done in most of Europe, Latin America, Asia, Africa. US/Canada were turned against family and tradition thanks to decades of brainwashing by movies, TV, and ads. To be cool you had to go to a college in another state. Then move to a big city. Pick career over family and having children. Take antidepressants.
This is so yawn. Do young professionals starting out have to impress their bosses? Yes. Do bosses have to impress them? Usually not. Who cares? Power dynamics exist, it’s easy to play the grammar game, so just do it and stop pretending it’s some form of oppression.
TBH, a junior dev pointed at an urgent issue who replies simply, “on it” vs. one who takes the time to write a short book report on their initial analysis and plans is—all else being equal—not a close call when it comes to promotion time.
I don’t want to be impressed, I want problems to be solved.
Becoming Led Zeppelin is a great documentary which chronicles the band’s rise. It has some great quotes from Plant about the milieu that fathers around a famous band, supplying drugs and sex. The substances lead to abuse, addiction and sometimes overdoses. LZ’s drummer Bonham choked in his own vomit during sleep after taking 40 shots. Page became addicted to several substances. Many famous singers if they survive are recovering from some form of addiction. Bowie, for example. There’s a culture they enter with fame and travel that is hard to escape.
Read Geddy Lee's "My Effin' Life" autobio...the amount of coke Rush used for quite some time came as a big, big surprise to me! And Alex Lifeson has been a huge stoner since forever.
Are you asking if a drug and sex fueled lifestyle is still pursued today by musicians? The answer sadly is yes. There are lots of musicians that don’t go full throttle but most of the highly famous ones are running the red line. This is the OP’s point. Whether it’s the person amplified by the lifestyle that makes them famous or it’s the fame that enables the lifestyle that allows them to destroy themselves.
Speaking of roads, everyone points out lifestyle choices, but the lifestyle of popular bands/musicians is also countrywide or worldwide tours. It doesn't look like an easy life, so I wonder to what extend those excesses are related to being on the road maybe half of the year? I think this means no true social life for extended periods of time; not having people you value telling you that you're past that red line is one less safety.
Also, artists in general are a peculiar profile I think. It's not only famous singers that take drugs, commit suicide etc. One can easily find many writers and painters, some of them even only became famous postmortem.
The author is right to critique Cerquiglini. The French legacy is largely lexical. The syntax and the old, short words of English are Germanic. Its several influences drove the relatively large lexicon we have, and probably adapted English to be a globally adaptive language, borrowing words readily.
This is true. But it’s also hard to hold against many of them. Because they are often isolated, slow or immobile, and in cognitive decline. I saw this happen to my grandmother in an assisted living home.
Terence Tao is well known for being enthusiastic about Lean and AI and he regularly posts about his experiments.
He is also a serious research mathematician at the top of his game, considered by many one of the best mathematicians alive. This might be biased by the fact that he is such a good communicator, he is more visible than other similarly good mathematicians, but he is a Fields medallist all the same.
Kevin Buzzard has been the main mathematician involved with Lean
This is a recent talk where he discusses putting it together with LLMs (he's somewhat sceptical it'll be revolutionary for producing new mathematics any time soon)
I'm leaning a lot into AI + lean. It's a fantastic tool to find new proofs. The extremly rigid nature of lean means you can really check programs for correctness. So that part of AI is solved. The only thing that remains is generating proofs, and that is where there's nothing in AI space right now. As soon as we do get something, our mathematical knowledge is going to explode.
I found this to be a remarkably uninsightful work. He somehow negates the inherent drama of war with the milquetoast prose and myopia of an academic. Much of what he says is in fact false, presumably because he is far from the action and relies on Clausewitz as a crutch for thought.
The key nodes to control have to do with supply chain, energy and information; ie depots, road and rail, bridges, factories, substations and data centers or satellites.
Ukraine has severely weakened Russia by attacking those points, as Russia has Ukraine.
Beijing could well defeat Taiwan (and the US by proxy) by controlling its sea lanes, cutting its cables, and jamming its radio spectrum.
China might be able to blockade Taiwan for a while but China's own SLOC are far more vulnerable. They are dependent on critical food, energy, and mineral imports — most of which pass through a few choke points where they are still unable to project sustained naval power. The US and its allies could cut those off at any time and China lacks the internal reserves to survive a long blockade.
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