Why do you consider the cook "a poor sod"? Because he/she is working a job and making a living? I imagine you didn't mean much by it but understand that just because everyone isn't employed in what many consider desirable professions doesn't mean their work is not important or that they don't take pride in what they do.
Not meant to be a rant, just wanted to make the point.
I actually interpreted the comment a bit differently. I read it that the employee who used to have some autonomy on when to make adjustments is now doing it because the computer, which they (perhaps) have no control or insight into, is telling them to. I'm sure there's more nuance and people who would view that instruction differently. But to the comments direction, I'd assumed it was alluding to a dystopia of sorts where we do more and more things "because Computer™ said so".
In hindsight, “sod” wasn’t the right term to use (that’s what you get for posting at midnight) but the point I wanted to make was the removal of meaning, autonomy and human interaction when not only are you doing a repetitive job, but how you’re doing it is dictated by a machine. The movie Brazil came to mind, although I’m sure there are better parallels to make.
You'd be amazed how much satisfaction you can get out of learning to keep a steady stream of perfectly-crispy fries going. It's quite fun on a busy day - hectic, but strategic, and rewarding when you can stay on top of things _and_ produce minimal waste in the process.
In some sense, the automation of demand prediction takes some of the fun out of gaining that intuition yourself. On the other hand, it is nice not to be the queue blocker with orders piling up behind you because you weren't prepared for a sudden burst of traffic...
There’s a short-order chef game my kids play on the iPad, you can practically see the endorphins pumping when they manage to serve all the customers in time.
The human brain is definitely wired for this sort of thing.
In the economic sense consumption means a resource is used and cannot readily be re-used at its original quality. Copying a file does not deprive anybody of anything, I cannot even see a reasonable argument when the case involves a market where the good is not even offered for sale.
I'm pretty sure that they meant "consume" as in "watch", not "consume" as in "make unavailable for further use". So, watching a movie doesn't consume it, but one does consume movies.
I suspect if the studios had to choose between people not watching a film at all and people using torrents, they'd probably want the torrents, particularly if they could document it for the companies paying for product placement.
Though obviously they'd much rather have you pay for it and watch it.
Sooo many people on HN despise ads (rant after rant about using adblockers) yet hate paywalled articles. How is it, exactly, do you want people to get paid for writing quality journalism? You can immediately see it's a WSJ url -- if you don't have an account because you don't value their writing then skip this post and move on.
It seems clear that a significant minority of HN simply objects to the idea that writing is a valuable and worthwhile economic activity. That's my only explanation for how they can oppose literally every viable method of monetizing content.
Anything with low-effort access will always connote little value in people's minds because endless alternatives exist. Anyone who wants to get paid for doing something hard should avoid channels like that, or only use them to float associated freebie products that can introduce people to the real product.
Given that officialchicken has a sense of entitlement so misplaced that even the minimal effort to work around the paywall is more than he feels he "should" provide, it's safe to say the guy is just an asshole and idiot. An asshole, because he expects something for nothing, and an idiot for thinking that attitude has any place in a sustainable ecosystem for solid news.
Harsh language, I know, but if assholes and idiots are the ones who determine what HN readers can and cannot post, it can only end badly for HN as a whole. After all, why would any intelligent person make time for a news board dominated by people who have nothing but contempt for the work of journalism?
Not meant to be a rant, just wanted to make the point.