What’s your use case? Iceberg is meant for analytical workloads

It allows you to be query engine agnostic - query the same data via Spark, Snowflake or Trino. Granted, performance may suffer vs Snowflake internal tables somewhat due to certain performance optimizations not being there.

But the fact checkers back in 2021 labeled the lab leak theory as false/misinformation. Meanwhile anyone who suggested it was labeled a conspiracy theory by the main stream media.

That's absolutely false. If people claimed that it was definitively lab leak in origin, it was (correctly) labelled as false. Can you cite me examples, with wording, of people positing it, but not claiming it outright, who were censored?

Back then anyone who suggested the lab leak theory was immediately labeled a conspiracy theorist by main stream media.

Yes and I’m saying that was bad.

Hopefully this helps people realize how meaningless it is to be labeled a conspiracy theorist.

I think the conspiracy theorist label is associated with common patterns (believing in a cover up in cases where there's no incentive / the cover up would be more expensive than the crime / the evidence would be impossible to cover up, etc) but in this case these patterns don't apply.

The lab leak theory was extremely plausible even assuming no secret conspiracy at all. Lab leaks do happen, that lab did do gain of function research, the State did shut down investigations, etc.

You might be surprised how many things labeled conspiracy theories have strong evidence, incentives, etc. but get scoffed at as kooky impossibilities nonetheless - like the lab leak theory.

Out how many conspiracy theories end up being right.

I think when it comes to conspiracy theories the two heuristics to use are:

1.) Do they have an incentive to conspire?

2.) Do they have the ability to conspire?

Where both are true I think conspiracies exist every where, often to such an extent it just gets labelled as corruption rather than conspiracy.

The major reason for that is that many were doing this in language that was generally considered racist and/or mixed in some other weird stuff like how COVID lockdowns were like the Jewish persecution, rants about masking, or that type of stuff. I'm not saying everyone did that, but there was a huge overlap.

> there was a huge overlap.

There was a huge overlap because within a month it became completely taboo for anyone who cared about not being seen as an alt-right activist to say anything about it. Even freaking Jon Stewart got caught in the instant-cancellation blast [0].

A major problem with our world today is that anything that the alt right supports instantly becomes taboo for the rest of us. People are more concerned with distancing themselves from the alt right than they are with finding and supporting the truth—and that goes for just about anything, not just COVID.

[0] https://nypost.com/2023/02/28/jon-stewart-recalls-outrage-af...

Have you considered the possibility that you infer racism more often than people imply it?

Were they? Or were those who claimed it was the only possible answer, without the evidence to back that up?

That's not a good enough reason to censor.

99% of the time there isn't a good reason to censor things, that doesn't stop it from happening constantly though. Especially in China where censorship of anything with bad publicity for the country or government or people is the default stance.

Please elaborate

Robotics is hard and robotics companies fold as fast as flies die on a hot summer day.

I am not suggesting it is easy. I am saying, it is a lot more likely now than 10 years ago.

I believe some problems in the field are now easier, we haven't made a dent on the truly hard ones, IMO.

source: I work in the field.

I am not in the field, but I am trying to branch out a little so it helps to talk with someone who is.

LLMs probably help the same way they help with other stuff. They lower the barrier of entry for newcomers ( good and bad at the same time ).

That said, what are the current hard problems? I don't want to derail the thread, but this is of personal interest.

None of what I am about to write is groundbreaking or new thought. More likely than not, it already has been discussed from various perspectives usually when people are accused of being luddites or a question of impact of automation on society comes along.

Industrial revolutions ( as there were several including few not listed in the first wiki entry like green revolution [2] or whatever computer revolution ended up being called)[1] at this core did a lot of things, but in just about every instance the major leap came with a social upheavals[3] even if, eventually, new normal was found. Not surprisingly, related major changes in living conditions also spawned new attempts at governing humans ( socialism and its offspring ).

All this simple background to say the following, those industrial revolutions changed only a facet of the existing social structure. 100% unemployment would likely implode existing social order. The tension resulting from it would quickly become uncontrollable unless quickly channeled, negated, or absorbed..

As you can likely tell, I am pretty pessimistic about our future as a species.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution [3]https://schoolshistory.org.uk/topics/british-history/industr...

Trump's been a staunch supporter of Poland and has granted Visa waivers for entry into the US for its citizens.

Trump, in my view, doesn't see EU as enemy but an ally that's been taking advantage of the US especially on trade and defense spending.

Some of the gripes, which are valid: - U.S. provides bulk of the defense for NATO at the moment - EU currently imposes a 10 percent tariff on US cars

> EU currently imposes a 10 percent tariff on US cars

And it's 45% on Chinese EVs. 10% isn't that high and it's not like there is a lot of demand for American cars in Europe anyway (American companies besides Tesla hardly produces any cars these days anyway, unless you count trucks)

It's mostly defence against those pissed of by the US though, so seems fair.

such as?

There's a whole world, full of people beyond US borders.

Many of those countries have great agricultural potential, many have excellent industrial production, many have an educated population, many have emerging markets, those are great to find new consumers.

In fact, there's a huge opportunity to basically everyone if the new US president goes all the way in his isolationist and confrontational ideas. Something I am kind of hoping for, I won't pretend otherwise.

The Mercosur-EU Trade Agreement is a good start.

Using ASML for leverage.

Companies negotiate for all employees without tiers for „high value” employees.

What do you consider the norm? 90%+ of Americans have some form of health insurance. I don’t have a bad one, but it’s not as great as some public sector employees do. Am I in the norm? If so, that’s ok

While companies may negotiate for all employees, the percentage of the cost covered can be tiered, and some employees will pay less for better plans.

Column level lineage for one