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MIKarlsen

362 karma · joined March 14, 2015

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MIKarlsen··on Scrum is fragile, not Agile
I think the challenge with having no process is this: You have to rely on great chemistry and raw talent.

Look at Spotifys videos on their process. Every team is self-driving, because everyone knows how to do stuff. If you work at a company where there is no process, and not every is able to complete the whole task from A-Z, you end up with deadends and people who get stuck. If the culture doesn't encourage knowledgesharing, people end up making crappy solutions.

MIKarlsen··on Homeless, living in a tent and employed: The changing face of homelessness
I'm a big worrier myself, and these thoughts often get the better of me. I have been unemployed for a couple of months last year, and although I live in a scandinavian country, it was still tough to see others in the same situation struggling.

I think society has a great responsibility in educating citizens correctly. A lot of the people I met had no grasp of technology, or its role in society, which is a big warning-light in my eyes. Everyone is saying "AI and robotics wont take your job", but it absolutely will, as the jobs the new industry creates seems to be STEM-jobs that require long STEM-educations - something not everyone is cut out for.

I feel like we're yet to see the full consequence of technology's role in our society, and I fear that we will end up with a big chunk of people who cannot actively contribute to the workforce.

MIKarlsen··on “Every minute I spent thinking about competitors was a minute wasted”
I call bullshit. If he thought about competitors, it obviously affected his actions. So how can he know, he would be where he is today, if he hadn't thought about competitors? This is just another Silicon Valley bullshit statement...
MIKarlsen··on Millennial Men Leave Perplexing Hole in Hot U.S. Job Market
And learning the basics just doesn't seem to cut it anymore. It seems like most enterprise technology builds on older versions of older versions making it more complex. For instance, AI and ML seems like two subject areas that would be impossible for anyone to work professionally with, if they don't have years and years of experience with programming/math/statistics.
MIKarlsen··on Millennial Men Leave Perplexing Hole in Hot U.S. Job Market
Are you asking if it would be feasible for companies to take in well-educated people, and teaching them the programming/dev-craft?

I don't know. But right now, companies are trying to solve the problem in other ways, which is ultimately not addressing their core need.

I just feel like some sort of educational system (bootcamp'ish) would be able to make a good business case for most companies.

MIKarlsen··on Millennial Men Leave Perplexing Hole in Hot U.S. Job Market
Where I'm from (Denmark), most people start university when they're 18-22, and then you have to do a bachelors degree (3 years) and a master degree (2 years). Often times, people spend more time on their degrees because they take extra internships. Based on the 50 people I had a some-what close relation to while I did my degree, most of them where 26-27 when they got their masters degree.

You can see a figure from ministry of education here (first figure - it shows the age of the starting student): https://www.dst.dk/pukora/epub/Nyt/2005/NR242.pdf

The title of the chart is translated into "Average age of new students", where the top part addresses bachelors-students from each of the 5 mayor areas (technical, societal etc), while the bottom part of the graph shows the vocational education system here.

After they start, they will use 5 years minimum to get their degrees. Bachelors are worthless in Denmark.

EDIT: I know the first article is from 2004. Here's a 2016 article that states that new students at the University of Copenhagen (largest in Denmark) had an avg. age of 22,7 in 2016, which was a year younger than the avg. age in 2015: https://uniavisen.dk/alderspraesidenter-eller-groenskollinge...

MIKarlsen··on Millennial Men Leave Perplexing Hole in Hot U.S. Job Market
"If you get to the point where you’re turning 30, you’ve never held a real job and you don’t have a college education, then it is very hard to recover at that point."

I've raised this point to a fair few of my friends and colleagues recently. I think it is becoming increasingly hard to contribute to society, because everything is so gosh-darn technical.

Companies _scream_ for developers - but not junior developers, or people who they can teach to program - but developers with 5+ years worth of experience.

I think this will only get WAY worse in the future. Unfortunately, I also think it will mean that people who fail to get a job after taking their degree will be worse off than people with little or no education, who has always had a job (no matter the type of job).

So if you're done with college/university (which is when you're around 25-30 y/o in Europe), and you can't get a job, and you can't put your education to use. You're pretty much shit out of luck in most cases. Of course you can always dig yourself out, but doing so would most likely mean working a min-wage job for 8-10 hours a day, and then spending all your free-time and weekends learning a useful skill, which doesn't leave much time for friends or family (or making a family).

MIKarlsen··on Apple Finally Updates MacBook Air with Retina Display, Touch ID
I'm so bummed out by this. Rumours had me hyped for a cheaper package, but seeing as it's 1599 USD in my country, I will not be looking into buying one now.
MIKarlsen··on The future of photography is code
The future of everything seems to be code. And yet, surprisingly few are aware of it, it seems...
MIKarlsen··on What's the Use of a Horse's Tail?
Showing someone (or another dog) that you're excited or scared ("tail between his legs") is a very potent social mechanism I think. I don't think it adds much to the motor skills of the dog, besides maybe giving it a tool to keep flies and insects away from the ol' pooper.
MIKarlsen··on YC Hackathon without writing code
Thank you for the heads up. I'll check those tools out.
MIKarlsen··on YC Hackathon without writing code
I don't throw language like this around a lot, but this was actually very inspiring to me.

I'm currently between jobs, and have a hard time figuring out what direction I want to go (and CAN go).

I see myself as a generalist with above-average it-competencies, but I'm not familiar enough with design to be a designer, nor skilled enough with programming to be a developer.

The past few months, I've been thinking that going the designer route might be the smarter career choice for me, as it is an area I have dabbled in before (both professionally and through education). Programming seems to hard a game to play catch-up in.

It seems like learning a visual framework like this would be an efficient way for a designer to create value for the business, both because it's fast, but also because it reduces the workload on the IT-team. I'm wondering if it would be a better idea to master a tool like this, and focus on design-related learning, that it is learning to program almost from scratch (even though it is the better choice in the long run i suppose).

MIKarlsen··on Amazon Camper Force
I'm not from the US, so I don't know about that "RV Culture". But if I'm cynical, it sounds like Amazon is looking for people who can't afford to say no (which is why they live in a camper van for starters...), which is unethical in my opinion.

If I'm being optimistic, they're engaging with a community, who actually loves the RV lifestyle, and wants opportunities like this for limited periods, so they can save up for their "next adventure". I just don't know how working 12 hour shifts while living in an RV is called an "adventure". But hey, that's marketing these days - everything should be (over)sold.

My gutfeeling tells me, that the first is more likely to be the case than the latter, which is just another bad mark in the book for Amazon...

MIKarlsen··on Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?
I think you are right about the mild depression. In my own post further up, I suggested Cognitive Behavioural Therapy as a possible solution (possible to do as self-study and self-practice)
MIKarlsen··on Ask HN: Is it 'normal' to struggle so hard with work?
Without blowing this out of proportion, I think this can also be a slight case of depression. At least, lack of motivation (perhaps from some sort of "non-joy" in your work-environment and tasks) and "there's just no point in doing it" along with your negative self-thoughts, are all part of depression as an illness.

The "I'm a complete failure"-part resonates with me, and perhaps, it could be something as simple as being so afraid of failing, that you never even try.

I don't know if this is helpful advice at all, but it might give you an idea of what you can do to help yourself (CBT for instance).

MIKarlsen··on With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit
It's a good place to share information I guess. I would've liked it to be a bit more academic if I were to browse it more often. If you work in consulting etc., it's also a nice place to get updates on what people are doing, because everyone (over)shares so much.
MIKarlsen··on With teen mental health deteriorating over five years, there’s a likely culprit
Not as much as LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a fairytale-land for adults, and it's bizzare (to me) that anyone wants to participate. It's not even humblebragging anymore. It's "Look what I made, and what I achieved" packed into casual "Oh this thing? Yeah it's just my perfect life"-packages...
MIKarlsen··on Ask HN: Who is looking for a co-founder?
Not my project, but a guy on Twitch streams while he's making this (which is kinda like the Tinder for entrepreneurs you're asking for) - https://kaem.io/
MIKarlsen··on How to Study: A Brief Guide
I'm just stuck with this thought: I spent 6 years "accomplishing" very little. Others (programmers eg) will have 5 years advantage on me, or even more, as a lot of people will have been programming from an earlier age.

I realize I've spent too much time playing video games, hanging out with friends and so on, to realistically be able to compete with someone who has been on a track and dedicated for 5+ years.

So the thought of "You only just have to start _now_", after I've been through 20 years of education completely paralyzes me. I wouldn't want to hire me. And I can't concentrate or focus enough to actually learn programming (been trying for 4 years now), since the negative thoughts just keep returning, and I have a hard time convincing myself that I'm wrong.

It feels like I'm just waiting for things to get worse, and what scares me is, that this thought doesn't even bother me anymore, because I feel that my situation is justified.

MIKarlsen··on MIT 6.S094: Deep Learning
This guy "Sentdex" on Youtube actually built a self-driving "car" in GTA V. It's actually a pretty interesting series. He has a website (here: https://pythonprogramming.net/)
MIKarlsen··on Uber’s Secret Tool for Keeping the Cops in the Dark
I don't think I belong to any of those groups, but Uber seems like a company that operates on the edge of the law, which I don't find all too attractive.
MIKarlsen··on SoundCloud's Collapse
That's the second time this week I see Buzzfeed coming out with something that resembles decent journalism. Coincidence, or have they turned their ship around?
MIKarlsen··on Etihad allows flyers to bid to keep adjacent seats empty
I think the concept of letting people with enough money get to do whatever they want is a bit unsettling.
MIKarlsen··on How did you like the new episode of Silicon Valley?
As long as Gilfoyle and Dinesh still have their love/hate-relationship going, that's enough for me. I think the turn was decent. The show could use a new idea since the old "pied piper"-project has been up and down in every possible way the past 3 seasons. A new character would help liven up the show though.
MIKarlsen··on Elon Musk, Travis Kalanick, Indra Nooyi to Join Presidential Advisory Council
Considering that Trump thinks higher of business-men than career-politicians, this is actually not that far-fetched.
MIKarlsen··on It’s not the methods that are Agile, it’s the people
Interesting. I was actually JUST watching this on Youtube, which says somewhat the same thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-BOSpxYJ9M&t
MIKarlsen··on Accelerating Innovation with Leadership
An important point here is, that public sector institutions can rarely compete on salary with the private sector, and thus, innovation in regards to things like cutting edge technologies get insanely hard. Grants, education and a healthy regulation policy on the capital markets is most likely one of the best things a government can do for technological innovation (which covers pretty much all aspects of our society) today.
MIKarlsen··on Valve – Handbook for New Employees (2012) [pdf]
I find the whole "You are a person who spend every waking hour optimizing yourself to become the best YOU you can be"-frame of mind very intimidating. Maybe it's because I'm not american, but even though I like to work with complex issues, I also like a 9-17 job with a decent income, and the ability to go home and relax when I'm not working. And by relax, I don't mean working on side projects, doing volunteer work or earning a second degree in something. But playing board games, working out/running or even just watching mindnumbing TV. I feel like the "100 % dedicated 100 % of the time"-thing has become the only way to really make it in tech-life.
MIKarlsen··on How to be a wizard programmer
Tip #1 seems to be a brilliant way to get shouted at @ Stack Overflow...
MIKarlsen··on OnePlus 3
Agree. My Oneplus One is the best phone I had since the iPhone 4s which I also liked a lot. Buildquality is great. Would love a new model with the soft material on the back again. Got my One last March and don't fancy a change this soon.
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