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P5fRxh5kUvp2th

1,382 karma · joined August 15, 2022

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P5fRxh5kUvp2th··on MIT faculty adopts “Statement on Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom”
I think that observation is far more wise than it initially seems.
P5fRxh5kUvp2th··on MIT faculty adopts “Statement on Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom”
If it's 80% women, why shouldn't it be devalued for men, and vice-versa?

If 80% of your farming community is mexican, why shouldn't their values be more highly reflected?

This is completely natural, it's reality and the way of the world. It's like arguing that a dog shouldn't be a pack animal. Maybe, but they are.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th··on MIT faculty adopts “Statement on Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom”
Dorian Abbot is a perfect example of why you're wrong.

He opposes affirmative action and as a result got cancelled at MIT for a _completely_ unrelated talk about climate and life on other planets.

If you yourself disagree with him and do not want to participate in the talk, fine. don't watch it, don't listen to it, don't attend it, and use YOUR speech to recommend others do the same.

What happened here is that he got cancelled so that those who _WANTED_ to associate no longer could. This is not about association, and it's not about speech, it's about preventing others from hearing and it's about harming him for daring to have that opinion.

When the cancel culture stops happening, THEN I'll start believing when people say the things you're trying to say here. Not before.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th··on All I want for Christmas is these seven TypeScript improvements
What's funny is that everyone was attacking Jonathan Blow for being against LSP, but his primary argument is all that computation is going to be slow.

He has a point, although the advantages outweigh the disadvantages for sure.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th··on Second Life on GitHub
No, Linus has a way of seeing straight through bullshit to the heart of the matter. You may not like that how he expresses himself, but a part of that is making it very clear where the bullshit is.

For example, his take on security bug prioritization. His argument is that all bugs have potential security ramifications in the kernel, therefore calling something a security bug is not useful, it's just a bug.

"Security people" want special treatment of their reports and he refused to give it to them.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th··on Second Life on GitHub
Thank you for your post, I find it very fascinating.

I used to play MUDs back in the day and they had a protocol that, in theory, could allow you to move from MUD to MUD and transfer your character. I don't think it ever got really popular though, due to all the problems you can imagine from trying to seamlessly move between completely different MUDs. This is all from memory, so I could be mistaken about specifics.

When second life first came out I think I logged onto it a few times and then concluded it was a gimmick and haven't really been back since. I think your post explains very nicely why it never drew me in, I thought I was logging into a game.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th··on Ask HN: What are your predictions for 2023?
fair enough, I do think it's arguable that users of ChromeOS would regularly do that, but I get your point.

Also, I had a System76 laptop for work once and absolutely loved it. I tried to buy it when I left, but they weren't happy about my reasons for leaving and refused to do so.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th··on Tell HN: Uber has blocked my account for years, won't tell me why
The service that sent that receipt was one of those 3rd party services for small vendors. You go to a bakery and they are able to magically email you a receipt, that sort of thing.

So I very much doubt the person put their email in incorrectly, but I understand your point.

The exact mechanics of how it happened I don't know, but I very much disagree with firstname.lastname@gmail.com and firstnamelastname@gmail.com resolving to the same address.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th··on Turn your best programmers into managers
> I think it depends way more on the individual than whether they are technical or non-technical.

yep, exactly.

I think your anecdote about the engineer turned VP is fairly typical. imo it's generally more difficult for engineers to become _good_ leaders because it means moving from an environment where you have complete control to one where you don't and a lot of engineers can't bridge that divide successfully and become terrors like you described.

non-technical managers never had that control. They have their own challenges, but generally speaking, it's easier for them in terms of control.

in my opinion, of course.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th··on Ask HN: What are your predictions for 2023?
I think their point is that influencers have always existed, it's the underlying model that has changed.

And I tend to agree. People bought into Logan Pauls scam because they trusted him, the same way that people will buy a product because they trust the spokesperson.

I'm a huge Kate Mulgrew fan even as I don't think Janeway was a great captain. I remember coming across "The Principle" on Amazon, seeing her on it, and purchasing it. I didn't get very far into it before I stopped it and went googling and it turns out she was tricked and didn't fully realize what she was narrating. I think she sued them, but I could be wrong.

You can argue that the scale is different, and you may be right, but I do think the other poster is correct that they've existed for a very long time and many people use them as a proxy for trust when making decisions.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th··on Ask HN: What are your predictions for 2023?
I'm not a fan of the whole "the market will deal with it" thing. Here's my analogy (I was talking about this as far back as the late 90's).

1. Assume global warming is happening.

2. Assume that global warming is going to start causing problems for humans.

Humans will start using technology to deal with these problems. And they'll be successful. This is going to have the harmful effect of making global warming worse before humans truly start trying to solve the root issue (because they can continue to live without being affected by it).

There are two lines here. Passing the first line starts affecting humans, and passing the second line ends in catastrophe (humans can no longer exist on earth).

In a well functioning system, as we pass the first line, humans will start taking notice and we will _naturally_ start trying to avoid the second line. The space between these two lines is our buffer.

As we use technology to keep the warming from affecting us, we will push the first line back while avoiding any true behavior changes that would ultimately keep us from the second line. This decreases our buffer and increases the danger. At some point the technology will either fail or completely remove the second line (one can imagine building a bubble around the earth ala space balls so we can very explicitly regulate the environment).

To use technology in this manner is to invite catastrophe and to gamble that technology will never fail us. It may, or it may not.

---

This is how I feel about "the market". In theory, the market should naturally push towards an equilibrium and correct so as to avoid true disaster. Humans are involved, technology is involved, causing the market to be unnatural and affected by forces outside of that market. In the case of markets, catastrophe isn't the extinction of all human life, but it IS untold horrors. People are currently using technology to force the market to be what they want. This will break at some point.

This is why the market needs to be regulated, to control how much of an effect both humans and technology have on it. Not because the market will never self-correct, but because of the untold pain when it does.

And I understand the argument against it, this is not about controlling the market, it's about _PROTECTING_ the market from undue influence by those with more power than others. The alternative to too much regulation isn't "no regulation", it's "less regulation". Of course, you also have the classic problem of "who watches the watchers" and there's no good answer for solving THAT problem, but I don't think the right answer is "fuck it, just let it play out".

P5fRxh5kUvp2th··on Ask HN: What are your predictions for 2023?
I gotta tell you, that comment has me laughing.
P5fRxh5kUvp2th··on Ask HN: What are your predictions for 2023?
ChromeOS counts the same way that MacOS being popular means that "Year of BSD desktop" has already happened.

Technically true, but not what is meant by that term.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th··on Ask HN: What are your predictions for 2023?
I have a friend who has been in china since before covid hit, teaching english to kids.

He just told me today that China has lifted all restrictions surrounding covid and are letting it run its course. As a result, he and his gf have both gotten covid for the first time.

When it first hit they had tanks driving up and down their streets making sure people stayed in their houses, so it's definitely a shift for them.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th··on Ask HN: What are your predictions for 2023?
And honestly, this is why I'm ok with big tech getting highly regulated.

In many ways they're _ALREADY_ more powerful than state actors. They were pretty open about their attempts at manipulating the last presidential election, and I personally think it was a gigantic mistake for them. It's only going to get worse imo.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th··on Eight studies reveal a bias in human imagination
while I don't agree that they're better at trading, your response is clearly wrong here.

A congress person is able to constantly make decisions with imperfect information and be successful doing it, one can imagine that skill could give them an edge when trading.

But the reason I don't agree with it is because they're using 3rd part managers. It's far more likely that they're advising.

However, the way to put this to bed is to compare their accounts with those of others being managed by the same team. do they out-perform, under-perform, or roughly match those other accounts? There's your answer.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th··on Eight studies reveal a bias in human imagination
They're pointing out that something being illegal doesn't stop it from happening.

But more to the point, you're wrong here and we know you to be wrong because otherwise white collar crime wouldn't exist, but it does.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th··on Eight studies reveal a bias in human imagination
In fact, I love driving my gf up the wall with these types of answers :)

"What do you want for dinner?"

"Food"

"What KIND of food?"

"The good kind"

P5fRxh5kUvp2th··on That some emotions are wrong
emotions are way more complicated than that.

For example, lust is an emotion with a very practical goal.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th··on Becoming financially independent as solo quant
no one who was investing in 1900 is alive today, your point doesn't matter.
P5fRxh5kUvp2th··on Becoming financially independent as solo quant
I've often wondered about this.

It seems to me one of the bigger risk factors is attempting to maximize profit. If you're ok not trying to maximize profit it seems to me that you can mitigate quite a bit of risk in the short term trading.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th··on Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account
yep, I have 2 gmail accounts that have been forwarding to fastmail for something like 10 years now. I'm really unsure on the timeline, but it's been a very long time.

google is good at spam filtering so those accounts became the accounts I give out to people publicly.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th··on Ask HN: Help – Locked out of 10 years Gmail account
I have two gmail accounts and one of them did that to me several years back.

But both accounts do nothing but forward to my fastmail account where I have rules setup for them. So it was a giant nothingburger for me. If they're so secure even I can't log into them, whatever.

I don't trust google with anything of mine. I used to use their online spreadsheet app to track house bills, but moved it to my local share where I use libre office instead, solely because I'm aware of how likely it is I get locked out of everything at some point.

Everyone should treat google like they treat their laptops: With the assumption that it can die at any given time and so backups are critical.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th··on Ask HN: Do You Host Your Own Email?
yep, another super happy fastmail user here.

I'm not opposed to hosting my own email server, I'm just too lazy to do it.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th··on Developer successfully emulates first version of iPhone OS on computer with QEMU
When I first got my iphone I purchased a game called Orbital, this was around the time the ipad 3 came out with its new "retina" screen.

My buying habits very quickly changed once I realized that mobile "games" meant forcing things to take so many real-time hours that you had to spend money to make it reasonable.

So I don't purchase many apps anyways, but the thing that got me is that fast forward some years and I realized one day that the app store no longer believes I own the game, despite the fact that you can still download and purchase it TODAY.

My solution to this problem is that I don't purchase apps and I very rarely install them. On this phone I have bejeweled and wordscapes and duo for 2FA to my work VPN.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th··on iPhone 14 Pro faced 'unprecedented' setback leading to removal of new GPU
I think the issue is that a phone mostly sits in your pocket, a car is clearly visible to everyone when you "enter the room", as it were.

The other issue is copying it is too easy, so even if Apple tried the look of it would very quickly get copied.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th··on Turn your best programmers into managers
right, you can't imagine that working, can you?

The reason we're looking for a manager is that there isn't one, but the show must go on. One of those 3 teams was managed solely by me after it was created to build a new integration with a 3rd party vendor.

Once that integration went live someone on the business side sent out an email to everyone in the company and said they had never seen a project go so smoothly in the multiple years they had been there.

Yet here you are, unable to even _FATHOM_ such a thing working successfully.

What makes it worse is that Joel Spoelsky was talking about this in the late 90's, early 2000's, it's what made me originally start thinking about it. This aint new.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th··on Turn your best programmers into managers
After seeing this post my opinion has finally clicked over to "you're a shitty manager".

You're imagining a managers job is to ensure quality. That's a tech leads job. And QA, if you have them.

You're imagining yourself as Gandolf with the staff of perfection screaming "You shall not pass".

That is not your role, nor has it ever BEEN your role.

What's worse is that you're implying that you cannot manage teams working with tech you yourself have not worked with. This means you cannot manage projects that are in rust, lisp, perl, ruby, python, GCP, or any other technology that you yourself are not both familiar with and an expert in. When your company decides to move to the cloud and they choose GCP but AWS is the only thing you've seen, do you recuse yourself?

And when you hire a developer with 5+ years experience in GCP, HOW DO YOU MAINTAIN QUALITY?

The answer is you do it the same way the non-technical manager does it.

What you're not understanding is that your developers are BETTER THAN YOU at their job.

Just yesterday we had an interview with a senior manager who is being hired to take over the three teams I mentioned in another post that I regularly work with, 3 teams that have 20+ year developers on them. I gave him a thumbs down based solely on the fact that when he has someone who isn't performing up to expectations, he starts reviewing code. I do not want that for these teams, or the senior developers on them. Furthermore, I know if we hire someone like that, they will leave. I know they will because _I_ would leave. Furthermore, this department is in a bit of a political fight with another technical department. Them leaving means this department automatically loses that fight.

The problem with shitty managers is that it can often be very difficult to fully quantify their effects on the organization because any single instance of it can be very subtle.

The question is, how do you quantify a managers output?

And the answer is you do it the same way a non-technical manager does.

You don't need to be able to read code to know your Toyota should not force accelerate on its own.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th··on Turn your best programmers into managers
> I had great managers who were very experienced developers (20+ years direct experience developing and still actively programming) and others that relied on a very experienced tech lead or senior developer that they could trust with technical decisions.

And in fact, the latter half of that sentence is what I meant.

I'm currently a software architect and each of the teams I work with has a very senior developer (all of them over 20 years experience). I generally communicate things that are up and coming and leave them alone. 1 of them is kind of terrible at communication so I'll sometimes have to bridge that gap, but otherwise they do just fine on their own.

The other poster claims he won't "allow them to work in a silo". A senior developer doesn't _WANT_ to work in a silo.

A good manager trusts their team and enables them by removing problems. A good manager plays the politics on behalf of their team so they can get work done. Their position has little to do with the software itself because software developers are the boots on the ground, the doers.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th··on Judge in SBF criminal trial has recused herself
Not only that, in the future I'm more likely to assume this judge is acting in good faith in the middle of other "controversies". Recusing oneself as a judge is the ethical thing to do.
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