Timmah

Lots of redditors are coming here, unfortunately

That's not misogyny. It's attacking a caricature. They do the same thing regarding male caricatures.

> without taking up rabid misogyny.

I've read many posts on /r/braincels and didn't see any misogyny. Just lots of depressed men who will vehemently reject any notion that they can improve their situation. From what I observed their hatred was either self directed or used to attack straw men caricatures of people trying to offer advice. They seem to be just depressed, frustrated people who cannot get into relationships and hang out and lick their wounds with juvenile defense mechanisms.

> you have a responsibility to do the right thing

Exactly. Which is why I call out unsubstantiated claims (or "slogans", as you put it) whenever and wherever I see them. The most common places I've observed them happen to be with blanket leftist allegations of sexism/racism/ageism in the tech industry.

> Bias is something that must be actively countered

But that assumes bias actually exists in the first place. This argument is eerily similar to the religious argument of "just believe [that god is real]". No, prove it first, then I'll believe. And inb4 "they fired more old old people so that's bias". Correlation does not equal causation. Show me the causation.

> does not change the fact that discrimination is wrong

Moral platitudes are irrelevant to this discussion.

It's no more of a travesty when "violence to the rule of law" is done against corporations than when it is committed against poor people.

Also, AMZN built their empire by exploiting interstate sales tax loopholes to undercut brick and mortar competitors. Why shouldn't their representation under the "rule of law" be proportionately undercut?

He never made the claim "nobody before 1-Jan-2002 was ever socially deficient or withdrawn from society", which you appear to be responding to.

What social consequences (specifically pertaining to human behavior) do you concede computing has had, if any?

> people often don't understand the terms of there agreements

To me the problem is that we allowed corporations to invoke complex legal maneuvering such as redefining the legal definition of watching a movie, and requiring a legal agreement to do so, all for the purpose of further enriching apple and the movie industry.

Also I dispute whether it is an "agreement" after all. Did each consumer sit down and read a printed contract, forward it to their counsel for review, then sign on the dotted line before they watched The Incredibles 2 ? No, they didn't. There wasnt an "agreement" but rather a surrender of previously existing legal rights.

In fact, I think all these one-sided contracts should be called "rights surrenders" instead of "license agreements". By clicking "I surrender", you are now allowed to watch your digital copy of The Incredibles 2 some indeterminate non-zero number of times before it's randomly removed from your possession

How is it contained in the earth? Wouldn't the pressure eventually escape, either by rupturing its container or seeping through the earth?

In another thread today it was pointed out that humans produce 50 gigatonnes of CO2 per year. We have to start somewhere, but grabbing a few tons at a time may not out much of a dent in the problem.

It happens because the types of problems software engineers face are random and require active engagement and creativity to solve.

There's no book that you can read that says "if the program crashes, try these things". Yes there are basics but theres no real formula that always leads to the solution. Each program is unique enough that you have to study the internals of how it works and then test hypotheses about the root cause.

In engines, they all follow the same predefined models. Software does have "models" but most people don't use them or they blend models together and don't document how they work. So we end up with having to solve many problems on the fly. Not everyone can do this (crucially, even people with cs degrees) , so to avoid hiring people who can't, they try to test for the ability during the interview. This is fraught with an entire slew of issues. Some of which are non-technical people asking the questions, applicants sharing the answers and gaming the system, or as the article says, sadistic interviewers that enjoy the feeling of power. To date, nobody has found a universally effective system to hire good programmers.

Its only bulshitting if people don't want to work there. Presumably they read the description and said "that looks cool, I want to do that".

You should be able to look your employer in the eye and honestly say what you want from the job and discuss it like adults. Not dance around with a corporate-speak ritual telling them what you think they want to hear.

"Well, you're not hiring a trickster."

I've been a cpp and java programmer for 12 years and not once needed to use algorithmic complexity on the job. The fact that so many places focus on this baffles me. Big-O questions should be reserved for system architect positions only. Out of all the arbitrary topics, I think they should focus on pedantic syntax questions for whatever language they use. Show snippets of code and ask "what's wrong with this picture?". That would at least select for people with better language mastery and, in theory, faster development times.

I think it's more about measuring enthusiasm for problem solving. If you sulk and roll your eyes at a difficult math problem, what will your demeanor be like every day in the office when your job involves quant analysis?

Thank you for the thorough reply

I know that for a language like c++, the compiler can prune dead code. But I mean for the often-lamented "4gb-electron text editor" something that could nibble away at the redundancy gradually during runtime, dynamically reducing and refactoring. Until it approaches the efficiency of a native compiled application.

I don't understand why there can't be a type of "dynamic analysis " done on higher level languages that analyzes them and tries to substitute lower level code that does the same thing. Like an AI agent that says "hmm this behavior is very map-like, I'll try replacing it with a std::map" or "80 / 100 of these functions are never called. I'll just remove them from the program image to save load time and locality of reference". And in before "it'll just crash". Have the agent throw an exception that is picked up and dynamically loads the old program image, resulting in a one time delay.

You're still giving them location data and customer profile information. Probably something like: "white male, from $STATE, income bracket derived from home and work location, and probably flagged as "privacy conscious" because you never use the app. That profile is valuable to at least some advertisers.

I can't even delete it from my android phone without rooting it

Define "easier" in this context. If you have an algorithm whose complexity increases exponentially with the key length, saying you made a 10% gain doesn't mean squat.

You can disagree without offering a solution. His comment was with the aim of addressing the underlying problem. OP could get a dev job tomorrow and lose it within a week if mental health issues impede his ability to function on a team. Your parade isn't as important as OP's predicament.

I think what you described is more a situation of suppressing emotion and using pragmatism to reduce further harm.

To me mindfulness is stopping at lunch or after work, removing all distractions and worries, and focusing on yourself. Asking "what am I actually feeling right now? And why am I feeling this way? " instead of just cranking up the proverbial headphones and marching on, oblivious to what is happening to you or how you actually are feeling. It's about emotional intelligence.

I remember that story when it broke. But I thought there was a good reason why they didn't build houses. I can't remember, but it was something like the people didn't own the land they lived on, so building would have been giving the land owner a free house, not a hurricane victim. Or else armed thugs would steal any structure built.

Yeah irresponsible people do. But it's not necessary to bet the farm to make a living. Although it's certainly easier to eke a living off a $600k bankroll than a $50k

Is money less green if it was made with luck vs "skill" ?

Because one strategy returning $50-100k a year is a pittance to an investment bank. And (I bet) those strategies require a lot of manual intervention. Plus the risk value if they go haywire.

I would happily make money for n-years and lose for one, provided the amount lost was a fraction of what I earned.

He never said he's making money on long positions though. Options allow you to buy and sell volatility, and short underlying securities.

It's not a "small fraction". You're probably confused with Susan Komen. Red Cross has it's faults, but if they can serve more victims by hiring more effective people with 6 figure salaries, aren't they doing more good?

By analogy, the main rocket on the space shuttle has two stages of fuel pumps...powered by rocket fuel. So you could say that's inefficient, why not run fuel straight from the tanks into the rocket. But it can't pump enough in to get enough thrust unless it uses some of its fuel so that it could burn even more fuel.

My personal charity gripe is the blood bank. They make it out like you're a hero, meanwhile they bill the patient thousands of dollars. They hide behind "but people with disease might donate if we paid them", well they pay people for plasma. And they have to test for HIV anyway (not only that, HIV isn't even a death sentence anymore). If they want my blood they can donate it to the patient or give me 50% of what they bill.