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aarghh

3,633 karma · joined September 26, 2009

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aarghh··on Career Development: What It Means to Be a Manager, Director, or VP (2015)
Oh, sweet summer child...

> But it’s the same standard to which the CEO is held. If the CEO makes a plan, gets it approved by the board, and executes it well but it doesn’t work, they cannot tell the board “but, but, it’s the plan we agreed to.”

aarghh··on I got tired of hearing that YC fired Sam, so here's what actually happened
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinction_without_a_differen...
aarghh··on Terry Gross and the Art of Opening Up (2015)
Michael Krasny of KQED ... I don't listen much to KQED since moving out of the Bay Area, but his questioning used to be both informed and succinct.
aarghh··on How to find a lost phone in a no-cell-coverage camping site?
Nope - as everyone who has looked for a buried avalanche beacon knows. As a matter of fact, depending on the number of burials and the searchers, your optimal search technique may be different.
aarghh··on One rare Harvard Square sign endures despite neighborhood changes
https://archive.ph/HlYzt
aarghh··on The world’s oldest ultramarathon runner is racing against death
FWIW - I started running distance seriously only when I was 38. Ran my first half at 39 and ran my fastest half yet ( 1:39) at 44. Ran my first marathon at 45 - (3:56). I've gotten faster since then (per my 5K speed), but haven't run another marathon since - it is a significant time commitment.
aarghh··on Classic fountain pens
Great list.

One addition on the really cheap end - Pilot Prera - which comes with a wonderful calligraphy nib as well (CM). Also, the Pilot Vanishing Point is available with a calligraphy nib (I retrofitted mine of 20 years vintage with one, and it has been a great joy).

Mnemosyne notebooks are what I use. Comb bound, so can lie flat, and very good paper.

aarghh··on Ask HN: Has anyone started over outside of tech?
You are an inspiration - the chandelier on your website is a thing of joy. I may reach out soon, my wife and I have been talking about a side table that she has very definite ideas about.

(I'm working my way through the Anarchist Design book and thinking about getting started on the stick chairs).

aarghh··on Google to reduce workforce by 12k
John Tuld : Let me tell you something, Mr. Sullivan. Do you care to know why I'm in this chair with you all? I mean, why I earn the big bucks.

Peter Sullivan : Yes.

John Tuld : I'm here for one reason and one reason alone. I'm here to guess what the music might do a week, a month, a year from now. That's it. Nothing more. And standing here tonight, I'm afraid that I don't hear - a - thing. Just... silence.

aarghh··on In 1931, scientists hunted “ghost islands“ in the Arctic with a zeppelin
I remember an obscure Disney movie that had people in airships looking for islands in the Arctic - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_at_the_Top_of_the_W... Great fun for a seven year old.
aarghh··on Physical buttons outperform touchscreens in new cars, test finds
One of the reasons I like Nobe - https://nobecars.com/100gt/ - is the fact they have a very simple,tactile user interface while being an EV. We really need more auto makers to get that not everyone sees an EV as a media experience that also provides mobility.
aarghh··on The case for bad coffee (2015)
I really wish this idea of "bad" vs "good" when it comes to taste and flavor profiles would die. Each different coffee brewing process has an end-product that is different. If you like it, and can taste the difference, knock yourself out investing in consistent grinders and espresso machines that are able to maintain the same brew temperature through a pour. Don't - go for your Maxwell or instant coffee or whatever.
aarghh··on How do you respond to a one-character email from your boss's boss's boss? (2018)
I'd be tempted to respond with "Use your words, Jeff". But then I am a mere minion.
aarghh··on Ask HN: How to talk with logical flow and coherence at interviews?
The best learnt behavior I have is to slow down. In practice that means using phrases like "Let me think about that for a second", and maybe looking at or writing notes. As an interviewer, if anyone actually took a minute to think about what I had just asked them, I would consider that a huge positive signal.
aarghh··on What Le Corbusier got right about office space
Here is a more detailed look at the Pessac story: https://www.philipsteadman.com/blog/life-is-always-right-it-...
aarghh··on Borges: The Library of Babel [pdf]
Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius?
aarghh··on Pocketlang
It sounds like CUE - https://cuelang.org/docs/about/ may be useful to you.
aarghh··on Tintern 'secret' medieval tunnel system found by accident
Well dan.
aarghh··on How to Understand Things
> Because of all this, I find it a bit disingenuous when senior people say to younger people that you should always ask questions and not being afraid of looking stupid. But being curious and asking questions is good overall. It is just not always easy.

I agree with your general point, but a minor comment here: in many cases the professor/leader asking those (stupid) questions may be to create psychological safety for a more open conversation. It is less threatening to the person being questioned; it also encourages other people to participate.

aarghh··on The reliability pillar of the AWS Well-Architected Framework [pdf]
Couldn't agree with you more. Specifically, certain (poorly-thought out) failure handling mechanisms actually end up transmitting the very condition that triggered the first failure to other parts of the system - thus creating cascading failures.
aarghh··on A Brief History of High Availability
Banks and telcos both had database systems that had zero downtime in 20 years, in some case. Tandem Non-Stop was very real - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NonStop_(server_computers)
aarghh··on Programmers: Before you turn 40, get a plan B (2009)
Microsoft
aarghh··on Divided by DNA: The uneasy relationship between archaeology and ancient genomics
Fascinating read. For a slightly deeper view of one of the more politicized controversies see: http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/how-genetics-is-set...!
aarghh··on Brian Aldiss has died
I would contend that the genre has moved on in a stylistic sense, but is still pretty robust:

Jeff VanderMeer (The Southern Reach trilogy, Finch); Ann Leckie (The Imperial Radch trilogy); China Miéville (Embassytown)

are three I can think of immediately.

aarghh··on Resilient cooperators stabilize long-run cooperation in Prisoner’s Dilemma
The most hopeful thing I have seen all week. On a slightly whimsical note, are you familiar with the legend of Lamed Vavniks from the Talmud? From the wikipedia article: "It is said that at all times there are 36 special people in the world, and that were it not for them, all of them, if even one of them was missing, the world would come to an end." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzadikim_Nistarim
aarghh··on Our Mistakes – Clover Food Lab
Sharing this because I found it interesting that a company is public about mistakes it has made/is making.
aarghh··on The Joy of Linux Desktop Environments
Speaking of window managers - is there a successor/branch of scwm (Scheme Constrained Window Manager) that is being maintained currently? I loved how that worked...
aarghh··on Mathematicians Are Overselling the Idea That “Math Is Everywhere”
Hmm - a counterargument would be to substitute "literacy for "mathematics" in the argument; literacy was elitist in its core historically (and still is in certain societies, unfortunately) - does that imply that learning to read is irrelevant for most people?
aarghh··on What Google Learned from Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team
Indeed - what I enjoyed and got out of this article is a fairly easy correlation to what separated good teams that I have been on from bad ones. I had classified the difference as "camaraderie" - but the idea of psychological safety is a little more useful. Camaraderie is the superficial outcome, while psychological safety is the enabler.
aarghh··on [dead]
OP here - I edited the title after submission to respond to that comment.
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