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arvindamirtaa

435 karma · joined February 23, 2012

I write code and stuff.
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arvindamirtaa··on Ask HN: How to deal with AI generated sloppy code
This is AI generated.
arvindamirtaa··on S3 is files, but not a filesystem
Like Gmail is emails but not IMAP. It's fine. We have seen that these kinds of wrappers work pretty well most of the time considering the performance and simplicity they bring in building and managing these systems.
arvindamirtaa··on Substack Notes Launched
Grown in popularity is not really a metric. A normal tuesday and the day half the company's staffers got fired aren't going to be the same in popularity. Doesn't mean one is better. Twitter is definitely more popular for all the mess they've made, yes.

The "narrative" was right. There are actual outages now unlike earlier. It's not like twitter engineers were holding up the servers to the light for there to be outages the moment they're gone. Systems run on their own just fine, until something does go wrong. And if there's nobody there to fix it, something usually small blows up. Enough of these and users start to notice degraded performance and outages.

arvindamirtaa··on Ask HN: How is your company training you to become a better developer/engineer?
My ideal 1:1 is about once a month. Especially in high-ownership teams, you could go days without actually talking to people aside from a 10-15 min check in call.

So, it's sometimes nice to have periodic validation that you're keeping true to the course / indication that you need to make a few minor adjustments, etc. That's on your side.

From your manager's side, if they find something isn't working, they don't need to wait 3/6 months to bring it up at which point there isn't much you can do to get back the lost productivity.

arvindamirtaa··on Ask HN: How is your company training you to become a better developer/engineer?
By having no pure managers.

Everyone who is a manager actively makes independent contributions for a not-insignificant portion of their work-week.

So, when we have 1-on-1s with them, we can actually discuss improvement avenues from the same vantage point. Not some spreadsheet pushing manager who has no clue how to measure engineer-productivity or performance.

When they do code reviews, their comments serve as an important learning opportunity, pointing out good practices/conventions, etc.

And finally, when you disagree, it's backed by the validity of your points as 2 engineers, rather than their authority as a manager vs you, their direct report.

arvindamirtaa··on Warning – Google suspended GCP services for 'verification', lost my business
10 years across all 3 major cloud providers (and some others like Rackspace, etc), I can tell, Google support has been the absolute worst of all. I don't say that lightly. I take pride in how I can deal with customer service the most peacefully in my org. But that's all out of the window when their CS is nonexistent.

I can't remember the number of times they've shut down someone's production workload without notice or warning, gave them no way to resolve/rectify any supposed infraction, and gave no way to contact them to appeal the decision.

I once had to resort to numbering my points and just referring the boilerplate responses (few and far inbetween as they were) back to the numbers over and over until I finally gave up, moved away and never looked back.

arvindamirtaa··on Two weeks of dealing with Google as a developer
Didn't work very well for Epic (v Apple). While the law might force their hand, it may just end up in a lose-lose situation (the most likely outcome).
arvindamirtaa··on Infosys leaked FullAdminAccess AWS keys on PyPI for over a year
And to think they manage so many critical infrastructure projects (tax, passports, etc) in India and abroad.
arvindamirtaa··on Tesla finds a loophole in states where dealerships are forbidden: Tribal lands
Like Teslas?
arvindamirtaa··on I decided to stop working on Mighty
Voice rooms app - Clubhouse
arvindamirtaa··on Apple Execs on iMessage for Android (2013)
I'm glad you do
arvindamirtaa··on Ask HN: What's stopping you from blogging?
I've spent the last several years looking for the perfect blogging tool. As soon as I find one....

/s

arvindamirtaa··on DevOps is broken
I LOLd for this one.
arvindamirtaa··on Duct Size vs. Airflow (2012)
Glad I'm not alone
arvindamirtaa··on I wish my web server were in the corner of my room
This! This era is nostalgic for me and I am convinced we've only downgraded down from the handiness and thoughtfulness of the tools we used back then.
arvindamirtaa··on I Got Banned for Life from Airbnb (2018)
Alright. 2 can play this game. Why are Airbnb hosts allowed to operate, effectively hotels/resort style properties without the appropriate licenses required for one?

I know, they need to register in some jurisdictions but should be much more widespread.

You can operate like "Oh it's just someone's home, we're all just being civil to each other" in which case, have a conversation; permanent irrevocable ban is not it, or "Here's our 100 page T&Cs. We have all the control and can dump you whenever we see fit for whatever reason and we don't have to tell you" in which case, go through the legal process of getting each and every property properly registered and licensed and operate like a real business. Can't have it both ways.

Now I'm sure it's easy to see the above comment somewhat conflates the Airbnb hosts with the Airbnb corporation. And that's intentional.

arvindamirtaa··on The sudden silencing of Guantanamo's artists
I'll just leave this here:

"Don't throw out the rulebook in a fit of passion. You'll regret it. We did" - Dan Fried

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DMhb1FWHso

arvindamirtaa··on Tell HN: Google Cloud suspended our production projects at 1am on Saturday
Every time they do this, a few hundred ants decide, they may very well be next and move out. Supporting them through whatever they need may not be quite the net loss you claim it is.
arvindamirtaa··on Tell HN: Google Cloud suspended our production projects at 1am on Saturday
Ants pay the bill!
arvindamirtaa··on Google’s caste-bias problem
What about those that felt discriminated? Where is their forum to talk about what happened to them?

Might I add, if you weren't a party to an experience, an off handed observation that those are just subjective experiences, is frankly not yours to make.

arvindamirtaa··on Google’s caste-bias problem
Once again, your assertions are yours to make. The policy of the company, as evidenced by their actions, points the other way.
arvindamirtaa··on Google’s caste-bias problem
Your assertion that it's not, is not sufficient. Especially when the very idea of having a talk caused so much tension. If it's a non existent problem, this talk would've been given no more attention than a presentation about bigfoot.

Such (pro)active denial usually indicates the denier has something to hide. Now that may not be the case here. But assuming you're right about this not being a Google problem but just small pockets like sexual harassment and racism.

Doesn't google still hold talks about racism & sexual harassment? I'm pretty sure they do. So why the voice against this talk, and this issue specifically?

arvindamirtaa··on Google’s caste-bias problem
The DEI (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) forum is pretty unambiguously the forum to talk about caste discrimination. What forum is Gupta "highjacking" to talk about caste in your opinion?

The lesson to be learned is, if you are offended by someone saying they experienced oppression/discrimination, really, look inward.

arvindamirtaa··on Google’s caste-bias problem
If you haven't experienced something, and think someone else claiming that they experienced it is stupid, I really don't know who is stupid.

If person A slaps person B and person C goes "I didn't experience anything. There are no slaps in this company", does that sound reasonable?

arvindamirtaa··on Apple warns suppliers to follow China rules on 'Taiwan' labeling
A somewhat warped understanding on "manufacturing capabilities".

While Apple may have had to spend money setting up the specific assembly line, fabrication plants, train staff, etc because they simply didn't exist prior to their requirement, the fact that they were able to set it up someplace, and continuously feed raw materials, parts, labour etc with dozens of redundant suppliers for EACH component, is what indicates manufacturing capability.

Manufacturing is more ecosystem than "capability".

arvindamirtaa··on StackOverflow Is Having Issues
May the "How do SO engineers fix SO without SO"
arvindamirtaa··on SaaS tools that get things done for tech startups
Sure! As far as normal DVCS features go, I'd say Gitlab and Github are almost at feature parity(I happen to use both extensively). The UI may just come down to a matter of preference.

Github indeed has somewhat superior code-review tools. But I've found Gitlab to be perfectly adequate.

When it comes to CI/CD, Gitlab CI blows Github Actions out of the water by a HUGE margin.

So, if I just wanted a tool that got things done for me, instead of fragmenting myself with Github + Github Actions + TravisCI / CircleCI, etc, I'd just get one Gitlab subscription and call it a day.

arvindamirtaa··on SaaS tools that get things done for tech startups
As far as the Get Things Done aspect goes, I'd happy replace Github + Github Actions + Travis/other CI/CD tools with Gitlab. It really does all that, and the CI/CD tool is >>> Github Actions.
arvindamirtaa··on Thunderbird 102
Not sure about the weird settings disappearing bit.

But regarding the categories, Gmail doesn't automatically expose these to IMAP. But there is something you can do even if a bit hacky.

Create 5 labels named after the 5 Categories. Then create 5 filters each of which look something like this.

Search criteria: "category:primary" -> Apply label "primary".

Repeat the above step for all the categories. Et Voila. Your categories will appear in IMAP as folders of the same name.

arvindamirtaa··on The Hipster PDA (2004)
Damn! I read it maybe 10 years ago. Nice to see the site's still up. It's sad the wiki was taken down though. That was a world of information.
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