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charmides

255 karma · joined June 19, 2018

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charmides··on Past Performance is Not Indicative of Future Results (2020)
I might be wrong, but regarding the anecdote about the physicists at Michigan’s Albion College attempts to model the spread of COVID-19, I think the author misfired. From what I understand, many non-epidemiologists have been surprisingly insightful during the pandemic.
charmides··on It costs $10k to ‘own’ a Chick-fil-A franchise
What did you end up doing instead?
charmides··on Lidar Company Velodyne Debuts $100 Auto Safety Sensor
"Lichess is for professionals. Plenty of GMs ims and masters play on it. Even Magnus plays the tournaments. This is like saying Linux is not enough for computer professionals."

This is a misunderstanding. Lichess is used by chess professionals for playing online chess against each other (which is mostly recreation and not serious chess preparation). Software like ChessBase is used for game preparation.

charmides··on Show HN: We used 890M chess games to make an interactive opening graph
That is not a favourable comparison for this website.

For those who are looking for chess opening preparation software for free, I recommend just using lichess.org. Considering that lichess is ad-free and run by volunteers only, it is amazing how much it offers (although it's not enough for chess professionals).

charmides··on Show HN: We used 890M chess games to make an interactive opening graph
When I first looked at the website, I thought that it looked like a nice student assignment or a weekend project. But seeing that you are already attempting to monetize this website and that you are treating this somewhat seriously, I have to tell you that your software is lightyears behind the chess opening modules of professional chess software such as ChessBase 15 or Chess Assistant 12.

https://en.chessbase.com/post/announcing-grand-chessbase-15-...

https://chessok.com/?page_id=19894

charmides··on Brain research on boys’ preference for video games and girls’ for social media
"It seems highly likely that these preferences are socially constructed."

People love to think this way, but study after study suggests that those preferences are at least partly biological. It's one of those cases where there is a disconnect between the scientific understanding and the beliefs of the general public (including policymakers).

See for example this research work: https://www.math.kth.se/matstat/gru/5b1501/F/sex.pdf:

"Results showed that the male infants showed a stronger interest in the physical-mechanical mobile while the female infants showed a stronger interest in the face. The results of this research clearly demonstrate that sex differences are in part biological in origin."

charmides··on Ask HN: Do you anticipate technical questions during live interviews?
Thank you for the insight; this makes a lot of sense to me.
charmides··on Ask HN: Do you anticipate technical questions during live interviews?
Sounds like my experience is more unusual then. I would love to hear from other people. Java has been front and center on my CV since I graduated from college and for the ~10 mid-size and small companies that I've interviewed at, not a single one has put me on the spot regarding my knowledge. Not that I would mind. My partner was a little thrown off, though.
charmides··on Ask HN: Do you anticipate technical questions during live interviews?
Do you frequently get direct questions about your technical knowledge during interviews or is your experience more like mine?
charmides··on The STEM Crisis Is a Myth (2013)
I don't think psychology is typically considered STEM.
charmides··on The STEM Crisis Is a Myth (2013)
Note that this piece is from 2013. I think that should be indicated parenthetically in the title.
charmides··on Elizabeth Warren Proposes Breaking Up Tech Giants Like Amazon
It seems like you are just repeating the same specious point that OP was refuting.

Right now, it feels like companies like Google are mostly silencing hate speech, violent extremists, and pornography, but there is no guarantee that their censorship will remain that way in the future. In a not-so-hypothetical future where a single private company has taken almost whole control over online media and starts imposing heavy censorship over non-offensive speech, are we going to continue saying "it's a private company, and if you don't like it, you can just share your opinions on this platform that nobody reads"?

charmides··on How I Went from Graduate School Student to Amazon Warehouse Janitor
Right. The author seems to think she has the right to find work in "her chosen field."

Anyway, I think Slate's strategy is working fine. The outrageousness of this piece is what compelled me to share it here.

charmides··on The Titanic Was on Fire for Days Before the Iceberg Hit
I did and I still did not understand it well. I thought someone could explain it better and it'd maybe start a dialogue. Thanks for a worthless comment.
charmides··on The Titanic Was on Fire for Days Before the Iceberg Hit
This piece talks about the subject, but can anyone explain in more detail why they couldn't put out a coal fire on a ship?
charmides··on How to Keep Your Job as Your Company Grows
To the author:

This does not add up. After they fired you and then had you fight to get your job back, you said they hired a "coach" to help you learn new skills. But at the end of this training, the coach reported to your boss that you "had a long way to go." It certainly does not seem like the coach was hired to help you out. It seems like it was just a backhanded way to get an assessment on you while you had your guard down.

To me, it seems like this company was just taking advantage of you and your youthful enthusiasm until they had no more use for you. By blaming yourself, I feel like you are drawing all the wrong lessons from this experience.

charmides··on How to Keep Your Job as Your Company Grows
The insight I drew from this article is that I never want to be an early employee of a startup and put my heart and soul into it unless I own a significant part of that company.
charmides··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (November 2018)
Sounds like a fun initiative. How is this financed? Do you own the rights to the work produced during the Hackerurlaub? Thanks.
charmides··on The Strangest Book on the Theory of Computation (2009)
Terrible textbooks are written all the time by cranks and eccentrics, and I did not see how this book stood out from the rest.
charmides··on How a Massive Ad Fraud Scheme Exploited Android Phones to Steal Millions
Didn't this type of fraud require massive domain expertise?
charmides··on U.S. Is World’s Most Competitive Economy for First Time in a Decade
I would like it if submitters could tag their posts in three different categories or so; pure tech, economics, and politics. Users could then configure their settings to see the content they want.

I think that this approach could be taken too far so that we would end up with a reddit clone, but a step in this direction seems to be in order now.

charmides··on A True Story
This is fascinating. I never heard about this.
charmides··on Do we really live longer than our ancestors?
The second metric is more useful since the former one is still affected to some degree by those who die early. Would be cool to get some more data on that second metric.
charmides··on Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?
Related to that, usually I am a little faster finding answers to syntax questions on SO than in the documentation, even when the documentation is good. So I'm glad that people have been asking those basic questions on SO.
charmides··on Google DeepMind Founder Demis Hassabis: Three Truths about AI
Wish this allowed you to see the income proportion of the top 1% and 0.1% too, not just the top 10%.
charmides··on Jobs at Google (1999)
He serves at the discretion of Google's parent company, Alphabet, of which Page and Brin are CEO and President respectively.
charmides··on Jobs at Google (1999)
They're still in charge.
charmides··on WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind
There is no such thing as a hivemind here, just the consensus that it is wrong to sell your company to an entity that puts profit above people's privacy and wellbeing.
charmides··on WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind
I think it is good that this community praises founders who do the right thing and condemns those who do the wrong thing, even though most of us will never play for such high stakes.
charmides··on WhatsApp Cofounder Brian Acton on Why He Left $850M Behind
Relatable or not, it is still a wrong thing to do and we should strive to be better people during the short time that we are alive.
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