curiousfiddler

I just passively started looking around for a change. My criteria is exactly what's described here: "work that requires a very long time horizon, seeks to answer very open-ended questions, or develops technology that shouldn’t be owned by any one company." [1]. I have been unable to find very many places that will take non PHDs and let them participate in projects with these characteristics. I really do hope YCR relaxes the PHD constraint a bit. Look forward to it.

1. https://ycr.org/

I'm quite surprised that of all the famous Silicon Valley people, and their rallying behind Jeff Bezos, no one seems to believe that some part of these many many stories could be true. Either that, or they seem to think that only incompetent people are complaining. Therefore I must post part of my comment I posted here [1]. One of my good friend, who was suffering at Amazon, is thriving at Google. He's done amazingly well for himself and for Google in past 1 year he's been there (& has been well recognized within the org). This is not incompetence.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10070115

I had an offer from Amazon after grad school. There was only one reason I did not accept it: I had heard first person stories from a couple of my friends who were working at Amazon. And it did not make any sense to me to join such a work environment. One of them left Amazon to join Google, and is thriving at Google, which works well for him and his company. While at Amazon, he was constantly cynical, negative and it felt that the work environment was affecting him personally. As a developer, I need to be happy and stress free to provide good quality, thoughtful solutions (I'm sure not everyone is like me, and many would certainly thrive at Amazon). I couldn't see myself doing that at Amazon.

If I was to point out only one quality that I have seen stand out (personal experience working with similar people), it is Focus. When they are doing something, they're extremely focused and quite often that results in not just the task finishing faster, but with desired quality. This reduces the time and number of iterations they need, creating more space for other things.

I'm lucky to have worked in several places where there was no specific in/out time as long as you get the work done. As a result, I don't use an alarm. I've realized that sometimes, it's very hard to predict the amount of rest my body would need on a particular night, and having no alarm on, permits me to often be well rested. I've also realized, that I have rarely slept more than 8 hours, so looks like this does not lead to oversleeping. I recommend trying this out if you can.

Yahoo was initially playing around with Spark. They opted for Tez on Yarn instead: http://yahoodevelopers.tumblr.com/post/85930551108/yahoo-bet...

Just have him move with you. It's a priceless experience.

Also: You guys contribute a lot of good work to Hadoop and related projects.

Disclaimer: I contribute to some ASF projects.

If Microsoft open sources Windows...

You might want to add Apache Tez to the list as well. Series of posts on Tez: http://hortonworks.com/hadoop/tez/

With so many people willing to give Linux a shot more than ever before, I think Ubuntu (or any well supported Linux dist) is really at that stage where there is a great chance for them to be commercially very successful. I really hope and wish someone really gets there.

Makes sense, but I also feel that thinking about the regret-at-death moment is not quite an appropriate motivator - it will anyway be so shortlived.

Personal opinion: sometimes Google is just simply awesome.

I really hope every word they've written in there, reflects some of what their top management feels at a high level.

Well, I'll probably use this thread to get some advice.

So during my graduate coursework (CS), there were a couple of courses which required the class to review and present various papers. When my turn would come, I would prepare really well, make good notes and I would say reasonably fine slides. But then, when I would present, I would just lose the context when going over the slides. Eventually I started keeping more text on the slides and would end up reading off it, which is awful for the listeners.

Is this stage fright? Or perhaps poor memory? Or something else may be?

Thanks, will use that in future. Looking back at my comment, I don't seem to like the double quotes either.

Well yes they are, but it is regulated (in terms of educational qualification etc). What I was trying to get at, is developing and underdeveloped countries face a lot of problems. To produce worthy result in such circumstances is something definitely worth cheering IMO.

There are so many deprived/underdeveloped/developing societies in the world which are similar to India in terms of the resources that they have access to, yet somehow the aspirations of people are not channelized and they end up doing things which are awful (e.g. terrorism). I feel India could be used as a positive example in such cases.

There are a lot of inspiring stories of people who perform amazingly well, despite access to very little resources, just because they have a direction in life and an aspiration that is meaningful. I have been inspired by several such stories in my life, which will find absolutely no mention in any western or even local media.

I'd like to take a shot at answering this: why is a low cost medical treatment effective in India?

1. For the most part, medical education is good in India. In the better hospitals you will find that doctors are generally very smart and knowledgeable. They also happen to be very practical when suggesting treatments and do consider the treatment cost as a factor when suggesting options.

2. The cost of living in India is lower when compared to the developed world.

3. The equipment cost and medicine cost is also lower compared to the developed world.

Also, please understand, India "is not a developed nation". Everyone there "cannot" afford expensive medical treatment. Yet, people who cannot afford expensive treatment "can" suffer from ailments like cancer, heart problems etc. I find it commendable that such people do have a fairly reliable option to save their life, however imperfect it may appear, compared to the system in the developed world. Standards will improve as the country develops, but for now, they offer a good solution.

Shawshank Redemption: "Never ever ever ever ever give up"!

I just hope that this is not how we reason about things in general. I feel very sad reading your comment especially on HN. Not because what you are saying is right or wrong. But because the conclusions you draw are based on pretty much your personal experiences and those experiences are a very small sample set. My concerns:

1. "I've had statements from rich girls in New Delhi who don't like 'these poor people who stare at us', but are completely fine with spoilt rich brats driving circles around them while honking away."

How many "statements" did you get?

2. "These people struggle (or think that they do..) for so long in the rat race that they forget that they have risen above it and gone far beyond that. Perhaps that is why they seem to lack compassion and empathy."

Based on what do you conclude this?

3. "You know, rich people with 4 bedroom apartments on the 17th floor in and around the capital."

Rich?

4. "Most people who the 'middle class' perceive as lower class are almost sub humans in their eyes."

Based on what do you conclude this?

5. "The middle class got to point fingers once more at the lower classes who 'rape us'. They got to ask the government what they are doing to protect them from these 'evil immigrants who come into New Delhi and ruin our fair city'."

Did you participate in any of the protests? You know, this is an egg on the face of all who spent days protesting after the incident. Again, what is this based on? Can you point to any news articles or any research/survey that got this out?

Yes, situation is complicated but people have started debating about a lot of things. There is a lot more participation from the common man. This never happened in the past. This evolution of 1 billion people to a developed and civilized society is indeed slow as much as it is unique. But I am confident it will happen - India is still a democracy, people still have a say in determining their future...

I know a lot of smart engineers from TCS who couldn't imagine doing an MS from the US (or for that matter even from India), because their family couldn't afford it. People who do not aspire to do an MS from Stanford certainly do not qualify being a "software donkey".

PS: No affiliation with TCS or Stanford other than having met smart people from both places.

Can you name a few other companies which operate at Google's scale and are less evil? I feel Google has had a big contribution in how open internet as a medium is. I'd like to believe that the people at Google's helm are generally nicer, and can be trusted with this massive responsibility (more than a lot of other people and other companies). I also believe and hope, that they are picking signals from these conversations and resolving to improve and be better in future. PS: Absolutely no affiliation with Google.

I have another idea. Either you can go on fighting the rejections and slowly building a brand for yourself when your past will no longer matter (I can't comment on whether your current situation is indeed that bad), or you could try graduate school. From what it sounds, you seem to be interested not just in programming, but the more abstract principles and reasoning required in designing software systems. Graduate school can help you channelize that interest and who knows, you might make a name for your self in academia.

You will need some money for that though, but I personally consider that investment worth the potential experience that you can get at graduate school. More valuable than buying a fancy car.

If at this point Google reinstates Reader, I can tell you they will win many hearts and goodwill. I don't remember a product being brought back from grave and if they were to do it, they will be viewed as a genuinely considerate company (IMO).

Just saw the movie. Amazing!

Happy Pi Day!

I have a friend we nicknamed Pi. His "hobby" at school used to be memorizing the digits after the decimal point in Pi. I remember at some point in time he could recite a few thousand. Never got the point though.

I think G+ should start relying more on content, as the network effect is not working out. Something like what Quora has done. If they manage to get people using G+ somehow, the chances of network effect kicking off will be higher. Right now, they gotta think of doing something else.

No they shouldn't. They should revamp it, remove all the crap content / spam users. If they clean it out and start highlighting the good stuff that they have in there, Answers could be very useful.

This just so awesome. As an Ubuntu user, I was feeling left out :)

I am not a physics researcher, but based on the videos that I have seen and whatever articles I have read, the most fascinating takeaway for me are:

1. That mass is not an intrinsic property of matter; rather it is acquired by the particle's interaction with Higgs field.

2. A massless particle travels at the speed of light.

When controlled, this has the potential to result in super crazy outcomes (super fast transfer of matter and energy etc).

PS: Please correct my interpretation if it looks wrong.

Reading this simply reminds me that there's nothing more important and precious in life than loving and caring for your near and dear ones!