dntrkv

The funding system is broken, not the actual act of funding.

We aren't incentivizing meaningful work, we are incentivizing diplomas.

So everything in moderation? Cool, glad my philosophy still applies.

Yes because the countries with lower taxes are so free and democratic. Pretty sure the relationship is inverse if you take even 5 min of your time to look.

> I was told that by default all user data is level 4, as in if you do anything without decent approval, you're insta fired. There are many stories about at least one person a month during boot camp accessing user data and getting escorted out of the building within hours.

Given the size and nature of Meta's business, I would assume they would have better systems in place. SWEs should only have access to PII with explicit consent from users/customers e.g. support tickets.

Especially someone going through boot camp. Do they have access to de-anonymized user data during training?

Shit, at my last company I had to jump through so many hoops to access user data even with consent from the customer.

Oh yes, the famous Galaxy XCover 7 Pro. People are camping out in the rain waiting for their release because replaceable batteries are under such high demand.

Massive tests files are almost as bad a massive function.

Scrolling through a 3k line test suite with multiple levels of nesting trying to figure out which cases are covered is a fucking pain in the ass.

I have been seeing this problem building over the last year. LLM generated logic being tested by massive LLM generated tests.

Everyone just goes overboard with the tests since you can easily just tell the LLM to expand on the suite. So you end up with a massive test suite that looks very thorough and is less likely to be scrutinized.

I’ve had issues like that in the past, had to clear the cache for the spotlight index or something like that. Fixed it right away. Not sure if you’re facing the same issue.

I’m still using my M1 MacBook from 6 years ago. My company keeps emailing me to upgrade to the newest one but everything works perfectly fine and the performance is more than adequate for dev work.

Compared to pre-Apple silicon I was getting company exemptions to upgrade before I was technically allowed.

M series Macs are just amazing devices.

I don't think brand designers or graphic designers are going anywhere.

Yes, the lower end of the market will be decimated. But that's been the case for a long time now. Services like Fiverr have already driven the value of that tier of service down to basically nothing.

This has nothing to do with AI or any of that shit.

Their stock price has been flat for like 4 years and they have no advantage in this new AI world that would change that. These layoffs would have happened AI or not.

I don't use that site much nowadays, but every time I do, I am shocked at just how many fucking bugs there are. This idea that they laid off whatever percentage of their workforce with no impact to the quality of the software is not based in reality whatsoever.

And don't get me started on the UX. Fucking dumpster fire of an experience. But network effects gonna network effect.

I think the execs are either using it as an excuse to reduce opex to boost share prices or they're actually buying into this delusion that the productivity improvements are right around the corner. Though I don't really buy into that second option since any reasonably intelligent person would wait to see concrete evidence of said improvements before crippling your company based on some hope.

I also think some of the companies that operate in the AI space are using the layoffs as a form of marketing to prove the capabilities of their tech (while also using it as an excuse to cut costs).

Anyways, I work at one of the major players in the space and the amount of AI code slop I see on a daily basis is absurd. My prediction is that within two years most younger SWEs will only have a high-level understanding of their code. I already see it happening.

I don't understand this overreaction to this news. Amazon does massive layoffs every fucking year.

2026: 16,000

2025: 14,000

2024: 500

2023: 18,000

2022: 10,000

This is most definitely an overgeneralization, but in my experience, engineers that constantly talk shit about management are either shitty engineers themselves or they're incredibly difficult to work with and blame everyone else for their shortcomings.

Middle management is playing a completely different game. I don't envy them one bit.

Sure, there are toxic cultures created by bad management, but that can be said about any leadership role. There is a reason for the hierarchy, if you think you have a better approach to structuring a company, have at it.

Factory motorcycles aren't that loud. Most of the ones you notice are modified.

> Scooters are vastly safer than motorcycles

Why make such a definitive claim with zero evidence to back it up?

The justifications in that section are nonsense and seem to boil down to a skill issue on your part.

Sure, around the city a scooter makes sense for a lot of people, though I believe they provide a false sense of security. The lower barrier to entry also lowers the "perceived" risk.

Feeling safer !== safer

Personally, I feel much safer on one of my motorcycles than a scooter. But that's because I am extremely comfortable on a motorcycle and can make it do exactly what I want, when I want.

It's most likely an attempt to give low performers (if you received a bad rating for last year) a chance to leave on your own terms before they lay you off.

If I was in that bucket I would definitely take this offer.

Looks like all the large tech companies are doing aggressive stack ranking right now.

Most bugs are trivial to identify and trivial to fix. At least that’s been my experience from 15 years as a SWE in start ups and FANG alike.

Yes, I’ve worked on bugs that have taken weeks to fully resolve. But those are rare.

Do people actually do that? Finding bugs in virtually any piece of software isn’t difficult if you have access to the source. Merging in a bug only to fix it later honestly seems like more work. Most bugs are pretty easy to fix…

Millions might as well be zero to Apple. There is overhead when it comes to dealing with another company, combined with the potential of damaging your brand. If the number is not in the billions I doubt they would bother. The only companies capable of paying the amounts that would make it worthwhile would be excluded from this option.

You could say the same thing about virtually any large tech company that does B2C and B2B, which is basically all of them.

Withdrawing carbon emission goals?

Jesus. What the fuck is going on in this country.

That has nothing to do with it. Society in general is just uncomfortable with the idea of euthanasia and politicians don’t want to be labeled as promoting “suicide”

It’s just not a great hill to die on since most people that actually care strongly about the issue are the ones bed ridden in the hospital.

The US makes up a majority of their user base. My property isn’t even that rural and I doubt I’ll get fiber before 2050.

5G is much more likely. It’s just too cost prohibitive to bring fiber to most rural areas.

I mean it’s been like that in SF for a while now. Tons of people take Uber/Lyft still but I see dozens of Waymos everyday and I’ve been Waymo only for about a year now.

Anytime I go to east bay I go for BART. I’m not trying to sit in bay bridge traffic. BART gets a bad rap, like every other public transit in the US, but I’ve been using it pretty frequently recently (stopped around beginning of lockdowns) and it’s a great experience.

How fucking great are Brother laser printers? The UX is shit, but you very rarely have to interact with it because they just fucking do their job.

Mine was in the closet for a couple years once and I took it out, plugged it in, and just printed what I want through WiFi.

I remember dealing with HP drivers on Windows back in the day…

Look at that beautiful nuclear baseload. Providing clean, consistent power no matter the time of day or season.

Yeah because all that research and knowledge completely dissipates because the business hasn’t recouped its R&D costs.

Apple famously brought the iPhone into existence without any prior R&D or failed attempts to build similar devices.