drewmate

Thanks for writing (the code and the blogs!)

What are you up to these days?

There is an inherent tension in Factorio (and software engineering!) between trying to get everything right up front and just building anything that works and fixing it later. I've found a balance that is fun for me in the low-stakes video game world.

Every Factorio player I know has an enormous laundry list of things they wish they'd done better after their first game. That urge never completely goes away, and if that feeling is more distressing than energizing to you, then perhaps Factorio is not the game for you.

Still, the process of analyzing a system in a factory and redesigning it to be more efficient is massively satisfying. New challenges arise at every stage of a factory's growth, and before long, your 'starter base' is just a small part of your whole operation, and the shortcomings there just don't matter in the whole scheme of things.

It's not about the literal beliefs of religions. It's about having a 'tribe' or in-group. That was helpful to our survival as a species, and that instinct has not gone away. If it's not religion, it's political ideology, national identity, ethnicity, or allegiance to a football team. We love defining the world in terms of 'us' and 'others.' The trick is in finding a way to live (and dare I say work) in proximity with 'others.'

This is a great point, and I wish productivity gains in all sectors had been more equitably split. In fact, I think that automation-based productivity gains could extend to the other sectors I mentioned as well (more surgeries/hour, etc...)

However, I still think there is a disconnect. Even with productivity gains, output still basically scales linearly. When your job is producing a specific physical artifact consistently, you are always going to make more of them, the more time you spend doing it. The same is not true for many 'knowledge workers' whose output is not measured in 'lines of code' or 'meetings held' but looser, larger objectives that are fundamentally more limited in how many you actually want. I think you more rapidly get diminishing returns for a lot of this type of work. Even if a project manager could manage twice as many projects in twice as many hours, would that benefit the business?

It's worth reading a bit about the history of BART. The Bay Area's NIMBY roots run deep. Initial plans would have included lines in the peninsula, with eventual connections all the way around the bay. Santa Clara County never joined, and that started a cascade of other counties dropping out which financially crippled the project and left only the scaled-back system in place today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_Area_Rapid_Transit#Origins...

The divide between 'hourly' workers (even if paid a salary) and white-collar knowledge workers is likely the largest obstacle to changing the 40-hour workweek in the US. Many jobs, and often the highest-paid, could be nearly as productive working 4x6 instead of 5x8. However, there are lots of jobs where output really does scale linearly with input time. The obvious ones are hourly service workers in retail or restaurants, but even some 'high status' jobs really require the hours (healthcare, airlines, union manufacturing, etc...)

It would really upset societal order if suddenly two once comparable jobs suddenly required drastically different time commitments. People will find all sorts of reasons to fight against a shorter workweek, but I think this is the main reason why. We like the stability of believing that everyone (or at least working people) are 'equally yoked' at least in terms of time commitment.

I think you're mostly right, but it's not as straightforward as 1 dwelling per household and everyone just moves up a rung. Market housing could get bought up by people who are currently living with roommates (but would like their own home) or one of the 52% of young adults currently living with their parents.[0] Those spots are then unlikely to become available for the homeless.

This is just another symptom of the major lack of housing in the US, and needs to be solved as well, but it highlights how difficult it is to alleviate homelessness when there are other casualties of the housing market as well. By all means, build as much housing as soon as possible, but some of it will probably need to be specifically targeted at homeless or poorer populations.

[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/04/a-majority-...

I think that metered entrances don't necessarily reduce the number of cars on the freeway, for exactly the reason you mentioned. Instead, it is designed to break up 'platoons' of cars from trying to merge in at the same time which cause ripple braking effects and traffic jams. The net result of meters is squeezing more cars at the same speed and maximizing flow rate of traffic.

So you wait a little bit at the meter but your (and everyone else's) overall travel time is actually faster. I recommend this YouTube video (and the whole channel) for great explanations of the traffic dynamics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30uzZRSVxXQ

I'm not sure about Amazon in particular, but generally companies (especially tech companies) hold some percentage of stock in reserve for employee compensation. However, the company can also buy back stock on the open market either to take it out of circulation (and thus increase the value of outstanding shares) or use it for employee compensation. Finally, if the board (as a proxy for individual owners) permits it, a company can issue new shares for any purpose including selling to raise cash for operations, or giving to employees as compensation. This isn't free money, however. New shares tend to dilute the value of existing shares. So owners often prefer to raise money other ways, like debt that doesn't convert to an ownership claim in the way stock does.

It seems reasonable enough to me, but I don't own any land. I think I'm realistic enough to admit that if I had been born 35 years earlier and had two homes that I paid off in my 40's and had appreciated 350% since then, I would probably feel differently about it. It's a tough nut to crack, for sure.

You might find Georgism [0] interesting. Its tenets include a (steep) land value tax that proponents believe would sort out the 'best use' of land in city centers. It's a compelling idea, but unfortunately the driving force behind American government seems to be once you have something (property, a business, etc...) nobody can do anything that adversely affects it. And Americans (over age 40) already own a LOT of property and would not take kindly to new taxes on it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism#Main_tenets

Godot has support for many programming languages [0] through 'GDNative' which generally lets you access the API through any programming language that can bind to C++. I see that there is D support [1] but I have no idea how robust it is.

[0] https://docs.godotengine.org/en/latest/tutorials/scripting/g...

[1] https://github.com/godot-d/godot-d

Step 1 - Buy leveraged options at the right time

Step 2 - Do not buy leveraged options at the wrong time [0]

[0] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/be-attractive-dont-be-unattra...

I agree that this is definitely a trend, so I feel like highlighting a great example of educational content that is very dense, concise, and with just a touch of whimsy: 3Blue1Brown on Youtube[0]. He has been doing math education videos on YouTube for years. I just watched his latest video on the medical test paradox and redesigning the Bayes rule to address it[1].

All his videos are absolutely phenomenal - the best educational content I've seen on YouTube. I cannot recommend them highly enough. In my experience it is more akin to reading a (very engaging) textbook than watching a video. I often find myself pausing to think things through and can _feel_ myself grasping at new ideas and learning while watching.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYO_jab_esuFRV4b17AJtAw [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG4VkPoG3ko

This is a fantastic insight! I had never considered the Sharpe ratio of my career choices before, but I think subconsciously, I have been all along.

As someone without a prestigious university reputation (or accompanying network) backing me, I think I've really prioritized stability and low risk (but pretty good) move for my career.

> I would HATE writing a full and secure operating system in Go

For the record, it _can_ be done.[0]

[0] https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/122734

I think you're both right, and it just goes to show you that (in spite of what it might feel like sometimes) we've all actually got a lot more in common than we think. I'm a mountain-states native who went to the Bay for work and is (at least for now) back in the mountains. I got along fine with folks in California, but it still never quite felt like home (tough to do in a 1BR). Still, I'm sure I've brought a little of the Bay back with me! At the very least a new Subaru with California plates. :)

I, like many of my peers, moved out of Oakland this year over the summer. For a while, I was considering staying around and trying to lock in a lower rent on a larger space, but rents really didn't budge.

Your effective rent _did_ drop, but landlords did it by offering 2-3 months of free rent on a one-year lease (with old rates applying.) It doesn't take Nostradamus to see what happens in 12 months: maximum allowed rent increase and no more sweetheart deals, meaning an effective increase of like 35% (or move again to try and get another deal somewhere else.)

It wasn't worth it to me, so now I'm paying less than half my previous rent for around 2x as much space in SLC.

I agree, and have tended to keep a low profile online. Unfortunately, much like the unspoken rule to code in your spare time (the subject of Emily's video), it seems like there's always pressure to have an online non-coding presence including blogs, twitter, etc...

That's why I briefly wrote about side projects at ${myname.tld} when I was on the job market a few years back, and why I suspect I'll be back at it at some point in the future.

In many cases, it's all just a way to stand out in a pile of resumes, which is disheartening in and of itself. That for many women it turns into outright harassment is disgusting and a reflection of the worst that internet anonymity has to offer.

Currently, yes. The first season was _much_ better, and there has been a decline (at first steep, then gradual and consistent) with each season since then.

This was the last episode they aired due to COVID-related production shutdown. They're supposed to finish this season and do another, but I wonder if the show might just shut down quietly at this point.

I agree that we'll see the boundaries between Windows and Linux blur, but I don't think we'll ever see Microsoft give up the decades of backwards compatibility that have kept people on Windows since the beginning. There will always be demand for running older Windows apps (games, legacy business software, etc..) on a modern OS, and I don't think Microsoft will cede that space to a competitor (and with good reason!) It will likely continue to shrink as a proportion of revenue, but it will be worth much more than that to keep it as a toehold to deliver other software and services: Xbox game pass, visual studio, azure services, etc...

Likewise. I attended his seminar last year at the recommendation of a colleague and it was a day well spent. I assume he probably won't be doing such large courses this year, which is a shame. I'd recommend his course to anyone who gets a chance to attend whenever he starts them up again.

The cultural aspects of Mormonism are muted out of state, but even out-of-state Mormons are inextricably tied to the Utah (University, relatives, friends who moved from or to Utah).

I've hit all four quadrants of the Mormon/Non-Mormon, Utahn/Non-Utahn matrix and from my perspective, we still shared much of the Utah culture (though I never would have admitted it at the time) when I grew up in another state.

It seems that social capital provides a fertile field for MLMs, but there are other cultural factors that contribute. For example, the tradition of missions trains a charismatic workforce used to selling and being rejected. And traditional family roles lead to a large group of women outside of the labor force looking for a way to help support their families.

This is an interesting anecdote. All too often, interviewers seem to be looking for any reason they can not to hire someone rather than looking for evidence that the person would be a good co-worker. I am guilty of this to some extent, but a lot of it comes down to the interview culture/framework of the company in question.

I've never done it, but I've toyed with the idea for one primary reason: accountability. I might just ignore the viewers, or maybe I'd interact and gain some insight about the problem at hand. Either way, just knowing that someone is watching and expecting me to do something (preferably on a schedule) would be a good motivator to actually do it.

Those are fascinating, and give me a glimpse into a world I didn't even know I found interesting.

One major difference (that some may care about less than I do) is that the TikTok format is great for seeing a variety of content, but does little to help me create. Admittedly, YouTube is filled with lots of filler information (to please their own algorithms) but I could probably figure out what cameras/lights to use, software settings, how to edit, etc... The best TikTok can do is show me what others are capable of.

It's ironic, isn't it? Our system was designed as a compromise, and has resulted in compromise becoming essentially impossible (or at least unpalatable.)

It's amazing that it worked for as long as it did.

We probably need a more detailed vocabulary for describing various types of social media. In my opinion, the most insidious forms of social media share three attributes:

* Broad reach - they are accessible to and used by a population broadly for public communication rather than a specific subset of the population or private communication.

* Optimized for engagement - Content is personalized and optimized for individual engagement. Compare this to a stream of content organized by time (email inbox) or basically time with minimal voting/decaying (HN)

* Feedback is quantifiable and visible - Likes, retweets, upvotes (ie, engagement metrics) are countable and displayed to users. I think this gets at something deep in the human psyche and encourages users to chase those metrics.

It turns out that in systems with all three (FB, Twitter), you create enormous echo chambers that only occasionally flare up into outrage when they inevitably leak to a broader audience. This is great for engagement but pretty self evidently bad for society.

Lots of sites fit somewhere on this spectrum (including HN and Stack Exchange) but have basic safeguards to prevent the worst types of behavior. But this is usually because they aren't profit motivated to slide all the way to one side on the three factors above.

Zappos was a huge infusion of business DNA into Amazon, and from what I understand had a big influence on Amazon's customer service practices (Zappos was/is known for being maniacally customer focused.)

Another acquisition from around the same time was 'diapers.com'. That site is now defunct, and was never huge, but I believe they pioneered the concept of 'subscribing' to consumables like baby formula and, of course, diapers. After that acquisition, Amazon started doing the same with baby products, then their own brands, and now you can subscribe to just about any recurring purchase on the site.

In these cases, I think the acquisitions provided much more than the economic value of the business. They infused Amazon with new strategies and ideas to make them, as you said, stronger _and more diverse._