dunkelheit

Another guy I worked directly with. He had at some point a couple hundred reports, but downshifted to an ordinary engineer. I was struck by how profoundly chill and unambitious he was, how indifferent to flaws in his code (entirely lacking any kind of engineer's pride). But at least he was doing honest and useful work.

The stories they tell are golden though.

As an aside, isn't it a strange quirk in our capitalist society that we perceive workers that were vital for early success but then stopped contributing much as "leeches" but early investors who do the same are totally OK and rightfully own their share of the later pie?

The problem starts with the slogan "everything is political" which utterly fails to recognize the varying degree with which any activity relates to some political cause. Take Coinbase - their long-term project is to advance the use of cryptocurrencies which is deeply political. And you are welcome to work there if you support this project or engage in activism against it if you don't. This much makes sense. But why do Coinbase management has to issue a statement supporting BLM? What do they even have to do with police brutality? Of course there is a line of argument that they are (just as everybody) complicit in systemic racism so it is their responsibility but it never made much sense to me. Making everybody responsible for everything is not going to work.

In a sense this slogan is similar to "everything is connected", which is in some sense true, but if one takes it too seriously there is a risk of failing to recognize very real differences between things and boundaries between different subsystems which will lead to paralysis or suboptimal actions.

Does anyone remember Color Labs? Go read this thread and marvel at the similarities: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2364463. A stellar team backed by top VCs who invested (extraordinary at the time) $41M sets out to build a location enabled photo-sharing app. VCs tout it as "the next Google". Most of HN is pretty critical with some voices advocating caution and saying "let's not be so dismissive, maybe there is something more to it". Well, it turned out there was nothing more to it.

So no, being dismissed by HN does not automatically mean that your idea is good and you will be successful.

It is not an axiom though, but rather an architectural guideline that comes with its own set of trade-offs and must be applied judiciously.

I think this is a general and important point (and sadly not at all discussed in his post). When an expert publicly says something that seems wrong, my default explanation is that they have a vested interest that consciously or unconsciously forces them to consider the implications of what they say and alter the message accordingly. Recent case in point: public health authorities telling the public that masks are useless and even harmful during the pandemic (presumably to avoid shortages) and then reversing their stance when masks became abundant.

This is especially true for public statements. If I were a friend of pg and we would go to a pub and he would not stop talking about how awesome one of the startups he invested in are, that would be a strong signal for me. But if he shills for one of his investments on twitter and on his blog just like some influencer-investor would do, I don't find this especially strong evidence that said startup is revolutionary even though he is an undisputed expert on startups.

If the reqwest library indeed spawns a thread for every request, it is a good example of that dynamic. Sync mode kind of works but is clearly a second-class citizen and works in a suboptimal fashion. And if you want to peek under the hood to debug it you still have to deal with the async machinery in all its gory detail.

I wonder, why is this kind of system a bad fit for the async model? Is it because all threads must be reliably preemptable?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22862570

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21645117

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16483241

Going to bookmark this one too :)

Eh, no, the answer is not clear. He is clearly writing about people for whom software was something more than just a means to make a lot money and retire. They used to care and now they don't. A large chunk of their soul is gone. And yes, they can now wipe their tears with $100 bills, but this isn't always a good deal to get.

Agreed on the goofy gimmicks part though. They get old very fast.

> There was no immediate indication of Russian involvement in the release of emails that the Post obtained, but its general thrust mirrors a narrative that U.S. intelligence agencies have described as part of an active Russian disinformation effort aimed at the 2020 election.

So the only proof that it comes from Russia is basically "that's the kind of thing the Russians would do." Aren't you spreading disinformation yourself by claiming that it is Russian disinformation?

The thing is, data cleaning is no less fundamental than backpropagation. Maybe more so - learning algorithms come and go, but real-world data is always going to be inherently messy. The difference is in that we have a beautiful mathematical theory for backpropagation but not for data cleaning. So the courses that teach the former but not the latter are akin to the proverbial drunkard that searches for the lost keys under the street light - beautiful mathematical theories are easier to lecture on so they teach them instead of messier (but not less fundamental or useful) topics such as data cleaning.

A surprising consequence of this trend is that while annoying, it had definitely led me to appreciate my home country more (even if I don't support the current government). Probably a predictable manifestation of in-group/out-group dynamics.

It isn't necessarily bad. Novel ideas should face a higher standard of proof than orthodox ideas because a lot more is known about how orthodox ideas really work (including their faults) than about novel ideas.

But there are a couple of ways in which this push back can get really pernicious:

1) By focusing on person rather than the idea. If the orthodoxy views the world as filled with people who are rotten to the core but successfully mimicry as decent, it makes sense to watch everybody for the slightest transgressions and attack the person with full strength when you notice one.

2) By emphasizing ideological unity. Suppose someone has an unorthodox idea and the orthodoxy denounces it. In a pernicious orthodoxy everybody must join in with the denouncing. You are already suspect merely if you don't join. If you try to say something like "hey, actually this has some merit", you are the next target. In extreme cases (e.g. Stalinism) you are the next target if you didn't denounce vigorously enough.

And of course the very idea that orthodoxy can be wrong must itself be orthodox! Otherwise from the POV of orthodoxy there is absolutely no point in engaging in real argument with those who question it.

But you are right, there are examples of Russel Conjugation too (e.g.: "Alexander’s supporters were working themselves into a tizzy") as well as other tricks. This article is quite a case study on spin!

Wait, didn't you just pull that trick on me, by referring to some vague 'others'? :) In seriousness, here is for example the Wikipedia policy that indeed discourages the use of weasel words in attributions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_vie... . The difference is, that policy explicitly prohibits presenting opinions as facts without any attribution so there is a temptation to write in some bogus attribution so that is prohibited too. In any case, an opinion stated with no attribution whatsoever appears to bear more weight.

Of course I am not advocating that magazine articles should be written in the encyclopedic style but I think it is important to be consistent. E.g. it is well-known that authors of The Economist write as omniscient gods and that's OK because readers can correct for that, but mixing styles is suspicious. And isn't it suspicious that almost all statements written from the author's POV in the article are negative?

"...the online persona he has publicly cultivated over the years—that of a gentle headmaster preparing to chaperone a rambunctious group of boys on a museum outing—but, in this case, it seemed to lend plausible deniability to what he surely knew would be taken as incitement." - ok, so his gentle manner is a "persona", but he "surely" incites his readers to harass journalists.

"Slate Star Codex is often held up as an example of what the well-behaved Internet can look like—a secret orchard of fruitful inquiry." - note the passive voice.

"Much of the support Alexander received was motivated simply by a love for his writing." - implies that the support was not founded on actual judgment of the situation.

"On the blog, Alexander strives to set an example as a sensitive, respectful, and humane interlocutor..." - note the word 'strives'. To be fair, the rest of the sentence is genuine praise for his skill as a writer.

"...the rationalists’ general willingness to pursue orderly exchanges on objectionable topics, often with monstrous people, remains not only a point of pride but a constitutive part of the subculture’s self-understanding." - note how willingness to pursue orderly exchanges (with people that are presented as objectively monstrous) is a subjective point of pride.

Compare:

"the business model of the Times has little to do with chasing “clicks,” per se, and, even if it did, no self-respecting journalist would conclude that the pursuit of clicks was best served by the de-anonymization of a "random blogger." - presented as a factual statement.

"...a near-pathological commitment to the reinvention of the wheel, using the language of game theory to explain, with mathematical rigor, some fact of social life that anyone trained in the humanities would likely accept as a given." - why is this commitment pathological? Why is it as worthless as presented?

"These conversations, about race and genetic or biological differences between the sexes, have rightfully drawn criticism from outsiders." - why was this criticism rightful?

"The rationalists regularly fail to reckon with power as it is practiced, or history as it has been experienced, and they indulge themselves in such contests with the freedom of those who have largely escaped discrimination." - fairly standard accusations of privilege presented as facts.

"there is some evidence to support the idea that he, like anyone, is wont to sacrifice rigor in moments of passion." - presented as a statement supported by evidence.

Similarly, concerns and worries of the group are presented as subjective, over-reacting and reaching into conspiracy theory territory. By contrast, worries that the group itself is problematic are presented as legitimate.

And of course 'rationalists' are consistently presented as low-status dorks, but I guess it is the usual New Yorker snobbery and not something nefarious.

Looks like an opening for a new model of journalism begins to appear - something that captures the grassroots spirit of blogs, but filters out biased, disingenious and clickbait stuff, traces provenance of information and allows for fact-checking from multiple angles. Of course, the problem is genuinely hard because any startup that attempts this without new ideas about how the thing will be financed will fall prey to the same incentives as the conventional media and fail to make a difference.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Internet_Restriction_B...

True, but presumably these software engineers that I was talking about think about the ability to do their work as something worthy and morally good, not simply as a benefit that they get from a corrupt system. On the other hand, corrupt politicians don't think of bribes as something desirable to have in a system: they either cynically exploit their position for strictly personal gain or think of themselves as victims of the system who are forced to take bribes.

> I think it's fair to say that destruction of private property turns the situation into an economic problem, which in turn is a political pressure point. Rich people have more influence over police departments and attorneys general than do poor people. But for such pressure to do any useful work, the message must be, "give us justice and the looting will end."

This can be a valid strategy. I am reminded of someone who successfully executed this strategy: ANC and Nelson Mandela. But they were very clear in their demands and always stressed that they were reluctantly engaging in violence only because they had exhausted all peaceful methods. In contrast it seems that many who support recent riots are not very interested in actual solutions to the problem and only want to stick it to the Man in some way.

There definitely are people making such arguments. The assertion is that property is the root cause of injustice so presumably destroying it is just. See for example https://twitter.com/ImReadinHere/status/1267402206220869632

What puzzles me is that some people supporting this argument are highly paid software engineers. How do they reconcile this with the fact that it is precisely the concept of private property (and yes, violent enforcement of it) that allows them to sit in front of the computer all day building some cool stuff and not worry that some violent thug will break into their house and take away their laptop?

She posted that tweet more like 11 hours ago. Since that time it has become somewhat infamous - I've seen it in my deliberately not-politicized timeline and separately here on HN. What is the chance their content moderation team hasn't seen it?

The point is that they could have all this, but without them capitalizing on the incredible wave of rising hardware performance we wouldn't be talking about them now. Big opportunities arise when the situation is dynamic.

> > The problem with this way of thinking is that existing markets are probably efficient enough > Oh, that's certainly not true. The challenge there is the expertise to see the current dysfunction versus the risk of solving for it.

Notice that I didn't state that there is no dysfunction, only that there are no easy opportunities to exploit it. The reality is that the world is full of dysfunctions but they persist not because people are lazy to fix them, but because our systems are stuck in the bad equilibria which are hard to get out of. Take healthcare for example. To anyone who went to a doctor even once the dysfunction is obvious. The system can probably be made 10x more efficient with fairly simple tweaks! But good luck implementing them - you will be stuck in the molasses created by regulation, incumbents and simple inertia of people unwilling to experiment with their health.

What's the alternative? To wait for tectonic shifts in overall environment and circumstances, look for vacant ecological niches and pounce when you see one. To the outside view this will look exactly like a founder who doesn't know what to start up.

Here is an example I like: John Carmack. The conventional view is that he is a brilliant game programmer (which is undoubtedly true). But the alternative point of view is that his shtick was to capitalize on the period of incredible advances in consumer hardware. Each of his games fully showcased what the best hardware of that time was capable of (order of magnitude more than the previous generation) which made them instant hits. Not coincidentally, he quit making games around the time this period of advancement stopped.

Here is a post by @defmacro making a similar point: http://www.defmacro.org/2015/02/25/startup-ideas.html