ismail-khan

Shameless user of nextmv here!

Nextmv has just the right level of abstraction needed for software engineers. Took us very little time to get a production model running.

What’s the point of the subject tests anyway when you already have AP exams?

It was pointless for me to do both in high school, the subject tests were much easier.

Would you mind elaborating on how build scripts helped you (what problem did you solve?) and sharing learning resources?

Title:

> Dissent Erupts at Facebook Over Hands-Off Stance on Political Ads

From the article:

> More than 250 employees have signed the message

Facebook has >35,000 employees. 250 signees is <0.7% of employees. Hardly seems like an "eruption" of dissent.

The article does acknowledge this:

> While the number of signatures on the letter was a fraction of Facebook’s 35,000-plus work force...

So why use such a misleading title? "A tiny fraction of company employees does not like company policies" is a statement you can make about every sizable company.

Isn’t that Google Cloud Spanner?

> They are so used to live their own lives that they have extremely hard time compromising any part of it.

Reminds me of this passage from The Brothers Karamazov:

> “I heard exactly the same thing, a long time ago to be sure, from a doctor,” the elder remarked. “He was then an old man, and unquestionably intelligent. He spoke just as frankly as you, humorously, but with a sorrowful humor. ‘I love mankind,’ he said, ‘but I am amazed at myself: the more I love mankind in general, the less I love people in particular, that is, individually, as separate persons. In my dreams,‘ he said, ‘I often went so far as to think passionately of serving mankind, and, it may be, would really have gone to the cross for people if it were somehow suddenly necessary, and yet I am incapable of living in the same room with anyone even for two days, this I know from experience. As soon as someone is there, close to me, his personality oppresses my self-esteem and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I can begin to hate even the best of men: one because he takes too long eating his dinner, another because he has a cold and keeps blowing his nose. I become the enemy of people the moment they touch me,’ he said. ‘On the other hand, it has always happened that the more I hate people individually, the more ardent becomes my love for humanity as a whole.’”

The speaker goes on to say:

> Love in dreams thirsts for immediate action, quickly performed, and with everyone watching. Indeed, it will go as far as the giving even of one’s life, provided it does not take long but is soon over, as on stage, and everyone is looking on and praising. Whereas active love is labor and perseverance, and for some people, perhaps, a whole science.

> As a Russian, I don’t understand how Americans can “get into” Dostoevsky or Tolstoy. The cultural background required to understand them is simply not there, so you’re getting maybe 50% of what’s there, and that’s an optimistic estimate.

I'm from Pakistan, and I've adored everything I've read so far of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. I don't think you need so much cultural background to "get into" either author. In fact, part of why I enjoyed War & Peace and Anna Karenina so much is precisely because of the uncanny parallels between 19th century Russian aristocrats and modern Pakistani society. As just one example, the view of French as a more modern, cultured language vs Russian parallels how English is viewed in Pakistan.

I'm sure I must have missed out on some cultural context. But I would say I missed perhaps 10% of what's in the books, not 50% :)

Who said Linux was simple? :)

“We shape our buildings; thereafter our buildings shape us”

Leo Tolstoy took about 1400 pages to make exactly this point in War and Peace :)

Or, in continuous terms, marginal X is simply the first derivative of X with respect to some other variable.

This is really great insider information, thanks for sharing!

Tesla is still responsible for picking the right supplier & some degree of quality control even on components they didn't manufacture themselves. Perfectly OK to hold them responsible as well.

And Promises too!

Can you give an example where a shell script would solve the problem? Curious to know

That's not remotely close to what the parent comment was saying...

The buyer is usually not the end user.

For example, a landlord is biased towards purchasing appliances that looks complex so they can show off all the extra "features" to clients.

This isn't the fairest comparison, because the richest Americans are richer than the richest Canadians. If the Canadian income distribution is tighter, then it's easier for a Canadian to reach the top 20% simply because the gap between bottom 20 and top 20 is smaller.

I think a fairer comparison would be to specify the "yardsticks" on both sides: what % of people in either country below X income manage to achieve an income above Y?

Upon further reflection, I think it's not so much about human vs physical capital (and I agree with your point), but about IT workers vs other types of workers.

If a company of 5 Indian software engineers is booted out of the US, they can get together anywhere else in the world and still develop a product to the same standard. By contrast, other workers have "stickier" skills that tie you to a specific country. An Indian aerospace engineer may find it hard to find work in India, for example.

Another way to look at it: if restrictions on high skill tech immigration tighten, then tech companies that would have been founded in America will instead be founded elsewhere.

This is more true of software than of any other industry, because software is built mostly with human capital which can cross borders fairly easily.