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johnnyb9

321 karma · joined March 10, 2013

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johnnyb9··on FCC hits robocaller with agency's largest-ever fine of $120M
My attitude as well. If someone wanted to get in touch with me for something important, I imagine they would leave a voicemail or text or email me.

In my iPhone I have "do not disturb" setup and it only allows people in my address book through.

johnnyb9··on How Student Debt Reduces Lifetime Wealth
I think even better would be to have the federal government get out of the student loan business altogether -- it's been shown that as 60% of federal aid increases end up increasing tuition by that amount.
johnnyb9··on On average, skipping college and investing tuition costs nets a higher return
https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff...

"We find a pass-through effect on tuition of changes in subsidized loan maximums of about 60 cents on the dollar, and smaller but positive effects for unsubsidized federal loans."

johnnyb9··on Google and Paint.NET need to stop misleading users (2013)
And four years later they are still there...
johnnyb9··on Google and Paint.NET need to stop misleading users (2013)
Everyone seems to give Google the benefit of the doubt here. Is it possible they aren't doing anything because they are making lots of money from this ethical grey area?

The incentives seem perfectly aligned... the advertiser doubtlessly doesn't care about whether it's a scrupulous ad or not. Paint.NET authors make money, and Google makes money.

johnnyb9··on Don't overuse interfaces
In C#, it's just about the only way to unit test aside from making abstract/virtual or using something like TypeMock (paid).

The author suggests using virtual, but if your intent is not to allow child classes to override the implementation, this is certainly not "pure".

Visual Studio & ReSharper makes the code generation (Refactor > Extract Interface) and maintenance upkeep trivial anyway.

johnnyb9··on How I went from failing every interview to a job at Amazon
My point was not that they do or do not exist, merely the magnitude. I would venture a guess that for every software engineer working on a blockchain there are 100 working on crud-style applications. If a job on your team requires a solid understanding of these concepts, then by all means filter on knowledge of algorithms. My point is that many companies don't do anything remotely as complex and yet use the same filters to screen job applicants.
johnnyb9··on How I went from failing every interview to a job at Amazon
How many programmers work for Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc and how many work for non-web scale companies? As a professional programmer in financial services I have never had to use a red-black tree, min heap or do anything more advanced than properly using a HashTable.
johnnyb9··on H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms
My point is that international students may "subsidize" the university, but in practice this should have very little to do with what the university would charge its students (they are not "subsidizing" the domestic students). Implicit in your assumption is that tuition uses cost-based pricing which I find hard to believe. Admittedly this is all conjecture on my part but I don't find that line of reasoning persuasive.
johnnyb9··on H-1B visas mainly go to Indian outsourcing firms
I have trouble believing students are paying less tuition because there is a greater demand from international students. If anything, the tuition would be higher. That international students are more profitable doesn't change the value of the degree or what everyone else is willing to pay for it.
johnnyb9··on Bay Area professionals indicted for H-1B visa fraud
Just because they pay full tuition doesn't mean domestic students pay less. If anything they are subsidizing the salaries of the people working at the universities.
johnnyb9··on Tech Interview Torture Chamber
I regret not doing this the few times lines were crossed (on one interview someone ridiculed me for not being able to answer a ridiculous math question because I went to a top CS program).
johnnyb9··on Tech Interview Torture Chamber
I once had to do a take home project... the spec said I could write either a console application or a GUI.

Fast forward to the in person meeting, they go through my solution and nitpick random things like "why use NuGet packages" or "why no test cases" (I had written them but they got mysteriously removed from the solution).

Finally the CTO speaks up and asked why I didn't write a GUI, as many other candidates had (mind you this was an application that accepted inputs and ran a calculation). I responded, "it's less effort to write a console application and the assignment said it was acceptable". CTO then snarkily asks me "do you always do the minimum"? I should have snarkily responded "only when I'm asked to code for free".

Thankfully did not get an offer...

johnnyb9··on The Wall Street Journal to Close Google Loophole Entirely
I think this article pretty much sums up how I feel about the Washington Post: https://theintercept.com/2017/01/04/washpost-is-richly-rewar...
johnnyb9··on How quickly can you remove spaces from a string?
Going to start using this as an interview question!
johnnyb9··on Plan to restrict highly skilled foreign workers could be a boon for India
Maybe that's the case with Google or Facebook or Amazon. For all the other medium or small businesses for which these visas predominate (albeit indirectly), my experience has been quite the opposite.
johnnyb9··on New XPS 15 Laptop
I returned my two XPS 9550 because of build issues. On my first unit there was "coil whine" on the AC adapter (strange noises coming from the AC adapter when I scrolled in Chrome) and the other unit wouldn't wake up from sleep. Don't think I'll buy one again.
johnnyb9··on The New York Times to Offer Open Access on Web and Apps for the Election
Well the restrictions being lifted apply to both the news coverage and opinion section, don't they?
johnnyb9··on The New York Times to Offer Open Access on Web and Apps for the Election
WSJ?
johnnyb9··on Visual Studio Code 1.7.1
Reminds me of the 5 year old bug to fix Intellisense completion mode in SSMS, finally fixed in 2016.
johnnyb9··on SQL style guide
Doesn't break autocomplete in Visual Studio 2015...
johnnyb9··on SQL style guide
Not to mention with an ORM tool you'll have an Employee object, and probably call your collection employees.

Which is better?

foreach (var employee in staff) {

}

or

foreach (var employee in employees) {

}

johnnyb9··on SQL style guide
This is great, agree with many of the suggestions.

The worst SQL for my eyes is the stuff that has multiple columns, etc. on the same line. Makes diffing stuff 2x as hard and you can't parse as much information. Though maybe I'm just used to that at this point.

johnnyb9··on A Surveillance Master Dissects a Murder from the Sky [video]
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-baltimore-secret-sur...

Highly recommend the read

johnnyb9··on Every top 5 song from 1958 to 2016
Leave it running in a separate window.
johnnyb9··on How Hackers Stole $100M from the New York Fed
I kinda like the articles on Zero Hedge. Is there a reason people on HN don't seem to like it?
johnnyb9··on Amazon Seeks to Ease Ties with UPS
As an NYC resident I can't say I've noticed the difference (within the past 6 months or so, anyway). Almost all my packages get shipped via USPS but get there by the guaranteed delivery date.
johnnyb9··on Literate SQL
Using SQL Server my normal pattern of development is to do what I need using CTE's (WITH) and then switch to temp tables if/when the queries start to show poor performance.
johnnyb9··on Who's Profiting from $1.2T of Federal Student Loans?
Well then, why not have the government do everything? Service mortgages, run supermarkets, etc.
johnnyb9··on Who's Profiting from $1.2T of Federal Student Loans?
Because a private company could to it more cheaply and efficiently?
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