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nicolashahn

2,359 karma · joined March 7, 2013

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nicolashahn··on Waymo runs over beloved neighborhood cat in Mission District
Because they're better than humans at driving in all other ways too? Why would cats be some outlier?
nicolashahn··on Waymo runs over beloved neighborhood cat in Mission District
It's not a leap to say that a driver that's safer to humans is also safer to cats. Human drivers try to avoid hitting humans and cats. Waymos make less driving mistakes in general. They're also never inebriated, tired, or inexperienced.
nicolashahn··on Waymo runs over beloved neighborhood cat in Mission District
Sad but at the end of the day Waymos are significantly less dangerous drivers than humans. If all cars on the street were Waymos, cats (and everyone else) would be much safer.

https://waymo.com/blog/2025/05/waymo-making-streets-safer-fo...

Though, Waymo should absolutely be responsible for this and be treated as if it were a human who hit the cat.

nicolashahn··on Are Young People Having Enough Sex?
Income is inversely correlated with fertility

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

nicolashahn··on Denmark to raise retirement age to 70
I found this article from 2017:

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/11/29/europes-grow...

The most recent birth rate stats I can find is 2005-2010 where Muslims have a birth rate of 3.0 while the rest of the country is at 1.8. Estimates say it's more like 2.5 now, but the current overall UK birth rate is only 1.57 from a quick Google.

https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2...

The same article also states that the average age for Muslims is much lower than non-Muslims as of 2016, 28 vs 41 for the UK.

https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2017/...

nicolashahn··on Denmark to raise retirement age to 70
The difference is that this is a change in the demographics of a population, not the overall growth, which is limited by resources available. The growth of Islam isn't constrained by anything other than the cultural practices that lead to them having more children than the rest of the population and the tolerance of the country for immigration. These things could definitely shift to balance the scales but there's no guarantee that happens and there have absolutely been many times in history where a native population has been displaced by the growth of an immigrant group.

Stepping back a bit, Pew expects Islam to overtake Christianity as the dominant world religion in a few decades: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/04/06/why-musli...

nicolashahn··on Denmark to raise retirement age to 70
You're not comparing the same stats. The original stat was growth rate compared to the rest of the country. Islam's overall growth rate has been fairly steady for decades, although admittedly it has slowed, but at a rate that could conceivably stop above Christianity, which your chart shows is decreasing about as rapidly as Islam is rising. I think it's reasonable to project that it may settle below Islam eventually. Realistically, there will be continued backlash by native English and that may temper immigration, though even if immigration stops, the birth rate of Muslims in the UK is still much higher than native population.

However - if we're including atheist then clearly that'll be the majority position.

nicolashahn··on Denmark to raise retirement age to 70
I said "on the way to".

> Between 2001 and 2009, the Muslim population increased almost 10 times faster than the non-Muslim population.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_the_United_Kingdom?wp...

Granted 2009 was a while ago but they're still the fastest growing population in the UK by a lot.

nicolashahn··on Denmark to raise retirement age to 70
Raising the birth rate is extremely difficult and immigration will destroy a country's culture if not managed properly.

For an interesting case study, compare Japan (who refuses to allow mass immigration and is at risk of going extinct) and the UK (who has embraced it and is on the way to becoming Muslim-majority). It'll be interesting to see in 50 years which one has had better outcomes.

nicolashahn··on Denmark to raise retirement age to 70
So close! Pensions are actually property taken from the younger generation and given to retirees.
nicolashahn··on Denmark to raise retirement age to 70
I feel like there really hasn't been sincere data-backed methods with proper resources behind them, for example governments giving out minor cash benefits to parents of a few thousand dollars when that's a drop in the bucket compared to the total cost of raising a kid and is not going to convince anyone who wasn't already going to have kids.

Also, that's a wild solution. You'd have to do away with monogamy which would cause some pretty insane societal shifts. However, as a straight guy I can see the appeal lol.

nicolashahn··on Meta fined $101M for storing passwords in plaintext
Side effect of "move fast and break things", which is why the slogan has been changed to "move fast with stable infrastructure" (not kidding)
nicolashahn··on Waymo now serves over 100k paid trips per week
I've been using it and I really like it. The cars are always clean and comfortable, you can choose the music, and you don't need to talk to anyone. A couple bucks more than Lyft/Uber though, and there was one time it got stuck negotiating a two way one lane road when another car was coming, but people have trouble with that situation too.

The first time you take a ride in one is really amazing, it really makes you think "I'm living in the future." I recommend anyone visiting SF take one.

nicolashahn··on Meta Is Shuttering Workplace, Its Enterprise Version of Facebook
I'm at Meta, I like using it for the most part. The chat could be improved upon but overall I really like having Facebook-like Groups and I don't think any other platform has something like that.
nicolashahn··on OpenAI prepares to fight for its life as legal troubles mount
They will also offer equity which will be much more than that.
nicolashahn··on Are US EV sales a disaster or a booming segment? The answer may be both
PHEVs are the answer
nicolashahn··on From Seattle move in a straight line due East. What country will you hit?
How does this change the meaning and answer?
nicolashahn··on The unwritten rules of negotiating with Meta
There's no official policy or guidance that has changed on the expectations for the behavioral/sys design interviews I know of, which is fairly transparent. I saw your stat for 55% self reported down-levels, do you have a stat from before the downturn?

One thing I have noticed is that in my experience (around 70 interviews total since I started giving interviews in 2021) the average performance on the coding portions dipped sharply around the time that our stock did. My theory is that the more talented candidates focused on companies with a better outlook and so it was weaker candidates that were making it to the technical interview stage. I've noticed that in the last few months I'm seeing candidates do better on the coding interviews which supports my theory.

nicolashahn··on The unwritten rules of negotiating with Meta
I'm a SWE at Meta and do technical interviews. I'd say you're right on most things except down-leveling. There are some very specific things interviewers are looking for in the behavioral and system design interviews and I believe they accurately predict how an engineer will perform at a given level within Meta, which may be different than how they would at the "same" level at another company. In my experience and from speaking to other FAANG engineers, Meta expects engineers to do a lot more than just code past E4. E5+ ("senior") should be able to do some of what a PM does, generate impactful projects on their own, and be able to be a team lead (although that's usually for E6+), plus some more stuff. I know at least I was definitely leveled fairly, and even struggled a bit to get used to the expectations when I first started out.
nicolashahn··on Nvidia Announces Financial Results for Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2024
Who would be the one to actually provide competition? AMD, Intel, someone else?
nicolashahn··on A 20MP Sensor in a Film Canister Reinvigorates Vintage Analog Cameras
First, this is a cool project and I'm glad they're doing it, for the people who want this thing.

However, I see it as combining the main downsides of film and digital. The reason most people shoot film these days is the look that film gives the image which digital just can't seem to reproduce. People shoot modern digital cameras primarily because of the huge amount of features and improvements over film cameras. This gives you neither.

The main reason I can see for someone to want one of these is that you really want to shoot using a film body but you don't want to pay for or deal with the hassle of film. I wonder how many people that's actually going to end up being when this ships.

nicolashahn··on The Matching Problem in Dating
I also disagree with the quote, because it doesn't take into account that the average testosterone levels are falling about 1% a year: https://www.medichecks.com/blogs/testosterone/why-do-gen-z-a...

There's a lot of effects that this would have on society but I think one of them would be that more partner-less men that are "satisfied", by that I mean not willing to do things that "decay your country" from the inside like violence and rape due to sexual frustration (which is what I believe the author is implying). The increasing prevalence of porn probably also contributes. Further evidence is that violent and property crime have plummeted over the last few decades: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/11/20/facts-abo...

"Decay" of the country might come in other forms though. Lower testosterone also increases risk of depression, which is well known to be on the rise.

nicolashahn··on What the interns have wrought, 2023 edition
The people that attempt and fail their interviews settle for FAANG and are probably pretty happy. Most software engineers I've met don't even know about Jane Street.

Also, definitely not "in basically every way," but very specifically logical/mathematical intelligence.

nicolashahn··on [dead]
It's crazy to see Californian's reaction to this when in certain parts of the country you'll see half a dozen guns on hips if you walk into a Denny's.
nicolashahn··on SeamlessM4T, a Multimodal AI Model for Speech and Text Translation
Seems like you could easily do a little bash/python script to chop up the recording and batch process each, then stitch the results together?
nicolashahn··on Federal agency tells SF workers to work from home due to unsafe conditions
In the US, it's not the police's job.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia

nicolashahn··on Federal agency tells SF workers to work from home due to unsafe conditions
Enforcing the law is their duty, protecting you is not. You're ultimately responsible for your own protection.
nicolashahn··on Federal agency tells SF workers to work from home due to unsafe conditions
Entirely rebuilding the PD just isn't realistic, and I don't see evidence that it'd even help.

Regardless of what happens with the police, again, law abiding citizens should have the option to defend themselves, especially since the police have no obligation to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia

nicolashahn··on Federal agency tells SF workers to work from home due to unsafe conditions
They should! But they don't, because they have no obligation to protect you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia

nicolashahn··on Federal agency tells SF workers to work from home due to unsafe conditions
Other cities aren't paying drug addicts to shoot up on the streets, and actually take action against drug dealers, which SF refuses to do.
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