Hacker News Reader

tacosbaneon My take on Elon's offer for Twitter

tldr; free speech is hard because regulating speech is impossible

can we build an AI to detect that the AI goalposts keep getting moved?

tacosbaneon What's the strangest code you've seen a senior developer write? (2019)

There is not a single example about why this was "wrong" (e.g., filter equivalences to other join types) or a single acknowledgment of good reasons the admitted technical and architectural SME during your first-ever real-world experience might have for doing this. So I'm guessing this author has more than once incorrectly calculated a mean because he innered when he should have outered.

tacosbaneon The Programmatic Poop Funnel: Only 9% of online ads are “viewed”

Likely additional margin for the DSP: (DSP billing) - (DSP fees) - (ad spend) = delta. Of course it doesn't show up that way on the bill. source: worked at a DSP.

tacosbaneon I’ve been waiting 15 years for Facebook to die

(paraphrasing) "i was right and it only saved users by buying instagram" != "first ever user shrinkage on facebook"

tacosbaneon More intuitive partial function application in Python

https://toolz.readthedocs.io/en/latest/curry.html

tacosbaneon More than half of Bitcoin investors are in the red, study says

given that bitcoin is no longer a currency and its lack of liquidity, i'd say you're in the red until the moment you exit for more than your original position

tacosbaneon How the Native American population changed since the last census

The Elizabeth Warren effect.

tacosbaneon Tell HN: Stop Accepting Shitty Interviews

> 1. If LeetCode problems are not only irrelevant, but actually turning away good employees, why aren't more companies shunning LeetCode problems?

At the margin, most companies (probably close to 100% for many sectors) do not make money from code quality. I'd argue it's actually pretty far from the margin for most companies. See the overwhelming shittiness of almost every software product that's been around for more than a couple of years. Almost all products get worse over time but still some companies make more money. IP and market position are much more important. I think this can also explain why so many very successful companies never launch a successful second product: they didn't initially succeed because they're so much better at development than everyone else, they succeeded because of the serendipity of the initial product.

tacosbaneon Ask HN: What’s the most outrageous belief you’re confident is true?

disney literally pays for the head of positive reviews, coverage, and social media discourse and has bots generating the long tail. i think it's well understood the middle of the distribution is pay to play (positive coverage to get any access). 90+ percent of their releases is utter trash but most people associated with media/entertainment seem actually scared to criticize it.

tacosbaneon DoorDash will require all employees to deliver goods

if a company requires 20+ hours of toy work a technical screen, they probably don't respect your time

tacosbaneon Sen. Joe Manchin says no to $2T bill: ‘I can’t vote for it’

Oh well that's different...

tacosbaneon Sen. Joe Manchin says no to $2T bill: ‘I can’t vote for it’

The Democrats have 49 seats in the Senate! They should be able to do whatever they want!

tacosbaneon Decentralised finance is booming, but it has yet to find its purpose

i believe that's called a "bubble"