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toby

1,226 karma · joined June 5, 2008

I am an author of programming books (most notably "Programming collective intelligence"), data geek, former developer at Google, engineering director at Reddit, and now Head of Engineering for MobileCoin.

Talk to me about coding, snowboarding or cocktails.

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toby··on How to send $ETH in 19 lines of Python
It's interesting that the Kimberley Process intended to prevent conflict diamonds is a chain of warranties, one of the criticisms thereto was that there was little proof that the previous warranty ever existed.

So even though you're being sarcastic, you might be on to something there :) (I'm not suggesting this is possible, just idle musings)

toby··on Rust is for Professionals
There's a Cargo tool called "clippy" which will tell you if it finds unnecessary clones.
toby··on Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama
That's because SAG is a guild, not a union, and it works because every known actor is voluntarily a member, so you can't make a movie without agreeing to their rules.
toby··on Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama
I'm not arguing, if anything I'm agreeing, was just trying to clarify some things.
toby··on Amazon workers vote against unionizing in Alabama
Guilds are a little different from unions in practice. They set minimum standards but there's no group negotiation based on seniority or anything like that. Studios are free to pay some hot rising star 100x as much as the guy who has been a character actor for 30 years as long as he's making the minimum and getting his breaks and meals and stuff.

It's also a challenge to get into a guild, SAG has minimum requirements for having already performed. A union is generally just something you have to join when you take a job at a unionized company.

This is not a value judgment, just wanted to point out the differences.

toby··on Dogs orient and move in synchrony with family members
This is pretty cultural and contextual -- in many social groups, at least on the west coast, holding hands and cuddling between friends is common. In some Asian countries you often see two boys walking down the street holding hands. I don't really agree that there's wisdom in teaching people jealousy over perfectly innocent behavior.
toby··on I Miss My Bar
> apparently the free market is a good idea only when your business goes well

This statement is so confusing. Forcing millions of businesses which were previously legal to shutter under questionable authority is literally the opposite of a free market.

toby··on I Miss My Bar
Open-air dining with six feet of separation is almost certainly safe. There's literally no evidence to the contrary despite multiple court orders to produce any.
toby··on McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source
Totally agree, this is cherry-picking.

I don't have an opinion on how useful McKinsey is, but I'll note that no one is pointing out that they also did a lot of work for Microsoft before their big turnaround.

toby··on McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source
Since you went there...

"Affect" can also be a noun, referring to behavioral characteristics :)

toby··on Ask HN: I want to start learning Lisp. Where do I begin?
There are a few people who have translated the solutions to Clojure, this one looks like the most comprehensive: http://www.sicpdistilled.com/
toby··on Being good at coding competitions correlates negatively with job performance
I think you'll find a good sample of people who did poorly on their interviews but were still hired due to stellar references, corporate politics or nepotism.
toby··on Ask HN: Was 20% time a good policy for Google's working culture?
It was amazing how some people lapped up everything he wrote about Google (case in point: apparently a lot of people don't believe 20% time exists at all any more), I guess because he was so prolific (it was hard for actual Googlers to keep up rebut everything), and he was playing into some confirmation bias.
toby··on Airbnb’s Stunning IPO
Fair point -- I should have been more clear, this analysis was based on comparing the post-lockup price to the first trade, and also to the primary offering price (not 180 days to 179 days). You'd sometimes see a drop from the "pop" price, although not always, and it would almost never fall below the primary price.
toby··on Elon Musk Decries ‘M.B.A.-ization’ of America
I suppose it depends what you mean by "run", but Sheryl Sandberg went to HBS
toby··on Airbnb’s Stunning IPO
Without any judgment, your sample may be extremely biased...
toby··on Airbnb’s Stunning IPO
Everyone says this about the lock up and it makes sense intuitively, but it doesn't really match the data. I saw a presentation by a major investment bank that showed that in most cases there is not a significant drop following the lock up expiration -- I'm sure there are examples either way, but this was a compelling basket.
toby··on The Airbnbs
Thank you. Anyone who looks at the numbers can see that AirBnb is not affecting housing availability in any meaningful way.

There are about 6 times more permanently vacant units in SF than the peak number of AirBnb, and the amount of construction that has been blocked during discretionary review (met the zoning requirements, people complained about parking) since AirBnb's existence far exceeds the AirBnb units too.

(I am in favor of vacancy taxes, a house being used, even by a short-term renter, is better than the blight caused by properties sitting empty)

toby··on DoorDash from Application to IPO
Off the top of my head, Sequoia did back The Melt, there was a time a few years ago when VCs did dabble in restaurants.
toby··on An Elderly Mathematician Hacked the Lottery for $26M
I've both made friends and strengthened existing friendships at the blackjack table and craps table. I love gambling for its own sake, but it's still a little sad to me that so much of a casino floor is slot machines which are not social.
toby··on Book publishers call on Apple to match 15% commission granted to developers
My first thought... when you realize they've been taking 96% as the gatekeepers for so long, Apple's fees don't sound as absurd. With traditional print publishing there is a lot of value add, but with ebooks they're really just choosing winners.

Aside: I have met several people who admitted to downloading my books on torrents, and they gave me the $2 I would have made if they'd bought it :)

toby··on Guitar Center files for bankruptcy
Sorry I guess I misstated my point, MAP seems super shady, I just didn't realize that the other things I found shady were basically forced by MAP.
toby··on Guitar Center files for bankruptcy
Thank you for introducing me to this concept. I hadn't heard of MAP and ended up reading about it.

I had always assumed that a salesperson immediately offering me a discount, or that weird "price shown when you add to cart" pattern were just people being shady to increase conversion... while that may be true some of the time, I had no idea there was a legitimate reason why they might not tell you the "real" price upfront.

toby··on The Gods on Hacker News
Sorry, I may have slightly misstated my point... I live in San Francisco, it's just been my experience that wealth and success doesn't always make people inaccessible.
toby··on The Gods on Hacker News
> There's no way in hell many of the people I've talked to on here about a bunch of different things would ever have those conversations with me, or any conversation probably, in person.

In San Francisco there are tech millionaires everywhere. Just like almost every other group, some are nice, gregarious, excited to talk to anyone; others are rude, snobbish and judgmental. You're likely underestimating yourself and others.

toby··on Why are so many unprofitable companies the best performing stocks this year?
Close, but you're missing a step: create new money, give it to Americans so they can afford to buy exercise bikes, put a gun to the head of anyone who dares challenge the US dollar hegemony.
toby··on Why are so many unprofitable companies the best performing stocks this year?
You're correct, but I think the "mystery" here is why a basket of unprofitable companies is outperforming broader indices.
toby··on Virginia voter registration down on last day to register before election
If the concern is urbanites making decisions for rural people, then it's fair to point out that there are plenty more rural people in California than the total population of many other states. The state boundaries are completely arbitrary, yet they affect so much.
toby··on Virginia voter registration down on last day to register before election
I have no idea why you're getting downvoted for this. The Senate system is really silly at this point.

Republicans control the senate despite only having 40% of the popular vote nationally in the Senate races.

Californians pay 13% of the Federal tax revenue and get the same number of Senators as states that contribute less than 1%.

toby··on Paul Stamets on the interrelationship among mushrooms, consciousness, and nature
It was initially based on a true story described in the book "Black Edge". It just kept getting more and more outlandish once they ran out of source material.
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