HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

turtle_

67 karma · joined December 12, 2021

submissionscomments
turtle_··on Why I left iNaturalist
Can you explain what you mean by censored? For example if this was on the forum was the post deleted? If this was a bug filed, was the bug closed or deleted?
turtle_··on Why I left iNaturalist
It’s a living biodiversity record. That kind of data has had an impact on things like: understanding human impact on the macro environment, ID new species, provide scientists with more accurate population distributions etc. Perhaps controversial, but the data has also been critical to computer science, specifically computer vision and AI algorithms. eg what’s the bird in this picture?
turtle_··on Why I left iNaturalist
Do you have a copy of what you posted that was censored? I assume you mean censored on the iNat forum.
turtle_··on Figma and Adobe abandon proposed merger
Having gone through one major acquisition, my experience was that legal put a huge block on any technical integrations and even meetings that might reveal ip until the ink was dried. I'm skeptical they started any kind of collaborative work other than pie-in-the-sky, "wouldn't it be cool if" type meetings with lawyers present.
turtle_··on We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO
If you grew up in the 90s, you’ll understand:

Don’t hate the player, hate the game

turtle_··on Today Google is turning on tracking for many users that previously turned it off
I recently left Google after spending a few years there.

Internally Google puts a huge premium on user safety and privacy. So much so that shipping anything requires getting changes through a regulatory process to safeguard users.

Google doesn’t do a good job of marketing its process. In some domains Google does explicitly use user behavior to drive revenue, so from the outside it becomes easy to spin changes like this as encroaching on user privacy, but I don’t see that here. I see something like a PM who is trying to surface some more functionality to users directly, and some engineers who spent far too long with lawyers to get sign off on this change.

It may be fashionable to sensationalize product changes like this, but the truth is often more mundane.

Edit: found a comment from the PM themselves in a previous discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30174304

turtle_··on My favorite things about working at companies with a culture of writing
Sounds like Google. Perf is the engine that powers the bizarre internal meat machine. Fuel are the artifacts: docs and code. More the better.
turtle_··on Malloy – A Better SQL, from Looker
Quickstart documentation (linked from readme), with many examples, is here: https://looker-open-source.github.io/malloy/documentation/la...
turtle_··on I have a brain injury [video]
i'm no doctor, but my current self help plan is to keep exercising cardio, low impact due to attributed anti-inflammatory effects, reduced carbs and sugar (i'm already low here but will probably fully go to zero). i've also started hyperbaric oxygen therapy which so far hasn't had immediate effects but does provide extremely deep sleeps which seem to help significantly.
turtle_··on I have a brain injury [video]
thank you for the book reference, i will check it out. Sterling's case has been eye opening for the community for sure. thankfully he posted as recently as today that he seems to be doing better https://www.instagram.com/p/CXXW6zpjQT7/
turtle_··on I have a brain injury [video]
that's the fear. worst case would be cte or some high sensitivity to concussions. i'm still in the evaluative stage, so fingers crossed it's not
turtle_··on I have a brain injury [video]
Jan of 2021 I fell on a small wave ~2ft. I hit the water with the side of my face in a strange way that felt like a moderate slap but didn't think much of it. I kept surfing and caught plenty more waves. A couple days later I noticed I was very tired and couldn't focus. Finally I figured out I had a concussion, took a few days off work and got better within a week.

In Oct I fell again, in the same strange way, but this time from a much higher height. I didn't blackout but I immediately knew it was not good. My symptoms have still not fully resolved 2 months later. The skin on the left side of my head is at times extra sensitive and at times borderline numb. I frequently have trouble focusing and have ended up taking 50% sick time to recover. The good news is that overall the symptoms are getting better.

I've surfed for over 20 years and fallen on significantly larger, more critical waves with no injury. Losing the ability to focus and think clearly is terrible, I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I also believe that because it's not a visible injury (ie I'm not walking around with crutches) it's harder for others to empathize with. Thankfully I feel supported by my employer, but I now believe that head injury severity likely goes undiagnosed and certainly under-appreciated in our society. The falls I took were very minor, if it can happen from that, my guess is it's more frequent that we realize.