onislandtime

geçen yıldiscuss

it's actually pretty easy to automate the state of the vehicle. if anything is left in the car the video is sent to an operator. The service instructs a cleaner to check the car and the passenger is sent a warning and eventually is banned from using the service.

onislandtime

geçen yıldiscuss

We need accurate reporting to learn and fix problems. Any good engineer knows that. We saw how the public quickly started to trust Waymo because it is safer than human drivers by orders of magnitude. This totalitarian regime is going to undermine progress and get people killed by allowing unsafe robotaxis on the streets.

onislandtime

geçen yıldiscuss

I think we all agree that making the Gov more efficient is a good thing but this is about terrorizing federal employees for ideological reasons. There is no crisis to justify this. We do have a crisis in healthcare which is being ignored.

onislandtime

geçen yıldiscuss

People have a hard time understanding the nuances and the context. Because he is somewhat crazy, he is able to do things a normal politician wouldn't do. Clearly, eliminating corruption and waste is a good thing. He was also able to end the endless street protests. He was also the only option that was expected to make radical changes. On the other hand, the guy is pretty crazy, lacks empathy, is authoritarian, hates dissent, lies a lot, and so on. He is in love with Israel and Trump in an emotional way. Everything he doesn't like is extreme left, etc. My hope is that a new force will emerge that can continue fighting corruption, establish rule of law, create a vibrant market economy in a democratic way. It will be a long journey.

onislandtime

2 yıl öncediscuss

Hey, I checked your Reddit thread [1] and I see a good discussion with useful suggestions. I don't see "anything but hate" at all. There are pros and cons to using frameworks. True, many people seem to prefer to use smaller libraries. I personally don't like magic because sooner or later I lose track of what's going on and need to start guessing. With direct code I can understand faster without having to read docs and layers of source code. It's all about finding the right balance of abstractions.

1 - https://www.reddit.com/r/golang/comments/1anmoqg/what_go_lib...

onislandtime

2 yıl öncediscuss

I had to use an iPhone for a month when I lost my Android phone so I tried Spotify for podcasts. I can't describe how bad it is, impossible to control what you want to play, complete garbage. AntennaPod is an example of what software can be when you remove greed from the equation.

onislandtime

4 yıl öncediscuss

This is pure and simple collusion. Same as the oil cartels. Destroys competition and is totally illegal.

onislandtime

4 yıl öncediscuss

Software engineers tend to think in deterministic terms. My code tells the machine exactly what to do and that's it. In real world systems there is uncertainty which requires different thinking. A real-time process needs both, a deadline and the concept of errors. A process must be completed within a deadline or there is an error. As the author said, the absolute time (or latency) is irrelevant. Think of a tennis match. you either hit the ball or you lose. There is a deadline and an error. It's not that complicated yet so many people are confused by the concept.

onislandtime

4 yıl öncediscuss

With no background in accounting, I was impressed with the Beancount documentation. Very well written and a great way to learn accounting. I am looking for a solution to track my investments but I find it a bit overwhelming to get started with Beancount from scratch. Is there a tool to convert brokerage data into Beancount data from scratch?

onislandtime

5 yıl öncediscuss

One of the surprising things in this saga is how Walgreens partnered with Theranos. I actually had a blood test done in the downtown Palo Alto Walgreens. The results were obviously wrong so I had to redo them in a real lab. Any elementary school child can do a science experiment comparing the blood test results of Theranos with a standard lab. Walgreens deliberately failed to do due diligence because of some type of corruption. They contributed to the fraud and they should be investigated.

onislandtime

5 yıl öncediscuss

Yep and Intel is doing great with their incompetent management. These management tools can only work when there is a mission, common sense, competence, team work, respect for each other, and many more attributes rarely seen in corporate America. As the author and Warren Buffet said: “I try to invest in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them. Because sooner or later, one will.”

onislandtime

5 yıl öncediscuss

To me, compared to other languages, I find Go easier for expressing my ideas in code. People seem to argue as if there was an objective truth. Different people may have different learning styles and working requirements. I'm not programming full-time so I prefer a simpler language so I don't forget. A full-time programmer may want to invest in a more "complex" language. See, you are all right.

onislandtime

5 yıl öncediscuss

Prop 13 needs to be reformed because taxes need to be fair. Taxes can be deferred for those who cannot afford to pay the full tax so they don't have to move. The benefit should be restricted to a primary residence, no vacation, investment, or commercial properties. Deferred taxes can be paid when the owner sells the house if there is enough equity. At some points victims of prop 13 will out number those that benefit from it. One can only hope people will wake up and do the right thing.

onislandtime

11 yıl öncediscuss

and this what we see in most tech companies, they go out of the way to hire people that "fit". I wonder how much talent we leave out because of people's natural tendency to hire people like themselves...

onislandtime

11 yıl öncediscuss

You are not alone in feeling lonely. I suggest you try talking to a psychotherapist to help you answer those questions.

onislandtime

11 yıl öncediscuss

My experience working for good technology companies is that most engineers truly want to hire good engineers. I was lucky to work in groups where there was no gender bias. Female colleagues or bosses where recognized and respected based on merit. Obviously this is just my experience. On the other hand bias based on age seems to be much more common. Perhaps this is part of people wanting to hire people with similar cultural background.

What happens in the world of VCs and top executives has no relation to what happens in the real world. I suspect that the top 1% is dominated by jerks and males. We shouldn't extrapolate what happens there to the rest of us. Let them sue each other.

onislandtime

12 yıl öncediscuss

There is too much hype, solving data-related problems requires many different skills and it depends on the problem. In general you need background in quite a few of these areas linear algebra, probability, statistical modeling, stochastic processes, computer science, programming, signal processing, etc. We used to call this electrical/computer engineering :-)

onislandtime

12 yıl öncediscuss

Not a good analogy. You can design interviews and measure outcomes. The goal is not to eliminate coding if it is relevant for the position, you need to do it right. There are people who spend their life designing and validating tests, don't ask a busy engineer to wing it. Companies could use an unbiased computer-based test as a first pass. This way, candidates can prepare and feel they are getting a fair chance. In the second pass the interviewer can focus on higher level problems and soft skills.

onislandtime

12 yıl öncediscuss

Good point. Perhaps we need to work through professional organization to look into hiring practices and propose practical solutions.

onislandtime

12 yıl öncediscuss

Thank you so much for sharing this. Look at it this way, many companies are missing great talent because of their interviewing practices and for trying to imitate Google or Microsoft. More innovative companies (think Moneyball) can take advantage of this pool of talent and target people like you. I'm trying to think how to make it easier to identify this talent. Any ideas?