211–220 of 306 posts
This reminds me of when I interviewed at Stripe, a few years back. It was a surreal experience. We were in a small conference room. I sat at the table on one side, Patrick and Edwin sat on the other side. They asked me questions, I answered them. It was a good discussion. Then there was a brief pause in the conversation. Suddenly, Patrick let off the most absurdly loud fart. I chuckled in surprise. Patrick and Edwin…
For the Van Ness Bus Line example: one reason there were major delays was because maps of underground sewer lines and plumbing were inaccurate, and needed to be relocated. The 6 years of construction was really a bus lane + major sewer infrastructure project. Which brings up another reason why some of these projects were Fast -- they operated in places where there there wasn't existing infrastructure or residents to…
The whole point of this article is that we should aspire to be better, faster, more relisilient to failures, less bureaucratic and efficient. My gut sense (subjective) is that we profoundly suck today at doing anything aspirational. But, nitpicking each of the examples as many comments here are doing, is IMO missing the point. I don't think Patrick is trying to be super objective here besides trying to be as accurate as possible with sources/number of days it took to build those projects. It is kind of silly to say "Oh, they didn't have X, Y and Z in 1955" because you cannot accurately judge what would have happened if X, Y and Z were actually the impediments in 1955. I used 1955 as an arbitrary year to illustrate the point.
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If Java was perfect, Jagex the creator of Runescape, wouldn't have felt compelled to create its own custom scripting language, RuneScript, in 2004, which it very much did: https://web.archive.org/web/20080615044119/http://archive.th... https://runescape.wiki/w/RuneScript Far more apps were written in Flash than in Java Applets. Java Applets were problematic for their large file size and memory requirements. You would…
> Video codec encoding was such a mess for such a long time due to the issues with MP4 and all the patent nightmare mess that unfortunately took way longer than it should have. Dude this isn't even wrong . It's just nonsensical and ahistorical.
https://video.stackexchange.com/questions/14694/mp4-h-264-pa...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG_LA
https://www.osnews.com/story/23299/why-flash-dissatisfies-me...
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Not to knock the success of git, or the amazing effort under pressure, but the cohesiveness / understandability could be better.
That's a good point. But Git was initially written by one cranky Finn, in ten days. It totally changed the way we all work.
The delta between what git is now and what it was when first released is massive. Junio Hamano has been a absolute force of a maintainer and steward over the interim 18 years (!!) since 2005.
This story often gets tossed around, as if to imply all of what git is today was put out by Linus in 2 weeks, but I think it suffers from a bit of a hero worship problem. It was no doubt impressive and should be recognized, but I just want to make it clear: Git was made by many people over many years.
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It can create a branch with -b, based on a branch of your choice (not necessarily current). I constantly use this, having created an alias: [some other branch]$ git cob feature/foo123 main
Eh, I can squint and see that as a special-case of moving your head to another ref - the `-b` merely flagging "if this branch doesn't exist, create it instead of erroring".
Major one missing: China built 5,000 miles of high speed rail in 6 years. In California, it's been 15 years and we have 0 miles complete. Also built numerous hospitals during pandemic in a couple weeks. Demolished and replaced a bridge in 43 hours: https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a... . General pattern of completing infrastructure projects at a blistering pace - and they work. Also landed a…
It would be interesting to look at a wider range of metrics for some of these fast vs. slow projects. Safety: Did the fast projects result in more injuries or deaths? Social: Willingly vs. unwilling participation. IE seized land vs. sold willingly at market rate. Coerced by gov to help build the hospital vs. paid market labor rate. Environmental: Much easier to design and build a hydro dam when you don't need to worr…
Social: There was no "coercion" by the government to help build the hospital. The workers who built the hospital were paid over 10,000 CNY for 8 days of work [3]. Despite the need to work extended hours to expedite the process, possibly from 8 am to 12 am, it should be noted that the market rate for a month's work for typical construction workers under normal working hours is approximately 8,000 CNY.
Environmental: The most recent 16kMGW hydrodam at Baihetan received approval from the National Bureau of Environmental Protection despite potential negative impacts on the ecosystem. Various ecological and environmental measures were implemented to mitigate these impacts [4]. This approach contrasts markedly with that of the West or areas heavily influenced by the West like Hong Kong, where a small environmental group can obstruct major projects. China adopts a holistic approach, balancing economic needs with environmental concerns through different stages of development. China believes that as it develops, it can impose higher standards. For instance, until 2018, China imported plastic waste from the West, but halted this practice to the dismay of many Westerners [5].
[1]: https://www.mot.gov.cn/jiaotonggaikuang/201804/t20180404_300...
[2]: https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/highwayworkzones/default.ht...
[3]: https://china.caixin.com/2020-02-15/101515765.html
[4]: https://www.mee.gov.cn/gkml/sthjbgw/spwj1/201511/t20151125_3...
[5]: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/03/13/7025017...
The Lockheed A-12 was built 2 years after its designs were approved, with 2 years before that of planning. Still the fastest air-breathing airplane in existence. Its first flight was in 1962.
In March 1940, John R. Dunning's team at Columbia University verifies Niels Bohr's hypothesis that uranium 235 is responsible for fission by slow neutrons. August 6, 1945, the first atomic nuclear bomb is dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.
During the Great Depression, in 1931, the largest dam in the world, the Hoover Dam, was built. At the time, no such large-scale uses of concrete had been proven, and it was unknown how construction could be finished in a way that would cure the concrete in time and prevent it from deteriorating. Construction was completed in 1936, over two years ahead of schedule. Testing in 1995 concluded that the dam's concrete has gotten stronger over the years.
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There was a Grand Jury report analyzing the causes of the delay in the Van Ness project. While the unexpected conditions of the underground utilities is cited as the primary cause, it does touch on some project management aspects that you mention as opportunities for improvement: https://civilgrandjury.sfgov.org/2020_2021/2021%20CGJ%20Repo... Ironically, more planning and analysis at the beginning of the project (e.g…
I worked on that report! (Throwaway because, well, my real name is on the second page...) The lack of meaningful technical planning was a big part of it, and so was the contract-awarding math, but I think the most striking - and generally applicable - behind-the-scenes stories were about what happens when trust breaks down at a human level. The city's internal back and forth on approving and then un-approving a subco…
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No. The SPE was unethical and its methodology was garbage, but the observations were valid enough. When someone refuses to commit an atrocity for you, all you have to do is ask the next person in line. You won't have to go too far down the line before you find someone who is not only willing to follow an illegal order from an authority figure, but happy to. See also Milgram. The conclusion was self-evident before the…
Milgram experiment debunked too https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/01/rethinkin... https://www.psypost.org/2019/11/unpublished-data-from-stanle... https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/why-almost-everything-yo...
Milgram found that 42% of people will administer electric shocks to someone who appears to be screaming in pain, as long as the order is given by an apparent authority figure. What is there to debunk, exactly?
Keep in mind what motivated these experiments: a desire to understand more about how the Nazis were able to accomplish what they did. It's not as if the findings of Milgram and Zimbardo were novel or controversial; they were merely trying to reproduce and understand something that the entire world had just observed.