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Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

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Re: Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

#161

Post by watwut »

leecommamichael wrote: post #109
watwut wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is this engagement bait? Is this a cultural critique? What is meant to be said here? At any rate, this is the kind of speech which will alienate a lot of people. Look, I'm more on the progressive end of things, I get it, but I think this just feels mean and divisive from the perspective of a conservative OR a Christian Maybe, as a progressive, you should listen to the experience before rejecting it solely because "…

When you say "listen before rejecting," what would you have me do differently? To call what I'm saying "rejection" seems a bridge too far from what I am intending to say, also. I am making an appeal to civility and compassion in the event that he intended to say what he said knowing that people might feel badly by it.

The comment was not "uncivil" and it was not "lacking compassion". Yes people can feel bad when you say them actions of some in their group affected a person negatively. That does not mean it is uncivil to say "a thing conservative person did affected me negatively".

The "you cant talk about something that negatively affected you, because a conservative person might feel bad" is not compassion. Its effect is biasing what people can say in very much one sided way.

Re: Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

#162

Post by BoingBoomTschak »

tptacek wrote: post #72
javcasas wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> OK, produce a SHA-2 collision. - Why a collision? > Because man made SHA-2, so it must be breakable. I don't dispute that there are systems humans make that are breakable (that would be weird given my career). Thus implying there are man-made systems that are not breakable, and furthermore SHA-2 is one of them. > I haven't discarded any date. Going back so quickly?

I'm sorry, you've lost me. I was responding to the claim that any man-made system was breakable. The most obvious example of a man-made system that is unlikely to be breakable in our lifetimes (so, I'll say, "ever") is SHA2. Then someone responded that SHA2 wasn't an interesting target. It doesn't have to be; it just has to be man-made, or concede the narrowing of the original claim.

[flagged]

Re: Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

#163

Post by spit2wind »

sporadicism wrote: post #63

I didn't find any of the arguments for optimism compelling, even if I wanted to agree with the talk's message. Free software is about the worst example, as it has inadvertently built the technology that has, more than any other, concentrated corporate power and debased the profession.

Free software hasn't concentrated corporate power, explicit policy to enable monopolies did. Without free software, there would still have been consolidation because that was the express objective.

Re: Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

#164

Post by BrenBarn »

spudlyo wrote: post #19

So in case you're worried about watching a 35 minute video and wishing you hadn't, here is what I think is an interesting observation that the speaker starts coming around to at around the 7 minute mark. Why does software suck? Management often has other priorities, and isn't interested in doing the hard work required to increase the reliability and reduce the technical debt in software. Engineers who care about such…

> Why does software suck? Management often has other priorities

This is Hacker News syndrome. What you described is why everything sucks. It's because people at the top are more concerned with making money than doing good things well.

Re: Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

#165

Post by slyall »

thin_carapace wrote: post #138
slyall wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was mainly replying to this sentence: " Others have been hurt by Christians who failed to live their faith or were otherwise misguided in their actions or teachings. "

may i ask a bit more specifically why your comment evaluating the abstract concept of goodness and its relation to faith is related to this sentence? i'm still not seeing the connection.

"who failed to live their faith" - ie if they had lived up to their faith would have been good. I'm saying that the practice of "faith" and being "good" are largely unconnected. There are plenty of faithful Christians in prison.

By "good" I mean nice, polite, not murdering people. Generally accepted moral behavior.

Re: Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

#166

Post by hahahaa »

DangitBobby wrote: post #40

I'm much more interested in a realistic bang for your buck discussion about software value for effort and diminishing returns rather than a conversation about whether it's possible to build great software. Also notable that not up for discussion was any second order effects about user interaction with software; software always must serve its user in the immediate first order. Why? I suppose it's because if you attemp…

In a struggle for a gun the gun serves it's user.

Re: Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

#167

Post by pjmlp »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #85
ianbutler wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is really entirely true. Everyone who isn't a FAANG or Frontier Lab seem to be absolutely starving for good talent. It's far more often that I hear "we interviewed someone we thought looked good and they couldn't even write a for loop, where are all the good engineers". I think you have far more leverage than you think in most places still.

We really need to let go of the notion, that FAANG necessarily has especially skilled engineers. Their products indicate, that this is not the case. Look at what kind of shitshows Google search and YouTube are for example. Or how FB is only bots now. Do these things still rake in money? Yes. But that's rather due to history and entrenchment, than sheer quality of these platforms/tools. Something all of FAANG have fai…

Unfortunately their hiring practices are bonkers.

Of course knowing how many golf balls fit into a plane will help when it comes to fix that nasty bug on a Vulkan driver.

Or having to solve a data structures and algorithms question as if just left university, completely disregarding the 30 years in between.

Naturally we all do cool algorithm problem solving before getting into bed, and can't wait for the next Advent of Code.

Then they complain they can't hire anyone, go figure.

Re: Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

#168

Post by sokoloff »

JuniperMesos wrote: post #141
sublinear wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a much better metric is the results of the compensation, not the peak dollars earned for some narrow window of time. The differences in the cost of living and local economic inflation can become that significant in the long run. I'm not sure I would call an appetite for risk a "talent", or even a natural consequence of talent. If we look at the average case, there are plenty of millennials now turning 40 who…

I'm skeptical that this is true with respect to net worth, given that I have worked at both FAANG and non-FAANG companies and I know what I got paid at one vs the other.

What factor(s) would cause you to go to a non-FAANG, having experienced both?

Pay means a lot; pay doesn’t mean everything.

Re: Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

#169

Post by JackMorgan »

wisty wrote: post #159
mdgld wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except conservatism, religion, and religious conservatism in particular do not seem to value open-mindedness, discussion and consensus, or a non-judgmental stance. It’s one thing to try and impart your values onto your children—that seems like what most parents would want to do, although I wouldn’t go so far as saying it’s what they should do. It’s another to say, for example, “you were born with a penis and so if I…

Which religion? Christianity is arguanbly the irritating grit that created the pearl of modern science. A strict text that had to be taken literally ... this led to great intellectual progress in order reconcile it all. Bacon, Darwin ... lots of science was done by Christians. Christianity isn't the only example. Islam and Judaism also have been heavy hitters. As have other cultures but I don't understand enough abou…

I'm not sure the cause and effect are accurate here. It's very likely more the other way: that folks curious about the world and how it works did that research in spite of religion which often attempted to suppress new findings that countered church doctrine or beliefs. Or even suppress findings that happened to be different from earlier mental models.

To be fair, other scientists sometimes do this to. However most begrudgingly accept new findings if they hold up to the scientific method.

Re: Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

#170

Post by sokoloff »

strken wrote: post #127
hungryhobbit wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he was being a little hyperbolic, but the core concern (that programmers look competent right up until you have them write a FizzBuzz) is very real. (Source: I've helped hire lots of programmers.)

Fizzbuzz is interesting because it relies on either the candidate remembering the modulo operator, or the interviewer allowing them to write a modulo function. I can understand why a candidate could forget how to find the remainder from an integer division. The bigger issue is not having seen fizzbuzz before, really.

I’ve personally experienced devs who could not sum a collection of ints, “in any language of your choice”.

I’m not talking about devs who got hung up on integer overflow issues (or even off-by-one errors), but rather “just couldn’t get started at all”. I have no idea what they did before or what they expected to do if they got the job, but I doubt it would turn out well.

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