Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Red Light Green Light

jamessevedge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–169 of 169 posts

Re: Red Light Green Light

#161

Post by lucb1e »

ajmurmann wrote: post #70
lucb1e wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment was the top one and it encouraged me to just click through to the article and... I just don't get it after the first paragraph. Indeed, colour blindness? But that doesn't make you "know" it wrong, that makes you not be able to tell (afaik). So then... the kid was either joking, had learned it the wrong way around, or tied the name 'red' to the bottom position perhaps. ... turns out it's a localization pr…

> Why not change them around in the USA as well? It's not as if people could be confused and look at the wrong lights, as the others' lights are simply not visible when the lights are all on the side nearest to the lane(s) they apply to. As a German in the US, I find the positioning of traffic lights to be one of the very few traffic-related this that are better in the US. In Europe I find myself frequently leaned fo…

> In Europe I find myself frequently leaned forward and looking up at the traffic light to see it at all.

Yeah that's exactly the issue I meant. I've never seen anything else though, so I don't know if it's better or worse. Just that the person I was replying to said they were sometimes confused by the US system.

I guess my approach to all this is to not drive as much and especially not much while in cities where there are traffic lights .. and public transport options. But if you've moved to the USA I suppose that's probably just not an option for you :/

Re: Red Light Green Light

#162

Post by ozim »

QuadrupleA wrote: post #87

Sorry to be a curmudgeon, it's a poetic little story - but isn't the takeaway a little banal? "Different people have different perspectives." Well sure. "Consider things from others' viewpoints." Of course. I don't know, it rings a little of management-ese, or something overpaid consultants might present in the boardroom that gets everybody nodding their head and feeling like they've received great wisdom, but is a l…

It is banal but people often forget about banal things.

Especially in technical discussion where they are focused on "important things that everyone should already understand".

Then it turns out that simply asking to clarify assumptions helps a ton.

Re: Red Light Green Light

#163

Post by themarlzy »

Buttons840 wrote: post #151
jyrkesh wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't know this was a thing that had a term either! I don't talk politics anymore except with folks that I explicitly know want to talk politics, but I frequently suggest that people shouldn't use a whole litany of terms in those discussions: right/left-wing, capitalist, socialist, liberal, conservative, communist, libertarian, fascist...so many people use these terms as short-hand for "stuff I really/don't like",…

I didn't want to mention politics, but "Critical Race Theory" is a prime example and should really be tabooed as a temporary exercise to aid understanding. So many discussions about it without people having a consistent understanding of what it means. I think they've even written laws regarding it without defining what it means. But, sadly, politics is rarely about understanding each other or reaching consensus.

> But, sadly, politics is rarely about understanding each other or reaching consensus

This made a recollection (possibly a lucid dream) about a country who has replaced an (implicit or explicit) adversarial system with one that starts by getting the parties to co-author a document on what they agree upon.

I think this is what our politics (organisational and the representative system alike) should try to implement

Re: Red Light Green Light

#164

Post by nefitty »

eloff wrote: post #159
nefitty wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my excuse for why I have no idea what "performance optimization" entails or means. Now to convince interviewers..

In a context of an interview it means how performance of an algorithm scales with respect to the input length. This is measured in Big O notation. Understanding that is seldom very helpful on the job, but it's very important for interviews, so make sure you learn it.

Hahaha I appreciate the candor. Frankfurt's On Bullshit has never been more appropriate than at this time in my life and in history.

Re: Red Light Green Light

#165

Post by kubanczyk »

> maybe he’s color blind, which then that would be my husband’s fault

I've just discovered a huge deficiency in English. In my native language I've got a perfect response:

I'm not guilty as I didn't broke any law.

Which goes along with both classical nullum crimen sine lege and with UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights no less:

> No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed.

The problem in English is the word "fault", which can mean both "a physical or intellectual imperfection" and "responsibility for wrongdoing" among its many meanings. Phew, try to defend against that, accusation of not being perfect.

Re: Red Light Green Light

#166

Post by zestyping »

eloff wrote: post #159
nefitty wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my excuse for why I have no idea what "performance optimization" entails or means. Now to convince interviewers..

In a context of an interview it means how performance of an algorithm scales with respect to the input length. This is measured in Big O notation. Understanding that is seldom very helpful on the job, but it's very important for interviews, so make sure you learn it.

That's not specific enough. Memory usage, elapsed time, and energy usage are all functions of the input size, and each is a different optimization problem. Instead of talking about performance optimization, you should be talking about memory optimization or speed optimization.

Re: Red Light Green Light

#167

Post by Infernal »

darkerside wrote: post #81
Infernal wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe state dependent? I’m not yet 40 and recall being excited that I could finally ride up front when I turned 3.

At 3? You've got a damn good memory

Only a handful of vignettes from 3-5 but the excitement of riding in the front seat was enough to cement that one.

Re: Red Light Green Light

#168

Post by washadjeffmad »

QuadrupleA wrote: post #87

Sorry to be a curmudgeon, it's a poetic little story - but isn't the takeaway a little banal? "Different people have different perspectives." Well sure. "Consider things from others' viewpoints." Of course. I don't know, it rings a little of management-ese, or something overpaid consultants might present in the boardroom that gets everybody nodding their head and feeling like they've received great wisdom, but is a l…

Something the IQ measurement is actually kind of helpful for is being able to tell if a person is likely to be able to mentally model, understand the abstract and hypotheticals, or empathize intellectually with others.

If you can model what someone else may think, what someone else thinks someone else may think, or understand "what ifs", your IQ will almost certainly measure higher than 80. An example of the opposite is asking, "had you done this instead, what would have happened?" and receiving a response like "that's not what I did".

I have encountered people in functional corporate roles whose ability to grasp beyond what is directly in front of them was exactly why they held their positions. They were highly competitive of and motivated by metrics, no longer or unable to see how things done differently might produce different results ("that's not how we do it"), and generally didn't have a grasp of how their or their department's work fit into the company - they just knew it did. However, they often had a few great interpersonal qualities, like projecting confidence or leadership, patience and self-control in arguments, not easily being flustered or becoming nervous, or having a consistently positive demeanor.

When I think about privilege and justice, I include the existence of people different from me, which means I have to be aware of and understand who they are and what they are like. There's more than one right way to be or live, and it often comes as a shock to some that their communities, classes, and societies are so effective at insulating them from what people different from them are like, only highlighting simple, shallow, or visual differences instead.

My takeaway is that if the number of people this was helpful to was a surprise, your standard of common is too narrow.

Post reply on HN