DataJunkie

I have one serious one and one silly one.

Serious: I worked with a hot-tempered director from academia for a total of 3 months, at a remote lab for a large tech company. At this company, writing docs is more important than doing any work. This guy kept asking me to rewrite the doc and present it to the team over and over. Coworkers confided that they were confused as to the issue with the doc and didn't understand why he was acting this way. My direct manager tried to be all empathetic and work with me to improve the doc and said he didn't know what the director's problem was. Yet, each time I presented, I would get grilled and my manager would just sit there with a smirk on his face, not defending me. At our last meeting, the director tore up the report and said "I don't want to see another doc like this." I pretty much had a yelling session with my manager asking why he wouldn't back me up and he just sat there deadpan. The director walked in and I said "if you ever speak to me that way again, I quit." It happened again, and I quit on the spot. My two week resignation period was spent at home, with permission. I came in one final time to walk my clueless manager through all of the code I had written and he just said "Wow you really did a lot of great work here." I wanted to explode. My exit interview was cathartic. Two months later, the manager was fired.

Silly: I had been working at a startup and was in the process of leaving that startup (interviewing etc.) There was constant drama at this startup and the COO was a complete drama queen. The latest drama was that the COO was on a crusade to figure out who kept plugging the toilet and sent an email to everyone threatening termination. I went to wash my hands (not use the bathroom) where the sink was outside both bathrooms in public view. One of his lackeys told him that I had used the restroom last (I didn't). During the meeting where I learned this he started asking me about when I typically use the restroom and gave me a warning. I just looked at him and said "Are you fcking serious right now? You're meeting with me over a clogged toilet I had nothing to do with? I am so fcking sick of the drama at this company." I met with my direct manager, told him the situation and just said "I can't. I've learned a lot from you, but I'm about to receive an offer from another company, and I just can't anymore." I returned to the COO's office to resign and the COO asked me if I wanted to give him a hug. I just looked at him and said "Um, no, I am giving you my resignation. I know this is no notice, do what you need to do." I also missed stock options by a week. I learned that two weeks after I quit, the toilet plugged again, overflowed after hours and flooded the entire work area.

My career has been otherwise normal.

Of all the people at Google, I practically saw him all the time (pre-pandemic). I guess it's the shirts. He seemed to really like Yoshka's cafe, and the ice cream ;).

While I won't subscribe (I have fiber), I am excited about what this might mean for the future. It would amazing to improve the technology enough to replace 4G/5G dongles. It sounds like the technology relies on being in a somewhat fixed position though.

Nothing has changed? Are you joking?

Woven is shutting down? Couldn't have happened to a nicer two fellows.

LMAO. You don't deal with anyone at Google.

Oh no, please don't start with the magical hallway conversations. I've never had a worthwhile conversation in a hallway or microkitchen, ever. This argument needs to die.

> All in all I think Google has shown it's true colors here. They don't have a damn about their employees.

That's exactly how I feel.

So many Googlers are stuck a decade or two back. It's astonishing to see considering how innovative and forward thinking Google used to be.

Wow, that's sad.

This is a one size fits all "solution" designed at the top. That's all I am saying.

Keep Daylight Saving Time, ditch Standard Time.

My site is hosted with WebFaction and I just got the email that I have until December to find a new host.

I am probably going to go with OpalStack, especially if they can migrate my site. I want to go with them mainly because it's from former WebFaction devs.

Vultr is another good option, but I'd prefer the past of least resistance for learning a new host.

I suppose I can still see a need for a 757 aircraft. My thinking was that our economy now requires so much travel that a 787 could be mostly filled. There are so many variants of the A320/321 that I can't even keep track.

The 737 is pretty versatile though. It's limitation is capacity and perhaps range. Range has been improved over the years allowing a lot of medium-range thin-capacity flights. The 737, 777 and 787 combined have eliminated the need for the 747, 757 and 767.

The classics have mostly or entirely been retired, with the most common models being the -700 and -800. The family has enough flexibility to evolve in range without needing a completely new family. The 737 still has its place as the short to medium haul work horse, so I don't see it going anywhere for a long time.

Indeed. There hasn't been much variety since the 90s. 727 thru 777, A300-A340, MD-11s, MD-80/90 family, DC-9/10s, L1011s.

I worked at a startup and we had three System76 machines. 2 of them were DOA. Mine (a Serval Pro laptop) had a lot of issues with the display and getting support was a nightmare and it took so much work to get a replacement even under warranty. The other machine had a problem with the SSD. That was enough to convince me not to purchase a System76 for my next machine.

I am referring to using R to build systems. It's not common.

Agreed, but it might be useful for a full stack data scientist that is forced to work in a Go systems environment.

That's why Python+PyData has had so much success. There are packages to support data science, but the language itself can also be used to implement a system, so integration is rather seamless. That's not true for, say, R.

There are three places I would consider, two more practical than the third:

1. Los Angeles, where I am from. Slightly cheaper and I would be close to family. Even though there are plenty of beaches in the Bay Area, they are not as easily accessible as they are down here.

2. Mammoth/Eastern Sierra. When I was in grad school and working as a consultant, I lived there for two years summer and winter, despite not being a skier. I wouldn't mind spending a few weeks working remote here and there (I have a place there), but I couldn't live there again. It's tucked away, snow is a pain, and you get sick of the tourists really fast.

3. Hawaii. I love Hawaii. But, it's a long flight to get home and the Bay Area is already far enough away for me. It's also expensive and I imagine it would get boring quickly since I am mostly into biking and hiking rather than water sports.

Yes, you're right. I was referring to crashes where 1) there were mass fatalities, and 2) the airline was US based.

The Palo Alto location has a very strange organization. I can't even describe what is wrong with it, but nothing is ever where I think it will be.

The Oxnard store is just sad. We were very fortunate to get one, and then everything went downhill.

And the farm theme sucks. I liked the Alice and Wonderland theme at the Woodland Hills one I used to shop at before the Oxnard one opened.

IIRC, several policy changes resulted from this crash:

- Pathway lighting for exits

- Reminding passengers that the nearest exit may be behind you (not all airlines remind you)

- Changes in how lap children are dealt with during an emergency.

Yes, especially in the US. I think the only crash of a large commercial airliner since 9/11 was AA 587. In the 80s/90s it seemed to happen once a year.

I require this book for my Databases class since nowadays we cover more than just the relational model. I hope students will keep it.

I am surprised this doesn't happen more often.

Agreed. I loved this feature, but nothing exposed it! I think one of the ancient Twitter clients like Twitterific, or something, would do it and do reverse geocoding.

I worked for a startup that bought machines from System76. 2 out of 3 were defective and it was next to impossible to get technical support, though this was 7 years ago.

My laptop had a bad video chip.

My manager's desktop had either a bad SSD or a bad SATA bus.

I won't buy from them.

Just until the next dry year and everyone will be crying about the drought and how the sky is falling.