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bob001

361 karma · joined January 13, 2026

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bob001··on $30B for laptops yielded a generation less cognitively capable than parents
The peer review process provides a minimal level of verification, and the paper provides details that can be directly looked at.
bob001··on $30B for laptops yielded a generation less cognitively capable than parents
So was writing and yet here you are doing just that.
bob001··on $30B for laptops yielded a generation less cognitively capable than parents
Which is all fluff until someone links to a peer reviewed study.
bob001··on I built Timeframe, our family e-paper dashboard
Pick up phone (may be in another room), unlock phone, open app, navigate to information in app (often fairly annoying due to modern low information density app design and multiple apps), return to original location.

Versus.

Just look at screen.

bob001··on Single vaccine could protect against all coughs, colds and flus
That we think have no cost. The massive failure rate of drug trials and some famous cases of issues discovered only after wide scale deployment indicates we're not that great at knowing ahead of time.

The body is like legacy spaghetti code written by hundreds of teams of outsourced engineers. It mostly works. Just never remove any commented out lines or it may break.

bob001··on Single vaccine could protect against all coughs, colds and flus
If only you had read the article.

>There may also be consequences to dialling up the immune system beyond its normal state – raising questions of immune disorders.

> Jonathan Ball, professor of molecular virology at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, said the work was undeniably "exciting" but cautioned "we have to ensure that keeping the body on 'high alert' doesn't lead to friendly fire, where a hyper-ready immune system accidentally triggers unwelcome side effects".

> The research team in the US does not think the immune system should be permanently dialled up and think such a vaccine should be used to compliment rather than replace current vaccines.

bob001··on Single vaccine could protect against all coughs, colds and flus
> I smell longterm cancer or similar.

Or simply autoimmune reactions which can be devastating.

bob001··on Mamdani Hires Lisa Gelobter as Chief Tech Officer
The job is 99% program management and 1% tech. It’s the government. Anyone focused on tech will burn out in 2 weeks and quit loudly via twitter. You know, like DOGE.
bob001··on FBI couldn't get into WaPo reporter's iPhone because Lockdown Mode enabled
The UK simply puts you in jail for not doing so.
bob001··on FBI couldn't get into WaPo reporter's iPhone because Lockdown Mode enabled
That is again a claim with no backing that can be applied to anything without actual data to back it up.

For example. I can just as equally state with the same data to back me up (ie: none as it stands right now) that you are a US government plant posting propaganda to encourage people to not use safer technologies and as a result make their data easier to spy on.

bob001··on FBI couldn't get into WaPo reporter's iPhone because Lockdown Mode enabled
Takeaway is to not enable biometric unlock if you are concerned about your data being accessed by authorities.
bob001··on FBI couldn't get into WaPo reporter's iPhone because Lockdown Mode enabled
Do you disagree with the facts of the article? Or is it propaganda simply because the facts doesn't support your narrative and ideological inclinations?
bob001··on No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams
> Occupy was after the capital class

White washing history doesn't change the reality of what the people actually making up the movement wanted. Not what the self-elected spokespeople who had no actual power since there were no leaders said to make it all sound less threatening.

> From 2011 starting as a completely unorganized group to running the finance capital of America in just 15 years.

Always interesting how both the left and right forget democracy and checks and balanced and just assume the executive branch is a dictator when it's their wannabe dictator in power. :)

bob001··on SparkFun Officially Dropping AdaFruit due to CoC Violation
For more context: There's also social media posts accusing ptorrone of engaging in harassment campaigns against other people.
bob001··on No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams
I think its also that few companies have a way to allow a 10x individual productivity engineer to focus on just the things they are 10x as good at. It's almost never everything. Once you add in meetings, politics, proposals, perf ladder requirements, mentoring, code reviews, etc. the result is a regression to the mean.
bob001··on No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams
"Senior". Looks like you've already made it a tenure and not output based pay system. Which I think proves exactly what people don't like about unions or those who push for them.

In an output based system the number of high level people is relatively small and terminal level is far from the top level. It doesn't take much for people to realize that there's little chance of them becoming an L8 so why shouldn't an L8 get paid less? Moreover in my experience people have little insight into the value those at higher levels provide so will consider them dead weight.

bob001··on No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams
I was talking about the good days over the last decade and not now. As someone noted Europe made $50-80k. So around $250-400k. I knew a ton that made that. Basically anyone above junior at a tech company including late stage startups and second tier tech companies. Fully remote in many cases. At Staff+ FAANG if you were there a couple years then your RSUs would very likely push you above $1m and possibly above $2m. I think the most I heard of was someone making $10m/year and being deathly afraid of a layoff. Nowadays its AI companies which if you're lucky enough to get into and know ML will pay $2m+/year as your comp even at merely staff levels. If the bubble doesn't burst before IPOs then I know ICs whose next few generations won't need to work.
bob001··on No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams
It's not your choice. It's the choice of the average union member.
bob001··on No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams
There are those who can provide 10x output in certain kinds of problems. Either due to experience or however their minds work. If their output is as a tech lead then even a 2x can provide an overall 10x increase through second order impact via their team. There are also those who provide 0.5x and 0.1x output on a wide range of problems.
bob001··on No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams
There is a large pay disparity. Why wouldn't someone at the 50th percentile vote to have those at the 95th get lower salaries so the 50th percentile goes up a bit?
bob001··on No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams
Unions aren't about what you want them to be about but what the average member wants them to be about. More or less.
bob001··on No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams
> The maximum cap sounds just stupid.

Conceptually unions are a democracy and people are selfish. Why should I let some other worker make 10x what I do when I can instead have them make 1x and spread out the other 9x around including to me?

bob001··on No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams
To me the only question is if there's a hypothetical revolution who will end up swinging in the wind by their neck and I have no doubt many engineers working for big tech would have been in that group. There's always nice rhetoric and focused rhetoric to not make too many enemies but the people on the ground differentiate a lot less and have in every revolution.
bob001··on No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams
Having talked to Occupy Wall Street people at the time I don't think many on the ground differentiated as much as you think they did. I used a generic word because from my experience that is how they saw the world. I got told I deserved to have everything I own set on fire for saying I spent $100 on a nice dinner once. That was on the more extreme side but the sentiment seemed to not differentiate.
bob001··on No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams
To me you're describing a team with mediocre communication and social skills. That's common but its not all teams.

It has everything to do with maturity, motivation and competence. The best teams I've been on didn't care about these rituals because each person bridged the gap with other people. The TLs kept an eye on everything the TL and EM kept an eye on all the people side and concerns. In a startup it'd be the founders. There was mutual trust built by those in leadership roles and issues were communicated and everyone kept an eye out for them.

> They're made of diverse human beings, every one of us, who come from different backgrounds with different expectations about when and what to communicate and when and what not to and around what is who's responsibility when.

Have a meeting, align on some norms for these things and then hold people accountable to them. It's not hard. We're all adults. You don't need constant meetings to hand hold people like little kids.

bob001··on No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams
I disagree. In a company of 5-6 total engineers who are actually self-motivated and competent none of these things matter. If you need stand-ups for people to be aware of work being done then you're bandaid fixing a deeper issue. Same for retros since all of that should already be getting communicated in five other ways. If not then you've got bigger issues. Same for 1-on-1s. If the founders don't know these things organically then they have failed either in their own roles or in who they hired. The solution to that isn't rituals.

In a large org where the most senior IC and the manager are both in 35 hours of meetings a week while the rest have 20 a week you need rituals. When all they are focused on in engineering then you don't.

bob001··on No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams
Engineers were the privileged class. They were part of the group occupy wall street wanted to bring down. Not hard to guess why they didn't want that.
bob001··on No management needed: anti-patterns in early-stage engineering teams
Until recently American engineers made a lot of money at comparatively cushy jobs. A decent engineer in the US could make 5x their equivalent in most European nations. Staff+ engineers at FAANG could make 5x that. People in a good position tend to not like rocking the boat.
bob001··on Ask HN: If you had $10M in the bank, would you still show up to your job?
I get to solve interesting problems at a large scale with minimal politics or BS with legitimate unlimited PTO so I'd probably stick around. Eventually I might do my own startup or consulting business or some such. I find joy in solving interesting problems with real impact which is difficult outside some type of job. Thats due to my personality more than anything but it is what it is. The job is not the passion but the problems are.
bob001··on Ask HN: If you had $10M in the bank, would you still show up to your job?
I mean, $10m comes out to $400k in year at the 4% rule which is top 2-3% income in the US. And top 1% in Europe. I guess being in the top 1% is barely scraping by nowadays.
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