calewis

It’s shame that this wasn't used in production and then nefariously used against Putin.

Wow. Thanks for sharing, puts bill in a new light. Baller, to be expected.

You're not doing anything “right” neither is anyone else. That’s the beauty of life. Make the most of your freedoms and privilege, which it sounds you are and do things you love. Actually, I retract my original statement, it sounds like you’re having a great time. Don't let societal norms think that you have to live in any particular way.

This is so well written and so cool! I love how it's on a real cartridge. I had no idea this would even be still possible. Amazing work!

It is, and the one of the worst pieces of "software" I have ever has to work on. I was working for a global car manufacturer who consolidated their various local websites onto it. It's USP is it's integration with the Adobe marketing stack. In reality it's a "No-code" CMS/website builder, and follows the worst patterns of both. However going back to the topic of the post, if you learn one of these terrible tools, you will be able to charge an absolute fortune. Netsuite, AdobeAEM, SAP are all cash cows.

I need to know more about this business.

This is an approach that worked for you. You have employed your own CBT technique it sounds like, and that's great! Bit I think it's unfair to imply that you can just work harder and come to the same conclusions without a professional. A physiotherapist is often highly educated in psychology and has had, usually, years of experience dealing with a range of people, issues and scenarios. Some people, due to what ever is going on in their head (myself included) can't see the wood for the tree's and a therapists job is to help bring that clarity. Mental health is complex and unique to the individual, there isn't a thing that works for everyone, even therapy.

I think most people who suffer from actual depression, not a just a bout of sadness need long term treatment. The NHS is poorly provisioned in this way, sadly. Just like a diabetic who needs insulin everyday people with serious psychological conditions need regular treatment. I'm lucky enough to be able to afford it, I don't know how I would cope if I couldn't.

In my experience, you need to be there face to face. I can't explain it, but it's all the nuances and the uncomfortable silences. I was seeing my therapist for a while via Skype, even though he lives a few miles up the road. I now make the effort and see him face to face. It's so much better. But, like anything, what works for you.

In the UK you can get therapy on the NHS, but it's mostly CBT and not for any extended period. Psychotherapy, which is what is what most people need with long term mental health issues (like myself) is mostly private. You can pay anything from £50-150 p.h In the US, I'm not sure.

As someone who suffers from depression and has gone to therapy for over 5 years (I am also on medication), please try and force yourself to go.

It will most likely change your life for the better, if not, what have you wasted? A bit of money and a few hours of your time? It could make you better at dealing with your depression and, as a consequence, make you feel happier.

You might need to try a few different therapists until you find one you like, and it's not a quick fix either. Think of it like getting (physically) fit, you need to keep at it - maybe for years. You might not also get better in a linear curve, it's up and down, you just have to stick with it.

Therapy has helped me to know myself better, understand why I do what I do and feel the way I do, and, as cheesy as it sounds; learn to accept my limitations. It's changed my life and the life of many of my friends.

You deserve to be happy, everyone does.

Please try it - if it doesn't I will buy you a beer/coffee.

If you need to create on-boarding your product is to complicated. Add features over time, measure there impact and remove them if they don’t work.

“IT politician” is a great phrase, I will be stealing that - thanks!

I agree and what I think (optimistically) could come from regulation. Surely by making these views and opinions less discoverable will help them become less mainstream?

The issue here will be securing a conviction or affecting actual change. I suspect the cost to conviction/prosecution (for the Uk taxpayer) will be so high, and the fines/action so small for the respective platforms, it will hardly be worth the effort. Most likely companies will be fined retrospectively for a bit of government PR.

I agree but wonder if this is a sign of music streaming becoming a utility? Do most users care about sophisticated discovery and recommendation engines? Or do they just want billboard 100 hits?

BBC news is separate division and has a strong leader (like sport). BBC design is obsessed with making everything look the same, it’s been going bland for years. BBC3 was another missed opportunity like this one. The walled gardens have already been built.

Having worked at the BBC several times it’s yet again insular thinking. In short, they’ve spend a load of (wasted cash) on a proprietary app that is useless, but some “strategy” dork - who’s never actually built anything - thinks he can get Google to change. Good luck with that.

The editor who wrote that headline had to be British.

I might send this to the 1000’s of clueless recruiters that spam me every day, and can’t understand why I don’t want a .net job in Wigan for £12,000 p.a

Education is a beautiful thing. Great story thanks for sharing.

I think a dumbest question thread might be quite amusing?

I’ll go first, because I’m quite sure I’ll win...

This was for a front-end mid weight software engineer position. The candidate was smart and a 100% hire (I’ve since hired him 3x in different companies)

Me; “great thanks for your time and we will be in touch later today”

Co-interviewer; “I have one more question”

Candidate; “sure, go ahead”

Co-interviewer; “Imagine your uncle has just died and left you his pizzeria in his will, what would you do?”

Me; “what?”

Candidate; “what...? Errr... sell it because I’m a software engineer, not a pizza chef”

Although I’m a product person (CPO) I’ve hired (alongside a CTO) maybe 100+ engineers in my time and I’m hoping my perspective is useful/helpful.

The process that my CTO and I have found works best is as follows;

A 20min phone interview (to screen for BS’ers).

A technical test that’s based on the sort of problems they will be solving in their job. How would you do X in language Y, no boiler plate code, and it doesn’t have to be perfect. (So no fizz buzz, conways game of life etc.) We also stipulate to spend no more than 2 hours on it, and if their successful they get that time back. We even offer a discount (on the thing we sell) to unsuccessful people who don’t make it. The test serves as not only a good high level demonstration of ones skils but, more importantly, gives us all something to talk around. It also shows us how they approach key things like testing, deployment, maintainability etc etc.

Then there is a 2 hours face to face interview. Ahead of this the test is peer reviewed by the engineering team (or part of it) The interview is made up of one one hour technical section with the CTO/Senior, and one with a designer/product manager. A joint decision is made.

Then, if they are successful, we have a probation period where we (the candidate and us) work out if it’s all going as we’d hoped. If not, we part ways. You most likely wouldn’t marry someone before a first date. A job is the same. You both need time to see if you like each other and your profile pics match real life.

It’s not perfect, but no system is. Sure we’ve hired a few people we’ve had to let go, but for the most part it’s a great system. We’ve managed to hire not just great engineers but also build a team and culture that fits and works.

Hiring is time consuming, hard and at times emotional. There is no shortcut.

I’ve interviewed and worked at big tech companies and they all think there is some secret sauce, a magic code to hiring. That is, if you ask super hard questions only the “best” make it through - utter tosh. Some of the most amazing engineers I’ve worked with would fail these type of stupid questions (for a while load of reasons) but quietly write amazing code.

Also, and more importantly imo, to be an amazing engineer you need to be great (equally) at teamwork and communication, not just be super book smart.

I read a while back (or imagined it?) that MSFT only hired people with Msc’s/PHd’s and that it created a probelem where there wasn’t any intellectual diversity. These tests cause this too. You get cookie cutter people who are smart but often can’t work in teams and can’t communicate well.

This is a really great point, most of my friends still don't use half of the features exist currently. I have no idea how you'd go about messaging that to users.

This may depend on their chronotype. When we were cave people some of us evolved to stay up later and guard the camp from predators, some of us got up early to hunt. You need to try and support that where possible, but not to overindulge it. If they are staying up until 2:00am to play computer games it may just be because their brain is more sensitive to light and it's actually that that's keeping them awake.

no sex based characteristics only age Your teenager needs 9-10 hours of sleep every day (even on the weekends where possible)

Teenagers need 8-10 hours, not 7-9, but it's not just about the total time spent asleep (although this is super critical for teenagers as they need much more) it's about the quality of sleep. Devices close to bed time stimulate the mind with a range of hormones and thought patterns. while teenagers might be able to fall asleep in the same way, they don't sleep as well. This being defined and less regular cycles and fewer and shorter phases of deep sleep, especially in the last phase of deep sleep (the most critical).

Without doubt making teenagers get up early to study has a detrimental affect of their learning and it's only our arcane societal norms around sleep that continue to compound this problem.

1. Yes. But not to close to bed time (1-2 hours before you need to sleep) 2. More like 1-2 hours, hard but do it and you’ll notice the difference. Also leave your phone in the kitchen. Even having it in your bedroom stimulates your mind. “I won’t look at it” isn’t enough to convince your brain you won’t. 3. Absolutely. No noise above 36db though and you can train yourself off white noise machines. Ear plugs are good if you live in the city. Generally any noise is bad. 4. Diet. If you do drink alcohol you won’t sleep well, which is a trade off you may make on a Friday. No caffeine after 13:00 (it takes 12 hours to metabolise) 5. Regular routine. Same things. Every day and in the same order. Make a wind down routine and stick to it. This is the biggest one by far.

And if you can’t fall asleep, get out of bed and do something else (nothing involving bright lights) but saying in bed while you can’t sleep breaks the accociative behaviour of bed being for sleep. Don’t watch TV in bed. Don’t eat in bed. Your bed is for sleep and sex. If you still struggle to fall back asleep you can try creative free form writing. Sounds like sudo science but it’s proven to work. Get up. Get a pen and paper and write down a narrative. What ever comes into your mind for 30mins, or, until you feel sleepy. Then go back to bed. Often we fail to fall asleep because we are thinking about work, our partners, friends, a cute dog we saw. Creative writing is a technique used by sleep experts for chronic sleep disorders and has shown its self to work in multiple studies. Sleep.io is great if you really struggle with sleep. It’s a CBT based programme to hell yok sleep and it genuinely works.

This is not strictly accurate. There is some daily mail science about “super humans” who need less than 7-8 hours. And while some people survive like this, your body needs sleep for 7-8 no exceptions. Deep sleep (as important as light sleep) only occurs during long uninterrupted phases. During those phases your body does some amazing things. Amongst other things the production of things like cancer fighting cells and repairing all the physical and mental streses of the day. While not fully understood exactly what, we know the why and lots of good studies prove the correlation between regular quality sleep and better mental and physical well being.

Well I’m sure you’re not terrible parents. I don’t have children but what I do know about all sleepers is that it’s about routine. Same things every night, in the same order. No screens or other stimulus 2 hours before bed. Exercise or any physical activity close to sleep too, but running around and playing football etc. before meal timed helps, and as for meal times light non carb based meals well before bed. Reading is a great way to unwind and helps the mind. Children have been less of a focus for me but before a neurologist I’d suggest a sleep specialist. They can come to your home and give you some tips. There are even ones focused for children. If you’re in the UK I can help with contacts. I hope that was in some way useful, as sleep experts have said to me regularly, it’s not rocket science it’s dicipline.