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hedonist

257 karma · joined June 4, 2013

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hedonist··on We are shocked, shocked...
When the government grabs every single fucking telephone call made from the United States over a period of months and years, it is not a prelude to monitoring anything in particular. Why not? Because that is tens of billions of phone calls and for the love of god, how many agents do you think the FBI has? How many computer-runs do you think the NSA can do? When the government asks for something, it is notable to wonder what they are seeking and for what purpose. When they ask for everything, it is not for specific snooping or violations of civil rights, but rather a data base that is being maintained as an investigative tool.

In other words, he's completely oblivious to the game-changing effects of highly scalable data mining and machine learning.

hedonist··on Track Commits. Not Time.
No, man. It's certainly useful to read a developer's commit history. But at they end of the day they're just as silly and misleading as any other metric.

The only metric that matters is business value generated. A really valuable developer might be able to make important strategic contributions to a project through just a handful of commits. While a particularly weak (or negative-performing) committer might be making zillions of commits, but actually doing irreparable damage to the project before anyone notices.

Those activity charts might make good eye candy, but if you don't know your developers or understand their working styles, they just won't tell you that much.

hedonist··on Google bans porn on Google Glass
Umm, it wasn't "porn" app they were banning, but rather an app that has a very serious potential for abuse -- in the form of non-consensual POV shots of unsuspecting subjects.

You know, like that old mirror-tied-to-the-front-of-your-shoe trick, but way, way creepier.

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