Hacker News Reader

jmrobertsonon Looking for a new CEO

yup it's all about that empathy, and having a constructive, vs. destructive approach to candid criticism and conversation. SO somehow swung far in the destructive direction. Candid discussion does not have to be toxic to be direct, no matter what Linus and co might say, and SO seems to embody.

jmrobertsonon Apple iPhone SE Available on Apple Store Again

I have it just for the small form factor. Luckily bought it 2 months before it got killed. Good news is though based on a recent screen crack replacement, Apple still supports fixing it.

jmrobertsonon Wall Street’s Latest Love Affair with Risky Repackaged Debt

You can do your own Big Short by buying deep OTM puts. Easy enough to research/google from there, but it can be CDS for the layman.

jmrobertsonon Give Me Back My Monolith

on-boarding new devs from the bootcamps, transitioning them to AWS + Lambda is as if starting from square one in terms of what they were expecting to work on. Very much a challenge, especially related to getting them to think about how to leverage good CI/CD for the cloud. Still a lot of knowledge gaps out there

jmrobertsonon Facebook, Instagram go down around the world in an apparent outage

yeah I wonder

jmrobertsonon Where Warren’s Wrong

>the harm isn't consumer oriented, since it's somewhat diffuse, it's about concentration of market power in the industry.

That's true, but that's not how anti-trust law works in the US unfortunately. It's consumer-harm based.

jmrobertsonon Where Warren’s Wrong

I don't disagree with you so not sure your point, see my original point. I'm stating that the Tesla comparison doesn't apply to what Apple's specific situation is, and therefore what policy proposals/considerations apply.

jmrobertsonon Where Warren’s Wrong

I obviously have the view that the walled garden benefits consumers, so my bias shows. And, I think there's a lot of wiggle room on the cost to host in the App store.

However, US monopoly law is based on consumer harm, so...

I think on a mobile platform, with plenty of competition to not buy an iOS-based phone, a walled garden absolutely benefits consumers more than it hurts. There is so much PII on phones now. Given the total lack of InfoSec knowledge, especially at the mobile-user level, a walled garden is crucial: see every Google Store vuln that hasn't hit Apple.

jmrobertsonon Where Warren’s Wrong

Well, Intel and AMD have had the run of the marketplace (and ARM indirectly) since the beginning, but there's reasons for that both security and other so not exactly a good comparison.

jmrobertsonon Where Warren’s Wrong

To be fair, that's inaccurately reframing the argument. Apple with an Apple store for Apple Apps is the equivalent to what you're saying. Tesla doesn't sell Teslas _and_ BMWs.

jmrobertsonon Where Warren’s Wrong

that gets into interesting Human-Comp Interaction discussions, but a good place to start is that the HCI dynamic of mobile/tablet platforms is totally different (deliberately) from that traditional approach to browsers. So I guess it could be done, but relying on that approach undermines a lot of what make mobile platforms 'mobile platforms.'

jmrobertsonon Where Warren’s Wrong

Right, so imagine separating Apple/Google totally from its current oversight position, and having a totally open app store. Like the world _just_ got past learning not to click 'download here!' on a browser, and that was after 20 years of the internet. I'd be open to alternative proposals, but separating the App Store with no replacement is not a secure solution by any means and causes more problems than it solves, assuming a secure app store is the most important trait of an app store.

jmrobertsonon Where Warren’s Wrong

Reading her stuff, it seems like proposals to separate Apple from the App store indicate a total lack of awareness about InfoSec, and at best a poorly researched policy proposal from a technical standpoint. The only reason the App Store isn't a simmering cesspool of malware is that Apple heavily moderates what gets on there, and Google does somewhat the same. That doesn't mean that there perhaps isn't a less MSFT + IE type of solution, and I don't necessarily disagree with her, but her not mentioning that sort of nuance at all makes it rather clear the policy doesn't extend too far into anything more than populism.

jmrobertsonon Introduction to Algotrading (2011) [pdf]

That's a great point. I agree that this will sort of resolve itself, until MIT puts out some new Cat 8 ethernet or some major hardware jumps, the returns start plateauing quickly. When there's such a large barrier to entry, and with only a handful of HFT/DMMs moving the major volumes, that's somewhat of an systemic risk to the tune of a SysAdmin/DevOps guy screwing up a deployment, i.e. what took down Knight Capital

jmrobertsonon Introduction to Algotrading (2011) [pdf]

Yes, not shady, but it totally unravels the argument concerning HFTs helping price discovery. I know the "hey retirement and index funds are doing it, think of the pensioners!" argument is common defense of it, but that's not at all the target audience of DPs. It's liquidity going off exchange, which hurts price discovery, simple as that. Considering how competent trade execution/slippage capabilities are for the types of broker-dealers that would be handling index/ret/pension volumes, that argument is nonsense

jmrobertsonon Introduction to Algotrading (2011) [pdf]

Ehhhhh. yes. But that glosses over dark pools, some of the shadier exchange infrastructure arbs that go on, etc.

To be candid, I'm fully on the same page as you: what's going on here is no different than what a really good pit trader did from 1800's -> 2000. It's just the digital, semi-invisible version, and because volumes are so large, the money is exponentially larger as well.

But, that's not all the HFTs get up to; a lot of it doesn't hit public markets, or isn't particularly helping w/ efficiency.

jmrobertsonon Introduction to Algotrading (2011) [pdf]

The issues with any algo trading strategy, is if it becomes known, then the trade gets crowded out and priced away. The logic really holds that if you know a shortcut to work that saves 60 minutes on a 2 hr commute, and then everyone else found about it and did it too, goodbye secret commute. This is why the strategy aspect of this gets kept very quiet by R-tech, JS, etc.

jmrobertsonon Introduction to Algotrading (2011) [pdf]

Yeah it's always worth remembering how heavily fundamental engineering work processes come into play. Knight Capital went down for a manual deployment error, of all things

jmrobertsonon Introduction to Algotrading (2011) [pdf]

https://meanderful.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-accidental-hft-f...

My all time favorite article related to this topic, I always try to promote it Guys like the author started this whole rodeo through some really ingenious hardware/software/networking jerryrigging.

jmrobertsonon Toxic Workers Are More Productive, But the Price Is High

Well yes, those instances would be companies that aren't on the train quite yet of understanding what a toxic worker actually is.

Which is the whole point of these sorts of studies: education

In areas where "toxic working" is ID'd as the risk it really is (i.e. this study is old, old news), it's never a term thrown around as a political term like you're concerned about. It's a specifically cancerous, horrible way of working that's seriously easy to identify. It's like trying to play politics with the term "water leaking" to describe anything other than water leaking.

jmrobertsonon Toxic Workers Are More Productive, But the Price Is High

That takes some faith that being an unselfish team player will in fact get you somewhere.

From a mgmt perspective, assuming a good manager, it does.

If your team/org doesn't approach it that way, the solution is find a high performing team that does approach it that way, not become toxic yourself. 10/10 high performance, long term successful teams approach things this way (source: this study, and people who have experienced this approach luckily).

jmrobertsonon Toxic Workers Are More Productive, But the Price Is High

False, there is a very distinct line b/t descriptions of "toxic worker" and "achiever," assuming "achiever" is something to be emulated, is positive, and is good for the company.

That's why literature on toxic workplaces tends to not define toxic workers as "achievers" but as "high performers."

Frankly, that confusion is why this study exists. Orgs have to learn to figure out what who is "achieving," and who is "toxic working and getting results." It's a really common confusion point, but is only solved by education and good leadership.

Put another way, it's 10000% possibly to be a high achiever, and do none of that type of behavior.

jmrobertsonon Toxic Workers Are More Productive, But the Price Is High

"toxic worker" is a pretty textbook definition now:

-horrible team player

-Unfortunately hugely effective at getting results

-plays for the spotlight, claims credit in the spotlight, does little work privately

-if in mgmt, verbally/mentally terrorizes subordinates -etc etc

It's just a truly poisonous person, who tends to be extremely performant so they can stick around in orgs, whose lack of interpersonal skills in the above realms more or less destroys teams in the long run.

jmrobertsonon Toxic Workers Are More Productive, But the Price Is High

Couldn't disagree more w/ the 9/10 part. That's the sort of thinking self-identified "rebellious workers" who are worried about others (mgmt) perceiving themselves as.

"toxic worker" is a pretty textbook definition now: -horrible team player -plays for the spotlight, claims credit in the spotlight, does little work privately -if in mgmt, verbally/mentally terrorizes subordinates -etc etc

jmrobertsonon Toxic Workers Are More Productive, But the Price Is High

The mil caught onto this in a serious way somewhat recently, the commissioning sources really lean into preventing this. Great to see this catching on in the business world

jmrobertsonon My Underground Warfare Wish List

Power to charge them. Those rechargers are slaved into m1097s (vehicles), generators, and the like. That's a logistical non-starter, even assuming an acceptable consumption rate if you're out for ~24 hr missions, or 24 hrs as a planning factor.

but really quantify the consumption rate, ~10xAAAs burned over 2 hours of consistent use is dead accurate, and thats 1x piece of equip. So rechargeable or not, the in-mission load is the problem

jmrobertsonon My Underground Warfare Wish List

Fight w/o a weapon slinged for a ton of reasons, 'locking' a cable set into a rifle usage creates many problems w/o going into specifics

jmrobertsonon My Underground Warfare Wish List

And integrating power into the vest? Those already weigh an intense amount for a ~200 # male w/ full combat load and plates, and are bulky as it is...

jmrobertsonon My Underground Warfare Wish List

ruck = very large hiking backpack that's made out of pretty durable non-rip waxed type of fabric with a large frame. Great for carrying a lot of heavy stuff a long distance. Issue is, w/ a load that means your really seriously heading out to do something... there isn't much extra room.

But then add the extra batteries for the current radio system that's most widespread in the force (ASIPs, usually carry 1 to 2), with this 4''x 2'' battery packs for ASIPs that in turn take up a lot of space (carry 3-4 spares), and then extra ammo, and then the 'portable' equipment for optics or the heavy weapon systems that tend to be deemed 'portable'

... there just literally is no. more. room. And then there's some more added.

These types of cool new tech, which are battery powered, are hamstrung by the simple fact of "how do I carry a massive amount of batteries for all this?"

So it in turn puts soldiers and leaders in a really precarious position of either having to fight a tough battle of stating all of the obvious that I said above, getting told to bring it all out anyways, and then not really being able to. So do we hope we don't get asked "where is X-equipment, is it on your person," or do we lie, or do we what?

Since this article came from USMA, it's a good place to lead upstream conversation on this sort of core issue.

jmrobertsonon My Underground Warfare Wish List

have to think about what the power source for those would be, in turn. It's more of an issue of consumption rate