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First world problems.

Failed state immigrants will kindly remind you that what you really need is a Backup Country, you just don't know it yet.

litmuson A Eulogy for DevOps

chef's kiss

This guy and the person that quit the bullshit industrial complex 6 months ago should get together and launch a startup.

Better yet, we should all go and join Jeremy Howard's answer.ai pro bono. Besides being miraculously headed by a guy who is Not An Asshole, it incidentally also had the most refreshing launch post (in the warm and fuzzy way) this side of the AI bubble.

The launch post concluded with this heading:We Don’t Really Know What We’re Doing.[0]

I mean, for the finest minds in our respective fields, what else is there left to say really?

[0] https://www.answer.ai/posts/2023-12-12-launch.html

litmuson I Live at the South Pole: Here's My Daily Routine in -122F Weather

TIL: The so-called "South Pole Station" is at 9300 feet, which I never would have guessed. Though the side effects ascribed to it seemed a bit extreme (routine bloody nose during sleep?).

Also thought it was amusing that there's a gym and sauna installed but one is only allowed a 2 minute shower per week.

litmuson Notice of termination of Twitter merger agreement

It's been stated multiple times in this thread that he can't walk away just by paying $1B.

If he wanted to only offload $8B TSLA stock and not buy the company, why put that possibility way more out of reach by waiving due dilligence and accepting the special performance clause?

Are we also to assume that he has managed to assemble the most abjectly incompetent team of lawyers in the world as well?

litmuson Good Agile, Bad Agile

(2006)

litmuson Tim Dillon Roasts Substack's Sleazy Proposal [video]

Basically unleashes a rant on Substack and its CEO for proposing he shut down his youtube and patreon channels and move to substack "for free".

litmuson The Best Things and Stuff of 2021

Great to see Herzog on the list. Highly recommend "Werner Herzog, A Guide for the Perplexed", which is a great collection of musings in his own words about life and art, including various anecdotes related to both. Probably one of my favorite books in recent times.

litmuson Ask HN: What are some of the best non-technical talks of all time?

"of all time" is often too strong of a qualifier for me. I would say "talks that I want to rewatch the moment they come to mind."

Charlie Kaufman's Bafta Lecture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRfXcWT_oFs

Gabor Mate, Prisoners of Childhood https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9B5mYfBPlY

I consider Bret Victor's inventing on principle a non-technical talk, so yeah that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUv66718DII

Quel Solaar, on creativity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJmqaWq7PJY

litmuson Getting Back to Work

Yes, I’m curious about this as well even though its an imperfect world where there probably isn’t an ideal, free environment for expressing their opinions. But if the alternative is staying furloughed then their opinions are of interest regardless. After all, they’re witnesses to how the place operates.

What Elon is pushing for seems...no different than what Germany has been doing for at least two weeks? If I’m to understand, people are saying they’re gonna cancel their orders because the company is arguing for a response that is in line with a country (even praised by the American media[0]) that has done a decent job with its pandemic response? This doesn’t seem to be the hill to die on just yet.

Reminds me—not being from there—I’m always amazed how warm southern California is in the winter compared to say, many parts of the mediterranean. I mean Los Angeles in January is warmer than Tehran. Too bad the factory isn’t down there.

The play should be to avoid a shutdown when the second wave hits, no? You look at the warm far eastern asian countries: Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia. They have a combined population of 580 million with less than 2000 combined deaths. 7 times the population of Germany with a fourth of the deaths of Germany. If they had four times the deaths it would still be impressive, considering they’re mostly dealing with it with less healthcare infrastructure.

I do think warmer places would fair better when the second wave hits in the fall. Southern California would be better for a factory. But Texas in that regard would work as well.

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/04/an...

litmuson The greatest role of Bill Murray’s life has been playing Bill Murray

because when the going gets tough, the tough get going in the pants. Also when I see that other guy in some tv show or movie, I'm like "Cujo!". I still have it somewhere on betamax.

litmuson Consultants Ate My Unit Tests

This is also true in my experience when writing unit tests that are forced as part of the process. I've seen situations where unit tests were prioritized over glaring critical bugs. Sure in an ideal world you would do both but life is a trade-off and there are some people who when faced with a failing project cling to conventional wisdom fanatically instead facing their fear and thinking clearly, because at the end of the day its easier writing unit tests instead of fixing the critical bugs that you haven't been able to solve for the past year.

Sometimes you need to throw the baby out with the bathwater in order to realize that the baby was never in the bathtub, that it had left the bathtub a long time ago.

litmuson Chart Shows Who Marries CEOs, Doctors, Chefs and Janitors

Someone please explain to me Emergency Management Directors (men) --> Probation Officers (women), overwhelmingly beating out teachers and secretaries. wat.

litmuson Documents confirm Apple is building self-driving car

At first I thought it would be silly too, but think about it: these guys are buying a car, why not give the iwatch and iphone free with the car, its only about a grand. If it all goes according to plan, the number of people who insist on using another device when the iDevices are sitting right there is going to dwindle.

litmuson The Cult of Vice

To be clear, I wasn't trying to claim McInnes or Flanagan weren't anti-feminists. In fact I introduced the term in my response because I thought it was a more accurate description than "misogynist". In American culture are all anti-feminists considered misogynists? It would be easier to discuss if there were common understanding of certain definitions. Similarly, if you are against marriage equality are you by definition a homophobe [1]? Not sure really why I was downvoted, as the link given in the parent post was about racism not homophobia (burden of proof etc). Also, I'm saying all this as someone who disagrees with many of McInnes's positions, go figure.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FCLkZKIJF4&feature=youtu.be...

litmuson The Cult of Vice

I don't think he's a homophobe. In order to call him that you'd have to cast a very wide net. As for the anti-feminism [1] or misogyny, some of the same points he makes in more provocative tones are made by the like of Caitlyn Flanagan in the pages of The Atlantic.[2]

The article you link to seems kind of overkill at times. It links to his articles for evidence of racial slurs where it seems pretty obvious he's doing it intentionally since in one he mentions an uproar where Sarah Silverman called Chinese people Chinks ("People look really stupid shaking their fists at a clown"), however self-serving that may be.

But I think it can be said that his arguments are often repeat ad-nauseam versions of this scene from Rescue Me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJJpziU7wSs

[1] very NSFW http://old.noob.us/humor/what-if-women-were-as-horny-as-men-...

[2] http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/11/boys-wil...

litmuson The Cult of Vice

My thoughts exactly. The writing has gotten stale without adding real substance--with a few exceptions obviously. But in general they've sacrificed form without adding meaningful content. They had an issue on Somalia a while back where most of the pieces could have appeared on any mainstream magazine that gets extra brownie points for the symbolic act of dedicating an issue on an under-reported topic. It's like playboy, but instead of porn they have Do's and Don'ts and video game reviews, and the writing is shittier. I think I've enjoyed some of the fiction pieces they added in the past few years more than the journalism frankly.

You can be silly and be authentic most of the time, and then once in a while when you say something about the truth, people will listen.

I love that line in Ghostbusters: ""Let's say this Twinkie represents the normal amount of psychokinetic energy in the New York area."[1] It stupid and silly, hell its Ghostbusters, but the scene is an authentic template of many idiotic and funny explanations you witness in random casual conversation, as well as being pretty much a template for all latter day Bill Murray scenes.

McInnes' view on writing--"just write a letter to your brother but take out all the inside jokes"--has been almost completely abandoned in the magazine.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzaQjS1JstY

EDIT: typo

litmuson The Cult of Vice

the interview with the hell-banned founder (Gavin McInnes):

http://canadalandshow.com/podcasts/vice-oral-history

litmuson Mr. Robot

yeah, they had me until he clicked on the search button with his mouse.....yeah, his mouse. who the hell does that? It's just not rhetorical, is there any one out here that clicks the search button on google instead of hitting enter right after they typed?

Also is it realistic to require programmers to wear business casual at a top notch cybersecurity firm? Is this an actual thing?

edit: typo

litmuson Ask HN: Best longform articles you've read in 2014

I'll get the ball rolling with "The Sixth Stage of Grief Is Retro-computing"

https://medium.com/message/networks-without-networks-7644933...

litmuson Naval Charts

I'm not a sea captain or anything, but I find it interesting that there is little reference or comparison to S-57/S-63 data (vector-based nautical chart standard maintained by the International Hydrographic Association) in either scope or in terms of future goals. The site is loading slow for me so I didn't get a chance to extensively navigate, from the couple of tile I managed to see I couldn't see any depth information (sounding data). In theory, there is some potential here because the S-57 is an old format ill-suited for the web or desktop-based systems for that matter. They are in the process or revamping the format (S-101), but we all know how well top-down committee based formats are designed. Any bottom-up format that spreads and proves itself in the field would be exciting...But it'll be interesting what the open source data movement could do to in this area that could disrupt the vast network of national hydrographic associations that update the depth values of the world's oceans on a weekly and monthly basis and sell them to sea vessels the world over.

litmuson Its Edge Intact, Vice Is Chasing Hard News

Subject-wise it still can be edgy at times, but I still miss the Gavin McInnes days (the pushed out co-founder)[1], despite him resurfacing kind of predictably as a Fox News regular. The writing in the magazine itself has mellowed since then and often succumbs to a uninspiring stale journalistic style that I think the editors mistake for gravitas. But then again, no one reads anymore so there is that...I like some of the fiction though.

[1] https://soundcloud.com/litmustrax/the-voice-of-vice3

litmuson Robin Williams, Oscar-Winning Comedian, Dies at 63

this incidental interview with stephen fry and robin williams is kind of poignant, not in small part because of the difference in the exterior behavior of two interesting bipolar personalities and the way fry effortfully tries to forgive williams for his intrusions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39ya2Drpj3s

litmuson Peter Thiel’s CS183: Startup - Class 11 Notes Essay

From the offhand "if you have a secret, patent it" remark, are we to gather that one secret is that Peter Thiel believes in patents?

litmuson An open letter on feminism in tech

Somebody stating their views based on past experiences interacting with the community the authors are part of is something other readers might be interested in. See the post by "226jg5" below.

litmuson An open letter on feminism in tech

I also was worried that there was something wrong with my reading comprehension. To me, one of the most critical parts of the essay seemed the most weakly written, namely the "Encouraging greater diversity in the workspace" section. Here I am thinking "ok, here comes the concrete suggestions for what men should do"--and then I'm left with a phrase without a definition. That section talks about events thrown by women for women it seems--precisely the things companies that "only pay lip service" would point to as evidence of their feminist credentials. In other words, those places and events don't look like "workplaces" at all. They may be encouraging women to work in tech "in general" and improving their skills but they are no means directly getting the women hired into the workplaces in question.

So just so I get this right: When they say "Encourage diversity in the workplace" do they mean "all things being equal, hire the women", or do they mean "all things being not immensely unequal, hire the women"?

litmuson Google VP named Dean of Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science

Any time I come across that makes me respect CMU more, I'm uncomfortably reminded of their continued association with the SEI and CMMI. Yes it came out of CMU, yes it's a cash cow, yes things like healthcare.gov show how CMMI compliance are crucial to creating quality software. Okay yeah the last thing not so much.

Seriously, it's marketing snake oil and its creating wasteful barriers to entry for companies thinking of creating innovative user-friendly government software. And it can't die fast enough. I know its probably not high on this dean's priority list, but if I were a CMU student I'd be embarrassed that my university was associated a pseudo-serious institution that makes claims vastly exceeding what the scientific method can conclude given the data they present. The gap between their projected air of authority and their obliviousness to the limits of their methodology should make any engineer-oriented person uneasy. Yes there are probably some smart people in the SEI with interesting war stories and such but the whole certification thing has got to go.

Most of you in start-ups probably never heard of CMMI. This is generally a good thing.

litmuson They Write the Right Stuff (1996)

"The agile push came people who were reacting against creating pages of useless design up front documentation"

er, what? The agile push came from people who saw an opportunity to make money [1].

There are only four items in the Agile Manifesto. The second item specifically highlights documentation cost overhead of traditional methods as a major grievance: "Working software over comprehensive documentation" (see also [1]). I don't think money is a differentiating factor, we're talking about the software business in the end after all. If you're referring to process snakeoil marketing, I'm against that no matter which side is doing it. I was responding to your assertion that software developers go from "agile" to "design up front" as they "grow up". My view is that the people that began popularizing the agile term were in fact "grown up" programmers. Are we talking about different things when we talk about design? What is the output of "design up front" in the traditional sense if not documentation and diagrams? (for example, see the military standards and ISO standards for what's required for detailed design)

I don't see anything objectionable in the descriptions you give, although I don't view the waterfall process as being predictable in any meaningful sense. Its only predictable in so far as its underlying assumptions hold. And in the software world at large such assumptions (fixed unchanging requirements for example) rarely hold. My claim is that circumstances for the space shuttle software is the exception, not the rule.

[1] http://davidfrico.com/rico08e.pdf

litmuson They Write the Right Stuff (1996)

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The context in which the space shuttle program is developed has almost no relation to what most developers face in the software world at large, a fact that the article admits toward the end.

Lets see:

* 35 million dollar budget a year.

* developing software that only has "one job", regardless of how hard that job is.

* In other words, no evolving software to meet the demands of an evolving world. Fixed requirements 'forever' (as much as forever can be in software terms). No one at NASA is going "hey, I know we developed this for earth orbit but lets alter the design and try use 90% of the same code to go to the moon as well earth orbit. We'll save time and money." (Unlike SpaceX to some extent)

* irreversible decisions. safety critical etc.

* Due to lavish budget and safety critical risks, reduced schedule pressure. No one wants to be on the other end of a independent report concluding that long hours resulted in sloppy code that got astronauts killed.

The above often even doesn't apply to most relatively expensive (in the millions) non-safety critical military and government software. Watch the Pentagon Wars for a hilarious illustration that comes closer to the reality that software engineers face in those environments.

Its a scandal that space shuttle software is being used to push pseudo-scientific process ideology. Its often claimed that SEI developed CMMI process using the space shutte software process as a blueprint. CGI Federal was CMMI Level 5 on paper and QSSI was CMMI Level 3. Meaning that the companies responsible for the most public software scandal in recent US history that is healthcare.gov wasted something like $300 mil at t0 writing the "wrong stuff" while claiming to do it "the right way".

Enforcing abstract processes instead of dealing with case-to-case facts reminds me of this quote:

"We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield." --George Orwell

Contrast all this with Elon Musk's thoughts on Process:

"Now I have to tell you something, and I mean this in the best and most inoffensive way possible: I don’t believe in process. In fact, when I interview a potential employee and he or she says that “it’s all about the process,” I see that as a bad sign.The problem is that at a lot of big companies, process becomes a substitute for thinking. You’re encouraged to behave like a little gear in a complex machine. Frankly, it allows you to keep people who aren’t that smart, who aren’t that creative."

>when agile developers/hackers/programmers grow up they end up doing design up front.

er, what? The agile push came people who were reacting against creating pages of useless design up front documentation that was Dead On Arrival as soon as it was written. People in general become more capable in design up front as their knowledge of the domain grows, but that too depends on context. I'm not sure how valuable design up front would be to even an experienced software engineer who is faced with a project in a programming language he hasn't worked with and a customer domain and platform he doesn't know....

related, SpaceX Lessons Learned: http://lwn.net/Articles/540368/

litmuson Meanwhile, at code.org

It's clear from this post and his post on Khan Acadamy, that Bret Victor is uneasy about the immediacy of the recent "Coding Activism" movement and is probably motivated to write these types of posts because some coders taking part in this movement often cite him as their inspiration. I'm sure he feels compelled to emphasize that the intention put forth in the sum of the work of people like Papert and Douglas Engelbart was not to ultimately fuel the creation of a "cooler IDE".

litmuson We Analyzed 30K GitHub Projects: Top Libraries in Java, JS, Ruby

I think the conclusion for Java is a stretch as well. Some sort of unit testing is probably standard in BigCo, TDD is not (I'm excluding the 'hot' trend-setting BigCos obviously).