Correct. But to me it seems that pulling the lever to kill a few would be considered more culpable from legal perspective rather than not doing so (and let more people die). IANAL - I am curious to know how law perceives it.
And also they can't interview at Google for another year after rejection. So failing the interview has multiple costs associated with it. It's better to prepare well and then appear for the interview.
Agreed. I once read a "science article" on whales. The article claimed "since whales are not humans, they cannot be lonely and therefore..." blah blah. I closed the article, immediately after I read that statement. Pretentiousness of humans is mind boggling.
I find it amazing that people are willing to sacrifice their health and relationships for more money. Even if I was offered a million dollar salary I wouldn't do it. Aren't these grads from top notch business schools supposed to be smart and see that it's not worth it?
Before investing money, make sure you have access to a dark-ish place to observe the night sky. If you live in a major city, light pollution might be an issue and you may have to drive ways out to get decent dark skies to view anything other than nearby planets.
Because I am working on another team's code base and my code merges are dependent on their whims and schedule. Submit pull request, wait for one week for somebody to review and give feedback (all of which is bullshit nitpicks about spacing, one style of unit tests over another etc.), implement the feedback, wait for another ten days for the same person to review again and provide another round of more bullshit feedback. In the meantime, my boss says you are not coding enough to get promoted to the next level. I have started doing LeetCode because I was concerned that I might forget coding and also it will help me find another job.
Agreed but that is not focused on interview prep. These days to clear tech interviews you have to "study to the test". So if you want to do real system design yeah study DDIA but if you want to clear a system design interview study books like the one in TFA.
I was amazed when I repeatedly saw how an incredibly shameless guy in my college days not only got what he wanted but was also liked. He would say the most shameless things that would embarrass people while in their presence. For example - he would announce in the whole class who hadn't taken a shower in a week or who wasn't wearing underwear today (he would sometimes have this kind of information because we all used to live in the dorm.) Yet all the girls used to like him. Once I asked a girl why she liked him knowing that he says embarrassing and shameless things and makes jokes at people's expense. Her response was "what he says makes me laugh."
P.S - I had nothing against the guy personally. He rarely made jokes at my expense - he didn't have enough jokeworthy material on me.
>> surely there would be third-world places today that are the same?
You seem to be implying that modern third world is so far behind so as to resemble 18th century Paris. While I agree with you that the quote in parent seems exaggerated I don't think even a modern very poor country will stink like 18th century London and Paris. 18th century was a time of horse driven transport and little to no sewer system. The main stench would be from those two things which in modern times is mostly absent even in poor third world countries.
After reading this kind of fascinating stuff, I feel ashamed that I am wasting the opportunity of having a human mind by writing CRUD applications (though I am nowhere near as smart as this stuff requires one to be - I can barely clear whiteboard coding interviews).
The author is setting up himself for a lot of disappointment. I am not sure why he expects employee number n*100 who gets 0.1% equity (if at all) to give a shit about his company (that he himself most likely has a huge stake in). Also, it's comical he cites one of the most successful companies in the world (Google) and criticizes their work culture. That culture clearly works for Google since they are wildly successful.
Learning to play guitar. I started with self learning. There are excellent tutorials on YouTube and other websites. Got quite frustrated due to painfully (pun intended) slow progress. Then took lessons for six months. Music lessons are expensive! So once I got the basics down, I decided to go back to auto-didactism. Without a doubt, learning to play guitar is one of the most difficult things I have ever done in my life. I think clearing Google interview is way easier.
It is more likely that those are the instances you remember because they stand out as compared to other uninteresting instances. So you get the impression that the former happens more often.
I don't like printing but printing is indispensable (at least in US). There are many official documents you have to print, sign, scan and send. Just yesterday I had to fill out a mail order so that my office can send WFH equipment to my residence. For those who are recommending running to the nearby print-shop, it doesn't matter how close the store is, nothing beats the convenience of having a printer-scanner right next to my desk especially when it's raining or sub zero outside. These days kids are doing school from home, so I scan their art-work and upload (turns out better than taking a picture). My ten year old Brother laser printer works well with CUPS and if it were to die I'll buy a laser printer-scanner in a heartbeat. It makes life so easy having a printer-scanner at home.
It is easy to look at this list and say gender and ethnicity played a role (which wouldn't be surprising particularly in that era). But five people on the list are white men. Physicists were more likely to be white men (at least in those times). So no matter what list you make of physicists, they will end up on that list. My point is, it is not possible to deduce any bias from such a list. For any coveted prize there are many well deserving people that don't get it simply because there's only one prize to be awarded per year and there's no sure and objective way to know if one who got it was indeed more deserving than the others who didn't.
>> I haven't found much of anything in life that you can't get better at by trying again and again.
I used to think the same way until I tried learning to play guitar. Have been trying it for a year now and I seriously question if I will ever be able to do it with reasonable proficiency. (So far holding on though.)
It depends on what one's goal is. If one's goal is to just be able to read and understand others speaking or comprehend written text, then yes, I think creating your own sentences is not that important and mere exposure can take you a long way. In fact, I would say 99.9% of people who "know Sanskrit" fall in this category. I have met people who hold Masters and Ph.Ds in Sanskrit and they can't hold a basic conversation in Sanskrit. On the other hand if one wants to be able to read, write and speak the language then you absolutely need to engage in producing content (verbal and written).
I teach Sanskrit to adult enthusiasts. It is mind boggling how people think that they can learn a language by being a passive consumer - that I need to do all the talking while they just sit and listen and take notes. I repeatedly tell them you need to be a producer and not a mere consumer. Creating your own sentences forces you to actively recall what you have learnt and is going to be far more productive than reading what is written. (Though reading is important too in learning a new language.) Being a producer and "active recall" require both effort and time and people give up quickly. Only the tenacious ones remain and they are the ones who learn.
If you didn't finish watching Interstellar you missed out. It is one of the best phys-fi movies out there. The physics consultant on that movie was Kip Thorne [0], a giant of gravitational physics and a Noble laureate. Phys-fi movies don't get any better than this.
I am curious to know why you are working through this book. Is it related to your career or are you doing just for fun? I am asking because I often face this dilemma of whether to invest time in furthering my career or doing something I like that is not going to help my career (although this book might given that it has theory of trees and graphs).