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proximitysauce

267 karma · joined January 17, 2020

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proximitysauce··on After 4 Years of Silence, a Call to Mom on Mother’s Day
You don't have to "do your part". Your part is living a healthy life. Take whatever steps necessary to make that happen, even if that means cutting contact with your parents.
proximitysauce··on After 4 Years of Silence, a Call to Mom on Mother’s Day
That's kinda a crappy message to be spreading on Mother's Day for people who don't have parents (or aren't in contact with them) tbh.
proximitysauce··on After 4 Years of Silence, a Call to Mom on Mother’s Day
If you have a good relationship with your mother.

If she was/is abusive and you're not comfortable talking to her, feel absolutely no guilt today.

proximitysauce··on After 4 Years of Silence, a Call to Mom on Mother’s Day
> As bad as your relationship is with your parents. Once they're gone, you're pretty much alone.

Absolutely untrue. If your parents are toxic and damaging, you should cut them from your life. Some people can't live healthy lives if they keep contact with their abusive parents.

proximitysauce··on The dystopian world of software engineering interviews
I find that I don't get very many "bad" hires. It's pretty easy to tell if someone is a good developer or not. In the rare case that someone bad slips through, it's easy enough to fire them. That's only happened to me a couple of times though. It's not something I'd optimize for.
proximitysauce··on The dystopian world of software engineering interviews
If only people who agree to it make it through, then I'm not surprised the feedback is positive. What you're missing is all of the senior people who would never do this (which is a lot of them).

I'll also add that it's not hard to vet candidates. I've hired dozens and dozens of great people and never ask for references. Interviewing is a skill all managers should develop and excel at.

proximitysauce··on Facebook reverses on paid influencers after Bloomberg memes
> It doesn’t undermine the grandparent’s point that the BBC is a different kind of organisation to Fox News.

I guess that depends on if you think making one of the worst pedophiles in history a network star for decades is "better" than FOX. I don't think it is, both networks are not trustworthy.

proximitysauce··on The dystopian world of software engineering interviews
I think it's important to understand that you're asking candidates to burn "social capital" by arranging those introductions. I've worked for pretty high end people (successful founders, ceos...). I'm not going to call in any favors from them for a job interview. Most senior people feel the same way. Don't ask your candidates to expend their own personal or social capital.
proximitysauce··on The dystopian world of software engineering interviews
In addition to all of the very dystopian examples given in this post, there are other non-technical, super-dystopian things that have been popping up as "trends" in the tech industry.

Ever heard of top-grading? It's the most oppressive interview technique of all time. A series of grueling multi-person interviews. A retrospective of all work experiences since high school. You also have to get multiple prior employers as references. Apparently top-grading is used to weed out "liars". Imagine what kind of place optimizes to find liars; maybe one with a problem with a lot lying? I've heard Twitter uses this technique (or did last year when my friend interviewed with them).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topgrading

proximitysauce··on Facebook reverses on paid influencers after Bloomberg memes
Is there a downside to recognizing when the media deliberately deceives their audience? We should do more of that, not less. These media companies do not have your best interest at heart.
proximitysauce··on Facebook reverses on paid influencers after Bloomberg memes
I think you should reconsider including the BBC. They most definitely intentionally deceived people for a very long time with regard to Jimmy Savile:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Savile_sexual_abuse_scan...

proximitysauce··on Facebook reverses on paid influencers after Bloomberg memes
BBC doesn't belong on that list either. They covered for Jimmy Savile's pedophilia for decades. Fun fact: the head of the BBC left as their cover-up came to light after Savile's death. He is now the CEO of The New York Times, which has its own history with Jeffery Epstein (Ito on the board...).
proximitysauce··on Democrats Declined DHS Offer to Test Caucus App
There's a difference between AWS and a tiny startup, the CEO of which is married to one of the top advisors of a the Buttigeig campaign. At this point, this conversation doesn't really matter as it's been widely accepted as a conflict of interested and condemned.
proximitysauce··on Democrats Declined DHS Offer to Test Caucus App
That's the definition of conflict of interest! You can't sell tech to the candidates and the election at the same time.
proximitysauce··on Democrats Declined DHS Offer to Test Caucus App
The conflict of interest is what you're calling a "conspiracy theory". It's a known fact that there is conflict of interest between the Buttigieg campaign and Acronym/Shadow. That's not a "theory", it is indeed a fact.
proximitysauce··on Democrats Declined DHS Offer to Test Caucus App
Are you saying that people who have a problem with this conflict of interest are the equivalent of flat earthers? That's not a viable position to take.
proximitysauce··on Jeffrey Epstein's mystery bank came alive after his death
Records filed by the estate on Friday indicate that Southern Country had $693,157 in assets when Mr. Epstein died on Aug. 10. Then, in mid-December, the estate transferred $15.5 million to Southern Country in two checks. Southern Country sent back $2.6 million, leaving the total it received at $12.9 million. The documents filed by the estate do not give a reason for the transfers.

It’s also not clear what Southern Country did with that money. Two weeks later, the year-end value of Southern Country’s assets was $499,759, according to the estate’s filings.

So ~$12.5M transferred after his death is missing an unaccounted for? That's pretty outrageous. Are there methods for tracking that money down? The article doesn't really say anything about an investigation into its whereabouts.

proximitysauce··on Justice Department meeting state AG offices Tuesday to discuss Google: sources
> If the AMP page doesn't have the content you want and the non-AMP page does, that is the publisher's problem and the search engine's problem for displaying an inferior page.

Actually it ends up being my problem. I don't want multiple versions of the same thing. AMP is yet another format and it's one that is outside of normal web browsing workflow.

proximitysauce··on Justice Department meeting state AG offices Tuesday to discuss Google: sources
It's not "faster" if I have to wait for the AMP site to load, then figure out where to tap in Google's UI to get the page I actually wanted to go to, then wait for it to load. Especially the case if I want to share the url (the real one, not the AMP one).

I don't need an intermediary popup page between me and the destination I seek.

proximitysauce··on Justice Department meeting state AG offices Tuesday to discuss Google: sources
There are other ways Google "leverages" its market share that are questionable. Look at the recent controversy about making all search results look like ads. They are also making it harder for ad blockers to exist in Chrome with every release. Favoring sites that implement AMP, removing urls...

I think our industry as a whole would benefit from Google being broken up.

proximitysauce··on iOS 13's Music App Sucks
Apple makes bad internet software. It’s ok at software that runs without any services but anything that requires internet access is a disaster.

Even their “good” software is only good if you use exactly how Apple wants.

proximitysauce··on Ted versus The Media Lab [video]
That's incorrect. Most of those services were using collaborative filtering social data to drive their recommendations.
proximitysauce··on Ted versus The Media Lab [video]
I believe that they wanted to hire you.

There were a ton of music recommendations available at the time. Every music service had them: Rhapsody, Yahoo! Music Unlimited, Last.fm, Mog, iTunes, Grooveshark... Echo Nest's weren't even that good. I don't think they had song level recommendations iirc.

proximitysauce··on Ted versus The Media Lab [video]
Spotify acquired Echo Nest in 2014. Spotify was already wildly successful at that point, and were latest in a long line of music streaming services that came before them. They also already had recommendations. It was basically an acquihire and most of the team has already left.
proximitysauce··on Jim Lehrer’s Rules of Journalism
I think the problem is that you're associating people calling out media bias and corruption with Trump. I explicitly said the white house has issues too. Major issues, tons of them. That doesn't absolve the mainstream media, there are a lot of valid things to critique there.
proximitysauce··on Jim Lehrer’s Rules of Journalism
A far greater concern than conspiracy theorists getting taken seriously are actual conspiracies perpetrated by mainstream media outlets. I gave two examples elsewhere in the thread: Weinstein and Epstein. Those aren't "conspiracy theories", they're know and active conspiracies. There were a multitude of opportunity to report on them but the stories were actively stifled for personal and political gain.
proximitysauce··on Jim Lehrer’s Rules of Journalism
I've never heard manufacturing consent used like that. Do you have any examples of what you're talking about? Genuinely curious.
proximitysauce··on Jim Lehrer’s Rules of Journalism
I disagree. It's not the job of journalism to manipulate people, even if they think they're doing it for a good cause. Jim Lehrer's rules are very correct here.
proximitysauce··on Jim Lehrer’s Rules of Journalism
I wouldn't but I also wouldn't expect a political operative to become the chief anchor and political correspondent of a major network.
proximitysauce··on Jim Lehrer’s Rules of Journalism
It's the job of journalists to vet the stories. No journalist ever has or ever will suggest that the earth is flat. That's a strawman.
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