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redmerchant2

636 karma · joined June 12, 2023

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redmerchant2··on Luigi Mangione's account has been renamed on Stack Overflow
Polls are only as good as the pollster. Watch how “popular” Kamala was in polls because it was the “right” thing to say.

Most people (including rich boomers) I know are at minimum ambivalent to Luigi with many actively supporting him. But if asked on record they would deny it.

redmerchant2··on Robotics 101 at UMich: Applied numerical linear algebra as intro linear algebra
Probably trying to transition from a SWE role to a ML one
redmerchant2··on Ask HN: How do you find high quality mobile games?
You’d have to pay money. Monetization heavily favors mictrotransactions and are built around the most abusive Skinner box concepts. The Asian market is well known to spend high rates on IAP letting terrible games earn 100s of millions.

Subreddits like r/iosgaming should be a good starting point.

redmerchant2··on Steve Huffman Wants to Be God of the Mods
Hard disagree. Most niche hobbies, the discoverability for discord is impossible. That means amassing enough people in the server is hard, it’s usually 1 really dedicated person responding.

Reddit was also the best place for product (gadgets, gear, clothes etc) reviews. Some retailers have gotten clever about astroturfing but you just need to look at multiple posters. My usual routine of aggregating 4-5 Reddit threads worth of opinions has consistently rewarded me.

Now your only option is go to Wirecutter or hope you have friends who have the product you’re interested in.

redmerchant2··on Discord monetization: microtransaction stores and paid 'exclusive memes'
Related is the content locked behind sub stack and patreon paywalls.

I’m all for creators making money but it splits communities between subscribers and non subscribers. The most invested, and likely to make discussion, fans will pay taking their own contributions behind the paywall.

redmerchant2··on Cookie Clicker saved my PhD
The title is a bit hyperbolic but I enjoyed the sentiments nonetheless.

I definitely remember as a kid learning Lua scripting because of video games. Just going over forum posts trying to make my own games or break other games.

Definitely gave me the basis to rocket ahead when I took a formal CS class.

redmerchant2··on Ask HN: What is the morale like inside Reddit, as an employee?
Here's a couple more verified quotes since I dived down this rabbit hole:

- "I think most rational people agree with the decisions, regardless of possible fumbling"

- "We are living under constant anxiety waiting for the next round of layoffs that’s been planned by leadership at the beginning of the year"

- Another verified user disagreed with the above ^

- "Current employees are afraid to say anything as spez reads Blind and complains about it at all hands. 100% he will try to rat out who is speaking. Not worth it."

Last one seems most interesting. Looks like spez/upper leadership is monitoring what employees say.

redmerchant2··on Ask HN: What is the morale like inside Reddit, as an employee?
This is best suited for Blind where you have the verification. That said recent results turned up little. On the layoffs, morale seems bad:

- "There isn't much clarity around severance and health insurance"

- "This is fine ([fire emoji] [dog emoji] [fire emoji])"

Recent (past month) reviews seem negative: "questionable execs", "micromanaging", "still not mature", "growing pains", "stay away", "mediocre, lack of product vision".

As a reminder Blind the users are verified to be working at the company. It's quite the cesspit of elitism and "I make more than you". But, again, reviews tend to be accurate because it's verified anonymity.

redmerchant2··on Ask HN: Why are most Startups asking for US Remote instead of just Remote?
Why bother? Recruiting in another country, figuring out what work experience or schools are legitimate etc is extra hassle. Taxes, different holidays, language/communication problems etc.

US talent pool is already deep enough.

If they want to use other countries it’s just for lower wages.

redmerchant2··on Stanford Alumni 5x More Likely to Secure VC Funding Than Carnegie Mellon
MIT can foster that attitude because funding is generous, there’s so much support and safety net even for undergrads. In turn the success stories feeds back and bolsters.

It’s only obvious because they are given the chance to demonstrate their capability.

I’m arguing that the inherent baseline quality of student does not differ much. If given the chance CMU/Berkeley/etc alums can also succeed. But they’re locked out of many chances due to school prestige.

redmerchant2··on Stanford Alumni 5x More Likely to Secure VC Funding Than Carnegie Mellon
Some of these comments are sound like they were made by high schoolers who think HYPSM or bust. CMU has one of the most rigorous CS/engineering programs.

While the top 5% of Stanford grads might be "better" due to how selective they are. But I'd bet the median CMU CS major knows more, programs better etc. Simply because Stanford has a high percent of legacy, athlete, and moneyed international students that buy in. Whereas anecdotally, while CMU students are less well-rounded, those students are serious grinders.

If anything, this is proof that prestige, not talent, and who you know matters most. I've heard of several start ups with mostly Berkley/UC grads and one Stanford grad, and they always introduce him first for pitches.

redmerchant2··on Subreddit Migration Directory
What value do you get out of that sub, out of curiosity? I found it to have good resources that have been aggregated but the most awful “community”.

So many weebs with minor proficiency attacking and berating posters.

redmerchant2··on Reddit is removing moderators that protest by taking their communities private
They don’t care about the old guard of mostly geeks and techies. With Covid and moments of Twitter/tumblr exodus, Reddit has picked up a ton of users that just want generic social media.

It’s basically just a global slightly more news text-centric TikTok feed. Serving up slop that’s just tasty enough to keep you hooked.

redmerchant2··on Reddit says it won’t overrule mods and force subreddits back open
No this method prevents liability. It’s like Facebook private groups. If there’s anything wrong you deflect the blame and remove the group/moderator.

This lets you get the best of both worlds. Outsource the responsibility and the blame.

Mods are meant to be replaceable scapegoats. Also stock traders don’t care. Some investment bank will trot it out on a road show to mutual funds promising the IPO pop and everyone goes their merry way.

redmerchant2··on Reddit CEO Steve Huffman: It's time we grow up and behave like an adult company
That’s a straw man. The 3P client devs were willing to pay. 2-3x the ARPU but Reddit is demanding 20x. At one point a dev could even do a 10x multiplier with paid subscription but the admins are only interesting in killing them off.
redmerchant2··on Reddit CEO Steve Huffman: It's time we grow up and behave like an adult company
He posted recordings of all the calls. Feel free to review those before spreading FUD.

Reddit has not disputed the validity of the recordings either.

redmerchant2··on My 24 year old HP Jornada can do things an iPhone still can't do
For me, “it just works.” The amount of time configuring a OSX vs Windows work computer was huge.

For personal use cases it’s the same. Smartphones are so advanced that there’s not that much functionality I’d get. The benefit from customizability of an Android is less than the stability and ease of access of an iPhone. Maybe ad blocking is the only issue, YT on the phone is unusable, but I have a pi-hole for my home network so I don’t mind.

I still have a rooted Android and a jail broken iPad to mess around with. But beyond some nerdy stuff or hacking a mobile game, it’s mostly a gimmick.

redmerchant2··on Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely
I have no doubt, my point is the mods of r/music don’t have a specific leaning that they’d try to manipulate.

Most of the mods of bigger subs have been doing it for years and it’s just a quirky hobby/obligation.

Obviously the super mods are in the pocket of the admins, and political subs are very controlling.

But appointing a new round of mods for a sub with millions of subscribers will attract the most bottom barrel power hungry people.

redmerchant2··on Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely
I’m happy that 90% of the subs I sub to joined the blackout.

But some subs like r/comics are strangely boot licky despite how community engaged the mod team seemed to be. Automatically removing requests about the blackout and not even entertaining the discussion.

redmerchant2··on Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely
Pushshift but even that is constantly down. It was offline since last month with API changes. Spez claimed they’ll fix it for approved mods only so the casual user is likely out of luck.
redmerchant2··on Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely
The big subs have figured out an extensive set up of bots and moderation guidelines, while investing their own time, all for free. Reddit’s mod tooling is extremely abysmal, that’s part of the protest. (Only 3P devs have bothered building more advanced tools.) A new mod will not have the expertise or careful set up from the previous mods.

Most of the mods are debatably not power hungry, particularly on a sub like Music or Videos. Finding a replacement mod team without specific agendas is going to be hard. Only the most power tripping or ideologically driven will want the position as paying mods seems out of the question given Reddit’s stance.

Inexperienced mods will also be unable to handle the torrent of spam and low effort posts and comments the big sub attract.

It’s not impossible to punish the dissident mods but having a functional replacement on short notice is impossible.

redmerchant2··on Dating, education, and sex ratios
I think that’s a good point but the idea your (male) partner has to make more seems silly.

The core idea of finding a partner that is strictly better is the concern the article raises. If she makes 300k a year and he makes 150k a year, the studies suggest women would refuse to take that.

But if we suppose they get together, even with the haircut in wages from taking time for childcare, they will still have a great standard of living.

redmerchant2··on Dating, education, and sex ratios
This is mostly for large cities. As someone who’s lived in many big cities like NYC and London, education and pedigree is extremely important.

It’s also about the illusion of choice and “settling” for worse. When you know there are attractive Harvard lawyers, why would you bother with some state school government worker? Now there’s no guarantee these women can actually land the first group but why not try?

As rational actors maximizing their utility, that’s the right move. The real question is what utility entails for that individual. But the default norm is by school and job prestige alongside physical looks.

redmerchant2··on Dating, education, and sex ratios
This is a known issue but the down stream effect won’t be felt for a while.

Let’s be clear we’re talking about general behavioral trend, not trying to police an individual, which is the crux of contention for these topics.

Many women still hold on to the idea of finding a partner that is wealthier and more educated. This is due to the past (over)reliance of their partners for stability. But this is no longer true.

The education gap between men and women are growing. More women enroll and graduate from college then men. Many young men, mostly lower-middle class, (whether fairly or not) feel like the education system does not work for them.

Society and companies are reconciling the barriers for women’s advancement and we’re only observing this initial gap. That is well and good. But in 10-20 years women will out number men in many fields requiring higher education.

The real problem arises when that clashes with traditional expectations. The women in the article is a successful Yale grad who wants a partner with better pedigree. If you include looks and height requirements her dating pool is like <0.01% of the population. As that cascades to women in general with college education refusing to consider men in trade, that mismatch grows wider.

The implication of the dating “market” not being able to match buyers and sellers would have some interesting dynamics.

redmerchant2··on Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted
Revenue is generated by ads. The power users are also the savvy users with ad block. Their value added is making the content for average users to engage and consume. Those are the users that will make up the base of the as revenue.

Alienating power user seems like the exact opposite.

redmerchant2··on Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted
Many financial sites have reported Reddit users are worthless. CNBC estimated in 2019 that FB’s ARPU monthly is $7.37 per month but Reddit’s monthly ARPU is $0.30. (Though even that number should be revised down as revenue is slower than growth of users).

Again the devs are willing to pay some multiplier on this.

redmerchant2··on Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted
I’m just following Christian’s good faith interpretation.

But it’s absolutely clear it was done to kill 3P clients. It’s hilarious that certain bots would be exempt and free from the price hike. Spez called out the Haikubot by name.

Look those bots are cute. But it has to query every single sub and every single comment every few minutes to work. If Reddit truly cares about waste and inefficiency those would be the first to go. The value vs cost calculus is negative.

redmerchant2··on Apollo’s Christian Selig explains his fight with Reddit – and why users revolted
They buried the lede. The article suggests the shutdown was because of free API to paid API. Anyone uninformed who just click off at that point. Even when they ask about costs, it was just saying it’s “<$1 vs $2.50”.

But the issue is two fold. (1) all the devs support a paid API, but the rate is absurd according to basic math. It would charge devs over 20x what a user actually cost/were worth. Devs were willing to take on a higher cost (2-3x) but over 20x is impossible. (2) That basic math was very conservative. The actually multiplier is much higher if you look at the calculations. It’s wild but it seems Christian is even willing to accept a 10x bump (albeit with a higher subscription cost).

Not really mentioned was all this was changed out the blue with less than 30 days to comply. The interview touches on it but it’s insanity that a tech company think it’s reasonable for indie devs to operate under that constraint.

redmerchant2··on New York Times-owned sports news site The Athletic lays off 4%
Sports coverage even pre-LLM felt like it was written by basic AIs.

“[Game result], [high light], [reaction]” mad libs. Very little real value beyond scanning headlines.

Anecdotally most discussion happens live on social media and highlight reels on TikTok and Instagram. The rest is just adjacent like player gossip, or management moves.

Interesting and novel journalism happens maybe once a season.

redmerchant2··on Reddit goes down fully as thousands of subreddits protest API changes
I caved in and briefly decided to see the front page. It’s jarring how barren it is.

Front page is filled with posts from 16 hours ago.

I know a vocal dissident claimed it didn’t matter but looks like the power law is kicking in.

When the 1% of creators mostly stop posting, the 90% of lurkers will have nothing to consume.

It’s still up in the air how much it’ll matter but I’m cautiously optimistic.

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