samcday

I had a coworker who came from Facebook and told me similar stories.

We all hear about the exciting engineering projects and stories coming out of Facebook. But the IT side of their org is held together with various off the shelf enterprise products and Windows stuff.

This article was entirely too negative, and neglected to mention some of the best outcomes from this project. Like the fact that BER is the world's most environmentally friendly airport: https://www.der-postillon.com/2019/06/ber-oeko.html

EDIT: </satire>

I don't think this is at all analogous to speech. For example, you might be entitled to say whatever you want under free speech protections in the US, but that doesn't mean you're allowed to walk up to random people and shout in their face. If you do that long enough you'll definitely earn yourself some misdemeanors. If you consistently did it to a particular person against their wishes, you'd eventually get some kind of harassment felony charge.

I think the name is great. It's weird enough to stand out from the pack, and it also communicates one of core benefits of the database versus the competitors.

You're kinda just stoking my paranoia here. I hadn't dug too deeply into whatbuying "carbon offsets" for flights (as a eco-conscious consumer, that is) actually entailed. But I suspected it was basically just planting N trees to offset the carbon emission.

To play devil's advocate, is it possible that planting the trees at least helps in the short to mid-term? So let's assume we don't run out of viable land to plant more trees on, and we keep planting enough trees to offset a big chunk of our carbon emissions. Doesn't that buy us, say, 100 years to figure out the technology to economically capture excess carbon and put it back underground again?

I think it’s hard to justify running your own setup in 2019 when you can get Linode/DO for 5$ a month.

Sure, CPUs are cheap and (if you’re lucky enough to live somewhere that’s offers it) consumer internet can be absurdly fast. But if youra app goes down at a critical moment because your consumer-grade ISP has an outage, or someone tripped over the Ethernet cable, or you had a brown out because you live in the UK and everyone put the kettle on at the same time, you’re going to look like a bit of an idiot.

Sarcasm or not, I found the follow-up response with the Harvard Law School article quite interesting!

So Facebook is under an increasing amount of scrutiny and calls for regulatory pressure. Amidst all that, they're still brave/arrogant/oblivious enough to launch something like this.

People are going to read history books about this era and shake their heads in pure disbelief.

Yeah, my suggestions were just spitballin'. I have exactly zero experience formulating good public policy :) I find it fascinating though since I have no illusions that even the best policy nerd is ever gonna come up with an optimal solution, but I'm positive there's plenty of low hanging fruit!

> how do you get good and honest lawmakers and exclude incompetent and corrupt ones, when the people choosing them have insufficient time and expertise?

I think this is the crux of the problem, but I also think it's actually a problem no matter what. Because if you don't regulate, you're just basically crossing your fingers and hoping shitty people don't climb the corporate ladder at Boeing / AT&T / Volkswagen / whatever.

> How do you get honest specialists who know what they're doing to even run, and how does a random voter tell the difference between that person and an industry shill prior to putting them in office?

Well I guess in my head I figured that if it becomes an enviable electable position, then you're creating healthy competition for it. In the same way we sort of all collectively hope that competent and benevolent people will run for Congress, the presidency, etc. By making the positions individually electable and clearly demarcated, I would hope that then the public is making decisions for that role more based on competency, rather than charisma. Put differently, I'm not a huge fan of representative democracy because I think it inevitably descends into cult of personality, but I don't necessarily have something I can hold up as a better way ;)

> If a Democrat replaces Trump they're certainly not going to keep his head of the EPA.

Yeah but that's my point. The people making policy in the airline industry, or the telecom industry, or whatever, should ideally be formulating public policy in the most bipartisan way possible. If you made those roles independent from the current ruling party, then it would mean that those organization heads would need to maintain healthy ties to the major parties, since they wouldn't be able to effectively carry out their role if they're only pals with Bernie and are universally hated by all conservatives. I'm probably just hopelessly naive, but I think it should be the moderates who are making decisions about how to maintain airline safety, not some hyper partisan cronie of the DNC or RNC.

You make a compelling case as to why regulation can be problematic! I can't find any part of your assessment that I disagree with.

What do you think about reforming how we regulate though? You point out that the revolving door problem stems from the fact that attracting the right people is hard when you're not offering them the right salary and career security. Surely there's ways to make that possible in the public sector!

Given that regulatory bodies really ought to be non partisan and focused on a particular field or industry of activity, perhaps the institutional heads could be selected via a more democratic process (rather than just whichever buddy helped out an elected representative win their campaign) and given guaranteed minimum terms?

And as to the problem of turnover throughout changes of political administration, isn't that perhaps also merely a policy problem? Why does the FCC or HUD need to be gutted and repopulated during a transition of political power? Those departments still have to report to the executive and congressional branches of government, so are their staffing choices something the White House should just be able to change on a whim?

Does something like this ordinarily receive an extremely in-depth and public post-mortem?

> Also, defective materials are caught much earlier in the manufacturing process through quality assurance methods, before they become airplanes.

Okay so maybe this is an apple's to oranges comparison, but I thought of the story how NASA was scammed by a supplier passing off shitty aluminium as space grade [1]. Is it reasonable to assume that if it can happen to NASA, it can happen to Boeing?

https://weather.com/news/news/2019-05-02-nasa-launch-failure...

I was trying to just state the facts, and pointed out ways to interpret this current piece as over-hyped. I also tried to not paint a graphic picture of what the "MAX controversies" even were, in order to avoid appeals to emotion.

Let me try and reframe my original comment for you. I do currently think that Boeing should be regulated more, but I'm not convinced enough of my own reasons. So I'm wondering whether my perspective would change if I heard compelling alternate ones?

I don't think I've answered my own question at all. I certainly am biased one way - I think Boeing should be regulated more. I thought my bias would be stated well enough by how I worded my original comment, so I didn't explicitly state it. Sorry if that made it seem like I want to just troll people and have bad faith arguments. I don't. I genuinely want to know how other people view this.

Here's the thing. I don't doubt that since the controversies with the MAX earlier this year, a great deal many people at Boeing are taking a hard look at everything around them and figuring out how to do better.

I'm also sure that this article could be embellishing the facts. It's entirely possible that the very smart people who think about aviation engineering all day are supremely convinced that some of the digital tests can absolutely replace physical tests that were in place for decades. I'm not even remotely qualified enough to offer an opinion on that, so I won't.

So here is my question. Boeing is a very large company beholden to shareholders, and kept in check by a declining number of other checks and balances. Should we, the public, trust that Boeing will pay close enough attention to maintaining safety as an utmost priority? Or should we be demanding that more oversight and regulation are put in place?

You make a great point. We have a lot of sci-fi that's been conditioning us to the idea of a world shared with a large cast of robotic members. I'm a geek who loves those kinds of fantasies. Yet, when I saw that fancy robotic espresso-maker in SF [1], I still reverted to childlike wonder state :) The way the robotic arm gives you a cheeky little wave when it's finished making your coffee is the perfect touch.

[1]: https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/30/cafe-x-opens-in-san-franci...

Not sure if OP or anyone else who thought along similar lines will see this follow up, but I was mulling the original comment over some more and I know why I reacted so strongly to it.

When I think of the word terrorism, and I'm sure many others think like me, I think of 9/11. Or the Las Vegas shooting. Or one of the many horrible bombings in various parts of Middle East, etc.

Those are acts that have no pre-warning, and are designed to inflict as much pain and suffering as possible, and to cause as much fear and, dare I say it, terror as possible.

What XR are intending on doing is abusing an obvious outcome of notifying civil aviation authorities that a dangerous object will be active in airspace where civilian commercial airflight is taking place. The outcome being flights are grounded and redirected, causing a lot of inconvenience to people and costing the economy potentially millions of dollars.

I think XR believes it's a 100% obvious thing that by notifying the appropriate authorities well ahead of time, all planes will be safely rerouted or grounded. If there was even the slightest chance that their actions could cause a plane crash, then I firmly believe XR would not even consider such an action.

So yes, I understand we have actual legislation that could very reasonably be used to charge the people responsible for the plan at Heathrow airport. The problem is I think that the legislation in question was designed to target something very different. If activists from XR are convicted of charges stemming from the "Terrorism Act", it becomes perfectly reasonable to label those activists as terrorists.

But then what we've actually done here is placed activists who never had the slightest intention of causing grievous harm to other people (loss of life, massive economic damage, etc) into the same category we reserve for extremists who have perpetrated genuine atrocities. That just seems completely wrong to me.

If we want to bring about legislation that criminalizes certain forms of activism that go "too far", then fine. I think even that could be a perilous path, but I can make my peace with it being necessary. I would just hope we stop and ensure everyone is on the same page that we're categorizing these people as something like "activists who went too far" in order to distinguish them from "extremists who carried out attacks that we as a society consider utterly unthinkable and terrifying".

I know most of the initial applications of Spot are going to be industrial or law enforcement / military. But I'm sure these are gonna start showing up in commercial and even retail settings, probably sooner than many of us have truly considered.

It's kinda weird to think that maybe sometime in the next decade I'm gonna need to double take as I watch a Spot Mini just casually walk down a street carrying out some mundane task.

How much have you used GraalVM? I'm curious to know if it really works like that in practice. I've read what it says on the tin a few times and been impressed, but haven't actually sat down and played with it yet. The skeptic in me thinks that in a real-world production scenario, such a thing is surely a house of cards that falls down all the time in unexpected and difficult to diagnose ways. It'd be great to hear if there's people who can vouch and say it actually delivers on its promises of a polyglot utopia :)

This is actually the best rebuttal I’ve seen so far, thank you.

I still think it’s unfair to compare a drone inside restricted airspace (and notified well ahead of time) to an explosive device in the terminal.

But I can certainly see how the two things can be put in the same category by many people.

Finally, some good news this week!

Unless someone wants to poop all over my very reductive take on this, I'm going to treat it as proof that peaceful demonstrations in the streets still mean something (sometimes).

Okay, thanks for restating.

1. Yep, I somewhat agree. So can you please clarify your stance as to whether the current climate change situation is another example?

2. Yep, and I sincerely hope China also pulls their heads out of their collective asses. However, the UK is also not out of the woods yet [1]. Just because China has a long way to go doesn't mean any other country should be easing off the gas pedal (terrible pun, hope you'll forgive me).

[1]: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/2995521/9779945/8-08...

So what you're saying is, the fact we were wrong about how long it would take to recover proves that the whole thing was a farce? Your data says nothing to counter whether the ozone hole was actually a major problem (spoiler: it was).

The fact that China is flaunting the rules the international community agreed on means what, exactly? The undeniable fact is the ozone hole did NOT continue to grow, because the majority of the world halted their use of CFCs. And wouldn't you know it, when we stopped using CFCs we stopped fucking up our ozone!

Bah, to hell with your boring moderate stance! I would much rather have endless debates with others about why MY hammer is better than their hammer, and ignore the fact that maybe not everything is a nail ;)

You made a similar point about China in one of the other siblings. But now you've expanded it to the point where you're contradicting yourself.

On the one hand, you're saying that trying to tackle climate change in the UK is pointless because China is contributing the lion's share of CO2. But then on the other hand you're equating the climate change crisis to crises that have come before and were proven to be exaggerated scenarios.

It might be worth you stating where you stand on climate change, otherwise I'm not really sure what points you're actually trying to make.

I think the problem here is many people have heard that statement, but are choosing not to believe it. Instead they're reaching for UK legislation and straw mans to paint XR as a bunch of eco-fascist terrorists.

The only thing that gives me some hope is that generally when someone does something that provokes a ferocious response, it means they've really struck a nerve and gotten people's attention.

I wish more of the comments here were like this. Most of my comments are rubbish troll-bait, I'm glad people like NeedMoreTea exist. Someone who can calmly and rationally make a series of excellent points grounded in fact and history :)

But I guess nothing I say here matters because I clearly don't actually believe any of it and I'm just virtue signalling.

I'm sorry that my forceful language offended you so much. Let me assure you I am 100% not a fascist :)

Democracy doesn't actually work a "certain way". There's many forms of democracy all over the world. Given that they're a human construct, one thing they all share in common is that they're deeply flawed in every permutation.

I'm not interested in throwing anything away. I'm interested in iterating on what we have and striving to make it better. For me, that's what it means to be human.

Kinda bummed that you weren't joking. The tone of these threads is pretty depressing and I could have used a little pick-me-up.

Anyway, I'm not a climatologist, but from what I understand we will be seeing significant global ramifications in the next 2-3 decades. In other words, it's not just the next generation that's going to suffer, it's going to be a great deal many of us who are alive today.