204 karma · joined November 14, 2018
Not saying the saudis aren’t forward thinking about what to do when demand decreases, but so many folks do believe that oil = cars and going electric means we don’t need oil.
Don’t just complain. If you know of a better way, tell us or go do it yourself.
On the Berkeley paper:
>For a model training problem: “Lambda’s limited resources and data-shipping architecture mean that running this algorithm on Lambda is 21×slower and 7.3× more expensive than running on EC2.”
Did Amazon pitch that Lambda is always the better solution that EC2 for every problem set?
An experienced engineer or architect must be able to weigh the pros and cons to decide on which solution is correct. Lambda, FaaS etc doesn’t solve every use case. Is the author just trying to point out this specific fact or is it a frustration that Lambda isn’t a silver bullet?
>It is foolish to assume that we’ve all the serverless primitives necessary to solve all current and future programming problems.
Who is arguing we have them all?
We should solve the problem with tax loopholes and enforce the system for all.
Mom and pop businesses or small business are very foundational to our economy. Even though individually they’re small, large scale tax evasion would be death by a thousand cuts.
I have a couple different cards. I use an AMEX cash back card for groceries and general shopping, Amazon, etc. I get 6% cash back up to $600 a year.
For travel and hotels, I have a Chase card that gives me bonus miles, paid for my TSA pre, and some other perks.
I pay off all cards in full each month. There’s never any interest. In return, I don’t have to manage cash and I get cash back and travel points.
There’s literally no downside for me. Paying with cash for things I put on these cards means I’d be leaving money on the table.
Also, I budget through mint. All my spending automatically appears and gets categorized since my cards are linked to my account. There’s never a question of where the money went.
I’ve come across those types of people in my career. They were cancerous and didn’t last long. I’ve learned to tune out the noise and cut off people like that. Fortunately for me, I’ve never had run ins where these people had power over me. If they did, it’s a shitty company IMO to bring in people like that and I’m better off elsewhere.
They insisted we pay cash, even though they had a machine to swipe a card.
We don’t carry cash and assumed their card machine was broken. As we apologized and started leaving, they suddenly agreed to accept a credit card.
Presumably the transaction costs per swipe are high, although we were spending about $30 and not 50 cents or something minuscule.
My more cynical side thinks they preferred cash because it’s harder to trace. Credit card transactions are probably automatically reported to the IRS by the payment processing company. Cash... well, unless the IRS sends someone to physically to your location, it’s harder to trace and easy to dodge taxes.
I would say someone with 5 years experience could be senior to someone with 10 years under their belt, granted the former worked on the right projects that gave them valuable experience, with some combination of design, understanding trade offs, implementation, and social/management skills managing delivery of their features or taking complexity and simplifying it (both technically and from a requirements perspective). You could work 10 years and not hit those points.
I expect someone with 10 years is hands down more experienced than someone with just one year under their belt, but otherwise, looking at how long you’ve been in the industry is kind of meaningless without understanding what it is that you did.
IMO, you don’t have to take a feast or starve approach but find a balance. My vacations weren’t the kind of Hawaii getaways that people in Hollywood are probably accustomed to. Cheap food, low end hotel, etc but I got to travel and see new cultures.
I’m not posting this to say I figured out some genius financial insight, but anyone reading this who’s young or early in their career - for the love of god, do save money in your retirement account. Assuming there’s a company match, it’s essentially free money. Do pay back student loans unless you can discharge them. A ruined credit is going to close so many doors, from financing an auto purchase to home ownership and other things.
You will have to retire some day, and depending on the broken welfare system (at least in the US) to provide for all your needs is reckless.
No offense op, but if you have a clear idea, it’s better to communicate clearly. Why play riddles and not flat out state what you’re trying to state?
If you wanted to be a doctor, maybe you become a nurse because of some circumstance. That doesn’t mean you’re not valuable and shouldn’t be paid decently.
We don’t pay teachers just as we don’t properly find public education. At my high school in the Midwest, we invested more into football and basketball than the actual curriculum. Calculus and precalculis were not even offered.
The freebies, on call outrage, etc is inherent to the tech industry with venture capitalist money or otherwise insane net profits... the longer term sustainability is questionable, but fresh college grads or others early in their careers having unreasonable expectations of reality are not so different than your average political science or psychology major taking on egregious levels of debt only to struggle with making student loan payments.
Again, I agree with valuing other disciplines. I think there’s also something to be said about supply and demand. The Googles and Amazons of the world typically hire people at least somewhat competent in CS. Sure you could pick up pick up Ruby on Rails or whatever framework to join the gig economy, but your chances won’t be great at becoming a engineer at a Google caliber company.
The issue with teacher pay isn’t just about what society values but is more nuanced. My conservative friends don’t see the value in public education and insist on sending their kids to private schools. I don’t know how those teachers are paid, but for the public school system that I participated in, the argument becomes well my kid doesn’t attend so why should I pay for it?
In my opinion, it’s very short sighted and destructive for the country in the long term. It’s not only teachers we are devaluing but an entire generation of children whose parents are not able to absorb the exorbant costs of private schools.
Like I said - the two are not mutually exclusive.
When you use the phrase unbounded welfare spending - I think ensuring kids are fed, have access to schools, and live in a non hazardous environment is key. Your use of that term sounds very generic to me, and I want to highlight there is far more nuance. Unbounded welfare spending sounds like something I would hear on Fox News, and so I take issue with that phrase.
Edit: reading others’ posts about him in this thread. Okay, wow. Not sure how accurate this information is though.
The poverty was mind blowing. Growing up in some projects in Nashville and going to school because school lunch was the only meal I’d get, I thought I knew what poverty was.
I remember coming back still somewhat shocked and thinking how trivial many of the issues are in the US that our politicians have spun up that now Americans are so divided over.
I’m not saying India shouldn’t invest in space missions. Pushing the boundary of knowledge is a good thing. I just can’t help and wonder if they should be solving these terrestrial problems first, just from what I saw there, even though I know solving those problems and going to space are not mutually exclusive.
My comment reflects my experiences.
Considering your comment history attacking Tesla in this larger thread in favor of dealers and this particular comment, I assume you are affiliated with some dealer.
Calling me ignorant doesn’t solve any problem. If you are a stakeholder in a dealership business, try raising the bar a bit and provide an honest, hassle free and upfront experience to your customers. By attacking a frustrated customer (who isn’t a customer anymore because of the crooked sales tactics), you’re not helping your case.
Tesla doesn’t do that. It’s a fixed price. Although I wouldn’t drop 35-50k on a new vehicle for their base models, I respect Tesla for eliminating the hassle of working with dealers.
I called three dealerships in my area and confirmed if they still had the vehicles I’d seen in their inventory on their website. They did and wanted me to come down immediately. I gave my email address and asked if we could continue over email. I made clear I wanted to settle in the final out the door price and I would come ready to purchase.
All three sent me promotional material over email. When I inquired about the final out the door price, one ghosted me, and the other two stated I would have to come down because it depends. One of them finally emailed me again with a full quote and OTD price including all taxes.
I went into the dealership where the salesman kept playing a game of going back and forth with me and the sales managers office. You see, he could not offer the original OTD offer, as it did not include some paperwork fees, delivery fees, and one other item, that pushed the cost up by another $1200.
I told him I’d honor the OTD cost he quoted me. So he walks to his manager, comes back, goes back, comes back, with me flat out declining each time.
This went on for an hour until I left. I gave my final price and then just got up to leave. The sales person changed tactics and tried to get me to take another car which had another 10k miles for about $500 less, which I didn’t want.
I then spoke to one other dealer over the phone who called me back within a day with the OTD price for a new Civic. I went to the dealership, but oh no! They just sold that car. They want me to look at an Accord instead. I leave.
If my company’s core products or services are centered on let’s say acquiring surface and mineral rights, discovering hydrocarbons, and using the right technology for drilling, it makes practically zero sense for me to now also try to become an expert at maintaining servers, hiring top tier software engineer, etc etc. I don’t have the kinds of problems to keep them engaged nor do I have the budget.
Software is a part of the business insofar that it enables business, but it’s not ultimately what drives profit.
Many of the top tech companies outsource HR software or recruiting entirely, use travel and expense software software as a service, Oracle financials for payroll instead of writing it themselves, etc etc. Why? Because they want to invest their money and talent into the core areas that make them a profit.
I planned on downgrading from an Infiniti to a 3 year old Honda Civic or Fit.
I visited three dealerships in my area. The experience was horrible at all three. I consider myself a decent person, but I now judge people who work in car sales or car sales management and not in a good way.
Anyway, it’s been a year since we sold that vehicle. Our total transit costs this year have been < $1000 according to mint. Luckily we use a combination of mass transit and just walking places. The mass transit in my city isn’t that great, but it’s still thousands of dollars cheaper than the hassle of car ownership.
There’s no way I’d pay $40K-$50K for a vehicle to buy a Tesla. That being said, I hope the dealership model dies and these blood sucking, anti competitive conmen have to fall to a more honest way of living.