278 karma · joined November 22, 2022
And very importantly, I'm saying 30-60 minute remote check-ins are an absolutely insane idea that should never be implemented.
I don't know any kind of remote system that provides for anything even close to the power of in-person mentoring.
But... how? Remote check-ins with juniors every 30-60 minutes? That's crazy. But that's basically the only way to replicate the in person experience.
The best mentoring results for me as the mentee and for me as a mentor have been when we're sitting next to each other. The mentor can visually tell when the mentee is stuck, and mentee can tell when the mentor isn't focusing on anything important and is more willing to ask for help.
No matter how many times you tell junior engineers to ping you at the first sign of trouble, they're not going to do it. They're going to toil for way longer than needed, unless you're sitting right next to each other.
But work is 40-50 hours of my week. That's a HUGE portion of my life. Almost half my waking hours are at work. (7x16=112 waking hours a week. 35-45% of it at work).
Not taking time to socialize during that period is draining as hell for me. I guess what I'm trying to say is you're way overestimating the percentage of people who can go to work and just... work. Most people need the socialization.
(I'm sure there are other cities that get it right, but they're hard to find in the US).
The alternatives almost never beat a car in quality, convenience, and cost (minus parking costs, which is the point). The exceptions are very specific cases, like inter-Manhattan travel at certain times of the day, for example, where $2.75 can get you most places faster than your own car and cheaper than a cab.
Get a reasonable car for $25k-35k and your costs drop significantly. Hell, your $50k number means you chose to have a bunch of upgrades. The base MSRP is $36k, and I'm seeing dealer advertised prices of $37k near me. I have to go all the way up to the "Platinum" tier to find $50k prices.
Something isn't right, and I have a hard time believing it's NYTimes given my experiences with their website.
Dear lord, I can't imagine that's the fault of NYTimes. Something is off with your setup.
NYTimes.com is super quick and responsive on my devices.
Exactly. You know those undersea cables that Google laid? Or Facebook's controversial "Free Basic" internet program in India?
At a certain point you start to run out of people, and need to go to great lengths to get more people on the internet and using your services. And then you need to start a financial relationship with those people.
1. "Its easy to find many examples of apps that were challenging to build even just 10 years ago, that are somewhat trivial now."
Correct. It's easier now to build apps that we used 10-15 years ago.
2. "Do you agree or disagree that techproducts today are easier to build than 15 years ago?"
Incorrect. Tech product complexity has increased in many ways in the last 15 years (and the increase in complexity is larger than the decrease in complexity we talked about above).
-- Regulation. COPPA regulations strengthened significantly around 10 years ago. Europe's GDPR went into effect in like 2016. Those are just a couple popular ones. Remember when Amazon just didn't collect sales tax? Sure makes things easier! And remember, those laws are constantly changing. If NJ raises their sales tax, you better have someone paying attention. If Europe comes up with a new privacy law, you better have enough people to drop everything and implement everything that's needed.
-- Scale + globalization. Myspace topped out at like 100 million active users around 15 years ago. Facebook is 30 times that size now! That scale comes with complexities most don't think about. How do you report user video ad income to the IRS-equivalent in Andorra? I don't know, but you now need to know at Facebook's scale!
I wouldn't be surprised if Elon insisted on more aggressive language and it was hastily edited.
1. Desperately trying to make short term cash, and are trying to do their best with fewer employees than needed to maintain the current product. (Twitter is here).
2. Enough staff to maintain the current product, but not significantly innovate.
3. Significantly more than needed to maintain the current product, leaving room for people to work on non-core products that may end up being the next billion dollar project, even if the vast majority flop (Most big tech companies are here).
4. Way too bloated, with not enough projects to work on or not enough revenue to justify the R&D.
The problem is that outsiders have a really really hard time understanding the product complexity of half a billion+ user services.
Comparing OpenAI to the social media sites that this HN post is talking about is a great example. It's a completely different product with completely different challenges than FB, twitter, threads, youtube, whatever.
Another great example is people citing "day in the life" videos that are actually recruiting videos showing the brighter sides of the job. Or people citing employees who claim that the company hired them to do nothing, when in reality it's a recruiter that was hired shortly before hiring slowed.
1. The copter isn't able to communicate with satellites or earth directly, so it needs to communicate with the rover itself. This is harder without line of site.
2. The copter is all autonomous. Routes are planned and sent for the copter to autonomously fly, because direct control would be infeasible with the latency on Mars.
3. The copter is charged with solar power, and needs time to charge between flights.
4. The main rover has other missions that are independent of the status of the copter. The copter is well well well past the original mission goals, so if it gets left behind that's a shame, but the main rover's missions are way more important.
You can lose 10 pounds in 35 days by just eating at a healthy calorie deficit.
My experience is that of a TA and a tutor. Granted, it's hard to find people who aren't tainted by imperative programming thinking these days, unless you're starting on the true ground floor, which I admittedly rarely do.
Remember, we're simply comparing FP to imperative programming. I'm simply not convinced that FP is easier to learn than imperative programming for the vast majority of newcomers, and that's what I'm arguing here.
I can't see how this is the case. Assignment is just one tiny piece of learning how to program, and is almost never a pain point after a small amount of instruction.
Imperative programming is easier to learn because you simply write out the steps that you want the computer to take, and the computer takes them. FP requires much much more abstract thinking that is often difficult for newcomers to grasp.
The main exception that I see is when someone who has a very deep mathematics education. Graduate level math folks seem to more easily grasp FP concepts from my experience. Almost everyone else seems to grasp imperative programming easier.
A few thousand dollars 2-3 years ago?
> Businesses
Payments that, at most, kept wages the same?
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People need to stop using "people are getting free money and that's raising inflation" excuse. Prices are rising and people are going into their savings or credit to keep spending. That's it.
Some things, people just have to buy. Can't stop buying food, paying rent, paying for your car, etc.
Where are you getting this information? Raises are not keeping up with inflation. A few thousand in stimulus dollars years ago is not driving anything. PPP money didn't increase wages.
Record corporate profits are the key indicator here.
Easy not to worry when you can't fathom that it may happen to you or your peer.