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yaml-ops-guyon Running an engineering reorg – Irrational Exuberance

Big fan of Will Larson's book. I once recommended it to an Eng director I worked under who had foisted 5 reorgs in four years on his team, and had proposed a sixth.

I didn't last long there as a subordinate leader. The tales I hear from friends made there following my departure, very few did

yaml-ops-guyon Why is the Gaza Strip blurry on Google Maps?

I thought the KBA was an amendment to US statutory law, not an 'agreement' between nations? What are the other laws and agreements to which you're alluding to, but weren't referenced in the article?

yaml-ops-guyon Why is the Gaza Strip blurry on Google Maps?

Which the article indicates, at least as it relates to the US and her companies, is no longer the case:

> In July 2020, the KBA was dropped, and now the US government allows American companies to provide far higher-quality images of the region (so that objects the size of a person can be readily picked out).

yaml-ops-guyon Half a million lines of Go

So the whole "quitting smoking" thing was...a happy coincidence? Did you go cold turkey? What were the nicotine withdrawal nightmares like? I had fierce ones when I quit

yaml-ops-guyon Black homeowner has white friend stand in for third appraisal. Value doubles.

Ninja edit: Anyone else find it crazy the value went from $100k in 2017 to $259k in 3 years? Absolute insanity to go up $160k in three years.

You should take a look at the Austin Texas housing market between 2008-2012

yaml-ops-guyon Black homeowner has white friend stand in for third appraisal. Value doubles.

I thought this sounded familiar and had to Google things and because I initially thought this was the same person I read about in 2020 who had this happen to them.

Instead it was the same behavior happening to a different homeowner.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/25/realestate/blacks-minorit...

yaml-ops-guyon TikTok launching jobs service for Gen Z

>When was the last time you saw an “ugly” news anchor. In the papers you don’t care what the reporter looks like.

To be completely honest, I don't care what the reporter looks like in either case. But I'm going to presume this was a rhetorical question and not meant as a reply or question to my specific manner of news consumption?

You'll have to forgive me (or, well you don't have to, that's up to you) but this still feels like putting the career carriage in front of the job prospect horse to me-for some reason. Perhaps said another way: none of what you said speaks to me to be a problem with the medium of interviewing (in this case video, ostensibly via tiktok), but instead rather the individuals participating in the process.

I can't quite pin down why, but it's a very strong sensation. I'll take this elsewhere and find a way to reconcile it without going turtles all the way down here in the thread.

yaml-ops-guyon TikTok launching jobs service for Gen Z

There are a lot of really interesting assumptions and projections being made about a number of classes of people going on in this mindset.

But okay.

Thanks for clarifying and sharing your perspective.

yaml-ops-guyon TikTok launching jobs service for Gen Z

When you put it like that...I still think the strip club comparison was weird because I can think of at least one other other common and far less contentious career-path with an interview/try-out process similar to this:

Acting.

Is there perhaps something deeper you want to say about sex workers that’s going unsaid right now?

yaml-ops-guyon Goodwill doesn't want broken toasters

Love the coincidence of laying on my couch watching LGR on a Friday night at the very moment that I find a comment on HN talking about LGR.

yaml-ops-guyon Google penalizes you for using Google Analytics

Willful ignorance?

yaml-ops-guyon Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

I've been having this problem with push notifications for quite a few apps, but Slack just seems to genuinely do whatever the hell it wants, regardless of whatever I've set preferences to.

yaml-ops-guyon Pfizer is testing a pill that, if successful, could cure Covid-19

I like that dichotomy. If you or anyone else reading this have any thoughts on it, what are some good questions I ought to be asking during interviews to determine what kind of shop I'm talking to might be?

That's been a real struggle lately, and I want to get better at this to avoid these kinds of push shops you're describing

yaml-ops-guyon Pfizer is testing a pill that, if successful, could cure Covid-19

See that makes sense, perhaps it make too much sense. My last two jobs I fought the same battles of "I discovered x, we really should do something about it because it can have really bad outcomes" and having the concern depri'd and ultimately blow up in all of our faces.

And in both situations even when said thing exploded in a bloody mess I struggled to get the buy in to give the fix the full attention it needed because "we're losing money not having these features" (I mean no, you're not, but ok)

Hence my incredulity but honest curiosity, being an ops guy who over-prepares and tries to keep his leaders as informed and prepared to make a decision as possible, but still feels like he's often left holding the bag is dang exhausting, you know?

yaml-ops-guyon Pfizer is testing a pill that, if successful, could cure Covid-19

I actually did not miss that part, but thanks for calling it out regardless. The question was instead borne out of curiosity as to know how the follow up and subsequent discussions fare even with CYA in pocket.

What has your experience been? Have you had success reprioritizing necessary and critical fixes that were previously not in scope postmortem?

yaml-ops-guyon Pfizer is testing a pill that, if successful, could cure Covid-19

I see.

Maybe I'm overthinking it (this happens sometimes, I'm working on it), but waiting around for a security crisis to happen when a solution is in sight, even when facing difficulty prioritizing the work seems dangerous to one's career.

But I admit not knowing a lot of things most engineers just assume are a given, lately.

yaml-ops-guyon Pfizer is testing a pill that, if successful, could cure Covid-19

How do the conversations typically go when asked "did you know this could happen"/"did we see this coming" or has no one bothered to ask that question yet during the RCA process?

yaml-ops-guyon Changes at Basecamp

I don't know what Basecamp's books look like, I don't have the clairvoyance to know what they will look like in the future..

humor a speculative question for a moment: would the "better deal" have been to give employees the option of how they'd like to receive their fringe benefits versus a one-size-fits-all edict, so that those with less tolerance for the volatility of profit sharing can enjoy a bit of stability with such fringe benefits if profits decline?

Especially after, as another commenter mentioned: the tax implication of cash payout?

yaml-ops-guyon Changes at Basecamp

I think we may have differing ideas as to what "DEI" work consists of; because to your response, that work sounds like the typical duties of an HR officer in collaboration with corporate counel, not necessarily, and not specifically DEI.

Maybe my bias as a DEI officer in current and past roles is on the table here-making things a bit cloudy, and I'm just without an immediate means of resolving that.

yaml-ops-guyon Changes at Basecamp

Yes. I read that. And what I am flatly pondering is what that "responsibility" could possibly consist of, if the topics inherent to DEI are now not to be had at basecamp.

yaml-ops-guyon Changes at Basecamp

So is the DEI officer currently on staff going to cease being a DEI officer and just 'stick to HR' stuff, if politics and topics adjacent are out the window?

yaml-ops-guyon Newark cops, with reform, didn't fire a single shot in 2020

Ah ok, perhaps I fixated on the curt "I disagree", for a moment too long.

yaml-ops-guyon Newark cops, with reform, didn't fire a single shot in 2020

Couldn’t possibly be a confluence of all the above? Not even in the tiniest degree?

yaml-ops-guyon Forced unemployment and second-class status: Google's data center contractors

I’m very glad we’re only screwing over “some” people, good to have that cleared up, thank you for that...it’s still an abominable practice to put any amount of laborers through.

yaml-ops-guyon Why cats won’t punish a stranger who harms you

I showed this to my gal pal, an animal surgeon of 12 years.

She's still laughing.

Also: How does one shove their arm down a dog's mouth if the dog's mouth is already busy biting the non-free arm?

yaml-ops-guyon Facebook does not plan to notify half-billion users affected by data leak

I can see a few (a lot) of differences between a phone book and Facebook in this analogy.

yaml-ops-guyon What defines a great company culture?

QED

yaml-ops-guyon What defines a great company culture?

I’ve always found it ironic when coming across discussions of people’s frustration with Agile (uppercase A) only to see the “you’re doing it wrong” comment-which I’ve seen often right Here on HN, among other places.

Mainly because wasn’t one of the foundational elements of agile (lowercase A) “people and tools over processes”?

Lately Agile feels as ritualistic and process-heavy as a checklist for a rocket launch.

yaml-ops-guyon An Apology to COBOL: Maybe Old Technology Isn’t the Real Problem

Am I doing myself a disservice by actively avoiding shops that want to go down the k8s road?

Asking in interviews questions like “how many namespaces are you managing or expecting to manage” and often times teams are talking about a single microservice and bringing in k8s “just in case”

To which I’ve oft said “good luck in your endeavors”