zzalpha

The parent's statement was simple: they don't care about the "barbarism" of eating meat. I think it's taken as a given that they therefore don't much care about what animals experience as the consequence of their actions.

So I'm not sure how your comment is relevant or what you meant to achieve by making it.

Could you clarify?

I have pity for you that you have to live with such a shitty product manager.

But don't think it reasonable to paint all PMs with that same brush.

Conversely, I could claim all developers are flat-food-eating basement dwellers who can't communicate with real humans. But that wouldn't be very fair, either.

Agile has no "process as laid out in the literature".

I'm not even sure where this idea comes from.

The Agile manifesto is extremely basic. It contains a few core principles, and everything else is elaboration on them.

This organization is violating even those very basic tenants.

It's possible that, over and above the manifesto they're trying to implement Scrum or Kanban or some other process, and heck, they may be failing to adhere to those processes as well

But if they're not at a bare minimum attempting to live and breathe the values encapsulated in the manifesto, they are by definition not executing an Agile process, since the manifesto defines what "Agile" is.

There are some basic practices that are required for an organization to adhere to an agile process. Transparency, accountability, introspection... it really is basic stuff. And either they're doing them, or they're not.

If they're violating the definition of the process, they're not implementing the process.

If someone got into a car accident and didn't have a license, and I said "Yeah, but they aren't a qualified driver", you wouldn't invoke the No True Scotsman fallacy, would you?

Agile meetings serve a few basic purposes:

1. They provide a venue to communication requirements from Product to Development.

2. They provide a venue for Development to communication questions, concerns, or technical details back to Product.

3. They provide a venue for external stakeholders to observe progress and provide further input on requirements.

4. They facilitate communication inside the team, both on basic status, but also in refining and improving internal processes through introspection.

You could avoid a lot of this by, instead, writing lots and lots of documentation covering requirements, processes and procedures, etc.

Or, you can hold regular meetings and talk stuff out.

You pick.

No process is perfect, but every process has to provide these communication channels in one form or another.

Of course, to a single dev, communication always feels like overhead. It's not.

That said, just a couple points in response to your rant:

Estimating story points for tasks when we know there is only one who has the skills to do it

Then your team should do more cross-training or be more creative about sharing work. Just because one person can code, doesn't mean other people can't test, perform code reviews, assist in writing documentation, participate in pair programming, etc.

Alternatively, the team is just too damn big. Including Scrum Master and Product Owner, you should be at no more than 9 people, and preferably 7. At that size, it's pretty hard to have only one person work on anything.

It's an absolute sign of dysfunction if, in your team, people think "only one person can work on that"... you're being myopic.

direct conversions between time and story points.

You're not supposed to do that. Your process is broken.

Countless hours spent in splitting and combining "stories" to make them agile sized bites.

That's a good thing, not a bad one. Small pieces of work are achievable and predictable.

Estimation meetings that take half a day,

Your process is broken. There are many ways to streamline these activities. Introduce timeboxed backlog refinement meetings. Ensure the PO is adhering to a strict Definition of Ready. Have a discipline Scrum Master who shuts down irrelevant ratholing.

And why aren't these issues raised and addressed in your retrospectives?

where for every story only 20% of all the people who sit there can contribute.

See above.

Well that's presumptuous, patronizing, and paternal.

Frankly, I find it remarkable that this article paints this woman as some sort of representative for all prostitutes. Funny they didn't write an article about her back when she was pro-legalization. But I suppose that's a less interesting story

This is one person, with one opinion, based on experiences with one, arguably broken, decriminalization regime.

New Zealand sounds like a great place to learn lessons about legalizing prostitution. I think it's a mistake to assume that lesson is that it doesn't work, particularly given the known issues with abolition.

Do I need to mention the nirvana fallacy again? ;)

Maybe I'll phrase it differently: don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

Advertising on Facebook is a specific, paid mechanism for delivering messages to an identified target audience segment, that is completely distinct from their social content sharing features. Heck, you might not remember it, but there was a time when there was no advertising on Facebook at all.

Regulating that specific mechanism is well within the purview of the FEC, and can be done without interfering with the ability of Facebook users to share content with their own network of connections.

Far more likely is that Rust is niche, and fluency sufficient to produce something underhanded is exceedingly rare for that same reason.

C, on the other hand, has been around for decades and is used by an order of magnitude (or two) more developers.

It's simply not a fair comparison, and it's decidedly fanboyish to conclude otherwise.

Moreover, if you take the time to drill into the actual numbers, you'll find housing affordability is about average relative to historical figures (in terms of percentage income spent on housing) in most urban areas, with the exception of a few major centers (Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto) that are pulling up the national average:

http://www.rbc.com/economics/economic-reports/pdf/canadian-h...

Consider common American Evangelical beliefs that focus on praying for specific material or personal gain (such as good health). This is nothing more than religion blended with "the cult of the individual". As such, I have little reason to believe those institutions would create better outcomes.

Groups and institutions are great for creating additional social pressures that discourage people from violating morays. But unless you couple that with a fundamentally different set of values, I don't see how they are a solution. If anything, they create additional strictures that encourage the kind of rule-breaking behaviour the article talks about.

As children and young adults people are taught to "pursue their dreams" and "find their passion" and many other aspirational platitudes.

Then, adult life comes along and most of us become decidedly average because, well, that's statistics for you.

But many are then left with this feeling that they've somehow failed. That if they'd taken that other road that diverged in that wood a ways back, maybe they'd be living that fantasy life that they were sold.

What we're not taught is how to be happy in the present. Aspiring to change is vital to improve ourselves and the world around us. But equally valuing and appreciating what we already have is every bit as important.

It goes on at length about why affairs aren't just about wanting another partner.

It even mentions (briefly) affairs in the context of open marriages.

By that argument we shouldn't try to understand why anyone does anything we deem negative, and I would hope we can all agree that's incredibly silly.

Understanding "why" helps us understand how to prevent it from happening to people.

This article, in particular, is a great piece for people in healthy relationships to read, because it teaches an important lesson: you are not immune.

And I say that as a previous 4:3 adherent.

It really is a tradeoff and I'm not convinced either is objectively better. It all depends on your use cases.

Gold would like to have a word with you... And seashells. And giant stone coins. And on and on and on.

In fact, as far as history goes, government backed fiat currency is a very recent invention.

Buy, hold, wait. No one can tell the future and there's little point in trying.

As an aside, I do wonder if the rise of passive investing has worked to stabilize the market. After all, if you simply buy the market and hold, it takes human emotion out of the equation, which is almost certainly a strong factor in market volatility.

And what do you mean by "sexual purposes"?

Also this article doesn't describe a simple culture construct. It's about a real biological change that causes apparent girls to develop into boys through puberty.

Sorry, no.

If anything, this is the next step in normalizing this kind of destructive work culture: being up front and unapologetic about wanting to exploit people.

That's so much better...

Or, here's a crazy idea: You could hire two passionate people and allow them to each live a normal, balanced life, thus preventing burnout and reducing the chance of mistakes while increasing overall productivity (since studies show that one person working twice as long is not twice as productive).

Wild idea, right?

Couple that with a broader obsession in the US corporate workplace for increased productivity at all costs, and I can see why people would see this as beyond the pale.

So, yes, taken as a single point, you're right, simply don't apply. As part of a larger trend in tech workplaces, it's a worrying symptom of a deeper dysfunction.

So, I'd argue that holding onto large quantities of money in lieu of allowing it to circulate due to fears does qualify as "hoarding", insofar as the money could be put to better, more productive use while the person holding onto the cash may be losing out on potential upside.

The term is particularly apt when there are concerns of a deflationary spiral, as cash hoarding truly does become a problem in that circumstance.

http://www.startbodyweight.com/

Planks, push-ups, and squats of many variations require no equipment at all.

Add dip bars and a chin-up bar/rings and you're basically set.

Variations mean people who've never exercised before can start very small and work their way up to incredibly challenging routines.

For cardio, good ol' walking and running work. And if you try running, don't think you have to immediately start running continuously; interval training is a thing, and is a great way to start small and work your way up.

Saving is setting aside money for future use.

Hoarding is setting aside money expecting the value of money to increase, thus treating it like an investment instrument, which is not the purpose of money.

If Bitcoin is a commodity then "hoarding" is normal.

If Bitcoin is money, it's not.