curiousfiddler

So, why would this extract more semantic meaning than multi-head attention? Isn't the whole point of multiple heads similar to how CNNs use multiple types of filters to extract different semantic relationships?

Both Mormons and Asians socialize children into “do what you’re obliged to do, not what you want to do.”

Wow, that's incredibly reductive. Asia has approx 4.7 billion people!

I would think Bay Area might be better than other places given the diversity. I spent a couple of years in North Carolina before moving here, and that experience was not good for me

I really do hope. Sometimes, just short visits help you get a sense of community. And slight inconvenience is ok I feel, it is the cost of building/maintaining a relationship :)

I wonder if there are ways in which part of the same experience can be created here. Social interactions seem to be a primal need for us.

Sure, just to be very clear, I'm not boasting about this. And I do certainly hope that the exact opposite happens as we move forward to the next generation. I'm certainly hopeful.

My guess is you live in the West. There are other cultures in the world, where there is still a strong sense of informal community. Where you can just walk to a friend or a relative's house unannounced for a cup of tea, without thinking all the time if it would inconvenience them. It feels really amazing to have the option to do that.

I moved to the US (Bay Area) about 10 years ago after having spent much of my youth elsewhere, and to this day, I haven't been able adjust to the lack of informal social interactions compared to where I'm from. I really tried as well to see if it's me who is not able to fit in. However, after a while I realized it's just a cultural difference. It's a way of life that has existed for several decades, which has its own benefits.

To me, US seems like an amazing place when you're in the apprentice/work phase of your life (20 - 45?). However, as I grow older, there are other things I have begun to value more, and one of the top ones is authentic human connection. I hope as US becomes more and more diverse, people from other cultures can add the good things they bring, instead of just trying to fit in to the default cultural model.

Take a 10 minute break between serving 1 and serving 2.

Extremely well put. I am from one of the countries that was absolutely slaughtered by the so called great britain, and I have as much desire to share my opinion and views, as the folks who are mourning the loss.

Absolutely. For a platform with a relatively high engagement early on, they made so many missteps: awful photo/video tools (instagram, tiktok), messing up live, messing up developer experience, stagnant product (awful thread management for YEARS).

However, I still believe it can be fixed. As an example, my consumption of news related information has moved significantly to Twitter. Why not do a better job there, in trying to provide a kick-ass way for content creators/consumers, and charge them for it.

I hear you. And there is good advise in the comments, but one thing I'd think you should also explore is your emotional response when you hit the harder parts of a problem. Sometimes, it is not the lack of knowledge or understanding of a subject, but the emotional response (subtle anxiety, anger, stress etc) that hinders progress when you hit an uncomfortable stage in problem solving. To add to it, leetcode and interviews have the added pressure of time limitations.

Observe your emotions - there may be a completely different solution to your problems.

This is an article from January 2020; not sure it is relevant in the current context.

This resonates with my recent attempts to find meaning and purpose in things I do. As you point out, it's almost the same things I do, but some seemingly small things seem more meaningful...

There are quite a few, and you can create a list of categories you consider as fundamentals for the nature of your work. As an example, I would think Algorithms and Data Structures is a fundamental subject. These are the easiest to practice.

You could for example pick something as simple as a HashTable, and implement it from scratch. Then, you could add more complexity to it, like HTs that won't fit in memory, expanding and shrinking HTs efficiently etc.

Or, you could use one of the several practice websites like LeetCode to practice Algorithms/DS problems.

Once you start building a habit, you will also become better at organizing your practice routine and finding out more about what to work on, and where to look for study/practice materials. But mind you, this is a slow process, which you want to build as a habit. There is no end goal here (like cracking Google interview or such), this is a process to get better at the fundamental skills in your field.

I can think of 4 things:

1. Not being afraid to look at the code of the libraries that my main project depends on. It's a slow, deliberate process to develop this habit and skill. But more importantly, as you keep doing this, you will develop your own tactics of understanding a library's code and design, in a short amount of time.

2. Not worrying about deadlines all the time. Not a programming technique as such, but in a world of standups and agile, sometimes, you tend to work for the standup status. Avoiding that has been a big win.

3. (Something new I've been trying) Practicing fundamentals. I know the popular opinion is to find a project that you can learn a lot from, but that may not always happen. Good athletes work on their fundamentals all the time - Steph Curry shoots like > 100 3 point shots everyday. I'm trying to use that as an inspiration to find some time every week to work on fundamentals.

4. Writing: essays, notes. In general, I've noticed I gain more clarity and confidence when I spend some time writing about a subject. Over time, I've noticed, I've become more efficient in the process.

From my ~15 years of experience, if there is just one advice I could give to someone starting their career as a software developer: irrespective of whether your work is exciting or not as much, it is a joy in itself to keep working on improving your craft, which is writing software systems. Excellence is always a moving target, but if you stop working on your craft, the joy you will experience as you become senior and older, will keep decreasing.

I was thinking more on the lines of something similar to an enhanced journal entry, perhaps once a week. Have you had any experience with it? Curious to learn from your experience.

"All the land is owned by the monarchy; you get a freehold on it."

I know I'll get downvoted, but I am genuinely amazed by how a small minority of people can gain so much control, and absolutely no one complains. I know there are historical reasons, but it is fascinating nevertheless.

What amazes me most, is that they still have a queen/king thing going. I am completely unable to wrap my head around how that can happen, in a developed country, in 2019.

I have to confess, that I don't understand the business case, but I applaud your confidence to go after such an extremely niche area (I wouldn't call it a problem). However, if I convince myself to see the value here, I see the real product as the solution around using your scale to work on pantry restocking in general, not just with coffee.

All the best!

Lynne, KV is a great tool! Thanks a lot for that. If you find time, would love to see -ve metrics as well. That would cover both aspects of a job search: what am I looking for, and what am I looking to avoid.

Thanks, the points you make are very important.

Specifically, on "... executive level bullshit politics related to their short term compensation milestones ...", I would like to add, this one is the hardest to figure out and has a significant impact on your growth not just within the company, but as a person in general.

Any more suggestions, on good ways to find out if this is part of the company culture?

I hear you.

I've been trying to find solutions myself - I'm trying to use some strategies listed in this book: The inner game of tennis, by Timothy Galloway, and I'm seeing positive results so far. He talks about 2 versions of self: self1 - the doer and self2 - the judgemental self, which is constantly evaluating self1, and adversely affect self1's potential. He has some useful suggestions on how to limit the impact of self2, and I found those pretty helpful so far.

Sorry for digressing from the main intent of the post, but I find it a little odd when in 2017, someone uses the term "worker" to describe me. I try to be definitely more than just that to my team and my organization. Maybe I'm oversensitive, but it just feels weird.

In my opinion, Silicon Valley is what it is majorly due to the kind of people it pulls in. There are several other places in the world which have a much better weather than SV, but don't have this kind of an ecosystem.

If you don't provide opportunity and a good civil environment to brilliant/enterprising people, they will find a way elsewhere. And once Vancouver or any other city starts working for them, Silicon Valley will lose its exclusivity. The thing to note here is that this response from YC is not a political one, but a response that came out of market demand; it is pretty significant if it works out.

<rant>

I really like(d) Twitter. I feel it has played a huge role in democratizing public opinion, so that I don't just create my opinion based on what media houses throw at me. For me, it narrowed the gap between so called "celebrities" and normal people. It made possible for me to interact with and get insights from people whose work I care about.

I feel so bad about the poor execution on their product side. They get free marketing - they are all over the tv, news websites etc. So many popular people use Twitter to share information. What more can they ask for?

There are so many things that Twitter could've done first just because it was in a position to like no-one else:

1. Media sharing: absolutely ridiculous experience to the point that people share images/video on some other platform and end up posting the links in tweets. Even then, for an consuming user, the browsing experience is shit. WTF twitter?

2. Content sharing: twitter as a platform has way more relevant content (URI's, first person messages etc) than any other news/media platform. What do they do with it? They do nothing. Twitter can learn so much about my interests from so many signals that I (used to!) give them - they do nothing to help me read content that interests me.

3. Live: there is no better place than twitter to potentially learn about what's happening right now. How do they facilitate live content sharing? By having a completely different app for video (periscope) which creates a fragmented user experience.

4. Fun: they had vine - they kept it as a separate app (again creating fragmentation) and eventually killed it. How are you going to attract young users if you don't keep on trying new, fun, cool stuff?

5. Spam: for all the attention that fake news is getting right now, Twitter has been in a unique position to innovate in this area. Unfortunately, afaik, it has done nothing.

</rant>

I have a design issue with AirPods. When my earphones (with wire) fall off (and it happens when you're running or doing some other similar activity), I know for sure, that me or someone else accidentally won't crush them, because the wires often prevent them from falling on the floor. I don't know how the current design of AirPods would prevent that.

This article strikes a chord for me. I also read a book sometime back, called Flow [1] by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi which draws similar conclusion and is good, quick read.

And then I feel sad, because all the effort to seek that personal connect with work at my current workplace, have been taken away by a disconnected and immature middle management, which only works for meeting the goals and deadlines given to them...

1. Flow: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66354.Flow

I'm not sure if TensorFlow already provides that, but it would also be pretty awesome to access some of Google's data sets to train the models.