drugme

I haven't seen anyone from Tesla or Uber going to jail when people died because they're beta testing autonomous cars on public roads.

As cold and cynical it is, what the self-driving car "pioneers" are doing -- it's not nearly as reckless (and flat-out clueless) as what this guy did.

Freezing rents to fight increasing costs makes as much sense as limiting the maximum reading on thermometers to fight increasing temperatures.

You realize that, logically speaking -- there's no analogy to be made here.

Right?

That's generally what we wanted companies to do,

Maybe so -- but as a response it completely dodges the question of whether or it has been a contributing factor or not.

No one is obligated to rent a property from someone else.

That's a pretty weird statement to make.

Do you really believe that everyone (or even a majority) of people who currently rent are in a position to buy a place to live if they wanted to?

It results in rents which are equal to what the open market price would have been.

This is a pretty strong claim to make. Can you provide data to substantiate?

It works fairly well in NYC, too.

Not without tradeoffs, mind you. But it does basically work.

The solution is to build houses,

It's one option among many.

And by itself -- most likely not a sufficient solution (or any kind of a game changer).

I just don't understand this stance at all.

Basically the main reason this "stance" is that the locals know better: that simply allowing newer (unregulated) construction isn't going to bring their rents down -- or that is to say: do something about availability in their income brackets, and not just yours and mine -- anytime soon.

The problem with housing there has one simple cause: NIMBYism

It's definitely simple-sounding, as a single cause -- but unfortunately that doesn't make it so.

Any sober analysis of the current housing crisis points to a convergence of multiple, and in some cases highly nuanced factors -- ranging from shifting crime rates and the collapse of urban industrial base; to shifts in government policy (including the near-abandonment of federal support for new public housing initiatives); and a whole bunch of others. And yes there's something known as "zoning" which plays a part also.

But the idea that NIMBYism is the sole important factor - or even the most important factor - just doesn't hold water.

If you're skeptical of this, just ask yourself: "What causes NIMBYism?"

TL;DR: it is all about removing distraction.

Which is just silly of course.

It doesn't "remove" distraction - but rather ameliorates some of your distractions while creating others. And as with any other interface / abstraction -- whether it's a good idea or not is a matter of tradeoffs involving various factors.

TL;DR same old, same old.

Right-wing => Right-wingers

Right-wing seem to like playing this card -- "If you haven't lived in [whatever country we feel to be fundamentally opposed to 'Western' values at the moment] then you have nothing to say on the matter" -- yet I have many, many close contacts from those countries (including quite a few who have had serious run-ins with the authorities in those places), and I can't imagine of them saying that Western societies do not have "legitimate oppression".

If anything what keeps coming up is that it seems strange to them that we think we're all that different from those countries (as if we're on a higher plane, basically).

Sure I have - and like I said - it's easy to read this behavior from simply having a normal (but let's just say slightly inquisitive) conversation with someone. In fact even in recent memory I can think of multiple occasions where this behavior has emerged, simply when trying to get to the bottom of routine technical matter.

When interviewing people I usually push until I get the candidate to answer "I don't know" on SOMETHING,

"just because I can". To me this technique comes off as condescending and manipulative, and smells like a power play basically. Not to mention - the better candidates will pick up on it, and your company will eventually get a reputation it doesn't want to have.

And really there's no need for it. Time and time again, I find that just by having a normal technical conversation with someone, on virtually any topic that they claim to have expertise in -- they will show their strengths and weakness (and propensity for BS, if any) very, very quickly.

What does this have to do at all with the job at hand?

Nothing whatsoever.

It really feels like there’s no connection to the reality of the role whatsoever anymore.

You got that right. Basically what's going on here is that the people running these interviews don't really know what they're doing -- and are secretly terrified of being "found out". So in a desperate attempt to compensate, they lunge for whatever technique they vaguely heard about being used at, you know, "leet" companies. And (as others have pointed out) at (apparently) very little cost or risk to themselves.[1]

Because that way... even though basically don't know why they're asking that question of you... and not only that, most likely would not be able to answer an analogously difficult (and unrelated to their own problem domain) question themselves! --

if you do manage to make it through, they'll at least know that you're "leet".

[1] Except of course, the opportunity cost of false negatives, and the reputation risk (and damage to recruitment prospects) that inevitably ensues once your company becomes widely known for mindlessly cargo-culting outdated and discredited interview techniques. Which they would know about, if they knew that they were doing. But then again, apparently they don't.

Your question was perfectly reasonable and should not have been downvoted.

That said I'd recommend a quick keyword search on "assange" + "collateral damage" (which was the name of a polished version of the video he helped leak).

Thanks, I'll look into it.

(From the downvote, someone apparently didn't appreciate my asking).

You don't need to get something "nice" for building up karma points. It's supposed to be its own reward.

That's why it's called "karma".

Whiteboard interviews that ask me to develop an algorithm to reverse a string, insert an item into a linked list, or similar nonsense. I've never worked somewhere that this was important to know, and if it was, I would look it up. Bonus "no thanks" points if the interviewer doesn't think something like string.reverse() is a good answer.

This stance is fine if you're a "product-oriented" developer (like the author seems to be, going by his profile). And which is of course a fine thing to be - if that's what's needed in your environment. We all fit on that spectrum somewhere.

In other environments we do in fact need people who consider "algorithms" like string reversal (even in place!) to be quite trivial (in the sense that yes, every engineer on the team should be able to whip out something like that cold). And frankly it would give us the willies to work with someone who couldn't.

That said -- whiteboard tests, per se, are almost invariably gratuitously shitty experiences for all parties involved, even when conducted properly (and much of the time they simply aren't).

And more to the point, unnecessary (or at best, blunt instruments) or sussing out whether someone has the chops you're looking for. I find it's quite easy in fact to tell (usually within 10-15 minutes at the most) whether someone knows their stuff, or is bullshitting, or... simply doesn't care about the finer points. There's no need to "grill" them -- they'll pretty much come right out and tell you.

Case in point - the author of this blog post.

Can you elaborate more on this "fire caused by anarchists", please?

Sorry, I was being facetious. I've seen this kind of screening "process" many times and find it totally ridiculous.

She's 25? I wouldn't be worried.

Glassdoor reviews indicated their backend interview is unnecessarily difficult

Difficult for you, maybe. How else do you expect them to find the top 0.01 percent of the candidate pool they're looking for?

How would you spend it?

To be honest, at least once a year I'd probably go to a technical conference.

Let's be honest: many people at conferences just see them as a way to have the company pay for you to get out of the office and go on a semi-vacation.

You're saying that like it's a bad thing. I find that these "semi-vacations" do a lot to recharge my batteries, which is very helpful to my productivity in the long run.

I'm sure 90% of the benefit could be had by going to local meetups and watching the big conferences online.

I would say more like 50 percent. The other 50 percent comes in the form of (vitally important) F2F interactions. Which are why, time and time again -- remote interactions are found to be "just not the same" as in-person interactions.

We lost everything, our servers, and more importantly 1 year of database backups. We now have to explain to our clients, Fortune 500 companies why we can’t restore their account.

And yet, the explanation is very simple:

Because you neglected basic principles and elected to put all of your backup eggs in one basket.

no need to inspect each piece for quality,

Because you know it's uniformly mediocre.

"Always-on" can kind of sort of work out, for a couple of years -- provided all 3 of the following simple conditions are met:

(1) You're getting a decent base + health insurance

(2) The equity is in proportion to the sacrifice (this can be difficult to quantify; but in any case not a microscopic share of the pie); and

(3) You actually have some say in (and responsibility over) the outcomes.

(4) And of course you aren't throwing anyone under the bus in your family or personal life.

On of the reasons our industry is so toxic is that you're expected to be "always on" even though there's not even a pretense of (2) or (3) being met -- and quite often the numbers for condition (1) are sketchy, or far worse.

I don't think people are qualified to reject this pattern unless they've spent some serious time working in these ecosystems.

Fine - but it isn't a matter of rejecting or accepting; but rather of understanding. And if someone isn't "qualified" to reject a certain architectural pattern... then they probably won't be very good at implementing it either.

So on balance I'd rather be in an environment where people are allowed to "reject" what they don't fully understand yet -- rather than (pretend to) go along with it (on the basis of some article they vaguely read about it, or "because X said so.")

Even when we think "the world is going to hell", it simply doesn't

Actually things are pretty much going to hell, as far as climate change (and its spillover effects) are foreseen to go.

Or what is your prognosis of that situation?

I elaborated on my point with detailed reasoning

It was extremely hand-wavy, actually.

Whether you take that as an insult or not is up to you.