HN user
I had the same fear too growing up. I found peace with it and stopped thinking about for many years until now, when I realized that practically it wouldn't affect my waking life if it actually did happen, if I had no memory of it at all, so there would be no use worrying about it.
I appreciated the quote from your article that: "Based on information from insiders, Google’s coding competitions engaged more than 300,000 software engineers external to Google, annually. These coding competitions assisted in the hiring of thousands of software engineers each year, who were directly sourced from these events."
These views reflect that Google Code Jam was a very significant source for recruitment. In contrast, when I searched about whether Code Jam was a significant part of Google's recruitment strategy, one of the top results on Reddit on r/cscareerquestions really underplayed the recruitment part, by non-Google employees giving advice about it: https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/p7ioku/w...
The r/cscareerquestions commenters there could still have a point that it was more direct to take other approaches to applying to the company instead of Code Jam, but the general dismissive attitude of the top-upvoted commenter (e.g.: "No benefits. If anything, might even be harder to get interviews cause the guys grinding for those contests don't have time to make a proper resume.") really overemphasized an opinion based on speculation, instead of taking a more balanced view that recognized that Google Code Jam was run with a large motivation to recruit developers.
The restaurant could lose out on sales from customers who are dissatisfied with a lack of a physical menu, especially many older people who are not as comfortable using technology or don't even have a data plan.
The restaurant could also lose customers who are tourists, who don't necessarily have a data plan while traveling. While it's a bit more convenient for the restaurant, the convenience comes at the cost of the customer.
Also, the UX for many of the menus is often pretty bad (with diners often asking: "how do I place an order?" "did I place an order or not?" "how do I go back?").
The problem is that time value is extremely relevant. If it takes 10-20 years for consequences to catch up, the person is likely to have already built up an unassailable lead that the consequence barely dents.
I largely agree with you: the big names attached to the resume, the pay, and the effort spent on interviewing skills likely offset the negatives of the reputation (though I also intuitively don't like it because the strategy is rather self-centred).
However, the consequence is rather significant if he has roots. It's harder to pack up and move if one has a romantic partner who is settled into a job at a particular place, and you could also possibly be leaving family and friends. Sometimes one has to move, but typically one has the option to come back, which wouldn't be practical for the person in question. It's still plausibly worth it for the person if he didn't have roots and collected a lot of compensation, but especially when one is older (the commenter mentioned 10 years of workin experience), moves can be tougher.
To add another piece of evidence, while previous poster noted that the initial response by police officers on January 6 seemed less violent than they could have been (though even then, one person was shot and killed), the US Department of Justice is continuing to publish press releases about charges of people involved in the January 6 Capitol attack (at https://www.justice.gov/news , with full records with dates at https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/capitol-breach-cases). The charges for many of the people involved caught up eventually, though it took time.
Separately, to put a positive spin on this, it often takes time for positive habits to pay off. When picking up a positive habit (e.g. exercise and especially learning a new technical skill such as a language), oftentimes much of the reward doesn't come until far later. This is important to keep in mind, especially if one has self-doubts or even a lack of encouragement for trying to adopt a new positive habit in one's life.
It sounds like this is a difference in personal values. You can certainly assess the morality of one’s work based on its methods, but it’s also valid to assess the morality based on outcomes.
On outcomes: You framed building things and creating new things as inherently good, but entire fields of the philosophy of science question whether technological progress is inherently good. Is AI-generated art necessarily good if it causes artists to lose jobs? Are ad trackers necessarily good if it increases engagement at the loss of privacy? Are hackers/crackers seen as more noble than salespeople, as they create new exploits that make hospitals pay ransom, and expose people’s information? If a new chemical weapon or bioweapon is created, are its developers inherently noble for creating something new? Even Einstein expressed deep regret for his role in developing the atomic bomb (and Feynman went into a depression) after its usage.
On methods: most methods start as morally neutral. A person training to be a soldier may or may not end up doing immoral things, depending on what they do in their career. Research scientists may or may not do moral things (though nowadays most abide by research ethics, in the past and likely the present, many studies have caused far more suffering than their benefits). Lawyers can go on to defend fundamental rights, or end up filing frivolous lawsuits or chasing ambulances. Developers can create something genuinely useful, or cause people to lose jobs or get killed due to bugs.
To be charitable to your point: yes, I intuitively have a deep sense of respect for the discipline required to become a good software developer and create something new. But it’s completely separate from a moral respect and moral judgement: I have to know what that developer is actually creating, and how that will impact real people.
To the contrary, I think paulcole made a great point. It doesn’t need to be weapons. A programmer who makes a social media feed more addictive isn’t necessarily moral. But a salesperson/marketer can promote something generally seen as good, or at least far more good than the example programmer.
Ad campaigns can remind people to vote, encourage people to quit smoking, or convince people to avoid drunken driving. A marketer is behind for the design and distribution of these public advocacy campaigns.
It looks like direct messages may also be buggy at present, according to a couple of anecdotes on r/Twitter at: https://old.reddit.com/r/Twitter/comments/z1b4zc/cant_sendre...
I sometimes wonder about whether personalised teaching as a young student is overall good or bad, for students who then move on to a university with very large, impersonal classes (e.g. with more than 1000 students per class).
On the one hand, I think students in small classes can really become more confident and enthusiastic about learning in the long-term. But on the other, a shift to larger classes can be alienating (e.g. feedback from educators is less frequent). This could be mitigated by going to office hours, but there are plenty of minority experiences that stick where teaching assistants and professors are unwelcoming. The change could be less of a shock for students who went to large high schools, as they're more used to large classes.
Perhaps students who have the chance to grow up with individualized learning can opt for universities that have smaller classes, though it's not always possible when large public universities can often be much more affordable. I wonder if there is a way to prepare students from smaller schools with personalized education to do well at much larger educational institutions.
I heard that if you studied math with applications to computer science, you can find great opportunities with technology too (if not moving to the US for places like Google, there are quantum computing startups like Xanadu in Canada, along with other technology startups in Canada’s big cities too).
In addition, outside of the RCMP, various ministries of the Canadian government could need the skillset too (Statistics Canada being the one that first comes to mind, though any teams that do economic analyses could benefit from someone with the background).
I completely agree, but I think most people who arrive at this perspective only reach this view after spending time in industry or adjacent to people working there.
A lot of the focus on tenure track jobs comes from professors and academics who dedicate their life almost solely in academic environments (so in their view, it’s a rather unhealthy attitude of academic tenure or bust). I’m not sure how feasible this is, but perhaps a work-study private sector summer internship could be an encouraged part of certain PhD, to widen perspectives and help both students and professors better understand the possibilities out there, which someone can be motivated to strive for, rather than settle for.
“You give up salary for huge amounts of autonomy.”
I heard otherwise from a staff scientist at a university in biological sciences, though I’m not sure how representative his view is. He said that non-professors lack research autonomy, and even then, there are limitations of what one can fund due to grants (though I’m not sure how accurate this is, as I used to assume that academic grants generally had fairly flexible conditions for using the funding).
I’m much more junior, but to exchange anecdotes, I think it’s difficult to accurately say that people in FAANG are less, equal, or more intelligent than people in aerospace. To define intelligent, I will use the everyday definition that mixes speed of learning with the ability to solve hard problems (acknowledging that the academic definition of intelligence is different).
For one, I anecdotally know people in FAANG who were smart by effectively “studying for the test” by focusing more on leetcode than projects/intellectual exploration. In contrast, the people I know who went into aerospace tended to have a genuine interest in physics (and some with more interest in philosophy), and had more experience with projects (e.g. worked on an aerospace team in university), with many of them having little-to-know experience with software development.
Interestingly, the aerospace people I know anecdotally happened to be better at soft skills/networking for getting into companies, whereas the FAANG people focused on leetcode for admissions. After getting into a company, also from my anecdotal experience, more FAANG people focused on metrics/compensation, whereas more aerospace people tended to focus more on the mastery of the craft. I acknowledge that my anecdotes shouldn’t be generalized, but it aligns with the motivations of many people looking to get into each company (it seems more people go into FAANG for compensation/prestige, whereas more people go into aerospace for the passion).
So, I would say that people from both categories tended to be very smart at learning quickly and solving hard problems, though anecdotally, the aerospace people seemed to be generally more intellectually curious. Then again, perhaps the aerospace people were better at soft skills/presenting themselves so they appeared smarter, whereas the FAANG people didn’t focus on presenting themselves as intelligently. For limitations, note that the people I’m thinking of are at the junior level.
In any case, I don’t think one can conclusively say that people in FAANG have more/less/the same intelligence as people in aerospace companies, though maybe one can tentatively say that people who go into aerospace tend to be more curious and interested in mastery of one’s profession (versus material compensation).
People regularly get treated differently due to their race. Effects happen when applying to jobs and also interactions during traffic stops. From Canadian research for the first [1]:
"Job applicants with English-sounding names have a greater chance of getting interviews than those with Chinese, Pakistani or Indian names, a new study by University of British Columbia researchers suggests. The study found Canadians and landed immigrants with names such as "Jill Wilson" or "John Martin" are 40 per cent more likely to be offered an interview than someone with a name like "Sana Khan" or "Lei Li," given an identical resumé. Applicants with mixed names like "Vivian Zhang" had a 20 per cent better chance to land an interview than job-seekers with non-English names, but still less than the English-only names."
For US research for the second [2]: "Blacks were 63 percent more likely to be stopped even though, as a whole, they drive 16 percent less. Taking into account less time on the road, blacks were about 95 percent more likely to be stopped. Blacks were 115 percent more likely than whites to be searched in a traffic stop (5.05 percent for blacks, 2.35 percent for whites). Contraband was more likely to be found in searches of white drivers."
On HN discussions on racial issues, there is often at least one comment that asserts that people get equal treatment due to race, and any contrary reports are fabricated. My only request is for people to try to practice humility, and at least consider the idea that one's personal experience of life may not be shared by everyone else's (for the rationalist crowd, at least consider that statistical studies should have more weight than beliefs formed from one's personal experience, where n=1).
[1] https://sc.edu/uofsc/posts/2020/06/racial_disparities_traffi...
[2] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/job-applican...
Thank you greatly for sharing and updating with examples and context, though I would like to gently suggest an alternative to one piece of wisdom.
“17. Self praise stinks! From my mother when I did my touchdown dance after building something. Great advice (although I still dance once in a while when something works the first time. Sometimes I just can't help myself.)”
In contrast, in the book Tiny Habits by Stanford psychology professor BJ Fogg, self-praise is actually described as critical for making new habits and behaviour change stick, as it allows for positive reinforcement [1]. Anecdotally, I’ve observed friends who never celebrate major positive improvements in their life, and they seem to have depressive symptoms.
Though on the other hand, it’s quite possible that people view self-congratulatory celebratory gestures as negative. Perhaps it’s good to celebrate your achievements, but mostly in private or just with close friends to avoid attracting competition or challenge from others (I wish it was less risky to celebrate in public or among coworkers, but in practice, not everyone is celebratory of others’ success).
[1] More context from Fogg about why he thinks celebrating minor successes is important: https://ideas.ted.com/how-you-can-use-the-power-of-celebrati...
This may not be an accurate worldview of mine, but I've actually completely given up trying to apply to jobs that have application portals/likely keyword filters (though I may be willing to if I search for public sector work in the future).
I try to find work through past coworkers and often by reaching out directly to the hiring manager if I think I could have skills that they are looking for. My friend of mine who took the standard volume approach got over a hundred rejections before receiving one offer, often with radio silence. The human approach is nice because it bypasses the filters, and you're far more likely to at least get responses along the way during the job search.
But as I also wrote, at least one occurrence of this in a resume is still a good signal that the candidate understands what a hiring manager is looking for, and also signals that the candidate isn't totally junior.
If a candidate is totally junior and still writes that they are are a junior an "experienced software architect with a proven track record of delivering high quality and performant..." but fails to back it up, they end up being judged next to people who actually do have this experience.
In that case, it could be better to emphasize the "willing to learn quickly"/"excellent team member"/soft skills aspect to set expectations right, and/or develop better technical skills so a candidate can actually claim that. So, it's only really beneficial to write if you actually do have experience, and thus could be a worthwhile signal to include at least once in the resume to show you're at that level.
"Experienced software architect with a proven track record of delivering high quality and performant blah blah blah"
What's wrong with that? Each part of the phrase sounds like something an experienced developer should strive for, and is objectively testable (e.g. delivered projects in a work setting or not, well-written code or not, the software runs quickly or not, etc.).
Junior developers in particular may lack the track record part when starting out, so it's a good indicator that a person is applying for more senior positions.
Anonymous speech is important for anti-corruption. The Washington Post's Watergate investigation would not have taken place without the anonymous sourcing by "Deep Throat."
Slack also lets users easily make a group chat. In my experience, backed up by [1], Discord requires you to "Friend" members of the group chat before it lets you create the chat (requiring the user to send out a friend request, then wait for an acceptance, before starting the chat).
You could argue that group conversations are best suited for new channels, but I've personally had a lot of value from quick group chats in my experience.
[1] https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/223657667-Grou...
"he will do things like deliberately spell some words British and others American to make it harder for peers to figure out who the paper is from."
This is a good initiative, but a catch is that if he's the only person deliberately spelling some words British and others American, the spelling choice becomes a unique identifier.
Though, it could work as long as no one within the group knows who is using the varied spelling.
Could be more different. In less tech-focused communities, the migration that follows a forum closure goes to Facebook groups instead of subreddits, and Slack channels instead of Discord.
Haha, it's possible that the author was making a half-joke, with the self-awareness that nearly no one's weekend is truly like that.
Though, if you do want a weekend like that at least once (hors d'œvre at least, maybe dancing in general, and at least one person to make accidental eye contact with), you can try to attend some startup launch or celebration event or a non-profit fundraising gala. The former might end up boring and the latter may be expensive for a ticket, but it's a great experience to better appreciate what you have at home (a computer to spend a lot of worthwhile time on, and also maybe family to spend time with).
This is just a guess, but probably various subreddits and Discord servers. It's probably not the same because the platforms are very different, but people will find new platforms even if the conversation changes due to different forum/messaging UI designs.
The White House's official position is that the NBER's definition is the official one. From their website [1]:
"What is a recession? While some maintain that two consecutive quarters of falling real GDP constitute a recession, that is neither the official definition nor the way economists evaluate the state of the business cycle. Instead, both official determinations of recessions and economists’ assessment of economic activity are based on a holistic look at the data—including the labor market, consumer and business spending, industrial production, and incomes.
"[...] The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Business Cycle Dating Committee—the official recession scorekeeper—defines a recession as “a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and that lasts more than a few months.”"
You can certainly make the argument that people shouldn't use this definition or that better measures exist, but it's objectively the official definition used by the US federal government.
[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2022/07/21/...
You can learn about this on a post on GitHub about much (but not all) of HN's undocumented behavior [1]:
"All comments start with a score of 1 point (but in order to prevent bandwagoning, the comment score is not visible to users other than the author). After users reach 501 Karma, they gain the ability to downvote another comment. Downvoted comments (i.e. with a score < 1) reduce their placement on the comment thread and will appear desaturated to other users deemphasize them."
[1] https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented#downvo...
It doesn't seem that there are many software development positions (which is relevant for many users here) in the (assuming US) army or military in general.
Casual is a nebulous term, but perhaps "widely accessible" is easier to evaluate. We can measure accessibility by games sold.
By sales, the highest-selling games are [1] Minecraft (now AAA), Grand Theft Auto V (AAA), EA Tetris, PUBG (before becoming freemium), Mario games, Pokémon, Terraria, and Red Dead Redemption 2.
So by sales, the vast majority of top-selling games are AAA. For what it's worth, I think similarly to you about preferring indie games to AAA games due to lack of time. But for most gamers and people in general, I don't think people even calculate the 40-60 hours per week. Most players probably just spend a lot of free time and weekend days gaming, and then the hours add up.
You do have a point that a large number of players play free-to-play games (e.g. League of Legends and many phone games), but there's a fair argument that AAA games are also targeted at "casual players," by evidence of their wide popularity in terms of massive sales numbers.
Is this really true, though? It's maybe plausible that people can hold positions without doing much, but I was under the impression that UI/UX requires a lot of expertise.
From a couple of days ago on HN [1], it's possible to have over 1,000 layers on Figma just to create a button [2] and over 10,000 layers on an entire website. And that's just for creating a design on Figma. Then there is the field of UX research to gather data on the design, the sense behind choosing colors and typography for UI, a familiarity with working with shadows to create a sense of depth on the page, and even working with sound and audio for feedback.
I don't even see how it's possible to hold a UI/UX position and not do anything, because there are very clear deliverables that can be asked for, and a manager can soon tell if a person isn't completing the work. It's plausible that low-skill people can exist in the field, but I genuinely can't imagine how one could stay low-skill yet keep the position.
That is a fascinating perspective, which makes sense. I would add that the concept of adultness is also related to seeing a person who is the "adult in the room" regardless of age. In specific, when a situation had a lot of risk and uncertainty, there is a person who can stay calm, likely positive, and always have a plan of what to do to respond.
I read that growing up means finding yourself in circumstances where there are often no other "adults in the room," but you can step up and take the responsibility to manage any uncertainty.