onislandtime

it's actually pretty easy to automate the state of the vehicle. if anything is left in the car the video is sent to an operator. The service instructs a cleaner to check the car and the passenger is sent a warning and eventually is banned from using the service.

We need accurate reporting to learn and fix problems. Any good engineer knows that. We saw how the public quickly started to trust Waymo because it is safer than human drivers by orders of magnitude. This totalitarian regime is going to undermine progress and get people killed by allowing unsafe robotaxis on the streets.

I think we all agree that making the Gov more efficient is a good thing but this is about terrorizing federal employees for ideological reasons. There is no crisis to justify this. We do have a crisis in healthcare which is being ignored.

People have a hard time understanding the nuances and the context. Because he is somewhat crazy, he is able to do things a normal politician wouldn't do. Clearly, eliminating corruption and waste is a good thing. He was also able to end the endless street protests. He was also the only option that was expected to make radical changes. On the other hand, the guy is pretty crazy, lacks empathy, is authoritarian, hates dissent, lies a lot, and so on. He is in love with Israel and Trump in an emotional way. Everything he doesn't like is extreme left, etc. My hope is that a new force will emerge that can continue fighting corruption, establish rule of law, create a vibrant market economy in a democratic way. It will be a long journey.

Hey, I checked your Reddit thread [1] and I see a good discussion with useful suggestions. I don't see "anything but hate" at all. There are pros and cons to using frameworks. True, many people seem to prefer to use smaller libraries. I personally don't like magic because sooner or later I lose track of what's going on and need to start guessing. With direct code I can understand faster without having to read docs and layers of source code. It's all about finding the right balance of abstractions.

1 - https://www.reddit.com/r/golang/comments/1anmoqg/what_go_lib...

I had to use an iPhone for a month when I lost my Android phone so I tried Spotify for podcasts. I can't describe how bad it is, impossible to control what you want to play, complete garbage. AntennaPod is an example of what software can be when you remove greed from the equation.

This is pure and simple collusion. Same as the oil cartels. Destroys competition and is totally illegal.

Software engineers tend to think in deterministic terms. My code tells the machine exactly what to do and that's it. In real world systems there is uncertainty which requires different thinking. A real-time process needs both, a deadline and the concept of errors. A process must be completed within a deadline or there is an error. As the author said, the absolute time (or latency) is irrelevant. Think of a tennis match. you either hit the ball or you lose. There is a deadline and an error. It's not that complicated yet so many people are confused by the concept.

With no background in accounting, I was impressed with the Beancount documentation. Very well written and a great way to learn accounting. I am looking for a solution to track my investments but I find it a bit overwhelming to get started with Beancount from scratch. Is there a tool to convert brokerage data into Beancount data from scratch?

One of the surprising things in this saga is how Walgreens partnered with Theranos. I actually had a blood test done in the downtown Palo Alto Walgreens. The results were obviously wrong so I had to redo them in a real lab. Any elementary school child can do a science experiment comparing the blood test results of Theranos with a standard lab. Walgreens deliberately failed to do due diligence because of some type of corruption. They contributed to the fraud and they should be investigated.

Yep and Intel is doing great with their incompetent management. These management tools can only work when there is a mission, common sense, competence, team work, respect for each other, and many more attributes rarely seen in corporate America. As the author and Warren Buffet said: “I try to invest in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them. Because sooner or later, one will.”

To me, compared to other languages, I find Go easier for expressing my ideas in code. People seem to argue as if there was an objective truth. Different people may have different learning styles and working requirements. I'm not programming full-time so I prefer a simpler language so I don't forget. A full-time programmer may want to invest in a more "complex" language. See, you are all right.

Prop 13 needs to be reformed because taxes need to be fair. Taxes can be deferred for those who cannot afford to pay the full tax so they don't have to move. The benefit should be restricted to a primary residence, no vacation, investment, or commercial properties. Deferred taxes can be paid when the owner sells the house if there is enough equity. At some points victims of prop 13 will out number those that benefit from it. One can only hope people will wake up and do the right thing.

and this what we see in most tech companies, they go out of the way to hire people that "fit". I wonder how much talent we leave out because of people's natural tendency to hire people like themselves...

You are not alone in feeling lonely. I suggest you try talking to a psychotherapist to help you answer those questions.

My experience working for good technology companies is that most engineers truly want to hire good engineers. I was lucky to work in groups where there was no gender bias. Female colleagues or bosses where recognized and respected based on merit. Obviously this is just my experience. On the other hand bias based on age seems to be much more common. Perhaps this is part of people wanting to hire people with similar cultural background.

What happens in the world of VCs and top executives has no relation to what happens in the real world. I suspect that the top 1% is dominated by jerks and males. We shouldn't extrapolate what happens there to the rest of us. Let them sue each other.

There is too much hype, solving data-related problems requires many different skills and it depends on the problem. In general you need background in quite a few of these areas linear algebra, probability, statistical modeling, stochastic processes, computer science, programming, signal processing, etc. We used to call this electrical/computer engineering :-)

Not a good analogy. You can design interviews and measure outcomes. The goal is not to eliminate coding if it is relevant for the position, you need to do it right. There are people who spend their life designing and validating tests, don't ask a busy engineer to wing it. Companies could use an unbiased computer-based test as a first pass. This way, candidates can prepare and feel they are getting a fair chance. In the second pass the interviewer can focus on higher level problems and soft skills.

Good point. Perhaps we need to work through professional organization to look into hiring practices and propose practical solutions.

Thank you so much for sharing this. Look at it this way, many companies are missing great talent because of their interviewing practices and for trying to imitate Google or Microsoft. More innovative companies (think Moneyball) can take advantage of this pool of talent and target people like you. I'm trying to think how to make it easier to identify this talent. Any ideas?

I think that what you do makes sense if you take the time to read the resume, code samples, articles, and ask relevant questions. Asking to write some code is perfectly fine to see how the person works. References are also very important for more experienced candidates with a track record.

People are very diverse, some are fast and chatty, others are quiet and slow. Usually I perceive the fast and chatty types a bit arrogant. Personality and cultural background is probably an influence. Best teams have a great mix. Often caring about the work is more important than having a genius. (Of course people should be competent).

Dear software professional: if you have been rejected because of a coding interview, don't feel bad or discouraged. It has little to do with how smart you are.

Unfortunately, this style of interviews is likely ineffective and leads to hiring people who look alike and have similar skills. Solving a problem with someone looking over your shoulder and forcing you to talk to explain what you are thinking is a skill that I've never seen used in the real world. I'm sure new grads spend a lot of time in classes training for this. Many great people don't function like this and still they may come up with brilliant ideas after a day or a week. Some people have breath of knowledge and study specific topics as needed. Some people can write very well and may not be super fast in tests. I know many brilliant engineers who have been rejected and are doing just fine, building amazing products, and leading teams.

If corporations really wanted a cookie cutter method to evaluate CS knowledge, then they should require a scientifically validated standardized test conducted by a third party. It would be cheaper than using engineers' time. So why don't they do that?

The reality is that they think they are doing more than that but there is no scientific proof that the interview method works. They don't want false positives but they cannot measure efficacy. If you are one of the guys who know how to perform, then you can get hired faster. In some cases if you are an outsider (older, female, different), then your chances of knowing the "secret interview code" is much lower.

I not only feel more mature in my reactions and my thinking but also feel I am a much better coder and creative thinker. You don't need to be 20 to code or start a company. Age discrimination in Silicon Valley is real though. It has nothing to do with intelligence. It has to do with trying to hire people like yourself. Of course a 20-year old would not want to hang out with a 50 year old dad. Asking silly quizes in interviews to a professional engineer to judge decades of experience is beyond idiotic. The reason older people are not good at solving quizes is because that's not what we do in the real world so you don't develop that skill. That's what you do in school. The best ideas come after hitting the wall a few times. A good workplace needs diversity of skills, experience, cultural background, gender, etc. Startups who ignore this are not only breaking the law but are also missing out on great people. I would love to hear suggestions on how we can change this culture. Is it possible to prove age discrimination? Should companies adopt a standardized and open protocol for hiring?

Yes, the latest work on NN is a breakthrough for sure. So are the advancements in distributed computing and storage that make low-cost scalability possible. However, we should resist getting sucked into marketing terms and buzz words. Terms like "self-driving car" are good because they are descriptive, accurate, and imply a paradigm shift. On the other hand, I may be wrong, for example the term "microprocessor" seems to have trascended relative size and is used to refer to a type of computer processor on an integrated circuit. Language evolves but perhaps we can influence by choosing good meaningful names when we can.

Thinking people (as oppose to those dedicated to promotional activities) should stop using the term "data scientist". All scientists are data scientists, otherwise we would call them philosophers. Data for the sake of data is not a science. While you are at it, please also stop using the term "big data", (often people mean: do something with the data), if you need to use a computer cluster and MapReduce because the data doesn't fit in your Mac, then refer to distributed data stores and computing systems. Also, please drop the term "deep learning" when you refer to using more compute power to run more complex models. Thanks.

So pathetic to have to even have to debate the benefit of IRS providing a website to file taxes. The free filing for income lower than $58K is a scam. If you have a 1099 for $1000 or capital gains of $500 you are out of luck, it is impossible to know what they will charge until after you enter the data. That's what this assholes call innovation. The only explanation is that Intuit is influencing members of congress with money, that's a crime. There is no possible argument to justify forcing 100 million people to waste time on something that should be trivial for most people.

Unfortunately, this is the price we need to pay for living in a plutocracy. Healy insurance companies and brokers add no value to society. However, Obamacare is infinitely better than what we have now because it is almost impossible to get individual insurance for most people over 40 forcing them to stay at their current jobs. Perhaps this will make it easier for people over 40 to take 6 months off and start companies without having to play Russian Roulette with their families.