sefk

I also sound cranky a lot lately when complaining about loud or unwelcome sounds in public spaces. So this project (and your comment) resonates with me.

Also yes, hiking with a bluetooth speaker is particularly galling. you're in nature! For that reason I've been considering buying (or building) a portable bluetooth jammer. I wouldn't do all the time, no reason to punish someone using wireless earphones respectfully. It'd need to have a trigger for JIT intervention.

I shared a meal with Rob Reiner at the San Jose airport many years ago. What a wonderful, generous person.

I liked the interview question that I got when interviewing at YouTube in 2015.

Discuss what would cause a Python interpreter to crash. Not a program written in Python, but the interpreter itself.

I listen to a fair number of podcasts. The Accidental Tech Podcast is my favorite by a mile.

Part of the reason this got a good response is due to Ned himself. nedbat@ has a great reputation in several communities. Also he showed his homework. And then posted with a good, tight repro case.

Fun to see the problem and the solution. Thanks Ned and thanks HN.

Source: have seen nedbat@ in action.

The author of this article wrote one of my all time favorite books, _The Making of the Atomic Bomb_. Hr tells the story of the Manhattan Project incredibly well.

The sequel, _Dark Sun_, about the making of the hydrogen bomb, is OK but has a lot more Cold War espionage than science.

Both worth a read!

I cross-post tweets to FB with this app: https://apps.facebook.com/twitter/. I wish it had a way not cross-post everything, i.e. with a #nofb tag, but my volume isn't high enough that that's a concern.

Nice talk Keith. Honest, clear, and informative. Thanks.

I love the attention to detail Ned.

I got bit by your site recently too. The way that flow is designed feels like it was designed to be deceptive. I was embarassed when I found out that you'd spammed a bunch of my contacts.

It's too bad because your business seems really valuable and would have been something I would have considered using if it wasn't for this terrible experience.

I hope you take my feedback as constructive and you use it as fodder to justify for changing this UX. Good luck.

- Sef (http://sef.kloninger.com)

I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing.

For Stanford's database class that just finished we had 64 thousand register, but only 20,000 actually do some work, and then close to 5k actually take the final or get a statement of accomplishment.

My blog response: http://sef.kloninger.com/2013/03/online-ed-retention/

I'm the engineering manager on Class2Go, Stanford's open-source MOOC platform. Check it out: http://class2go.stanford.edu/

I didn't know about + either -- neato! Thanks.

I keep considering moving to zsh. This example sure makes it look worthwhile. Thanks.

Whoa, that's a bummer story. Not quite that London trader who somehow managed to lose $2B on bad hedging, but still.

That isn't me. :)

Sure, if it's not doing harm. But in this case, all this old data was really costing us:

- real costs - database storage, blob storage, (minor) perf impact

- hidden costs - tougher to create test environments that look like production if production is so large, but largely invisible / unusable.

Concur about big changes on Friday. In our daily release meetings, we always used to ask people who wanted to release things on Friday -- "will you be at your keyboard all weekend in case something goes wrong?" Answering no to that meant no Friday release.

Fair point. I had tested that delete/restore had worked, it's just the "what are you deleting" criteria that I'd missed. Our test environment didn't match production that closely so the difference in data is what bit me.

Luckily, Ning did (does) have a nice way to handle network deletes. Once "retired" it is gone from the system in all visible ways, and then a month later an auto purger comes along to clear database content and blobs for good.

I don't take credit for that -- it was the work of smart folks who came before me. But it sure saved my bacon this time.

Well said Matt, thanks

Relevant! Thanks.

Exactly jclulow -- it's a clue. Thanks for explaining.

Great example of one of the most frustrating cases I've seen. Thanks.

For many it doesn't matter, but for some it's a big deal. Either because they have a handle that is important to them, or because what the policy comes up with is unappealing (for many reasons).

My point is: if its important to your engineer, it should be important to the company.