shuaib

My last experience with AirBNB, it's customer support, and eventually an insurance claim, all went quite horrible. Made me realise how stark a difference there is on the spectrum of customer support by businesses. On one side we have companies like Amazon (with their customer obsession) that would go an extra mile to support their customers, and then on the opposite we have AirBnb like companies.

I would be switching to Booking.com for now and not going to use AirBnb anymore. But from what I am reading here, seems like they aren't that good with their customer care as well?

Cryptocurrencies are a decentralised P2P digital version of Bernie Madoff.

Shouldn't the title of this be "Subscribe to FT"? Because that's the page I see when I click the link.

Are you suggesting we need to keep a balance between war and peace? That too much peace will lead to our extinction?

Will there be a time when in the modern world, no territory will be forcefully occupied? Or do homosapiens lack the mental maturity to reach that point in their evolution?

What makes your remind of that?

Talk about having a clause that you can bend in any direction when needed. :/

But fair enough. The story isn't really that uninteresting.

What warrants this story making it to the front page of HN?

+1

I am glad this is mentioned here, as I was about to. One of the most useful book I have read. Lots of practical advice.

Not completely.

Given the circumstances -- OP being new to the company and the other person being "friend of manager" -- I would say it would be really difficult for OP to pull off a push back. The advice to put your head down and smile can work wonders when used at right occasion (which I feel like this is one).

>> That just makes you an exception.

Sounds like a sweeping statement. Not sure your example of aadhar is relevant. Everyone needs to have some form of ID so they can be represented in "a database".

My reply was in the context of the new mass surveillance equipment referred to in the article.

You read that wrong.

I don't have a problem with "discussing issues" and "coming to an agreement (or disagreement)".

I don't understand where these sweeping statements are coming from. I grew up in a third-world country too, and transitioned myself from belonging to a lower middle class family, into an upper middle class life. I don't have an iota of acceptance for any form of surveillance being put in place without it being approved through proper channels of well put process in place (i.e. democracy, representatives of people debating and agreeing upon it)

as long as they trust that other person

Trust isn't everlasting, specially for a "person". I can put more of my trust in a "process" (e.g. democracy) and its continuous evolution towards betterment, than letting "someone else" make my decisions for me.

I am going through SICP currently, after having it on my reading list for long. Loving it so far. I agree that exercises in the book shouldn't be skipped, not a single one. You might seem to have grasped the material until you take up the exercises and realise there is more to it.

Your dad is a wise man!

I am thankful to Woz for giving us Apple. And thankful to Musk for a promising future in the industries he is venturing in.

Looks promising. I will wait for the Ebook though (I know authors don't plan on releasing one, but their plan has to fail ;) ).

I don't know about others, but I am surrounded by quite a few 'idea enthusiasts'. People who believe that an idea is everything, and they get emotionally attached to each of their ideas. It makes it very difficult to critique any of their idea as they will make every effort to defend their idea no matter how weak their argument is. In such cases, I could either tell them 'Interesting idea, talk about it later', when I don't mean to talk about it ever again, but still not hurt the person. Or tell them the truth, that I think the idea is 'stupid' (may be following it up by why I think so if asked, though increasingly difficult with so many ideas floating around).

Even if we rule out the possibility of human race going extinct (which is quite improbable anyway?), isn't missing on a family life (wife and kids) quite a huge compromise in pursuit of some vague definition of 'productivity'?

Productivity that will eventually result in the extinction of mankind? :)

Where then does the "learn to say 'no!'" attitude comes in if we are to say "yes, if..." to every idea coming our way? How to find the right balance between being a "can do" person, and NOT being the over-committer?

> 15 - Avoid assholes, heroes and zealots

Isn't everybody a bit of these at some points in time?

Agreed. Dave, can you please share your income statistics if any. That would be interesting insight.

This is exactly what I was thinking. How does one go about deciding whether he has impostor syndrome or is highly overrated because of his "7 habits"?

Well put. But I think this is only half the picture. What happens when you do NOT have these habits, and are on the verge of being labelled the most incompetent/lazy team member, even though it might be you doing the actual work. Won't such a person, seeing that his work isn't being appreciated, get down to actually following these habits to be appreciated?

Lets be fair guys. Someone needs to articulate "10 ways to get fired by your best employer", now too.

At this particular moment in history, demand for developers outpaces supply.

I thought it was demand for "good" developers that was outpacing supply. Otherwise there are many developers (even with the professional degrees) that can't pass the Fizz Buzz test (http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?FizzBuzzTest).

If all my memories are copied over to a humanoid robot, and that robot claims to be me, given access to all my memories. Is he really me? What if the actual me is standing right next to it? Are there now two me? Or is the robot just faking it? But if it's the latter, how do we know I am not faking someone else's consciousness (i.e. not the robot, but I is the one faking)?

I regularly have a discussion with friends on "consciousness". And a question that regularly comes under discussion is following:

Suppose we are living in a time when medicine has advanced tons. In this time, a friend of yours gets into an accident, and gradually starts to lose different body functions/parts. Each time a body part stops working, it is replaced with an artificial one. There comes a time when everything physical about your friend is replaced, even his brain. Though during brain change (say brain is replaced with a chip), all his memories are shifted from his old brain to the replacement. When this physically totally new friend of yours wakes up after the memory transfer, he claims he is your friend, and can answer any question you throw at him, that would have been answered by your original friend.

Is this physically new friend actually your old friend? Or is he faking it having access to all the memories of your friend? Did a "consciousness transfer" occur as well? Or not?

Any take?