Actually they rank the gold checks first which leads to the current hilarious practice where people will mention a gold-checked automaton in replies. The robot will also reply, which means your subthread outranks the blue checks.
I probably have a whole personal blog of my own on the topic, dear as it is to my soul.
My two main pieces of advice: The bar is very very low, and share your burden quickly.
99 times out of 100 you are way overestimating the value of what you're delivering and people's expectations for it, and underestimating the value of time i.e. shipping quickly.
I've turned in so many things I'm not happy with and gotten a "this is great" that now I frequently just send over pseudocode, whiteboard sketches, and bullet point design docs to just get going on the feedback loop. Nobody has ever said "this is so bad we can't use any of it."
I also realized I do much better finishing other people's work than starting my own .. and so does almost everyone else. Bringing other people in overcomes "the boredom paradox" of a looming deadline - working with other people has its own challenges, but it is definitely not boring!
One specific thing I did that helped a few years ago at my precious company was I told my team, wrote in my email signature, ran a small study group, etc. On grit, procrastination, and "growth mindset" and just made a very intentional effort to tell people how I struggled with this problem.
So many people shared the problem! It really gave us a nice community and helped us (and management) recognize some of these issues, lesrn some new techniques, and get better at coaching, setting expectations, and ultimately managing the work.
So maybe last piece of advice is be open if you have these issues.
It's because approximately 100-1000 times more people and resources are used to maintain it than would be needed in any other system of similar size and technical complexity.
Yup. This is why every attempt to provide developers better access to banking/finance is doomed to fail. Even if you buy your own bank charter, you are still subject to someone elses rules.
Your customers want to be innovative and do things they can't easily do today. On the other side is your financial network that has shut down the three previous attempts to do that exact thing because it causes a random transaction clearing server in France to burst into flames. You are now left holding the bag with both sides upset at you.
Schopenhauer: "Man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills."
I've wrestled with this question from time to time and, to the extent I've found a solution, the key is duration:
In the short term, choices are mutable (but determined by character), and character is fixed.
In the long term, character is mutable, and determined by some inner nature plus the integral of experience, influence, and choice.
There's still a recursive element here, because the investments you make in yourself are strongly influenced by a prior version of that self. (In a limited sense, this resembles coherent extrapolated volition.) Still, I've found it more helpful to think about short-term vs. long-term processes - in the sense of stock vs. flow, intercept vs. slope, or short-term vs. long term elasticity - than about recursion. Adding time conveys an intuitive understanding not only of what you can and can't change, but what you should and shouldn't.
To phrase it a simpler way: willpower is a muscle, as are most other traits. Most people can be strong, but not all at once, and when you see someone lifting a heavy weight it means they've been training for a long time.
"If people have the right to be tempted - and that's what free will is all about - the market is going to respond by supplying as much temptation as can be sold." - Eliezer Yudkowsky, LessWrong, "Superstimuli and the Collapse of Western Civilization, March 2007
That 2004-2007 period is really quite incredible from the perspective of Steve Jobs. To have that many balls up in the air simultaneously and getting every decision, even in hindsight, correct while raising children and recovering from his pancreatic cancer diagnosis scare. On top of that he was under undoubtedly intense pressure from internal feuds, external competitors (Motorola), buyout negotiations (Disney), suppliers (Foxconn) and the telecom industry (AT&T).
One of the things they told us in infantry school was, "if you get shot, don't die", meaning: don't immediately think that you're dead, because experience has shown that you might actually die from a survivable wound if you _think_ you're a goner.
Two years ago my team (then) was maintaining 15 or so projects in production, and landing 3-4 more every quarter. Each project was de facto owned by one person who did the bulk of the work on 2-3 projects.
After a team member left and a new maintainer had to step in to maintain an unfamiliar code base, our new EM decided that the bus factor must be raised across all projects. So every quarter we shifted responsibilities to new projects and had someone else take over ownership - the idea being that the previous person would still support and we'd not be in trouble in case someone left. That's not what happened though.
It didn't really matter if the old owner was around to support. Productivity plummeted with every project. It was as if every owner of every project had left the team every quarter.
Now I'm more convinced than ever that it's better to pay the price of an owner leaving if and when it happens, rather than try to prevent or mitigate that risk up front. The productivity costs are far too high for most software products.
"Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self esteem, first make sure you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes." — Notorious d.e.b
The key for me in that situation is to identify what it is that I am most unhappy about. Is it a particular individual who makes your life hell? Is it that they enforce their own policies unfairly? Or do you feel like you are wasting your life at tasks you do not enjoy?
The answers will inform your decision about a course of action.
The Fed at this point controls the whole economy and they have two options:
1. Raise interest rates and stop printing. Crazy inflation stops, but asset prices crash and we enter a major recession or depression. The end result will likely be unrest and blood in the streets.
2. Do nothing, keep printing. Inflation picks up massively. The economy keeps humming along but young people, including myself, are permanently priced out of home ownership and many other things. We enter a new era of cyberfeudalism, which probably involves some blood in the streets.
It seems like they are going with option 2. I am 24 years old and I can't say I'm particularly excited. It doesn't even really seem like any of the high paying jobs are enough to keep up with this insane market. All I can do at this point is raise my fist to the sky and say fuck the fed, fuck the financial system, fuck the greedy rich, fuck BlackRock, and fuck you.
This is quite normal. Many who win big in the literal lotteries are worse off. I know reddit is all antiwork these days, but that's really mostly about rights and not not working.
Being a productive member of society is meaningful. I'm from Scandinavia and a lot of our identity is tied up with our careers. Being without a job or any structural social purpose is asking for depression.
GWF Hegel wrote about suffering from indeterminacy. In short, autonomy is inherently social, so ways of life that are merely abstract (i.e. that society does not recognize in terms of existing mores) are void of satisfaction. Satisfaction is only real and concrete through reciprocal recognition. So the "I can do anything" type of freedom is only mere freedom (Willkür), which drains the individual of intersubjectively verifiable self-determination. I.e. you're determining yourself, but no one can recognize it without coercion, and you're unable to recognize it in social reality only in your mind. (And conversely, over-determinacy is slavery.
So even if you don't need to work for money, you might need a job to be able to find meaning in your life. We are a social species that survive on collective efforts.
Personally, if I had won lots of money I would strive to live on as if I didn't.
In an effort to get people to look
into each other’s eyes more,
and also to appease the mutes,
the government has decided
to allot each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.
When the phone rings, I put it to my ear
without saying hello. In the restaurant
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.
Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.
When she doesn’t respond,
I know she’s used up all her words,
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.
Jeffrey McDaniel, “The Quiet World”
I wouldn't call them Bitcoin clones, because all three are cryptocurrencies rather than just alternative bitcoin. I think there is large potential, because with the current state of banks and finances, something decentralized and open can only be achieved with a system like cryptocurrency, where (at least) in popular ones, measures are taken to make inflation impossible. I'm no expert though, so correct me if I'm wrong about this.
My biggest surprise around 35 was losing interest in almost all goals i had.
Partially it’s a life crisis im going to overcome, but in big extent it’s intellectual maturity.
You just see how silly and worthless most of the goals people fight for.
And most of the meaningful things in life, like family, health etc. are not really goals, but rather a process or part of life itself, part of you who liked to set goals in the first place.
I've got a lot of respect for Kanye. Not only as an artist, but as a public figure who doesn't shy away from the complexity of ideas and situations. He's flowing through his thought process in real time and putting it all on display. It often has a rough-around-the-edges quality to it that most public figures would conceal or hold off on sharing.
We're often watching his sense-making as it happens. I like that. It's vulnerable. It's sincere, and it doesn't settle for easy answers. His candor and honesty are refreshing and it makes him stand out among the rest of us who often fall-short of expressing what we feel or what we want to say. I find it something to aspire to.
That said, I don't think these qualities would be nearly as charming if I didn't also feel that he was fundamentally striving to be an excellent human being. There are many public figures with no filter, but so often I find they're lacking a certain... spiritual integrity or purity of purpose. I say this as an agnostic with no horse in any religious race. I think Kanye's heart is in the right place, where he's trying to be an example for others and also elevate them.
The flip side of that is any smart contract that stood the test of time should be rock solid. For example, there are huge incentives to go ahead and hack a big contract like maker, compound, uniswap or aave, so you can bet that there's highly qualified people out there trying to hack them as we speak, yet after all this time, they are still working as intended.
I have a lot more trust in that kind of product than in a product where contracts are subject to interpretations by humans which may or may not be reliable. It's one of the reasons why people incorporate their companies in Delaware, there are well known case law, so you know in advance what to expect from the justice system. Predictability is an important part of a contract, I trust a well inspected and battle tested smart contract much more than a human enforced contract. That said, not everything is suited to smart contracts, but many financial applications are.
Mostly it involves people making systems that are too complex to trivially analyze. You can not write arbitrarily complex secure code. You need to limit your scope and do one very simple thing extremely tersely and correctly.
You can make powerful systems with simple correct independent components. You can not make complex secure monolithic systems. It gets even worse when you look at contracts with delegation.
The problem with most "smart" contracts is they have abstractions, delegation and scope creep.
As a billionaire I am not sure he really needs to pump bitcoin to make a return. If you watch the interview with him he makes his case for holding bitcoin and it is a reasonable one. He says when he started his career the Mexican peso was 20:1 to the US dollar, now it is 20,000:1.
Many in developed countries don't understand the challenges of a devaluing currency with unlimited supply or the difficulty of being unbanked.
First, I wish I didn't take my health for granted.
When I was 24 I gained about 40lbs. I had previously been very active, and I quit participating in some physical hobbies that kept me thin & fit.
Without paying it much attention, I gained those 40lbs and on and off have struggled with weight throughout my 30s.
Second, I wish I had also put a lot of thought into assets vs liabilities and focused on owning assets. It's a much better use of your money, and the time you spent earning that money. I "accidentally" purchased an asset (a bar) when I was 26, so I got lucky here, but I could have done much better.
Third, I wish I had been a better partner to some people I dated. I'm good in a lot of ways: I don't lie, cheat, call names, etc. But I'm stingy with my time. I've always been a loner, and it takes a lot of effort for me to act differently. But I believe it could have been worth it.
Fourth, and this isn't for everyone: I wish I had enlisted. I was fresh out of high school when 9/11 happened, and I've always regretted not enlisting. But the military and the activities they're involved with are very interesting to me.
Overall, it's hard to screw it up too badly, especially if you're asking questions like this one. Optimize for health and financial health and you will potentially save yourself much of the drama and suffering life can bring. Good luck!
This opinion is really common, I used to have it but what changed my mind was realizing there are not really any "real world" use cases. I look at crypto as actual money, with the same definition: "money is a verifiable record that is generally accepted". Money in of itself does not have any "real world" use cases, money is money. Money facilitates economic velocity and growth in the same way crypto does, except crypto has the potential to be more efficient and secure. One of the key reasons money exists is "currency velocity", crypto improves upon this a lot. Banks make money with money, they don't make money with real use cases. Good crypto projects act like decentralized banks, nothing more.
In other words ignore all the bullshit projects and look at the ones who are structured like banks, financial instruments, or risk management. Then the use cases of cypto become very clear.
Australia has CSIRO (I'm a former employee), which is not quite the same but has had some big successes such as WiFi, seL4.
From being on the inside for a short period of time, I've had a glimpse at just how hard this is. Projects come and go, getting killed for budgets, politics, etc etc
The commitment and early vision, are very difficult to re-create.
I'm most familiar with WiFi as I worked with one of the inventors. It was patented in 1992 based on research in radio-telescopes for detecting black holes, which had been done years earlier.
If you think about what most computers were like, and what we were doing with them in 1992, WiFi would have made no sense. It would have made less sense when they started work on it.
Most computers were desktops, you didn't take a laptop to get a latte (which was also just barely a common beverage). Most people didn't have the internet, so there wasn't much to connect to. Your computer didn't move, so why have it wireless. Mostly you'd connect to a printer, which was also huge, so may as well be wired.
There was nothing you would do on the network which would use the speed that WiFi was capable of.
It would be almost a decade before it would be somewhat useful, and not until 2008, with the arrival of smartphones that it was a necessity.
So yes, I believe most countries should try to support a DARPA like environment. I don't believe most countries will be successful in their attempt.
An interesting category of problems are like Bongard problems in that you have to deduce the rule from examples, but the examples are presented one at a time at random long intervals so you have to work from memory. Most real-world learning is like this.
When working from memory, it's normal for your memory to have already parsed the previous situation into features. As some of the later examples in the blog illustrate, it's easy to fall into parsing examples into the wrong set of features, which is how you'll remember them.
While I could solve all the problems in the article, I doubt I could solve any but the simplest if I was shown 1 image per day over 12 days and not allowed to write anything down.
Perhaps the lesson is that when you're trying to deduce a rule (say, for what conditions your software crashes in) you can increase your rule-discovering power greatly by making notes and being able to look at several examples side-by-side.
It's dangerous to engage in higher-order thinking, lest you fail to achieve the highest order:
First-order: "The evidence points to a lab leak."
Second-order: "We can't say it's a lab leak, it'll cause mayhem. Let's say it was a bat."
Third-order: "We can't lie to people about something this important. When the truth comes out eventually, it'll be mayhem squared and they won't trust us next time."
Nah, it's a common story. When electricity and physics-based innovations started in France, people were so enamoured with novelty they started believing in anything remotely associated.
Hence magnetism and homeopathy, still limping along to this day, came to have huge amounts of followers. "if you can turn on a powerful light at night, surely you can cure with magnetic fields coming out of your hands".
Here is the same, if you can store value simply by convincing each other without central authorities (bitcoin), surely you can explore it to its conclusion with NFTs. Ill remind you that before the 2017 crash, we were already seeing joke tokens, it just disappears once the hangover starts.
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24972611 (about consulting and clients, but you can abstract that as "stakeholders", and understanding the problem your "client", who can be your manager, has.)
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24209518 (on taking notes. When you're told something, or receive a remark, make sure to make a note and learn from it whether it's a mistake, or a colleague showing you something useful, or a task you must accomplish.. don't be told things twice or worse. Be on the ball and reliable).
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21427886 (template for taking minutes of meetings to dispatch to the team. Notes are in GitHub/GitLab so the team can access them, especially if they haven't attended).
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26123017 (fractal communication: communication that can penetrate several layers of management and be relevant to people with different profiles and skillsets)
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26179539 (remote work, use existing tooling and build our own. Jitsi videos, record everything, give access to everyone so they can reference them and go back to them, meetings once a week or two weeks to align)
I've always wondered what it would be like to suddenly lose the ability to build higher technology like computer chips. Obviously this is just a shortage and not the same as manufacturing just vanishing, but the effects will be interesting to observe.
https://twitter.com/krrishd/status/1662264307466350592