Funny story on this hidden paid verification Ryanair does.

This is the thing: https://www.ryanair.com/gb/en/lp/explore/verification-hub

Basically, you have to download a random third party app and provide some very sensitive data, including filming yourself.

I was once caught by this, even though I actually used Ryanair's site directly. My assumption is that it was due to a Cloudflare/VPN IP, so I might have looked like a bot.

I was pissed, more due to random third party app, vs 50 cents charge, so I decided to bluff and ping their support and start complaining.

I asked them to tell me exactly what caused my purchase to be tagged with this. I demanded I have the right to that data, and quoted things like GDPR and other consumer protection laws (e.g. hidden fees protections). After several layers of random agents sending me around, I got forwarded to some managers and folks with non-support titles (based on LinkedIn), as I kept pushing to get logs and details.

I wanted all data associated with this request, and all third parties that got access to my purchase details, quoting the part of ToS where I allowed for this...

Eventually, they admitted it's a vendor, they don't have details, and use a third party for detection. They said they have a whitelist and added my email to that whitelist so I never get miss-tagged as a bot.

I caved/sold out and didn't push further. I am still pretty annoyed that we are OK with companies doing this. (I understand I'm part of the problem as I ended up flying and only adding a bit of support load to their queue in the end)...

So you only need to do this if you book third party right? If you book direct do you need to do this?

In theory yes, only if you book via third party. But, my example shows there is some automated system that can even tag you for this if you use Ryanair to book directly. E.g. VPNs.

OKRs are just a tool. They can work pretty well if you have competent people and apply them correctly. But, that can be said of any other project management system, goal management system, gamification system... Some are worse, some are better, but most have books written about them that heavily feature survivor bias and correlations/causation bias.

The OKR book assigns most of Google's success on OKRs. Assuming there is an alternate reality somewhere, where Google chose SMART goals in that critical point in time. In that timeline Google of today is one floor below Yahoo in some random Verzion corporate building.

I haven't seen a goal management system yet that I cannot destroy with bad management and misaligned incentives.

As someone who wears glasses, my argument was always that most people don't want to wear glasses all the time, even if they were adding no extra friction vs your regular sunglasses (weight, looks, cost).

But, I had the same argument for Apple watch - no one in my circle was wearing watches any more. However, that didn't prevent people to start wearing an Apple watch.

So, I can definitely see a future where people who don't wear glasses choose to wear smart glasses.

It's still a question of benefit and effort.

That watch can do a lot. Like paying etc.

I do agree that I wouldn't have assumed that the watch is used that much but after it got its own esim and can be used instead of a phone, it can replace a device.

And for sports it's actually practical.

Glasses? I still think nope. It's still not a beauty thing

Not necessarily disagreeing with this approach - but an interesting other side to this that should be considered: what about candidates who look great on their public profiles - real achievements and credible expertise - because they focus more on their public profile than their main job?

Completely anecdotal and probably another extreme of the coin - but I'm curious if folks have some experience with this and how to spot this case.

> what about candidates who look great on their public profiles (...) because they focus more on their public profile than their main job?

Not OP, but I'd want to chime in and state the following fact: if you're looking for a job, your goal is to sell yourself as the best choice that your potential employer can make. If you cannot make that case for your employer, why do you think any third party would make it for you?

There are indeed a lot of paper tigers out there. I worked with a couple of them. They can interview better than most. If hiring managers have a limited amount of time to make that call, are you helping them find you by failing to present your case?

Yes, Bobiverse and Murderbot are very close in spirit, and if you like one you are very likely to enjoy the other. Also both have great audio narration.

Most people didn't. Some small group of people spent tremendous amount of energy. I think both of you agree on that point.

Also - keeping the stuff running, and making sure nothing ever breaks, is a different problem when you just want to maintain the current state of the product and keep it stable, vs when you want to change it.

Many tech companies are optimising for having hundreds of new features and products developing on top of the current stack, and allowing quick iterations, taking bets on things that might or might not have the market for it.

You can fire all civil engineers in the country and bridges will not collapse immediately. But you won't get any new bridges built. Also - at some point you might learn which ones had structural issues hidden by maintenance.

No, you pay VAT/sales tax for stuff made in China. The company pays taxes on profits where the company is registered. When you pay for Netflix in France, you pay VAT on the transaction too.

Is that why iPhone is design in US, Built in china but the taxes are paid in bermuda? Totally legitimate?

I'm not arguing that the setup is legitimate. I'm pointing out that the above analogy is confusing different tax types. The sales tax is not in question here. I'm all for revisiting how profits are taxed based on where they are made, but sales taxes/VAT is already collected correctly for both iphone and netflix.

No affiliation, but something I found on HN years ago was brain.fm:

https://www.brain.fm/

I've used it as a source of instrumental, good enough music. I'm not sure if the other "sciency" stuff actually worked. I didn't use it for a while now, partially due to a lack of macos native app.

Have been using this for about 3 years almost daily for reading, coding, and meditating sound if I'm in a noisy place.

I've found that compared to regular lo-fi playlists on Spotify my coding blocks have increased from 30 minutes to 50-60 minutes. Not sure what it does in terms of actual "productivity", but I can definitely spend more time working with it.

"Why do so many software projects fail when you don’t see any skyscrapers collapsing under their own weight?"

I think this is a great question to use as a thought exercise. We don't see the designs that fail, as they don't pass the review? Using the analogy of software engineering being the design stage (vs build/construction stage), this would be a closer comparison. How many skyscraper designs fail before they end up being "uptaken".

Also, just because buildings don't collapse and fail catastrophically, I assume there are many flaws in the design that get "worked around" during construction. Many flaws (bugs) do likely end up "in production", but they are more of a technical debt type of issue that will be a burden for building maintenance and/or future tenants.

watch engineering disasters or extreme engineering and you will find a discipline that has failed and learned from mistakes for hundreds of years.