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PortleyFool's comments

PortleyFool | 1 year ago | on: A Personally Significant Bluesky Moment

How long will it take for people to see that they were victims of deep government censorship and that X has opened the door to the truth? Blue sky is full of censorship. Hackernews too?

PortleyFool | 2 years ago | on: Ask HN: Do I need anti-virus/malware software on macOS?

It depends. If your Mac is connected to the Internet, then you may inadvertently download something that is designed to harm your computer. An up to date browser like Chrome can detect and block some of these harmful downloads but there are ways to bypass the browser protections. Once the file is on your computer it may be able to be triggered to start accessing files and making changes to your computer. MacOS will try to prevent unknown files from getting access to and making changes to files by requiring you to type your admin password before making allowing the changes. However sometimes the makers of these types of harmful software find a way around these MacOS protections, like with the browser. In these cases it is helpful to have another program that is dedicated to checking each file to see if it resembles other bad files it has seen. This would be the anti-virus/malware program. However note that sometimes the people find ways to bypass these too. Also, it’s important to keep all of these components as up to date as possible so they are checking against the latest security information.

PortleyFool | 2 years ago

To effectively combat unseen dangers, we need visible, tangible reminders. Whether masks filtered out the virus or not was not the point at all. In fact, in early 2020 people were told not to mask. That doesn’t mean masks didn’t play an important role in controlling behavior during the pandemic. I think the strategy to force masking is an extremely effective short term strategy to modify behavior. However it is clear now that the population will only tolerate this for short periods. Compliance is more difficult when you can’t tell the population the truth. If you tell them masks don’t help directly but indirectly people won’t wear them at all. If you tell them they work 99% then some will rightly cry conspiracy and resist, while others will begrudgingly comply. CDC burned this strategy by overplaying it and not lifting the mandates sooner. This means people will be less likely to comply with mask mandates in the future.

PortleyFool | 3 years ago | on: GPT-4

GPT-4 is available now for subscribers to GPT+. It can be selected from the drop-down.

PortleyFool | 3 years ago | on: Lab leak most likely origin of Covid-19 pandemic, U.S. agency now says

Almost all of you were wrong about this, and almost none of you can admit it. I hope many of you will take this opportunity to ask yourself what other stories you’ve taken from the press that have left you misinformed or lied to. The conspiracy theorist, aka skeptics, followed a simple formula, question everything. The NPC’s followed another, trust the experts. Many of you write like experts on this forum. You should know better than most that title is baseless.

PortleyFool | 3 years ago | on: Ask HN: Is it worth it to get a masters degree in CS for SWE?

Option A - You take the job in 2024 and put off the Masters. Option B - You start your Masters and put off work until 2025.

When I was in your position years ago I took situation B, but before doing that I had good reason to believe I had a job lined up that was interested in the MS. My main reason for choosing B was I felt I’d never have the time to do a masters full time once I entered the job force, and I wanted do have a degree that distinguished myself. All of that worked out fine for me and I have a good job now.

However, looking back I would choose Option A. I didn’t learn a lot of new things from my Masters because there was so much overlap with my undergraduate degree. I would have appreciated it more as a part time program later in my career when I had more experience. Also, it took me 5 years to catch up with the salaries my friends who didn’t take the pause were making.

I’d recommend taking the job, work for 5 years then revisit the masters.

PortleyFool | 3 years ago | on: Ask HN: What are the odds of recovering from a Performance Improvement Plan?

When a manager is unhappy with an employee they reach out to HR, or HR may reach out to the manager if they have given the employee consecutive sub standard performance ratings. HR won’t let the manager just fire the employee without all the right documentation in place. It’s not that easy at companies that care about not losing wrongful termination lawsuits. Before an employee is fired the HR department wants to have documentation showing clear cause. In instances where the employee broke a policy, they will investigate, document, meet with the employee to discuss the findings and then fire them immediately after. In cases where the manager is claiming poor performance, the burden is on the manager to create compelling evidence. HR will review the PIP and check in. An employee wishing to stay employed or at least walk away with a severance should start their own documentation exercise. Raising complaints and issues directly with HR and working hard to meet the criteria in the PIP. Also contacting an employment lawyer will help. If the company thinks there is any chance you will sue, they will likely opt to offer a severance. In cases of severance the manager may get a range they have to approve. HR will offer the severance starting at the bottom of the range. Consider not accepting the first offer if it comes to that. $5 to $10k counters are usually safe but not guaranteed. Note that none of this applies in cases where the cause is layoffs.

PortleyFool | 3 years ago | on: Robinhood almost imploded during the GameStop meme stock chaos [pdf]

Also from the above Money Stuff post: …Robinhood therefore did not expect and had not arranged adequate funding for the additional $2.2 billion Excess Capital Premium charge. On the morning of January 28, 2021, Jim Swartwout texted [Robinhood Chief Operating Officer] Gretchen Howard at 6:29 a.m. EST, writing “Huge liquidity issue.” … “Hypothetically what happens if a firm can’t meet their morning NSCC margin settlement,” an operations manager asked their former boss that morning in a text message. Nothing good! … As Robinhood employees worked through Wednesday, January 27, 2021, to code position limits for meme stocks, they struggled with how to frame the trading restrictions to the public and seemed to want to avoid giving their own clients the real reasons for imposing restrictions. A product manager at Robinhood Financial asked, “Do we have a customer facing rational we can provide? In response, a manager in Robinhood’s brokerage responded, “The real reason is firm risk and us needing to control the velocity of trading. …But we shouldn’t expose that.”

PortleyFool | 3 years ago | on: Robinhood almost imploded during the GameStop meme stock chaos [pdf]

Per Matt Levine’s Money Stuff at Bloomberg: Broadly speaking, Robinhood has to post more cash with the clearinghouse as its customers trade more stocks. And it has to post more cash as those stocks are more volatile: The more likely it is that a stock will crash or moon, the bigger the credit risk is, so the more money is required.

On the morning of January 28, 2021, Robinhood had approximately $696 million in collateral already on deposit with the NSCC, leaving it with a collateral deficit of approximately $3 billion, which it was required to post to satisfy the NSCC’s clearing fund requirement or risk being in violation of the NSCC’s rules and potentially losing the ability to clear trades for their customers altogether.

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