brechin | 2 years ago | on: New Docs Reveal US DHS Conspiracy to Violate First Amendment
brechin's comments
brechin | 2 years ago | on: New Docs Reveal US DHS Conspiracy to Violate First Amendment
Is there any example of a social media company being impacted by refusing to comply with one of these requests?
brechin | 4 years ago | on: Completely Locked-In Patients Can Communicate, Thanks to a Brain Implant (BCI)
brechin | 5 years ago | on: I lost all my savings in a mistaken Ethereum transaction
It might be recoverable, but would require extraordinary efforts.
brechin | 5 years ago | on: Privacy is the most important concept of our time
I knew this author's approach was doomed when I read:
> So, to defend privacy we need to accept shared norms of behavior.
At least in the US, this simply doesn't appear to be possible. Look at how our lives have changed (or not) during the COVID pandemic. Look at the recent debate between 2020 POTUS candidates. We don't DO shared norms in the way that would be required to make true/complete/meaningful privacy a reality.
My expectation is that if it's on the Internet, if it's outside, if it's in a crowd... it's public (or can be made public). Everything you express can be observed and used, and that sucks. Does that have a chilling effect? Of course!
brechin | 6 years ago | on: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote
* Use the tools - ticket tracking, chat rooms, wikis or other documentation repositories
* Own it - engage in the conversation, do the work, help the whole team get better, accept responsibility, acknowledge your own mistakes, and acknowledge others' wins and contributions
* Do it in public - @mention people in tickets, etc., use PUBLIC chat spaces, use org-wide sharing of documents
A company I worked for in the past, which had a SF office and a smaller number of remote engineers, did not embrace the value of thoughtful written communication, and ultimately didn't see the value of remote engineers. It fostered a culture of "need-to-know" conversations where they felt if you couldn't be "in the room" then you simply weren't going to have the information you needed. They didn't value recording (video, text, etc.) the agenda, discussion, or outcomes of these discussions, so it only lived on in the individuals involved. This artificially stunted the remote engineers, and in turn it backfired on the entire team's productivity.
brechin | 6 years ago | on: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote
It's a false dichotomy. It's not commute + "mandatory" screen time vs. sleeping in and wearing PJs.
When I worked in offices, I enjoyed commuting, it gave me time to listen to podcasts and transition between home and work. Working in an office with other people brought many opportunities to socialize, get pulled into impromptu conversations, take long lunches, and leave really early (to beat the commuters) if I needed to get home for some kid's after-school activity.
I work remotely now, and I still have to wake up on time, get dressed (hello video chat!), and be accountable. If I step away for a measurable amount of time, then I let people know in chat. It's far easier for a remote person to engage in overwork because there's not a clear boundary for when you're "at work" vs. "at home" (unless you create one). For better or worse, I "work more" as a remote employee than I ever did in an office.
The office folks who commute sometimes get to work late (traffic, train/bus issues, etc.), are pulled into random conversations and are unexpectedly unavailable just as much as any remote person. Are they contributing more by being in the office, or is the value just in their "presence", that you could literally tap them on the shoulder?
IMO, It all comes down to communication and empathy. If you're experiencing a major issue because you have to wait 10 minutes for someone to finish walking their dog, then imagine that person were in the office but in the bathroom. Would you still sneer at them because they were holding you up? Very few conversations are _SO_ urgent that you absolutely need an answer immediately. Having remote coworkers allows us to engage more thoughtfully with each other, and often pushes us to write more (and more useful) documentation so that we _aren't_ expecting immediate answers from any specific human.
brechin | 9 years ago | on: $30 Toll to Use Express Lanes
brechin | 9 years ago | on: Why We Moved from Amazon Web Services to Google Cloud Platform
The major downsides that I've noticed are: 1) Documentation is lacking (but improving!) 2) Issues that aren't affecting a lot of customers can sometimes take a long time to resolve. 3) Many services (including App Engine Flexible Environments) are still in beta, meaning no SLA, and they recommend against using them in prod. Unless you have a big paid support contract you'll have no clue how soon (if ever) things will reach GA.
brechin | 9 years ago | on: Ask HN: What non-technical skill would help you most in your career in 2016?
brechin | 12 years ago | on: Introducing StandDesk [video]
brechin | 12 years ago | on: Our SaaS app helped a customer make $18k
If you're interested in trying a different solution, you could try using LeadBoxes - https://blog.leadpages.net/announcing-leadboxes/
FD: I work for LeadPages.
brechin | 12 years ago | on: When You Get a Job Counteroffer: Should You Stay or Should You Go?
Companies should be proactive about keeping their employees engaged, challenged, and relatively happy.
Whatever you do, keep the connections you've made--don't burn bridges. The new opportunity may not be all it's cracked up to be, and it will be nice to have some people to call when you're on the hunt again.
brechin | 12 years ago
Why is this on the front page of HN?
brechin | 12 years ago | on: My contribution to XKCD’s #949
brechin | 12 years ago | on: My contribution to XKCD’s #949
See https://github.com/brechin/FileTeaSend Tested with Python 2.6. Only external requirement is requests.
brechin | 12 years ago | on: Google Made My Daughter Cry Today
If you need to have a Google account to use a Chromebook, and the under-13 crowd can't have one, then why do they market Chromebooks to kids and families? I shouldn't sign into it for her, since then she would have unfettered access to the net (including my email, Google Wallet, etc.) as ME, right?
brechin | 12 years ago | on: Why does the alarm clock snooze button give you nine extra minutes, not ten?
brechin | 12 years ago | on: Developers: What do you consider a 'good' interview question?
We're looking for a more junior level developer. We want to gauge their skills, but don't want to make any questions that are too domain-specific. I like the problems from places like Project Euler or codewars.com, but some coworkers feel they are too difficult. Solving a variation of FizzBuzz, allowing any reasonable language, even pseudo-code, shouldn't be beyond my expectations, right?
brechin | 12 years ago | on: Lego robot that strips DRM off Kindle books
After all, do you think you'd get away with stripping DRM from your own e-books for personal use? Probably.
I don't think there's a compelling case for government agents' top priority to be moderating online speech, but ensuring that the American people are not being subjected to massive mis/disinformation campaigns is a legitimate cause.