careersuicide's comments

careersuicide | 8 years ago | on: Is it possible to host Facebook on AWS?

I work at a company that sells ebooks and directly competes with Amazon in that space. All of our infrastructure is on AWS. We could move elsewhere easily if we had to, but we probably won't. A good friend who works over at AWS said that they were "more than happy to have [our] business". In terms of net revenue it's probably way in their favor.

careersuicide | 8 years ago | on: Walmart banned alcohol and swearing from Jet's offices and it was a big mistake

> Is there actually any actionable information here other than: "Don't make unpopular decisions?"

Make sure you actually do a cost-benefit analysis, even if it's just quickly in your head. Decisions like this are the result of seeing a metric and thinking about optimizing just that one metric. It's not easy to sum up costs and benefits of connected policies. And it can be very hard to a priori determine what the costs and benefits are. But when people come to you and complain about a new policy you should probably listen.

careersuicide | 8 years ago | on: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts

> It's OK to be mean to people because of the socioeconomic class they belong to?

No, see the first sentence where I say I generally reject the premise of the whole concept of punching up and down (I think there is such a thing as bad tactics). My point was, however, that if you're gonna use that framework, perhaps one percenters buying ugly houses aren't exactly a sympathetic group. Even more importantly, the OP misses the entire reason punching up and down is a thing. Being rich enough to afford a McMansion means you're pretty much guaranteed to be highly privileged. It'd be pretty silly, if you're going to talk about punching up and down, to believe that ridiculing the rich with bad taste is anything but a big ol' shoryuken. I mean, even I, someone who thinks you should treat people kindly regardless of background, roll my eyes at the thought of McMansion owners feelings being hurt because people think their houses are ugly.

careersuicide | 8 years ago | on: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts

> It's punching down

I generally reject the premise of punching up versus down; but McMansion Hell is emphatically not punching down. Anyone who can afford a $1 million 5000+ square foot house deserves very little sympathy for their bad taste.

careersuicide | 8 years ago | on: Technology Billionaires Trying to Remake America's Schools

> why does "scale" matter in education?

Maybe because, specifically in the U.S., there are 73.6 million [0] children aged 0-17. 45.7 million (or 50.4 million [1]) of which are school age. If that isn't a problem of scale I have absolutely no clue what is. You can't give every single one of them the kind of attention and resources a super rich kid gets. It's just not feasible.

We as a country made the decision a long time ago that every child deserves an education. I'm sure there's a few libertarians out there who'd disagree. But, I don't think that's a controversial opinion these days. I'd go as far as saying that the opposite opinion, that not every child deserves an education, is borderline taboo. It's not something I would ever suggest in polite company unless I'm intentionally trying to make people think I'm a huge jerk.

Given that we want all children to be educated, that there are limited resources to do so, and the number of school age children is enormous we have no choice but to think of education as a problem of scale. Currently we spend $620 billion a year on public education [2]. That number is sure to increase, but never to the point where every kid has all of the hands on teaching that would be preferred. This means system-wide improvements are likely going to have to come from somewhere else; namely better methods of teaching which can be applied nearly across the board. Is this the optimal situation? No. But, when you consider that the natural state of things is no education at all, perhaps we shouldn't reflexively sneer at attempts to make an imperfect system marginally better for everyone in the long run.

0: https://www.childstats.gov/americaschildren/tables/pop1.asp

1: https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372

2: https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66

careersuicide | 9 years ago | on: Tanium is facing employee unrest and an executive exodus

This is precisely why I quit my job two jobs ago. The CEO yelled at one of my coworkers (for something petty) and made her cry in front of the entire company. I had a job interview scheduled for the next Monday before the end of the day. It took another 10 or so days before I actually quit, but they did not get a two weeks notice.

careersuicide | 9 years ago | on: With a 10-day supply of opioids, 1 in 5 become long-term users

So, apparently everyone else in the entire world gets the "don't touch garage door springs" talk from a parent or other responsible adult as a child. I didn't (and my brother did!!!).

About six months after moving into my house I was fed up with the janky garage door opener that came with it so I went to Home Depot and bought a new one. I managed to assemble the new one myself with only a few hiccups. It then came time to remove the old garage door opener. I first took down the actual motor unit that was attached to the ceiling and got it set on the ground with the rail still attached. The end of the rail was attached to a metal bracket that formed a right angle with lots of holes for bolts to go through[0] which was then attached to the drywall above the garage door. I got up on a ladder and set to removing the bolts. The last bolt, unbeknownst to me, was attached to a piece of metal through which the garage door spring went [1].

What happened next all tool place within maybe 1/4 a second. As soon as I turned the socket wrench enough to loosen the bolt I heard a loud pop and felt something hit my hand. HARD. I looked down at my hand and saw blood. "No big deal, I cut myself on things all the time. We've got lots of bandages." Then I noticed the subcutaneous tissue (your hand doesn't have much, but there's still enough that deep cuts look different). "Okay this is gonna need stitches, I better get down and take care of this." And then I saw the bone. "ohfuckohfuckohfuck."

I hopped down off the ladder and ran inside and started screaming "CALL 911!!!" to my girlfriend who was upstairs. I made it to the kitchen where I got a dish towel, put my hand on the counter, and clamped down as hard as I could. The paramedics arrived about 5 minutes later (we live very close to a fire station). By then I'd calmed down but was so full of adrenaline I could barely hear or see anything. At one point I blanked out for maybe 30 seconds? I'm not entirely sure. The EMT said it was an adrenaline dump and that it was fairly normal. Of course when I got to the ER every single nurse who heard the story said I was lucky to be alive. If it had hit my head it would have caved in my skull (and I was on a ladder...). Apparently that happens more than you'd think.

They eventually hooked me up with a drip of hydromorphone. "This is the good stuff." one nurse said. Bullshit. I was in so much pain it barely did anything. It brought it from 10/10 to 9.5/10. That's using my new 10 point scale. I thought I'd experienced a 10 before when one time my dentist started drilling before the lidocaine had fully kicked in. I'd put that at about a 6 now. I really cannot describe in words how bad the pain that night and the following months was.

My hand is a lot better now though. The third surgery gave me back my mobility and the physical therapy got me back up to about 60% of the strength I had before. I'll never be able to point straight with my right index finger, but I can make a fist and type. As a programmer both are very important.

[0]: Exactly like this https://mobileimages.lowes.com/product/converted/040395/0403...

[1]: Basically this, except mine is shaped slightly different http://www.truetex.com/gar913.jpg

careersuicide | 9 years ago | on: With a 10-day supply of opioids, 1 in 5 become long-term users

I think what's missed most in all of the talk about opiods lately is that there are people who need them just to function, and not for reasons of addiction.

In January of 2014 I broke my hand. Not just a fracture. I completely shattered my second metacarpal in my right hand (my dominant hand) and did extensive damage to the surrounding tendons, ligaments, and skin. The surgeon who put my hand back together said it looked like a gunshot exit wound without a corresponding entrance wound. The entire top of my hand had been flayed open. After the surgery I was given hydrocodone, enough for a week. The only reason I didn't just kill myself that week was because I had pain killers. When the dose would wear off the pain was unreal, blinding, and totally consuming. The only worse pain I've ever been in was the night I broke my hand.

Needless to say I had the prescription refilled weekly until my second surgery three months later to take out all of the pins. And again for three months after that until my third surgery to release the tendons so I could use my hand again. And for three months after that while I did thrice weekly physical therapy. I cannot emphasize enough how much I needed the pain killers just to get through life for those nine months. Even with them there were some nights I couldn't sleep because the pain in my hand was so severe. Of course, by the end of the nine months I was pretty well physically addicted, but, knowing my time was up I tapered off and haven't needed them since. For another six months I still needed frequent acetaminophen and ibuprofen to take the edge off of the throbbing in my hand.

I'm not saying at all that there isn't a problem big with opiod addiction. But recent conversations I've seen about opiods leave me with the impression that most people just don't get it. They think that either people just need to deal with pain or that some sort of non-medicine alternative is what's needed for most people on opiods. And that may be true for some. But unless you've been in the kind of pain that makes you seriously consider killing yourself I don't really think you can appreciate just how important opiod pain killers are to some people. I'm afraid we're going to lose something that helps a great deal of people all because we have this idea that addiction is somehow a moral failing and we've structured drug policies around that belief.

careersuicide | 9 years ago | on: Next Iteration of “The Rust Programming Language” Book

As others have said; Rust is very stable now.

I started trying to learn Rust at 0.7 (maybe a bit earlier, I can only find references to 0.7 in a few projects of mine). Boy howdy did that feel like an exercise in futility. I would set it aside for 3 weeks, revisit it, and find entire language constructs had been removed. I complained about this and Steve Klabnik graciously reminded me that it was a work in progress and that the work was being done out in the open intentionally. I really can't thank him enough for that since it caused me to go from frustrated to sympathetic. As a result I decided to not write the language off. And I'm glad I didn't. After things slowed down around the betas for 1.0 it became clear that Rust was worth learning. I haven't had a chance to use it professionally, but for personal projects I find myself reaching for Rust for problems that would have caused me to have reached for C in the past.

Also, Google has gotten significantly better about returning current and up to date information on Rust as well. Around 2013-2014 my biggest gripe was that I'd search for how to do something only to find advice that was woefully out of date. I haven't had that experience in well over a year now.

careersuicide | 9 years ago | on: Raising the American Weakling

The same thing happened to me about 4 months ago except it was deadlifts. I think I somehow let my back rotate a bit when I was on my way down. An MRI revealed a slightly bulging/dehydrated L4/L5 disc. My leg days have since been infrequent and very light with no deadlifts at all. My chest is looking better than ever though...

The sad thing is I haven't been doing a powerlifting routine at all. I decided a couple of years ago when I started lifting that I'd rather look good than be able to lift super heavy weight. I was only deadlifting about 1.2 times my body weight.

careersuicide | 9 years ago | on: In Marin, if you speed on your bicycle you're now going to get a ticket

Without also requiring bikes to come with speedometers* I think this is absurd. The whole reason speed limits for motor vehicles is a reasonable concept (regardless of the speed limit itself being reasonable) is that all motor vehicles made since about 1910 have had them a speedometer. Of course you can tell if you're moving 30 MPH versus 15 MPH, but speeds marginally faster than 15 MPH just don't feel significantly faster. Without the ability to see your speed, and more importantly, the expectation that everyone on the trail can know their own speed accurately, this smells of an easy cash grab by law enforcement. I'm not even saying I think speeding on a bike on a mountain trail is safe or a good idea. I just think it's unfair to enforce something like this if your average person isn't going to be able to make sure they're complying like your average driver of a car can. If no one mountain bikes without a speedometer then I suppose my point is moot, but I'm not a mountain biker so I wouldn't know.

*A quick search on Amazon reveals many for less than $20, but I've never seen a bike sold with one attached.

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