ozy123's comments

ozy123 | 9 years ago | on: My Google Internship

That's a cheap mischaracterization of my position and probably yours(?)

You'll either learn to appreciate the other parts of the spectrum of thought that exist at google or you'll form cliques.

And I wasn't implying, just responding to your suggestion and advice.

Let me also offer some unsolicited advice - I don't recommend encouraging people to leave because you disagree with them. I also don't recommend assuming to represent google and the thousands of people who work there.

ozy123 | 9 years ago | on: My Google Internship

That's disappointing, I was hoping for a robust defense of your stance and I don't believe I didn't treat you with dignity but I'm sorry if there was a misstep on my part.

p.s. I'm a big fan of Google, they helped me to quit being an employee for good, but I appreciate the advice :)

ozy123 | 9 years ago | on: My Google Internship

But see that betrays the hypocrisy in the request. Tight fitting clothing highlights the sexual organ. The absence of clothing does the same thing (and yes in the minds of others). Why you are comfortable with google's insistence of clothing but uncomfortable with the request of others to not wear something that has a similar effect?

So whether I'm interested in your genitalia or not is beside the point. You were trying to draw a false equivalence, I wanted you to understand why it was different for you and not 'half of the office'.

ozy123 | 9 years ago | on: My Google Internship

"Matt is coming with us. He said he'd be at four. Jemima is also coming they said they'd be here at five."

Matt is coming at five? No Jemima is coming at five. Matt is coming at four. Also Sarah is coming with her partner Zoe. Ze said ze would be here at 4 also zey're getting a ride with Matt.

Umm. Ok.

Not to mention that now when I talk about women, I have to also consider every other gender non binary person as requested by OP. He doesn't want it to be essentialized and pragmatically to be inclusive one has to therefore moderate all language relating to gender.

That is a significant cognitive load and I wish people would stop pretending it's simple. I live around and have friends who are trans/binary non gender people and it's hard work keeping up.

ozy123 | 9 years ago | on: My Google Internship

Your tight leggings create a bulge of your genitalia, societal norms don't yet accommodate the visual enhancing of the penis or vagina such that they are prominently displayed. Unfortunately the penis/scrotum are much more bulgey than the vagina.

But by trying to pretend that it's ok for the 'other half' but not you, you're failing to advance your argument - which is that people should get comfortable with your package being prominently displayed. Because to you it is the equivalent of an ass/breasts/pecs being enhanced in some way?

Look I'm all for drinking kosher soda. It doesn't affect me. Having to adopt my language to accommodate every minority group (of which there is an infinite number) is just too heavy a cognitive load with zero benefit to me. It benefits my friends who ask me but I refuse and ask them to instead accommodate my not wanting to. And I think that's fair?

ozy123 | 9 years ago | on: Meat Is Horrible

If they could cut corners they would already. Battery cages are a prime example. At least in the UK free range only took off when consumers pushed for it.

ozy123 | 9 years ago | on: Am I really a developer or just a good Googler?

Also writing good code (easy to maintain, few bugs, easy to extend) is a craft not something you do spontaneously when you need to fix a problem. It takes time to develop and get a good sense for it. This is the key thing I see with all these bootcamp grads - they know the terms and they know how to throw crud apps together but they struggle to write clean code that adheres to SOLID that isn't littered with antipatterns.

ozy123 | 10 years ago | on: Sorry, developer bootcamps: I was wrong

I taught at a bootcamp. My takeaway was that out of a class of 30 there were roughly 5 individuals I would want to work with as developers for sure and maybe another 5 potential. The remaining 20 I wouldn't want to work with at all. I disagree on the conclusions from the author here. A lot of these people were just naive and foolish. They genuinely believed they were going to be interviewing with facebook and linkedin and get several job offers (they didn't).

The reason we don't hear more about them is because they feel shitty about it and keep a low profile.

ozy123 | 10 years ago | on: My year in startup hell

This is exactly what I was thinking, I worked at a similar company and there was a lot of promoting of values and having fun but it was like most other work places most of the time. And it would be super easy to exaggerate and mischaracterise it. However I did see one or two people who resented the talk about values and saw it as brainwashing that attempted to hide the fact that we were there basically to help the founders get richer and I got a sense of that from his article.

ozy123 | 10 years ago | on: Etsy CTO: We Need Software Engineers, Not Developers

Yup. I saw this happen at my last company. They knew exactly who they wanted to hire internally but were under pressure to recruit externally so went through the rigmarole of advertising, interviewing and rejecting people only to give the job to the person they were already pretty much decided upon.

ozy123 | 10 years ago | on: London vs San Francisco – back and forth

I've lived and worked in the UK most of my life and moved to SF three years ago. There were a few things you omitted in your comparison but probably won't immediately apparent in the short time you were here.

Salary difference. On average Most decent experienced devs in London make around 50-60k pounds which is around 80-85k dollars. An entry level dev in SF makes anywhere between 90 - 120k dollars and most experienced devs earn at least 120k dollars with the range around 110-150k. So roughly a 30-60k+ dollar/year difference.

Healthcare. Almost all the companies I've worked for have covered my healthcare costs so I only have to pay copays - as an idea 20 dollars to see my GP and 30 to see a specialist. I had 8 weeks of physio last year and my total out of pocket was around 600 dollars including a CT scan, which I could pay using pre tax dollars. So the overall cost was pretty low. I also got to see a physio the same day rather than waiting 6 weeks+ on the NHS. My total max out of pocket is 3000 meaning I don't pay anything more than that. Given the significantly higher salary even if I were to hit my max it would still be worth it.

The cost of living is comparable although certain things are cheaper - gas, trainers(sneakers), car insurance to name a few. Food is roughly the same I reckon.

Overall working in London vs working in the US I saved significantly more money - it's not even close. Although a tin of heinz beans costs two dollars so that's made a pretty big dent in my savings ;-)

ozy123 | 10 years ago | on: Wikipedia fails as an encyclopedia, to science’s detriment

I think betterexplained.com demonstrated that there is an alternative way of detailing information that a lot of people found helpful. Perhaps multiple versions of a page each with a different take on explaining it, perhaps rated versions... etc
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