steveoc64's comments

I get what you are saying, and yes, those are totally reasonable expectations in any community.

Im just saying - I think its amazing that _anybody_ trusts any of these Silicon Valley organisations to do anything reasonable. They are convenient to use, sure ... but ever trusting them to put your interests above their own. I dont understand how people can believe that.

If you hand over info and put in on their servers .. you dont own that info at all. They can, and will, do whatever they want with it to make another $

"breach my expectations of privacy"

Q: where did these expectations of privacy come from ?

"it only takes an instant to destroy your company’s reputation, and it’s incredibly difficult to win back that confidence."

Not really. Given that nobody on here has identified the underlying problem, and are happy to blame everything on Triplebyte ... it just goes to show how nothing is going to change anytime soon.

Confidence in using this, and other services, will only grow.

At least in the discussions area, there is a distinct lack of "hacker culture" opinion expressed on any topic, given the name of the forum. At least from where I am standing, this reflects very poorly on ycombinator, and the "Tech Culture" that they are putting investors in touch with.

Trigger Warning - Doubleplus Ungood Thoughtcrime ahead

For a certain portion of the readership, Microsoft can do no wrong ... and when they do wrong, it's never their fault.

Perhaps the site should be renamed to "Young Upwardly Mobile Professionals with Rose Coloured Glasses and No Clue, Living in an Artificially Inflated 1st World Bubble News" would be a more accurate title.

This acquisition makes perfect sense for anyone who thinks that "the real economy" is in great shape, and middle management jobs are likely to experience unheard of growth over the next few years. Layoff numbers are just made up propaganda, and everyone around the world loves the US Dollar.

When this level of backslapping groupthink starts to predominate, its a pretty sure sign that things are rotten in Denmark, and should be a clear warning sign for smart investors in this market. But .... each to their own, its their money they are gambling with I suppose. (or conversely, other people's retirement hopes that they are gambling with)

*

Anyway, I find it interesting that Linkedin's infrastructure is written in a mashup of Java, Scala, Ruby, and God knows what else.

You can almost guarantee that somewhere in the corridors of power, some pointy haired boss types are putting together a PowerPoint® presentation on how they are going to port all of Linkedin's codebase to .NET in 3 easy steps, for great profit. What could possibly go wrong ?

Big congrats to anyone that manages to cash in their Linkedin stock in the near future. If so, you have just managed to sell premium seats on the deck of the Titanic for top dollar !!

Wow - good stuff, and keep up the good fight.

I don't have that many people around me that are worth influencing directly, so here is the way that I do it :

1) I divide up the TODO list and customer requirements into the 'Little Things' and the 'Big Things'.

2) Customers / Managers / Users seem to love the 'Little Things', and feel like they are getting great value for their dollar when so many of the 'Little Things' can be delivered in a relatively short time, it looks like great progress to them.

3) I always do the 'Little Things' at the Customer's site, in the Customer's presence. I always do them during the day, and I get the managers involved as much as possible. Be a good corporate citizen, and get paid on time.

4) Doing lots of little things on an hourly rate is a good way to generate cash quickly, and get paid on time. Its useless in the grand scheme of things in terms of software development, but it is needed to keep everyone happy and ensure that you can pay the bills on time. As you can see, this is all about cash, fast cash, and smiles and happy customers all around. It can be borderline degrading at times, but there you go. Milestones and Invoices and Smiles, and more Smiles and Cash.

5) I don't even bother trying to explain the 'Big Things' to these same Customers / Managers / Users, because it just plain scares them. They will never believe that software can ever be that complicated or difficult. It really scares them in fact. They want their world to be manageable, understandable, easy to estimate, easy to achieve ... that want to feel like they are 100% on top of things and in control. So I just don't talk about the 'Big Things' at all. Peering into the void that is the Big Things is the quickest way to make a Happy Customer (who pays on time at a good rate), into a very upset individual.

6) Bank the money and take time off. Turn off the phone, close the email app, stock up the fridge, tell people you will be out of town for a while. Get comfortable .... and code. Code the big things. Do it in the comfort of your own setup, away from everyone, and take your time. No deadlines, no clocks, no timesheets .... just you, an editor, a github account, some emergent ideas that may or may not be well defined, and some code.

Working on the 'Big Things' is simply not negotiable.

I never charge for doing the 'Big Things', and I never discuss this with customers, or try and use it as leverage in future billing arrangements.

Working on the 'Big Things' is simply not negotiable.

Working on the 'Big Things' is why I program and why I ever started to get into this in the first place. Being able to properly immerse myself in the Big Things, on my own terms, on my own time, out of my own pocket ... is compensation enough, and worth far more to me than any paycheck ever will be.

Working on the 'Big Things' is simply not negotiable.

Having a set of 'Big Things' in my toolbox then enables me to re-enter polite society for a while, in order to crank out some more 'Little Things' easily and cleanly, and get the bills covered. You need happy customers for that. Happy customers with Milestones and Ticks in Boxes and Smiles and Invoices and Cash on Time.

But working on the 'Big Things' is simply not negotiable.

Good point.

Note also that some "laws" may remain as "laws", even in the face of experimental evidence which directly contradicts the predicted results of that law.

Which gives rise to "The Law of Research Funding", in which the amount of funding that can be attracted to support a given law is proportional to the amount of real world experimental evidence which contradicts that law. :)

The DateField hypothesis :

For any given reasonable estimate for an item of software, add 2^N days to that estimate, where N = the number of date/datetime fields involved on that form or database table.

eg - You have a complex data entry screen to add to a webpage, and you KNOW for certain that you can complete it thoroughly in 2-3 days tops, testing every possible edge case. Good stuff.

However, if that screen has 2 date fields involved, then its going to take 2^2 or 4 extra days over and above the reasonable estimate to get it done properly, and handle NULL dates, timezone differences, comparison of dates for equality, parsing date inputs, converting internal representations between front end / backend / storage ... and every other unexpected abomination.

Great article with a lot of good points. Enjoyed the read.

Having said that though, the first paragraph or so made be choke. In the "hypothetical" case of Mike, who after being layed off from Microsoft finds himself a little shocked that his "skills and experience" are not valued in the real world ... well, its really hard to have any sympathy for him.

Hiring on merit is one thing, but there also has to be some weight added for a candidate's integrity (or total lack thereof, as in this case.) These Microsoft folk will never understand how much damage they have done, and how deep the resentment against them runs. Its not even worth trying to explain to them.

For another example, lets consider the hypothetical case of "Gavin". Gavin is someone with brilliant skills in say - early childhood learning, adminstration, media relations and marketting skills. He applies for a job as a senior admin at a childcare centre. The application is rejected !!! Gavin is appalled at this blatantly unfair treatment, so decides to investigate further and marches into the office to demand an explanation.

Anyway, as it turns out, Gavin proudly made full disclosure on his CV about a number of recent highlights in his career, including filming and marketting child pornography, collecting healhly organs from child donars for resale in the Middle East, and also the collection and hiring out of particularly talented children to both the Catholic Church, and the Freemasons.

"Gavin" sees these activities as mere expressions of his brilliance in the fields required. He is at a complete loss as to why all the staff / parents in the childcare centre are "discriminating" against him, and some are even casting unfair daggers in their eyes. He cant understand why ???? Perhaps they are just inferior to him.

I dont see this as being any different at all to the hypothetical "Mike" situation. Seriously - Fuck Mike !

To anyone recently layed off from a job at MS, who thinks they can jump bandwagons onto the next "trendy" thing in software, I think the most humane thing to do would be to tell them the rotten truth right up front .... "Just Fuck Off, and get as far away from software dev as you can. Get a job pluckng chickens, or collecting broken glass, or whatever pays the bills ... but whatever you do, keep the fuck away from our computers. You are NOT wanted here, and we all have excellent reasons to hate your guts with a passion and intensity that you are too selfish and narrow minded to ever comprehend."

.... but they would still think this was unfair ! Ridiculous.

I have been (forced against my better judgement) to attend a total of 4 conferences in my whole career ... and been politely asked to leave during 3 of them

In all cases, my questions were perfectly valid and reasonable, but this was at a time when "linux" was considered some sort of nutjob conspiracy theory that would go away if ignored.

I think that the total amount of unemployment I have had over all those years adds up to about 2 weeks total ... plus the additional inconvenience of spending about 4 months total in court. (which I managed to successfully bill for, so I suppose that doesnt count.)

The various CIOs, CEOs and other "Eye Tee" experts that I met at these conferences - Hopefully - are no longer involved in the tech industry.

Just sayin ...

Thought about that too, but then, as the girl in the article suggests, its not the excessive bandwidth use that is the problem ... teh real prob is that parents just dont understand, its all about living in the moment.

Im sure that silly old Daddy, once he got his head around that simple concept, could just appreciate it for what it is, and stop stressing out over some stupid bill. He is just missing the whole point.

How does anyone know for sure that all of that traffic (or at least the meta data related to the traffic) is not prepped for data mining on a per-user basis ?

There would be obvious commercial advantage in doing this, just for starters.

Data mining services like facebook gives you a solid picture of the interests and connections that the target person broadcasts publicaly. This is useful information, and it is exploited by any number of parties ... and people are (hopefully) aware of that.

Data mining snapchat gives a deeper picture of a person's interests and connections, as they are broadcast whilst that person believes that this information is entirely private.

Aggregating data from both sources (which would be almost trivial), would provide a very detailed view of the target. Much more than the sum of each dataset alone.

And it matters not whether the owners of Snapchat are completely and utterly above-board with everything .... there is the question of who owns and operates the network that all this info travels over.

Bottom line is that all of that "ephemeral" data that is going through snapchat is no more private than facebook, or youtube, or HAM radio, or telephone calls, or email, or SMS, or pretty much anything electronic.

There is no real privacy with this, but its easy to provide the illusion of privacy.

A direct neural interface, paired to a bi-directional low latency satellite feed.

That way users can see,hear,smell,feel & taste everything that their friends are experiencing .... simultaneously, and in real time. Continuously, all day, everyday.

Now, who wouldnt want that ?

Having a look at the company in question, and the products that they produce. I only got as far as the "Diversity Dashboard" to realize that this organization doesnt actually produce anything.

If you don't produce anything real, then you probably don't need any space to do it in.

Meanwhile, the ranks of the unemployed, the hungry, the homeless, and the disenfranchised continue to grow, as any useful capital that remains in circulation is eaten up by these parasitic sectors of the economy.

Im sure that the country has a bright future ahead, where everyone can make a meaningful contribution - such as serving hot dogs and coffee with a smile, or just helping everybody else establish an impressive social media profile.

The rest of the world will be so grateful that they will continue to purchase our debts, extend additional lines of credit, and provide all the manufactured products, food, and energy that we need (but can no longer produce)

Ah .. not quite. Im not a photographer by any stretch. Im a Vexiologist by trade, and Ive invested a tonne of time and money into that. It has provided me with a wonderful lifestyle that I wouldnt swap for anything. That line of work has always been open and accessible to all (just like programming), but the skills are never diluted by progress (just like programming skills are never really diluted)

Not saying that Digital Cameras arent "real cameras" .. an empty packet of smokes with a pinhole in the side makes for an acceptable form of camera as well. Just making the assertion that pretty much ALL digital cameras are garbage. At least the metallic paper in the empty packet of smokes has many interesting uses, and can be crafted into something of lasting value .... no such luck with yesterday's used Digital Camera. They are a future landfill liability, just like all of your iPhones and other battery powered crap.

There are a few notable exceptions in Digital Cameras of course, but we already know that. The Sony Mavica (with the floppy disc in the side) was a work of art, The M9 with the Kodak CCD is justifably sort after in the 2nd hand market at premium prices, and of course the MM. Its even hard to find someone willing to part with a much loved M8. The X-Vario is not only a brilliant digital camera, but there is the added bonus of annoying any "experts" who see it in your camera bag. That is priceless.

No, what I find really annoying in this crappy article goes a little deeper than that.

For example, you can put a Rat in a maze, and measure how long it takes to find its way out. You can repeat the experiment several times over many days, and observe how the cunning little bastard manages to shave seconds, and then minutes off his time. Its only a filthy Rat, and yet the damn thing can reason and think for itself, and optimize a solution to a rather abstract problem. One has to respect the Rat, no matter what diseases the thing might be harboring in its dirty, matted fur.

Now lets take a look at the first photos published by the subject of this article. They look like the work of a noob with a new toy. Fair enough ... he is on an exciting new journey of discovery. Life is good for him, he has all the support in the world, and the doors are wide open to learn anything he wants to learn.

Fast Forward a few hundred photos.

The same.

Fast Forward a few thousand.

The same.

Dammit - Fast Forward 40,000 photos.

Exactly the same.

So you mean to tell me that after publishing his very best set of 40,000 images out of God-only-knows how many happy snaps he has shot ... that he has managed to learn, grow, and develop ... nothing at all. There is zero evidence of any artistic growth in 40,000 images ! NONE ! There is not even a hint of technical development in terms of composition, story telling ... or anything at all related to either photography or journalism.

There is no other word for this other than "Mediocrity"

The 40,000 images that are being thrust into the public eye are nothing more than a tragically monumental celebration of the Mediocre.

As a work of Conceptual Modern Art - A poignant epitaph to a dying culture, in the form of an endless series of the same mediocre images of the same mediocre plutorcats ... brilliant.

And then there is the mindless gushing of the so-called "Media" over this guys so-called "achievements". They are always so hungry to idolize the talent-less and the mediocre, in whatever form they can find it.

Its just horrible to watch.

>Cameras have gotten better and better while getting cheaper. >Twenty years ago the only people taking photos of this quality were professional photographers. >Now we have college students who can work really hard over a school break and be able to afford a great camera setup.

I couldnt agree less.

This is not photography that he is doing, its just some sort of expensive and glorified social media thing. Good on him for having an interesting hobby, but please stop confusing this with "Photography" ... it is not.

Modern Cameras (just like smartphones) are getting bigger, heavier, more useless, and more expensive than ever. Please stop thinking that this is some kind of "progress".

I totally agree with your comment about the quality matching that of "Professional Photographers". The "quality" of these photos is just crap. Soulless, 2 dimensional crap. Its right up there with "Wedding Photography".

He may as well just leave all that DSLR garbage at home and take his happy snaps on an iPhone.

Real photography is actually more accessible than ever. There is no shortage of stupid in this day and age, and so you will find plenty of excellent kit being sold for pennies, because stupid people think that : - "It cant upload photos to instagram" (Canon 700d .. makes for a great neg scanner) - "Its only 5 megapixels" (Leica Digilux 2) - "You cant buy film anymore" (Canon AE-1, in mint condition, with a whole box full of filters and lenses) - "Wont recharge, and cant get batteries anymore" (Leica M3) - "Not sure how to use it" (Olympus OM-2n, with accessories including a gorgeous 50/1.4 Zuiko)

A college student need not work hard to afford a real camera, they need not work at all in fact.

As for developing and printing ... coffee grinds, beetroot juice, washing soda, cheap wine ... they all work, and experimenting with them will actually teach the student a whole lot of valuable things across multiple disciplines. After all - that is what they supposedly at college for isnt it ?