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toddchambery's comments

toddchambery | 9 years ago | on: ‘MormonWikileaks’ website launched, seeking transparency in LDS Church

One of the big differences: Mormonism was created in the historical age, there are newspaper accounts[1] of Joseph Smith and his antics. It's harder pill to swallow when your myths are concocted after the Age of Reason, rather than in the swirling mists of "the before time".

But, as others have mentioned, with only one exception, every Mormon I've met has been kind, honest, hard-working (with an emphasis on thrift and education) and polite. Whatever the nutty origins and strictures (no tea or coffee, but Diet Coke is ok?) of their beliefs, I have a lot of respect for the people who come out of the system.

1 https://www.jstor.org/stable/1893428?seq=1#page_scan_tab_con...

toddchambery | 9 years ago | on: Microsoft Says Russian Hackers Exploited Flaw in Windows

I think everyone understands/expects espionage, it's the public 'weaponization' of the information that makes Russia a particularly bad actor.

If Russia had not released the DNC emails (or had somehow done so surreptitiously) to queer the US election, there would be no story to report on.

toddchambery | 9 years ago | on: Could Twitter Be Better Off as a Nonprofit?

I'm sympathetic to claims of NPR bias (still a big fan), but rather than seeking an "unbiased" source, I want a thoughtful, reasonable, open-minded and well-mannered conservative news source. It does not exist.

toddchambery | 9 years ago | on: The Programmer’s Guide to a Sane Workweek

For salaried employees or contract work with capped hours, overtime can also be banked goodwill or converted to flex time.

Most office environments I've worked at are not rigidly policy-driven, are populated with sensible humans, and the overwhelming majority of my teammates are working for the success of the team and each other.

toddchambery | 9 years ago | on: Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation (1998) [pdf]

"Caplan argues that parents spend too much time trying to influence how their kids will turn out as adults. Using research on twins and adopted children, Caplan argues that nature dominates nurture and that parents have little lasting influence on many aspects of their children's lives. He concludes that parents should spend less time and energy trying to influence their children" [1]

[1]: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2011/05/caplan_on_paren.htm...

toddchambery | 9 years ago | on: Ask HN: If you don't permit telecommuting, why?

> When I was at the office for a decade, 90% of the insight and productivity came from informal conversations in the hallway, lunches and things I overheard in passing.

I could not agree more: I once bumped into someone in the bathroom on a different floor that I had met briefly years before during a re-org meet-and-greet. In a few moments of catching up, I found out he had worked on an in-house project that was essentially the same category as the products I was on a team to evaluate.

We didn't end up resurrecting his project, but his insight into the ultimate selection and experience with the rollout was extremely valuable.

A similar thing for a casual acquaintance who told me in passing about his private work in app development, and I was able to put him in touch with someone on our app team (it was a big company with a lot of silos).

I ended up later working remotely for a few months with the same company, and lost the serendipity of accidental human interaction when all my communication was low-bandwidth, narrowly focused, topic-at-hand meetings and communication.

I can sympathize with others complaining about the high cost of interruptions, but for the way I work and think, non-directed conversation is invaluable.

toddchambery | 10 years ago | on: The Rise of Renting in the U.S

I wonder how much these numbers are a result of a kind selection bias, i.e. women don't put themselves in situations because of natural disposition/perceived higher risk (this is certainly the case in my experience).

toddchambery | 10 years ago | on: Chrome OS is here to stay

I'm sure for the vast majority of Chrome OS users, the technology powering their device is of no significance compared to a reliable and consistent UI.

toddchambery | 10 years ago | on: Internet Companies: Confusing Consumers for Profit

Nothing in that disclosure would dissuade (or even give pause to) any of the people I know who use Facebook.

"keep a permanent record of the messages you send to your friends" "keep a permanent record of the photos you have shared on Facebook"

That's great! A free backup.

"keep a log of all the websites you have visited that contain a "like" button."

That's great! So I'll get feeds that better reflect my interests.

I haven't used Facebook since the EFF experimental app that showed all the actual, real information (real names in the graph) FB leaked to any game you clicked 'OK' to. But noone else cares, FB is still growing, and that's OK.

I'm OK with the way Google handles my personal information (doing the match making with advertisers and keeping my details private), and enjoy the benefits this enables.

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