brianmcc

10 ms·

61.
by brianmcc 3y ago
Life expectancy has historically been skewed downwards by terribly high infant mortality rates, not by masses of folks dying at say 40. If half your population dies after 60, the lucky ones, and half before 2, your average "around 30 i
62.
by brianmcc 3y ago
Highly recommend this if you've not heard of it yet, goes into detail about lithium and some other vital raw materials : https://www.amazon.co.uk/Material-World-Substantial-Story-Fu... "Sand, salt, iron, copper, o
63.
by brianmcc 3y ago
"becoming known for" is a stretch...
64.
by brianmcc 3y ago
Yes we can. The levels of corrupt behaviour involved in this story, going right to the very top of Government, literally, absolutely transcend any "bugs happen" narrative.
65.
by brianmcc 3y ago
We do go in circles/cycles quite a lot as an industry. I wonder if the trend is back towards SQL, right now, too many teams been burned by Event Sourcing when they just needed a decent SQL DB? Just idle conjecture....
66.
by brianmcc 3y ago
I don't know; for several years afterwards it seemed to be a given that it was a real thing, and efforts to avoid disaster were well directed and successful and that IT folks "did the world a solid". I choose to take it as a
67.
by brianmcc 3y ago
I suspect there's an element of snazzy modern screens selling well, but it takes time for the bad feedback about sustained daily usage to accumulate. Personally I'm inclined to write this one up to a confluence of "manufact
68.
by brianmcc 3y ago
+1 Also, reference docs are not the same thing as tutorial/learning docs. The two should complement each other, but the latter should really focus on gently bringing in people new to a product, technology, ecosystem, whatever. Shouldn&
69.
by brianmcc 3y ago
The research is examining where the causes are though? Excess profiteering by large energy companies being a major factor, feeding through to transport/shipping etc and impacting everything .
70.
by brianmcc 3y ago
Sure, the CEO of ExxonMobil got a little "nervy" and... upped profits by £38bn. From the article: "Among the companies that increased their profits most from the pre-pandemic average were: ExxonMobil: profits of £15bn increas
71.
by brianmcc 3y ago
I have always thought of it like Virtual Lego, and would definitely consider it a creative outlet!
72.
by brianmcc 3y ago
There's something to be said, after an initial "reduction in force" happens, for the remaining employees to look ahead and go: OK so I and my team may be at X% risk of layoffs, but with decent-to-good-to-sometimes-excellent s
73.
by brianmcc 3y ago
Yes in the early days, less so now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedge_fund#Etymology "Early hedge funds sought to hedge specific investments against general market fluctuations by shorting the market, hence the
74.
by brianmcc 3y ago
>> It just helps you get out of your own way. Great way of putting it!
75.
by brianmcc 3y ago
After many years as a subscriber this really brings the value of Amazon Prime into question for me. I no longer order enough stuff from them to make it worthwhile. I do use Prime Reading but the quality is mostly poor, "landfill crime
76.
by brianmcc 3y ago
I would instead say - commit properly to building your billing systems as a major and ongoing project, don't dismiss it as a 2 week "fun" side thing. Not convinced any 3rd party product is going to have the flexibility to sup
77.
by brianmcc 3y ago
I think the "never use comments" trend came from folks who'd realised "comments lie, code never does". E.g. developers might forget to update comments when they fix a bug. There are also the "// set b
78.
by brianmcc 3y ago
That's far from universal though. Plenty countries and employers do offer recovery time and space, but it's not sufficient. I've had friends who suffered CFS (known as ME here in the UK for a time) while students or shortly
79.
by brianmcc 3y ago
>> stomping on concrete You mention it almost in passing but really this is exactly what makes running so high impact and what negates millions of years of adapted shock absorption. There are ongoing debates about whether modern runni
80.
by brianmcc 3y ago
My scepticism was clearly not well enough signalled, apologies. To be clear I agree "waste money to avoid applying basic database techniques" is A Bad Thing!
81.
by brianmcc 3y ago
So... throw money on compute instead of just adding an index..?
82.
by brianmcc 3y ago
Yep. Case in point - I've given up buying on Amazon UK and use Argos as my go-to shop instead, for products of far better assured provenance without having to really overthink it all.
83.
by brianmcc 3y ago
I don't know; vitamin D supplements may be mostly advised in places where there just isn't enough sun. In Scotland we get insufficient sunshine to produce natural vitamin D for around 6 months of the year, and there's discuss
84.
by brianmcc 3y ago
I really like this. The only thing that's missing from it is "fun" perhaps? I don't think it's "playing" unless there's also some intrinsic enjoyment!
85.
by brianmcc 3y ago
Don't get me wrong - CI/CD itself is of course a product subject to ongoing evolution and challenges such as scaling, aging, vulnerabilities, etc. But usually, I would expect that "Project ABC" will build all its infra a
86.
by brianmcc 3y ago
Oh wow that takes me back - "auto cue"? https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-cassette-tape-player-featu...
87.
by brianmcc 3y ago
There's a disproportionate focus on it all too I think. Cloud deployment and CI/CD and networking and all that stuff absolutely matter, and must be done right to avoid a world of pain, but often it's largely a one-time setup
88.
by brianmcc 3y ago
It's nice to have those memories, for sure, but my CDs themselves get completely neglected nowadays - between mp3 rips, and streaming services conveniently tying in with my main hifi setup, the CDs just don't see active service an
89.
by brianmcc 3y ago
Ha I do miss the whole "mix tapes" thing but my god the excitement and anticipation I had when CDs and CD players came along, to be able to play Track 6 by just... pressing the "6" button. Or a tap or two with the remote
90.
by brianmcc 3y ago
OKRs etc are one approach - everything written, documented, and whatnot. Honestly though I think it's wildly ineffective. What's a better approach? Every single manager, up to CEO level, trusts implicitly his or her direct report

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