ditonal

13 ms·

121.
by ditonal 7y ago
I agree but it’s also worth noting that you should also be able to step back and consider how much of your self worth you want to define by how fast you ride a bike. There’s good reasons to set goals and “beat yourself” but also good reason
122.
by ditonal 7y ago
I don't have the answer to your question, but I don't see the connection between mindfulness and Zen to be as direct as you're suggesting. I've been highly influenced by a lot of the mindfulness writing out there, but Z
123.
by ditonal 7y ago
I interviewed at Twilio. My resume and phone chats made it abundantly clear that my professional experience was 95% backend in languages like Java and Go. I looked at their Glassdoor where people wrote they were heavily biased to the algori
124.
by ditonal 7y ago
What I often see is something like “exercise and yoga are good self care, but for serious mental illness you need professionals.” And “professionals” in 2019 usually translate to psych meds and talk therapy (eg CBT), both of which have extr
125.
by ditonal 7y ago
I dont think we all want to be things that are natural to be effective. People want pills to be magically effective. Antidepressants fail to outperform placebo once you remove publication bias, there is no first principle scientific basis f
126.
by ditonal 7y ago
I was using a moderate, prescribed dose of Vyvanse/Adderall, I've always basically always had ADHD type symptoms and it was never a huge issue, but I never took any pills until I was an adult in an attempt to focus and get promote
127.
by ditonal 7y ago
I judge them pretty negatively. People like Bezos, Jobs, or even Gates never really spent so much time building this PR image of being for the greater good, holier-than-though, "making the world a better place." Everyone knows &qu
128.
by ditonal 7y ago
The joke is, two economists are walking down the street, and one sees a $100 bill on the ground, and the other says don't bother going to pick it up, if it was really $100, someone would have already picked it up.
129.
by ditonal 7y ago
This is totally true, not sure why it's downvoted. Psychedelic enthusiasts will often say "oh well that person who had a bad experience was predisposed and shouldn't have taken it." When there was literally no way of tel
130.
by ditonal 7y ago
I worked at a startup that pitched themselves as "social good" working for a "double bottom line" (profit and social good). Then I worked at Google which recruited on the catch phrase of "do cool things that matter.
131.
by ditonal 7y ago
I understand how people arrive at this position, but it's not a free speech position. You can't be pro free speech as long as you agree with it, that undermines the entire concept. You can't be pro free speech, as long as the
132.
by ditonal 7y ago
The key thing that would make things better, is if engineers organized into some sort of professional association or trade union. I don't mean a technology focused organization like the ACM or IEEE, but a politically focused one. The r
133.
by ditonal 7y ago
Technologists need to realize that arms races will doom our children. The solution is international agreements to not build horrifying weapons, not subscribing to fear mongering that demands arms races.
134.
by ditonal 7y ago
War parties want to dominate their enemies and win a given conflict as quickly as possible, but historically are quick to pick a new fight. The dust and horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were barely settled before the USA rushed right back i
135.
by ditonal 7y ago
The bar for "recruiting" is laughably low in this industry. Many companies seriously consider "have a clueless tech sourcer 2 years out of an econ degree telemarket job openings with aggressive email spam funnel right into a
136.
by ditonal 7y ago
Actually only a few companies will pay as much as Google (Google salary is low but they pay a ton of stock you can immediately sell for cash, so it’s effectively cash). Most people seem to overestimate how fun it is to work at Google but un
137.
by ditonal 7y ago
The engineer personality profile is basically allergic to organizing. Too passive and introverted, or delusionally individualistic. Silicon Valley engineers see themselves as temporarily embarrassed hotshot entrepreneurs. The funny thing is
138.
by ditonal 7y ago
Exactly! They sent out regular email to all employees asking for contributions to NETPAC when I was there. But now don't discuss politics among rank-and-file - they just want to control the dialog and power among the execs.
139.
by ditonal 7y ago
I couldn't agree more strongly. I tend to get harshly downvoted when I bring up Google on Hacker News (since it employs a disproportionate amount of Bay Area engineers that hang out here and then get defensive about it), but no othe
140.
by ditonal 7y ago
I agree that Schmidt is a good example of someone who's already demonstrated willingness to use his power to bully those he perceives as political opponents, but the principle that access to such an incredibly dangerous power exists, a
141.
by ditonal 7y ago
This might help you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetorical_question If Facebook has such a tool, it's certainly not public knowledge. The parent comment was clearly meant to make a point that Facebook could hav
142.
by ditonal 7y ago
Google scares me much more, for me, my data on Facebook is nothing compared to the amount of my personal data on Gmail and Docs. Having worked at Google, a regular cog in the wheel engineer getting access to sensitive user data is carefully
143.
by ditonal 8y ago
I worked for a startup with a well liked paid product built through iteration (test prep product). Then it was dropped on the ground and discontinued cause they raised a hundred million and now needed to build the founders vision, a free co
144.
by ditonal 8y ago
Google was and likely still is in the running for JEDI, because Eric Schmidt is an advisor for the DoD and nudges them towards Google, and JEDI was the whole point of signing the relatively small Maven contract. Google offers pretrained AI
145.
by ditonal 8y ago
Because software engineers are so dumb they think they're so smart they don't need to organize/unionize.
146.
by ditonal 8y ago
One correction: the military absolutely does not have any more advanced technology than the private sector. Very much the opposite, they've been totally incompetent at figuring out how to build software, or even buying software from th
147.
by ditonal 9y ago
Downvoted but true, look at direct physical threats to Damore in the lawsuit by people Google still employs. Yet he got fired for violating code of conduct...are threats not violations? It's a double standard, if you threaten people d
148.
by ditonal 9y ago
I believe employers have a right to fire employees for speech. But as we see industry power condense to a few megacorps, ones that play gatekeeper to information access, we should look at why we value freedom of speech at the national level
149.
by ditonal 9y ago
Yep I tend to agree. The fact that someone programmed an AI to make that art is part of what make it art. The artist is the programmer essentially. But it's also ludicrous to me to think that AI art would somehow replace other art or m
150.
by ditonal 9y ago
Went through this exactly. My guess is because founders select for overconfidence (necessary for pitching investors maybe?) It also ties into founder worship which seems really common (people always dropping reasons founder is some uberhuma

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