orzig

47 ms·

451.
by orzig 6y ago
Even the sexiest companies need the IT basics: inventory, payroll, marketing, etc. A lot of it is system integration, not greenfield development, but of course all tech work exists somewhere on that continuum
452.
by orzig 6y ago
I frequently muse about whether Safari, which is valuable, is worth the $399/y Pro: I like being able to sample the same topic from many prospectives (one chapter from each of 3-5 books) Cons: I wouldn't spend /that/ muc
453.
by orzig 6y ago
Both can be true! The fuzziness gives BS a lot of space to grow. But it's objectively true that some companies do better than others, with an effect size is so large and sustained that I (at least) have trouble believing that it's
454.
by orzig 6y ago
I assume you mean "a poor craftsman blames his tools". Is there actually any evidence that over-focusing on tools is a common problem? I understand it could be, and we've all probably wasted an hour here and there, but I don&
455.
by orzig 6y ago
Thanks a million! IDE: How do you estimate which one is going to be best /after/ you invest in the training? I have been really trying to get better at emacs, for example, but it still feels clunky a lot of the time so I only use
456.
by orzig 6y ago
Having run something similar ~5y ago, an added benefit is that you end up with former 'students' at companies throughout the industry. Specifically, a pattern I saw 5-10 times is: 1. Someone shows up at the meetings, about 3mo aft
457.
by orzig 6y ago
I've also struggled with finding the right coach. It's a tricky evaluation problem: The first meeting shouldn't feel perfectly comfortable, the whole point is that they're going to bring in viewpoints that stress you out
458.
by orzig 6y ago
I'd be thrilled to spend $1,000 on any of these if I knew for sure they'd work, but the Expected Value of a tool (or any other investment) falls very fast when I consider how little hard evidence I have to go on /for my parti
459.
by orzig 6y ago
Definitely worth keeping in mind, although it is important to remember but these are not a linear series of checkboxes. You’re going to have fluctuating quality of work, happiness, success every single week, month and year. It is also ver
460.
by orzig 6y ago
Not exactly what you are thinking of but inextricably linked: My company went through a phase of instability a few years ago. A friend introduced me to a very senior IC about a technical problem based on a hallway conversation. in our infor
461.
by orzig 6y ago
This is fantastic and could be so helpful so many people. A piece of feedback on the sales page: it does a good job of describing the person who would be /gifting/ the service and they (we) need some guidance on how to gently brin
462.
by orzig 6y ago
This is fantastic. Not that you’re lacking in ideas, but as you mention the value of simulation I wanted to ensure that you had seen this historical case study: https://obscuritory.com/sim/when-simcity-got-serious/
463.
by orzig 6y ago
Sometimes laziness shoots the moon and becomes artistic genius
464.
by orzig 8y ago
I was so excited to dive into this, but ended up with the same Takeaway as most other commenters. Aside: As a data scientist, I’ve been surprised how much I’ve needed to learn about the finer points of optimizing GPU utilization for traini
465.
by orzig 8y ago
Honest question: what are the best two or three studies showing where all the extra money has gone over the last few decades? If millions of people are losing, some set of people must be winning (by an amount roughly inversely proportional
466.
by orzig 8y ago
And of course land mines have existed for decades longer, and “covered pit of spikes” centuries before that. No situation is totally new, though sometimes the equilibrium shifts so much that the top 3 driving factors in an environment are q
467.
by orzig 8y ago
It's not 'high stakes' if it doesn't have a real chance of blowing up!
468.
by orzig 8y ago
Related: Does anyone else remember the "How to use a mouse" programs on early Macs? https://gizmodo.com/heres-how-a-macintosh-tutorial-taught-pe...
469.
by orzig 8y ago
Also the "bus number" consideration - companies are (reasonably) wary to add things to their codebase that only one developer knows how to maintain. Getting a group of devs to commit to >6mo learning Rust could kickstart a real
470.
by orzig 8y ago
Network effects are powerful, but Twitter especially has a weakness: 1. Popularity follows an extreme power law, so the number of people that would need to move is smaller than you'd intuitively think 2. Fads change relatively quickly
471.
by orzig 8y ago
> Sadly, job-hopping literally pays It is not necessarily sad. If another employer has a role where the OP can generate more value, it’s in everyone’s best interest that they move there. There are plenty of problems with analyzing ethica
472.
by orzig 8y ago
I agree with each of these three options, but probably not all three at once. Given the original question, probably 80% focus on number one and 20% number two. Of course, iteration as necessary
473.
by orzig 8y ago
One thing that I try to keep in mind is that the quantity of energy that we're trying to extract from the natural world is orders of magnitude more than any animal has every tried before. There's going to be unexpected costs of wa
474.
by orzig 8y ago
One systemic problem is that the ownership and management of most companies shifts significantly over a 15 year time span, whereas the people designing a new NASA program know that they (or people that they care about) would be picking up t
475.
by orzig 8y ago
As with so many things, the right answer depends on the expected ratio and complexity of of writes, queries and updates. Something that I've come to believe is that developers don't spend nearly enough time gathering process data
476.
by orzig 8y ago
I've actually been pleasantly surprised at how much data /is/ available, and how much of it is available through common formats like Socrata Open Data API (for use with tools like https://github.com/xmunoz&#x2
477.
by orzig 8y ago
Positive: The article links to a study Positive: The study is open access! Negative: The study is, to the best of my few minutes of ToC reading and Ctrl-F-ing, _entirely_ unrelated to soft drinks or sweeteners Am I missing something? In eit
478.
by orzig 8y ago
The point about how quickly investments can turn into liabilities is really insightful - thank you! There's a social aspect to it, as well. Within one person's head, it's Sunk Cost fallacy. I'm not sure what the term is
479.
by orzig 9y ago
As a former student of Allen's, I wholeheartedly agree. I actually started learning programming from him before even arriving at Olin, through his free textbooks (available here: http://greenteapress.com/wp/ ). We