planet-and-halo

18 ms·

31.
by planet-and-halo 5y ago
Orwell wrote this way back in the 1940s. He said by then the word "fascism" already meant "something we don't like," whereas "democracy" meant "a system we like." EDIT: Figured I'd go pull t
32.
by planet-and-halo 5y ago
It depends on how retention interacts with other variables. I would argue that you can make exponential gains in things like product quality over the long term by retaining a critical mass of experienced personnel, which translates to highe
33.
by planet-and-halo 5y ago
It's all relative, though. If you increase salaries for retention, it has to come out of some other pot. Maybe that isn't your new hire pool, but you're going to see a negative metric of some kind somewhere. Now don't
34.
by planet-and-halo 5y ago
Yeah sorry, I was writing it on the fly right before a meeting and just dumped my thoughts out. I think I was thinking something like this: If you spend money internally on promotes, you'll have less money to compete in the market for
35.
by planet-and-halo 5y ago
I think I finally figured part of this out. Like you said, employers treat workers as commodities. This worked out great for them in the short term, as they saved money by not giving raises etc. In the long term, though, workers started rea
36.
by planet-and-halo 5y ago
This was my exact experience of the problem. I cut back dramatically on device usage and news, to the point where I suddenly felt very disoriented and disconnected socially. It was a big improvement in many ways, but that was a real problem
37.
by planet-and-halo 5y ago
I agree with everything you said, but device use ≠ mindless clicking, at least not necessarily. I actually think this highlights one of the main problems with this issue, which is that devices may encourage certain usage patterns and behavi
38.
by planet-and-halo 5y ago
Theoretically the value you bring should always be higher than what you're paid, since it would be uneconomical to employ you otherwise. That said your second paragraph is absolutely right, there are plenty of failures. In a modern big
39.
by planet-and-halo 5y ago
This is such a great quote. There is a similar line in the book "Creation: Life and How to Make It." The author says that causality is a web, not a chain.
40.
by planet-and-halo 5y ago
This is also sort of baked into human nature. We adapt to things, the flip side of which is taking them for granted. That makes it easier to justify "improvements." Human beings are not good at leaving things alone.
41.
by planet-and-halo 5y ago
This makes me think of the book "The Paradox of Choice." Essentially it argues that we live in a world of infinite choice, which should make us happy, but actually makes us miserable. When you don't have options, or have very
42.
by planet-and-halo 5y ago
This is very reductive and I assume means you've never worked somewhere with an actually decent culture. I understand your cynicism: there are indeed a lot of bullshitters out there. But there are some good places to work here and ther
43.
by planet-and-halo 5y ago
Couldn't agree more. In the short term it can be very effective. It's much like taking steroids, it will work temporarily but can easily spiral and impose a long-term cost.
44.
by planet-and-halo 5y ago
The problem with "gamifying" work is well-known to anyone who actually studies human motivation. Any exercise of control, and especially anything that makes people focus on their performance rather than the actual task they are
45.
by planet-and-halo 5y ago
A guy at my job is a gamer and describes it as "buffing the group." Just as in a game, the healer could be the team MVP, but if you measure DPS you are never going to realize it.
46.
by planet-and-halo 5y ago
Definitely true. This is something every teacher has to take into account. The amount of knowledge that has seeped into your unconscious is substantial, and it's easy to forget that some people are still in the "unconscious incomp
47.
by planet-and-halo 5y ago
Yeah, doesn't it seem natural that being around a persistent social group and spending the majority of the day hanging out made us happy? Seems like pretty much what we evolved for.
48.
by planet-and-halo 5y ago
Yep. This interview process is pretty much why I'm out of the market. Could I increase my comp? Probably. But the hours of my life are slipping by, and those never come back. I used to enjoy the hours I spent learning to code. Absolute
49.
by planet-and-halo 5y ago
Incredible that you're the first person I've seen mention a second-order effect in this conversation. I don't know what it is but I feel like people have forgotten just like basic truths about how humans work. Maybe it's
50.
by planet-and-halo 5y ago
Great response. This is why I ended up not becoming a teacher, despite everyone and their brother telling me that that's my calling (I still hear this at work constantly from people I train). I could have absolutely dedicated my life t
51.
by planet-and-halo 5y ago
Dear god, that was beautiful but also depressing to read. I think this is it, exactly. I also think that it explains a large part of why so much software is bad. Specialization is a powerful thing, but without a unifying concept of the end
52.
by planet-and-halo 5y ago
Yeah it really sucks. I'm well-thought of in my current job, I make enough. There's of course the temptation to squeeze the market for whatever it's worth, but man the interviewing process is such a game and a headache to boo
53.
by planet-and-halo 5y ago
The main thing would be scoping and funding projects. Basecamp is a good example: they organize their projects in six-week increments, scoping them so that they are achievable in that time frame. Most companies fund and scope on much longer
54.
by planet-and-halo 5y ago
Thanks for writing this, it's so dead on. Becoming adept at mastering your time, attention, and effectiveness is worthwhile, but so often we mistake the trees for the forest and get caught up in turning ourselves into little efficiency
55.
by planet-and-halo 5y ago
These are great points, but I think it's crucial to include the second part (which you did) about how to harness luck and randomness. Too often I see people go "these guys were just lucky, it's all chance," and I think
56.
by planet-and-halo 5y ago
"And if any individual tries to opt out and focus on one thing for an entire day, they’re throwing a wrench in the ‘hyperactive hive mind’, which explains why calls for individual discipline have done so little to fix the problem.&quot
57.
by planet-and-halo 5y ago
It's been plugged a bunch of times on HN, but "The Elements of Computing Systems" really helped me with this as a self-taught dev.
58.
by planet-and-halo 5y ago
This is my problem. I did find a programmable keyboard at one point that actually stores config within the hardware, so you could store hotkeys and move between OS's, but most of these sorts of things require installations and some kin
59.
by planet-and-halo 5y ago
Someone on HN recently posted a Jonathan Blow talk, "How to Save Civilization," that argues the normal evolution of technology is not a linear progression upwards, but actually slow degradation due to loss of knowledge and mainten
60.
by planet-and-halo 5y ago
That's complex decision-making under conditions of uncertainty for you. The authorities themselves are partly to blame for not being totally clear that they're human and figuring this out on the fly like everyone else, but the gen

More ›