wpietri

46 ms·

721.
by wpietri 3y ago
Bait bikes are also a thing. E.g.: https://www.ocregister.com/2020/12/09/irvine-orange-and-othe... I also saw Mark Rober speak yesterday, I think with Allen Pan. He mentioned doing some sort of video where th
722.
by wpietri 3y ago
I don't think this is a "soft on crime" question. As you say, bikes are a low priority. But bikes were long considered a low priority in things like road design. The lack of bike lanes isn't getting better because people
723.
by wpietri 3y ago
A big reason cars don't require secure storage is better policing. Here in San Francisco there's been a lot of talk about how the SFPD these days isn't taking theft from cars and theft of catalytic converters very seriously.
724.
by wpietri 3y ago
I feel that one for sure. I live in San Francisco and was a dedicated cyclist. I had 6 bikes stolen in my first years here. But I was stubborn, got cannier, and kept the 7th long enough for it to look scruffy. Which let me keep it for years
725.
by wpietri 3y ago
Nah, the smirking "change my mind" routine is one I no longer bother with, because it indicates people who are very invested in not changing their minds. There are just an ocean of guys in tech who will argue forever against ackno
726.
by wpietri 3y ago
That's not the only alternative. You see these kinds of intrusive checks on platforms that have drastically under-funded moderation/safety teams. I don't know Discord's numbers, but Twitter's total revenue pre-Musk
727.
by wpietri 3y ago
The question I'd be asking: works for whom? Obviously, it works for you. And it works for people who are already dedicated Discord users. But unless that's 100% of your TAM, then not only are you going to be missing people, but yo
728.
by wpietri 3y ago
That is not in fact the argument. If that's all you're getting from it, I suggest you try again. As to your other views, I think you have several errors. The biggest is declaring "it has nothing to do with gender" in a v
729.
by wpietri 3y ago
I base that on my experience of decades in tech. I just included that blog post as a recently read example. And it's easy to blame something on sexism because sexism is common. Explicit patriarchy was the default mode for our society g
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by wpietri 3y ago
Beautifully put.
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by wpietri 3y ago
For sure. I'm of the "all models are wrong, some models are useful" school of thought. My best guess is that the platonic-ideals-are-real folks are mistaking something in their head for something outside it. That's not t
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by wpietri 3y ago
On the other hand, I'd encourage you to see this awareness of cognitive load as a strength. Good code is approachable, and some of the worst code I've written was when I felt the most brilliant. If I've used all my brainpower
733.
by wpietri 3y ago
Yeah, you might enjoy reading "Tyranny of Structurelessness". But there are other options besides "controlling hierarchy", "secret, denied controlling hierarchy", and "chaotic failure". Just as an exa
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by wpietri 3y ago
> I’ve worked at companies in the past where frontend is looked down upon because all of our leaders are backend/infra people. I think there's a lot going on here, but one of them is definitely gender. Front-end development is
735.
by wpietri 3y ago
I would draw the line slightly differently. Bootstrapped startups are still startups. So for me the definition is more "company exploring a novel technology, product, or business model". Most new businesses are doing something tha
736.
by wpietri 3y ago
On the one hand, I'm grateful that era is finally coming to an end. Things were so much saner after the dot-com bubble popped. On the other, I really worry that we now have a generation of entrepreneurs and employees who have only ever
737.
by wpietri 3y ago
Totally agreed with this: "I've always felt that hierarchical, subservient thinking is strange" On the one hand, we are social primates. And primates gonna prime. But I personally have very little interest in hierarchy; it ma
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by wpietri 3y ago
For anybody that liked the style of this sort of analysis, let me strongly recommend Dekker's "Field Guide to Understanding 'Human Error'": https://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Understanding-Human-Erro
739.
by wpietri 3y ago
Stellar point. I especially like the notion that cargo culting historic price increases is involved. You could look at so much of the cryptowhatever space as a series of cargo cults around different aspects of financial history. It seems li
740.
by wpietri 3y ago
Yeah, fair point. We could also include all the "blitzscaling" nonsense, which, given its ability to soak up far more capital, is much more attractive to VCs, allowing a pump-and-dump on a titanic scale. But I saw so many entrepre
741.
by wpietri 3y ago
You have ignored the central part of this: volatility. Bitcoin is not a good store of value. I don't have time for people who argue so misleadingly, so I'm done here.
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by wpietri 3y ago
I have a lot of questions about people who are making $400k-$800k cash-like transactions. But as far as I'm concerned, that's another sign of Bitcoin's failure in terms of its original goals. That's a sign that Bitcoin i
743.
by wpietri 3y ago
Ooh, thanks for this comment. I am not by nature a collector, but now I get it.
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by wpietri 3y ago
Could be. But for me there's a difference between "we have to limit harm, but let's do it in ways that otherwise lean toward freedom" and the maximalist "I DO WHAT I WANT! YOU'RE NOT MY REAL DAD" types. So
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by wpietri 3y ago
That is an excellent question. For what it's worth, I think that whatever we choose to do, we're going to get a lot less leeway in the future. I was just at a Trust & Safety conference. European legislators and regulators are
746.
by wpietri 3y ago
They are not operating fraudulently. Their customers are buying and getting marijuana. Their investors surely know the risks as well. If we're looking for an analogy in this space, I think it's more like snake oil. So imagine a co
747.
by wpietri 3y ago
Well look at those goalposts move. Bitcoin's original purpose was precisely electronic cash: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf But if you'd like to shift focus to why "store of value" is also wrong, I&#x27
748.
by wpietri 3y ago
Absolutely agreed. Back in college I met some very sincere, thoughtful, and kind libertarians. I occasionally imagine how horrified they'd be to learn that their considered and nuanced political philosophy had become a popular fig leaf
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by wpietri 3y ago
Mashinsky definitely has a "reasonable way of knowing" about these laws. More than that, anybody starting a company has a positive duty to clients and investors to make sure that it's legal before things get too far.
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by wpietri 3y ago
It's not irrelevant. It's a bad example because it creates an intuition that what was done was something very different than what was actually done.

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