irremediable (u/irremediable)

irremediable commented on Better to micromanage than be disengaged lethain.com/better-microm... · Posted by u/tapanjk

Micromanagement, depending on what it means, can be a valuable tool in fixing a broken system. e.g. you take over a team where everything's broken and shipping late. It can genuinely be very helpful for you to dive into the details of everybody's tasks and figure out where things are breaking down. You get a detailed look at the bottlenecks that senior people face (but may be reluctant to share for political/personal reasons); and you get a detailed look at the knowledge/skills gaps that hinder juniors.

It's not sustainable though. The idea is to dive in, figure out what to fix, then fix it into a system you can stop micromanaging. Otherwise you just won't have enough time to do the other important stuff.

irremediable commented on Ask HN: Advice from people who strength train from home · Posted by u/optbuild

irremediable · 3 years ago

The KBoges channel is generally very good. I'd take a lot of care in building up to daily training, though; you only get one body, and if you injure it you may never be the same. He does emphasise this in his videos, but in his shoes I'd be reluctant to even suggest daily training to people, because some significant minority of them will always go too hard at it and wreck themselves.

My preferred style of "everyday training" is strength training every few days, cardio most non-strength days, and walking a minimum number of steps every day (cardio counting towards it).

Push + pull + lower is generally enough to get fit and healthy, yes. It could be a good idea to split it more like push / pull / lower front / lower back, because things like squats tend to work the quads way more than the hamstrings or glutes.

irremediable commented on Intermittent fasting may negate need for diabetes drugs, small study suggests upi.com/Health_News/2022/... · Posted by u/supermatou

nequo · 3 years ago

It does read to me like this means 5 days of total fasting. If the 5 fasting days were spread out, then what did the participating subjects eat on non-fasting days before the "everyday food items" were reintroduced?

I don't have access to the paper and couldn't find a preprint so I cannot check beyond what is in the UPI article.

irremediable · 3 years ago

I don't have access to the full text either, but I'd be really surprised if it's five days of total fasting. I'd expect that it's low calorie days with some special restrictions (or even meals) they've set out.

irremediable commented on Intermittent fasting may negate need for diabetes drugs, small study suggests upi.com/Health_News/2022/... · Posted by u/supermatou

Johnny555 · 3 years ago

That's a pretty long fasting interval:

"is a new proposed dietary approach based on [intermittent fasting] involving five fasting days followed by 10 days of reintroducing everyday food items."

And when they say "everyday food items" they apparently mean a special diet:

The diet contains daily foods such as wheat, barley, rice, rye and oat, "and features reduced glycemic loads, calories, and carbohydrates, as well as increased unsaturated fatty acids," the scientists said.

It doesn't appear that they tested a group that had the special diet but without the intermittent fasting.

irremediable · 3 years ago

5 fasting days doesn't mean 5 days of total fasting.

irremediable commented on Job switchers are earning a lot more than those who stay wsj.com/articles/inflatio... · Posted by u/Brajeshwar

jamajor · 3 years ago

Does anyone have experience pursuing this strategy for tech roles in FAANG and other Bay Area companies? I definitely agree switching every two years is optimal for a lot of jobs, but I'm having trouble executing this strategy when I'm already in a FAANG.

I've been at my current (and only) FAANG for almost four years, climbing two rungs in the IC ladder over that span. Right now, I'm not sure how I'd begin my hops. My current comp is alright, which has meant that I'm having trouble finding alternatives that can offer substantially higher comps.

The only alternatives I've seen are:

1. Hop to a different FAANG, same level => Overall comp is roughly on par to what I'm getting right now.

2. Hop to a different FAANG, one level higher => Does this actually happen on a regular basis? How might one approach this?

3. Hop to a startup => Too much of the comp is based on stock options which are highly volatile. Particularly in this current economy, I want to go/stay somewhere with healthy cash flows.

4. Hop to a non-FAANG tech company => How do they match up in comp against FAANG? Is this worth pursuing?

irremediable · 3 years ago

> 2. Hop to a different FAANG, one level higher => Does this actually happen on a regular basis? How might one approach this?

That's the way to do it at the lower levels, yeah.

You apply, ideally via a referral, and at the early stages the recruiter will establish roughly how senior you currently are. They'll be keen to know your current comp, too. It's common advice not to reveal this, and I'd follow it, but that's less crucial when you're at a standardised BigCo because they'll already know what bracket you're in, as long as you're in the same geographic area.

Then you go through the rigmarole of interviewing, and if they want you, they need to offer you higher comp, usually via a higher level (or higher spine on an existing level for the companies that do it that way).

irremediable commented on Preventing Burnout: A Manager's Toolkit about.gitlab.com/blog/202... · Posted by u/HieronymusBosch

0daystock · 3 years ago

A lot of this is centered around doing less, expecting less from your workers, hiring more and "being more positive". These are pretty sentiments, but frankly they're completely dis-joined from the reality of working in a competitive, high-stakes engineering environment, where your boss WILL call you while you're on vacation, where you WILL go 8-12 months without finding a qualified candidate, where you WILL feel pressure to deliver products by deadlines. Unfortunately, Gitlab doesn't strike me as a high-stakes job for engineers nor managers. This isn't a moral judgement on them, but a reminder that serious work requires sacrifice and some burnout is inevitable, and even unavoidable. And that's not necessary a "bad" thing to avoid as it provides valuable life insights and growth in its own way.

irremediable · 3 years ago

> the reality of working in a competitive, high-stakes engineering environment, where your boss WILL call you while you're on vacation, where you WILL go 8-12 months without finding a qualified candidate, where you WILL feel pressure to deliver products by deadlines.

This sounds like an unproductive environment?

Like... a boss shouldn't need to call reports on their vacation, that's why engineers build systems and automate things. Being unable to fill a position in 8-12 months suggests the hiring process is broken.

I'm all for the importance of hard work, but I'd suggest an org like this is working hard but not smart.

irremediable commented on Scientists Find No Benefit to Time-Restricted Eating nytimes.com/2022/04/20/he... · Posted by u/mooreds

NullPrefix · 3 years ago

>a rigorous one-year study in which people followed a low-calorie diet between the hours of 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.

8 hour eating window. Way too long if you're trying to lose weight.

irremediable · 3 years ago

They did lose weight, though...

irremediable commented on Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed (2010) raptitude.com/2010/07/you... · Posted by u/tacon

SavantIdiot · 4 years ago

The part in the article about finding time to work out hit hard. He's right: there is so little time to work out because it takes 1hr to work out and 1hr to travel/clean up: 2hrs is a big deal when you only have ~4 hours free hours per day to take care of life. That made me pretty depressed, not just for me but for every overweight person who is being shamed about not exercising. You have to exercise a lot to alter your physique, and cramming that into normal life with a 10hr/day job and kids is brutal.

What's worse: this is from 2010. Pre-microtransation in video games, pre-dozens of $10 TV channels fighting over a few film copyrights, pre-subscription-razors, subscription juice, subscription groceries, subscription everything...

I can't believe people who pay $15/month for one TV channel (Disney+) are shelling out $30 to rent (not own!) the latest blockbuster. Blows my mind.

I'm old enough to remember in the 80's when conservatives blamed poor kids for saving up to buy $100 Air Jordans as some kind of societal ill, when in reality it was just the correct operation of the American consumerism.

Marketing has really upped its game in 40 years.

irremediable · 4 years ago

> That made me pretty depressed, not just for me but for every overweight person who is being shamed about not exercising.

FWIW most weight change is due to diet. If you're overweight, exercise is probably a much lower priority than finding a way to sustainably eat less.

I'm not just sounding off here; I lost 20+ kg by tracking what I ate and eating less.

irremediable commented on Immediate skin-to-skin contact with unstable newborns improves survival chances medlifestyle.news/2021/05... · Posted by u/billyharris

drknownuffin · 4 years ago

Skin-to-skin for children has been studied for a few decades, and the consensus is strongly in its favor, after a pile of studies have all pointed in the same direction.

This study isn't "skin to skin care is good." This study was aimed to answer the question, as contextualized, "We have established that skin-to-skin care for healthy children is good (pile of studies); for unhealthy children that have been stabilized is good (pile of studies), but is it good for kids that are still unstable? (controversy)"

"I'm skeptical of a single study" is only a valid criticism if you're familiar with the body of scientific literature. Otherwise, what you're actually saying is, "I'm skeptical of results that pop magazines and press releases have only surfaced to my attention once" - which is a shoddy mechanism for curating your knowledge.

irremediable · 4 years ago

Your response is great. Thanks for sharing information about the literature and way more context.

> Otherwise, what you're actually saying is, "I'm skeptical of results that pop magazines and press releases have only surfaced to my attention once" - which is a shoddy mechanism for curating your knowledge.

At the risk of nitpicking, this seems like a good principle to follow? Like, assuming skeptical means "I won't instantly buy into this being as great as the pop magazine claims" rather than "I will strongly presuppose that this is untrue because it was in a pop magazine".

irremediable commented on How do people keep track/keep motivated when it comes to their health? · Posted by u/caminmccluskey

irremediable · 4 years ago

People have written books about habit formation, e.g. Tiny Habits. The principles are fairly convincing.

Choose one of [walking more, eating healthy, strength training, sleeping early, etc].

Anchor: use an existing habit as the trigger for your new habit. For example, if you tend to eat lunch at the same time every day, and have free time after it, your anchor could be "as soon as I finish lunch". Maybe set a phone reminder if you're not good at remembering.

Behaviour: do a tiny, accessible version of the desired behaviour. e.g. if you want to walk more, this might be "I'll leave my house". You're going to ramp this up over time, so starting small is fine.

Celebration: do something simple to provide positive feedback for engaging in the habit. Even just something like "I will smile and let myself feel good for five seconds".

Do that for a few days, scale up the behaviour slowly, and eventually you'll have built the habit. Then add on a new habit.