mattcwilson (u/mattcwilson)

mattcwilson commented on DevOps uses a capability model, not a maturity model octopus.com/blog/devops-u... · Posted by u/kiyanwang

netfortius · 3 years ago

I don't think this is an either/or problem. Very simply put, the maturity and capability form a two-dimensional "grid", within which each organization fits its levels - e.g. let's say "maturity levels" on the vertical axes, and "capability controls" on the horizontal one. Where the two meet on the grid, you get the two-dimensional org level. I recently had to conduct an org maturity analysis and identified a #1 (out of 5) existing level (i.e. very immature in some capabilities, functions and their associated specific processes), then define and implement a maturity model and path for them towards achieving such, whereas their "horizontal"/capability was in a "semi-automated and developing new" level (btw 3-4).

mattcwilson · 3 years ago

Almost as though there should be a “Capability Maturity Model.” Man, I wish someone had come up with that 40 years ago.

mattcwilson commented on Rethinking Hierarchy in the Workplace (2017) gsb.stanford.edu/insights... · Posted by u/andsoitis

munificent · 3 years ago

> I wonder how many successful businesses this guy founded, created a culture of success, and handed it off to other people to see the company continue to grow.

I'm pretty sure zero percent of marine biologists are actually sharks, but we still consider them qualified to study and understand sharks.

mattcwilson · 3 years ago

As a quite successful shark, I was initially pretty cynical and amused at the idea that “marine biology experts” with no shark experience had anything of merit to say.

What brought me around was when I actually looked at some of their observations and realized that an outside perspective actually had unique and meaningful points for me to ponder that I don’t think I could have arrived at on my own, stuck inside my shark-preferential perspective.

(Now substitute shark : entrepreneur and marine biology : sociology)

mattcwilson commented on Blake Lemoine Interview on Sentient AI youtube.com/watch?v=kgCUn... · Posted by u/derangedHorse

lupire · 3 years ago

In the interview he said that he believes the AI is sentient "based on his personal spiritual beliefs".

(This is same argument that was used to ban abortion in a dozen states this week.)

mattcwilson · 3 years ago

What’s your point? Personal spiritual beliefs are bad because they encourage people to speak out in defense of potential life?

Having personal spiritual beliefs automatically qualifies you as, and lumps you in with every other, “unhinged religious nut bag,” no matter what you’re trying to do as a result of those beliefs?

mattcwilson commented on Shottr – macOS Screenshot Utility shottr.cc... · Posted by u/Brajeshwar

tmikaeld · 4 years ago

This is very good, I just wish there was a screenshot manager as well and uploads to S3.

mattcwilson · 4 years ago

The paid version of Monosnap has a built in storage manager with multiple options for backing stores to use.

mattcwilson commented on Behind the Scenes: The pots, pans, and people that make millions of meals joseandres.substack.com/p... · Posted by u/prostoalex

downut · 4 years ago

Ok so I am laughing because of course the spicing is important, but the important thing to understand here is that there is no correct spicing: it can go in many different ways. That's part of the beauty of these sorts of dishes, you can perturb them and not get burnt out so easily. Oh lemme tell you about regional Indian, but I can't because I am a child there.

So... I sometimes send this dish off in a French Provençal direction, or sometimes toward Mexican Sonoran, or even Oaxacan. But you don't need to do that, all you need is some umami, and some basics. We have eaten it many times over the decades with Worcestershire Sauce as the umami (basically anchovies in soy) and the basics are a good grind of black pepper and potentially something sweet, if the tomatoes suck, as they often do. Don't get too fancy: you want to eat this after a frustrating day at work, freezer->microwave->plate. We add whatever chili concoctions we feel like as we like a bit of burn. But you don't need to do that!

So: take ground beef, cook if raw, use the fat to saute the vegetable matter, compose layers of beef first, then green matter, tomatoes, and then finally sliced potatoes covering the top. Add stock and spices to fill to just covering the potatoes, cook until as moist as you like. We like it saucy, but not a stew though. The more you make, the more nutritious and tasty comfort food you have for those days when... maybe I'll just order DoorDash.

Buen provecho!

mattcwilson · 4 years ago

So, I made this last night. Having no clue what proportions you typically use, I just winged it.

Turned out not bad. Not quite beef stew, maybe more like a soupy shepherd’s pie.

I did end up with a considerable amount of unnecessary broth. I made a batch with 5lbs of beef, maybe another pound of veggies, 1.5 lbs tomatoes and 4 large gold potatoes. I filled my dutch oven and my crock pot with the layers and used 4.5 cartons of stock to get the liquid just over the potatoes. So it cooked in the liquid, but barely absorbed any, and I separated out the solids to pack in the freezer, adding back enough of the broth to hit a sloppy-joe ish consistency.

If you have a recipe with measurements, would love to compare. As it stands, looking to eat well for the next couple weeks. Cheers!

mattcwilson commented on Google's AI doesn't understand restaurant menus shkspr.mobi/blog/2022/06/... · Posted by u/edent

geoduck14 · 4 years ago

The restaurant owners don't need to go through the effort. I'm in a consortium of companies that use ML in their business. One of the companies is a competitor to GrubHub. They use ML to: read scanned menus, understand items, look at pictures... then: predict what ingredients items have; populate if the item is one of entree, meal, desert, or snack; populate if the item is one of gluetn-free, vegetarian, or some other similar stuff

All of this without the mom-and-pop restaurant owners lifting a finger. It gives them a competitive edge over their competitors. All of this to say: Google doesn't care - but GrubHub, UberEats, and the ilk do care

mattcwilson · 4 years ago

Warning: potentially biased opinion. Speaking only for myself, but informed by my job.

There are lots of problems with scraping-based approaches.

One, yes, you need some really good tech to scrape data from menus, which, even though they are “structured”, next time you’re at a sit-down restaurant, pay attention to all the subtle discrepancies in formatting between different sections/categories on the menu.

Two, if the menu isn’t html, but is an image or a pdf upload, now you need some strong OCR on top.

Three, the website is generally not likely to be current with what’s actually on offer in the establishment itself. Specials, seasonal dishes, or items that are out of ingredients (“86’d”) will still appear on the menu. That’s going to lead to complaints, refunds, or generally bad customer experience from whoever’s consuming your data / using it to buy food.

Four, you’re going to want to to be paid for all this tech and customer support you’re electing to intermediate between the end purchaser and the restaurant, as a service, and so you’re going to tack on some fees and either jack the price up on the consumer or try getting the restaurant to pay you a finder’s fee, cutting in to their already narrow margins.

Five, if you’re trying to provide ordering service and not just menu data, you still need to submit the order into the store itself, somehow. Which either means calling it in, robo-submitting an online order (if you’re lucky), or sending a courier to place the order and wait. And then, on the other side, whoever’s taking orders for the restaurant has to punch in the request to the register to actually complete the transaction. Which means the system you really want to talk to isn’t the website, it’s the point-of-sale.

Good luck with all that.

Source of bias: I work for a company that helps restaurants enable online ordering and POS integration so they can pay much less in fees and focus on making exceptional food.

mattcwilson commented on Behind the Scenes: The pots, pans, and people that make millions of meals joseandres.substack.com/p... · Posted by u/prostoalex

downut · 4 years ago

Lettuce is not a very good value for the buck in terms of either nutrition or satiating qualities. Neither is an apple, but at least you can make a pork and apple stewed dish that is delicious, scales and will freeze amazingly well. US Southerners have a rich culinary tradition of meat and "greens" stews that do the same. When I was at grad school at UF almost 40 years ago the Hare Krishnas cooked vegetarian Indian lunches at scale free for anyone right on the main quad. It was good, we ate it, even though we could afford a burrito (with lettuce) from Burrito Brothers whenever we wanted.

If you look at what either José Andrés or the cooks for the Sikh Temple are serving, they cook for the purpose, not for ephemeral desires. My point, I want to emphasize, is that we culinary plebes can cook for the purpose and it be delicious and nutritious, with a freezer and a plan.

Ship the difference in fundage to the World Central Kitchen (or wherever) and your karma goes up too.

So what to do with hamburger at scale. As it happens... I have a great recipe for ground beef, potatoes, bell peppers, onions, garlic, tomatoes, and stock that everybody I've ever fed it to, including my MIL, gets addicted to. It freezes perfectly. Here's a tip: grill a bunch of hamburgers on a nice hardwood fire, seasoned however you like. Eat a fabulous hamburger dinner with friends (and lettuce). Freeze the leftover burgers, and then... use them in this dish. We call it 4-Layer Dinner.

(edited to fix some nits and omissions)

mattcwilson · 4 years ago

Did you intend to share a recipe for the 4-Layer Dinner?

mattcwilson commented on Google cancelled a talk on caste bias washingtonpost.com/techno... · Posted by u/devnonymous

api · 4 years ago

Regional elitism in the USA is definitely a form of soft caste system. If you are from the upper East coast or the West coast you are a member of a higher caste than if you are from the interior, and inside the US there are definitely smaller caste differences.

The South gets it the worst. When I was in college (University of Cincinnati) engineering students from the South were sometimes encouraged to lose their Southern accents because it made them sound "stupid." I heard a few stories about this.

mattcwilson · 4 years ago

Reminds me of: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albion's_Seed

mattcwilson commented on What good cash-strapped hiring looks like commoncog.com/blog/cash-s... · Posted by u/hunglee2

amusedcyclist · 4 years ago

The reality is almost all of the best devs work at top places and get paid top money. If you need that quality of dev you need to pay that kind of money, now theres a strong argument that in some cases mediocre devs are fine and I'm sympathetic to that argument but from my experience the FAANG+ devs are better than others on average (maybe even most of the time).

mattcwilson · 4 years ago

Individual performance isn’t the critical attribute for a company / hiring manager though. You can be an exceptionally talented developer and still be a complete asshole no one wants to work with.

You can also be someone who just doesn’t have the rest of the skill stack to deliver really outstanding products. Technically intricate and high performance, sure - but how about easy to use, valuable and cherished, insanely great?

Funny enough, Google’s own HR division did a huge longitudinal study of what makes teams great; Project Aristotle. What they found was that the sum of individual performance is nowhere near as important as having psychological safety in the team - high trust, high empathy, high openness and vulnerability and feedback without blame.

https://rework.withgoogle.com/print/guides/5721312655835136/

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-lear...

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/TAateRpOGZ7R8mKp6SYD7m19r4...

> The researchers also discovered which variables were not significantly connected with team effectiveness at Google:

Colocation of teammates (sitting together in the same office) Consensus-driven decision making Extroversion of team members Individual performance of team members Workload size Seniority Team size Tenure