I wonder where does this end? I do feel like nearly once a year some country in western world tries to ban encryption. Can we just make it a right to encrypt communications and be done with this endless debate?
Readit NewsmfDjB commented on UK pulls back from clash with Big Tech over private messaging ft.com/content/770e58b1-a... · Posted by u/alwillis
mfDjB commented on 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans cnbc.com/2023/08/11/80per... · Posted by u/pg_1234
I have a new conspiracy theory on RTO in Big Tech. Much has been said about commercial real estate. But I think getting highly capable people to work hard for you is a difficult problem & something tech executives put a lot of thought into. If you don't pay people enough, someone else will. But if you pay them too much, they'll become financially independent.
Mid six figures is an objectively life-changing amount of money that an engineer would be insane to walk away from & that few companies can match. But because it's contingent on living in places where the "working rich" are on the lower half of the housing market totem pole, housing will always place significant pressure even on an obscene income, and your home will never be quite satisfactory. It keeps you on the treadmill working harder and longer, worrying about the stock price, chasing the next promotion or refresher so that you can afford a little more light, a little more space, a little less commute time. And that's right where they want you. Location independence means people could actually get their fill of "TC" which would make it difficult to keep them sweating over such uninspiring projects.
Thanks for posting this. I always found it odd that the transition from labour to capital seemed to be so hard, even with mid-figure 6 income TC's it always seemed like you can't quite escape the rat race, you can definitely live more comfortably, or maybe as comfortably as you can as one of the rats in the race but never escape. Of course with very disciplined saving and LCOL arbitrage you stand a chance, however it seems like these methods are being purged with COL adjustments, inflation purging cash savings, markets tanking 401k's. Just when you think you are out they pull you back in. I often wondered whether this was by design, because it seems a bit too convenient for labour pools, or whether its a feature of the economic system we operate in.
mfDjB commented on Google Invests Almost $400M in ChatGPT Rival Anthropic bloomberg.com/news/articl... · Posted by u/thunderbong
Google is slow in the AI space because it isn't willing to take the risks its competitors are willing to take due to PR and branding factors. Anthropic with its focus on AI safety is the wrong choice here, it will slow them down not speed them up.
mfDjB commented on ChatGPT won’t replace search engines any time soon algolia.com/blog/ai/why-c... · Posted by u/freediver
For me, Google Search just doesn't seem to be getting better over the years, if anything its getting worse. I honestly feel like its hard to get what I want half the time with all the SEO spam, most of the time I have to input "inurl:reddit.com" just to get good results.
At the same time, ChatGPT has frequently impressed me, not with everything (my expectations are reasonably low) but it has performed amazing work for me (typing out form letters, code language conversions).
For what it's worth I wouldn't use ChatGPT for search like I do with Google, but what it has done is taken away time I would be Googling for things like "how to write X form letter". I expect as it matures, it will take more time away from me Googling.
All these takes underestimate the following:
1) How quickly ChatGPT and its ilk will advance to solve relatively low hanging fruit like "ChatGPT is wrong about this one thing". The delta is extremely important here.
2) How slowly the Google bureaucracy will grind when releasing anything remotely like ChatGPT. All the committees and the burdensome processes in place in Google will keep this new technology locked up for years, and ensure that the final result is a camel (horse designed by committee). It doesn't matter if they have superior technology if they never use it or release it.
3) How much Search means to Google will mean they will treat any product changes to it extremely carefully while Microsoft will be willing to experiment with Bing like they have with Co-Pilot and GitHub.
Personally, I wouldn't go long on search engines that don't have a strong ML component to them in the future.
mfDjB commented on SwiftUI Is Convenient, but Slow notes.alinpanaitiu.com/Sw... · Posted by u/mort96
It seems like every time a new UI framework comes around, a tradeoff is made between convenience and flexibility, with the advertising always being around "look how easy it is to make a table view", but this doesn't particularly impress me anymore, because as I've used these newer paradigms it seems like I am trading 5 minutes (UIKit) for 3 minutes (SwiftUI) when it comes to basic UI development, but later on trading 30 minutes (UIKit) for 3 hours (SwiftUI) when it comes to anything significantly complex. This is not just true for iOS but web as well.
I'm unsure how feasible it would be but it would be really cool if it were possible to benchmark frameworks both by how quick it is to implement basic UI components as well as more complex UIs and score them based on that.
I do feel like its quite an insidious trap to do a project to 80% completeness in a framework then be forced to make the awkward decision of "Do I continue with the current framework where the extra 20% will take a long unknown amount of time or rewrite in the old framework and take the time hit but with easily estimatable timelines?".
mfDjB commented on Two weeks of dealing with Google as a developer danfitdegree.hashnode.dev... · Posted by u/danuker
What I've learned from Google is that you are always talking to a bot, it just happens to be that some of those bots are human. Even though they are walking and talking simians they are executing a conversation script and have no agency and ability to control an outcome spare the most banal common issues.
mfDjB commented on Observations from our Joe Rogan Experience experience lulu.substack.com/p/joe-r... · Posted by u/phgn
What concerns me about Joe Rogan, and what this article helped solidify, is not necessarily his views, but the power he has as one person.
In my opinion he has taken some problematic view points, but others would agree with him more, and many would say he just plays devil's advocate and likes to talk hypotheticals and dig into interesting topics. I don't think any of this really matters.
The issue is that the views come from one guy, get amplified in some man-cave banter with a few guys paid by him, and then broadcast to an audience "larger than Belgium". This isn't normal. Media companies have layers of editors, they have at least some diversity, a woman will hopefully look at a story or script before it goes out, sometimes even a lawyer might tell them to tone it down a bit. Even celebrities with big followings on social media are likely to have more input on many of their postings than Rogan does on his broadcasts.
A bit of a filter is a good thing for everyone, whether it's trusted friends who can and do tell you when you're wrong, an editor at work, a legal team, whatever. It's also honest. I think Joe Rogan could use a filter.
His audience disagrees that he needs a filter. The filtered content you are talking about is abundant, authentic content is scarce, that's why he pulls the audience size he pulls. His reach would be smaller if we took the filters off other sources.
mfDjB commented on What Tech Workers Don't Understand They've Lost by WFH michaelgv.uk/posts/2022/0... · Posted by u/NesquikMike
Just started a position in a FAANG as a remote worker, funnily enough accidentally. I am in Seattle working for a team in NYC. I didn't realise that it was technically a remote position, I just thought I would go into the Seattle office but happen to work for a NYC team, this is what I've been used to in the past. As a remote worker the following has happened:
1) I was relocating from where I was to Seattle, and told that I will receive no relocation support because I was technically remote.
2) I was told after speaking to other people I know at other FAANG companies that my seat at the office was not guaranteed. Indeed when I checked with the recruiter and my new manager it turns out that the company does not guarantee you a seat in the office if you are a remote worker.
3) Remote onboarding is a horribly broken and disfunctional experience, I can only speak for the company I am with here your mileage may vary, most links don't work and things aren't really explained well, you end up waiting around most of the time and feel strange, like you are missing something.
It feels very much like being a second class citizen at a FAANG. The perks access clearly isn't there, and there is a lot of assumed knowledge, e.g. "Oh you didn't know you wouldn't be able to go into the office?". Not a fan. I've never felt less like a person and more like a battery.
mfDjB commented on Why is it so hard to give Google money? paulbutler.org/2022/why-i... · Posted by u/paulgb
I find that most support you receive these days (whether its from the public or the private sector) feels like it is coming from a bot. Even if it is another human on the other end. Google in particular feels like they create inflexible non-robust policies that do not have an escape valve for when things go wrong on Google's side. If I had more options I wouldn't put up with it.
mfDjB commented on Visa changes chargeback dispute program usa.visa.com/visa-everywh... · Posted by u/cwwc
No matter what country I am in and whether they had consumer affairs ombudsmen, filing a chargeback dispute with the merchant (in my case Visa) was the best protection I ever got from dodgy vendors charging me after I cancel a subscription or fail to provide the agreed upon services. Even the hint that I am going to do it usually gets the vendors to act and quickly. I hope that this doesn't go away.