noodle (u/noodle) - Readit News

noodle commented on Cloudflare Introduces Default Blocking of A.I. Data Scrapers nytimes.com/2025/07/01/te... · Posted by u/stephendause

Meekro · 6 months ago

I've heard lots of people on HN complaining about bot traffic bogging down their websites, and as a website operator myself I'm honestly puzzled. If you're already using Cloudflare, some basic cache configuration should guarantee that most bot traffic hits the cache and doesn't bog down your servers. And even if you don't want to do that, bandwidth and CPU are so cheap these days that it shouldn't make a difference. Why is everyone so upset?

noodle · 6 months ago

As someone who had some outages due to AI traffic and is now using CloudFlare's tools:

Most of my site is cached in multiple different layers. But some things that I surface to unauthenticated public can't be cached while still being functional. Hammering those endpoints has taken my app down.

Additionally, even though there are multiple layers, things that are expensive to generate can still slip through the cracks. My site has millions of public-facing pages, and a batch of misses that happen at the same time on heavier pages to regenerate can back up requests, which leads to errors, and errors don't result in caches successfully being filled. So the AI traffic keeps hitting those endpoints, they keep not getting cached and keep throwing errors. And it spirals from there.

noodle commented on Ask HN: Would you still choose Ruby on Rails for a startup in 2025? · Posted by u/dondraper36

noodle · a year ago

Yes, no question, assuming Rails matches what the startup is trying to do well enough. I've worked in other frameworks, stacks, etc and nothing beats the raw productivity of Rails for web applications.

A lot of people say things like "the difficulty with Rails is in the long term". To them I'd say two things:

- In starting a new company, I'd assume failure as the starting point and do everything I can to wrestle success from the jaws of failure. I don't want to waste time worrying about what will happen in the long term, because statistically we won't get to the long term. I'll take every advantage I can get to get over that statistical hump. Rails gives me that advantage on the engineering front.

- I'm currently working in a Rails codebase along with a few hundred other developers and its fine. It isn't great, largely because it was an inherited codebase I was acquired into and the OGs made some (imo) sub-optimal decisions, but it isn't really any different than working on a java project with a few hundred devs. Its fine at scale.

noodle commented on Patent troll Sable pays up, dedicates all its patents to the public blog.cloudflare.com/paten... · Posted by u/jgrahamc

pfisherman · a year ago

Well I think it depends on the industry. Patents tend to be less relevant in software. But in other capital intensive industries where there is some manufacture of physical matter - like biotech or hardware - IP is a big deal.

noodle · a year ago

That's true, I'm mostly commenting on software because the article is about software, and this might be anecdata, but it certainly seems to me like patent trolls are more prevalent in software.

noodle commented on Patent troll Sable pays up, dedicates all its patents to the public blog.cloudflare.com/paten... · Posted by u/jgrahamc

pfisherman · a year ago

Heard an interesting counterpoint to this from a patent attorney. In the IP ecosystem patent trolls serve as a sort of check on the big companies - the apex predators - to stop them from willfully infringing on your patents and then bankrupting you in litigation.

While you as a startup may not have the resources to go after them in court; your IP assets in the hands of a competent and aggressive patent troll could be a very big problem for Big Co.

So in that sense they are also kind of like a parasite that infects the apex predators who eat tainted meat.

noodle · a year ago

Don't think I've ever worked for a startup that had any patents whatsoever. I think I consulted with one IIRC, and they folded largely due to their hyperfocus on tech to the detriment of building something people actually wanted to pay for. Filing a patent was probably a symptom of that problem.

Its more like smaller public companies trying to keep bigger public companies in check.

noodle commented on Peter principle en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet... · Posted by u/steelbrain

mattgreenrocks · 2 years ago

Worth noting: Charity Majors' blog on management and tech: https://charity.wtf/

She says several things I've always thought were taboo to even think, including the fact that management shouldn't be viewed as a promotion, it's a completely separate job and some people are better at it than others. My limited experience: it's a separate job, it's a lot more things to juggle and carry, and it mostly makes sense that they get paid more. I have zero experience on director/c-level jobs, so I'm not going to speculate there.

noodle · 2 years ago

Fully agreed. IMO its a critical thing to provide engineers an IC career path that enables advancement without requiring moving into a manager type of job. Otherwise, you get people who are shitty managers because they feel they have to do the job to continue to grow, and that turns into a team/org-wide morale issue.

When promoting engineers into management positions, I'll always give them a trial run first in some form to make sure they actually enjoy the job, make sure their new team doesn't see any red flags, and to give them a graceful path to go back to IC without some fanfare company-wide promo announcement locking them into the role socially.

noodle commented on Reddit's IPO is a regrettable mis-step in corporate governance ft.com/content/c7e73652-f... · Posted by u/ttymck

adam_arthur · 2 years ago

My example was to refute the parent poster who implied, in a seemingly general sense, that stock issuance doesn't impact earnings, which is false.

As to the exact timing of the accounting treatment in this case, I'm not privy to that. The statement above was that the CEO was paid ~$193m in stock, which implies it was issued in that fiscal year. Maybe it was in this case, maybe it wasn't, but that doesn't change the underlying point.

Stock grants absolutely do adversely impact GAAP profitability. A company will dilute existing holders to issue RSUs or otherwise.

noodle · 2 years ago

> My example was to refute the parent poster who implied, in a seemingly general sense, that stock issuance doesn't impact earnings, which is false.

I was talking specifically about their comp, not stock in general. Which is why I specifically said "their comp" and not more general language.

noodle commented on Reddit's IPO is a regrettable mis-step in corporate governance ft.com/content/c7e73652-f... · Posted by u/ttymck

downrightmike · 2 years ago

Reddit is a lemon. "Some invitees say they’re worried about the company’s financial situation. Reddit recorded a net loss of $90.8 million last year, an improvement from 2022, when its deficit came it at $158.6 million. The company said in its prospectus that it’s racked up a cumulative loss of $716.6 million."

Reddit's CEO and COO made $193M and $93M in 2023 but their CFO "only" made $6.6M

So if you eliminate the CEO and COO, they have a profitable business. Given those two have tried to kill the community over and again, why keep them?

noodle · 2 years ago

Their comp is largely stock, not cash. Eliminating them won't move the needle much on net loss.

noodle commented on Ask HN: Any advice on navigating this job market or pivoting out of tech? (US) · Posted by u/askhn234

thorncorona · 2 years ago

You really should stop doomscrolling though. Reddit and Blind are terrible sources of information. Compilers didn't decrease the number of programming positions available.

In any case, pick your struggle. Decide whether you want to be well-off and bored, or something else.

You're likely in a lot of student debt after uni, and even though job market is harder, there are still jobs available. If you switch fields, you would likely be competing against much better prepared candidates with more experience.

My advice would be to get a job in SWE and decide once you're in a better position than jobless with no experience.

noodle · 2 years ago

Agree with this. There are also still lots of companies hiring CS grads. They just aren't paying FAANG level comps. Kind of strange to hear people say they're going to pivot into being a garbage man if they can't get the $200k+ TC straight out of school.

noodle commented on Ask HN: Are job referrals worthless now? · Posted by u/cpeth

noodle · 2 years ago

Depends 100% on the company you're referring into. The larger the company, the less personal it tends to be. Conversely, if the "current employee" is a leader with hiring authority and the referral will be hired onto their team, the more personal it tends to be.

noodle commented on Ask HN: Does "trust" eliminate the need for code reviews? · Posted by u/jzombie

noodle · 2 years ago

Depends so much on so many things. Like, what kind of app/company are you building? How big is the company/app/team(s)? Who is on your team? What are your other practices? Etc..

For example, if my team was very junior, I'd be less inclined to merge first, but if it was very senior, I'd be more inclined. But even then, it depends on other factors.