serioussecurity (u/serioussecurity)

serioussecurity commented on People can read their manager's mind (2015) yosefk.com/blog/people-ca... · Posted by u/l0b0

willvarfar · 3 years ago

> Corollary 1. Who can, and sometimes does, un-rot the fish from the bottom? An insane employee. Someone who finds the forks, crashes, etc. a personal offense, and will repeatedly risk annoying management by fighting to stop these things. Especially someone who spends their own political capital,

Myself, I recognise myself here. And I'm trying my best to find my sanity.

Anyone got any stories of themselves or others being insane? How did it pan out?

serioussecurity · 3 years ago

I've spent much of my last four years systematically turning down every project a specific director has launched.

The turn downs save enormous amounts of our hardware budget, and each time are measured as not happening users.

No one has yet noticed that basically none of that directors projects are still running and put together that the things he builds stop working after two years.

I keep getting paid good senior engineer money, and don't have to think too hard about what my next project should be. But it's really demoralizing to realize that he will continue to be promoted.

serioussecurity commented on Coinbase cuts staff by a further 20% coinbase.com/blog/a-messa... · Posted by u/shawabawa3

SunlightEdge · 3 years ago

I lost a little bit of money investing in crypto on Coinbase (I put about £500 in which shrank to £200 - over the course of past 2 years and for past year I mostly have just had money in sterling - the market looked terrible) I finally decided yesterday to cash out of coinbase yesterday - they charged me £3 to withdraw my money!! In the scheme of things I didn't lose that much money - not really. But personally I can't see myself getting back in when Bitcoin goes below 10,000 dollars (which I believe it will in 2023). I think Coinbase share price is heading to junk status. No wonder the employees were selling all their shares when it went public!

serioussecurity · 3 years ago

Your surprise over a £3 fee strikes me as a perfect illustration of crypto: profoundly naive, inexperienced investors getting a hard lesson in how unregulated markets work.

I hope, some years down the line, you take the broader life lesson that anyone promising you money for nothing does not have your best interests at heart.

serioussecurity commented on I went through a period where I loaned money to anyone that asked me twitter.com/id_aa_carmack... · Posted by u/eatonphil

zahrc · 3 years ago

That is so surreal to me. I had to loan money from friends for real emergencies and always made sure they get paid - often more than they gave. How can one not be guilt-ridden until their deathbed?

serioussecurity · 3 years ago

Heavy drinking.

Usually they're choosing between a set of bad options.

serioussecurity commented on Ask HN: Given AI advancements, is a master’s degree in CS worthless? · Posted by u/lisplist

serioussecurity · 3 years ago

The masters might help you better explore why this is not a realistic concern :) I got a lot of value from mine.

The risk in CS that I worry about right now is suppressed wages as more folks enter the field and the large companies get better at paying us less.

serioussecurity commented on Nuclear physicist explains why fusion ignition is hailed as a major breakthrough theconversation.com/why-f... · Posted by u/nkurz

zmgsabst · 3 years ago

We can debate the importance, but it’s clear that they’ve made a qualitative leap in their technology the past few years — a “breakthrough”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility#/me...

serioussecurity · 3 years ago

Not to diminish the achievement, but not making that graph log scale was deeply dishonest.

serioussecurity commented on Yerba Mate – A Long but Current History (2021) ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti... · Posted by u/Kaibeezy

innagadadavida · 3 years ago

It has 27g of sugar per drink. are there any options to not have sugar or sweeteners? I was hoping at least this company will be more health conscious.

serioussecurity · 3 years ago

Yerba Mate is brewed, like tea. You can buy the herb and brew it yourself, like loose tea. Yerba Mate is not a company, it's a drink with three thousand of years of history. The reason many energy drink companies add so much sugar is that it's extremely bitter. I like mine bitter, and many drink it straight.

serioussecurity commented on Amazon confirms corporate staff cuts that could hit 10k employees wsj.com/articles/amazon-t... · Posted by u/mfiguiere

jrd259 · 3 years ago

This is absurd. As an Amazonian for eight years I can say it would be absurd to do this. First, hiring someone is a lot of work. Second, we don't get much value from people the first six months anyway. We don't hire people to do boilerplate. We hire people who want to obsess over their customers.

serioussecurity · 3 years ago

Done much crying at your desk recently?

My boss at Amazon told me he was happy that his baby was born prematurely, because it meant he could be back at work in time for a launch.

serioussecurity commented on Amazon confirms corporate staff cuts that could hit 10k employees wsj.com/articles/amazon-t... · Posted by u/mfiguiere

erehweb · 3 years ago

I found this comment from an anonymous tech industry insider interesting:

"Amazon is very, very bloated. So there's lots of people there but they're not providing a lot of value so they're first on the chopping block."

This is counter to what I have heard about Amazon, which is that it is a ruthless environment where low performers are stack ranked out of the company. Does anyone have any insight?

serioussecurity · 3 years ago

Ruthless environments where low performers are stack ranked out of the company creates a psychologically unsafe working environment that encourages toxic competition and makes it hard to retain your best people. I got out a long time ago, but Amazon struggled to retain their best employees because they'd go somewhere else. Amazon had such absurd turn over that they are running out of people to interview. It's a wood chipper, designed to burn out young, insecure engineers while extracting two years of boilerplate from them.

serioussecurity commented on Telling people you're a self taught developer in YouTube is a big business now · Posted by u/Hippoly

serioussecurity · 3 years ago

Yes, it's how people used to do it. I spent my first decade without mentorship. A month isn't enough time; I consider what I do a craft that I'm honing over the course of a life time.