On the one hand he does some things that seem very smart, on the other he does many that are very stupid (cave divers ordeal). So it’s a bit more nuanced than that.
Absolutely, when I worked at (semi-well-known unicorn) a half-dozen years ago on the data-engineering team the manager told me "Hey we want to use spark next quarter, that's a huge initiative."
And I immediately asked, "in what capacity?" And the answer was don't-know/doesn't-matter, it's just important that we can say we're using it. I really wish I understood where that was coming from (his manager resume-building? somebody getting a kickback?)
The most interesting part is that you can say you're doing/using something entirely independent of if you actually are. Sure, that's a lie, but so is only using something so you can say you're using it (sure, they admitted to you that was the reason, but that won't be the reason they put on LinkedIn).
"I think the entire DevOps movement was a mighty, ... it failed."
I'm so sick of this nonsense. "Devops" isn't failing, isn't an issue, you can rename it whatever you want, but throughout my career the devops engineers (the ones you don't skimp on) are the best, highest paid professionals at the company.
I don't know why I keep reading these completely crazy think-pieces hemming and hawing about a system (having a few engineers who master performance/backups/deployments/oncall/retros) that seems to be wildly successful. It would be nice if more engineers understood under-the-hood, but most companies choose not to exclusively hire at that caliber.
For sure, I just turned down a gig because the company saw devops as an afterthought, not as something they would invest in. They wanted me to come in and "fix some issues quick" on a short-term contract. What they really need is 1-2 FTE ops people who think about their problems every day. If you are pushing past 3-4 devs to 10 and you have no intention of hiring a FTE ops person, you are not doing it right and shall reap what you have sown before long
I've spent 20+ years in the industry seeking to understand first, and my conclusions have pretty consistently been that the systems are broken and inefficient as people already talk about. The caveat I'd add is that the critics themselves would also be just as much as a crapshoot.
Honestly it sounds to me like the author doesn't truly understand the inherent conflicts of interest at a large company. For example a really common anti-pattern is "Nobody knows X thing is a problem my team manages in a problem (e.g. our app eats battery usage), but if I draw attention to it they'll want to measure it forever. So do not make it a focus."
In short pretty much never does any employees/manager's/executives interest align with the company.
Just having visited Japan, another thing that's immediately apparent though is that there are other well-intentioned laws that prevent this from happening. My favorite breakfast was like $8 (which was better than American breakfast by an order-of-magnitude) was in a tiny shop that had a tiny curved staircase that could scarcely fit tall people, definitely not obese people, and don't even pretend handicap people.
Frankly I think alternative laws should be applicable (you don't need to be able seat wheelchair people if you're willing to bring the food to them to-go) since I just think it's not worth losing that efficient density and cost-effectiveness for a tiny tiny fraction of the population.
In my opinion, it's entirely possible to build a social network or social media that doesn't incentivize rage but one that leads to actual friendships. I don't think internet itself is the issue, I think that the existing options just maximize outrage/drama and other negative addictive qualities rather than the slow-burn good things.
Sure, but the fact that he's willing to do create false/inappropriate charges against the FED chairman is itself a signal to foreign investors how far the US is willing to go to increase the money supply (whereby decreasing the worth of any debts/holdings in USD). It signals an asset previously viewed as safe is now less safe.
> Altshuler’s complaint said that he was concerned the chemicals caused two women in the customer support office to have miscarriages and another man to have a liver transplant.
It seems multiple generations have really downplaying the risk of some of these chemicals. The whole "man up" "osha is a joke" attitude really seems painfully helpless when there small amounts of chemicals that are undetectable by the senses that can kill you, damage your mind irreparably, damage your ability to have healthy children. Heck even our gender expression is controlled by a small amount of chemicals called hormones. I think some fragile egos hate to admit it, but we're entirely powerless to these chemicals unless we can detect and avoid them.
However when they are invisible and often odorless in dangerous doses, number in the 10s of thousands, and are very slow/expensive to detect (i.e. requiring $10k+ mass spectrometers), the only feasible answer I can think of is collective action (i.e. stronger laws, or perhaps unions if those fail). I think such events of pollution need to be investigated as criminal when they have credibly ended lives.
(P.S. I wonder if any women didn't have fullblown miscarriages, but had a baby with other issues that can't necessarily by tied to this exposure. This is something you see in other exposure cases)
A bit of a messy situation, since there is both documented precedent for undisclosed chemical use to cause severe population illness (e.g. numerous times in "cancer alley"), however there is also precedent for charismatic doctors to create a cult of personality that might create noise.
yeah I agree. this is really unfortunate because it seems that there is something systemic here at play which has become twisted up in a cult of personality and that's made a rigorous scientific investigation very difficult
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