Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

Posted 2018/02/28

via Silly Bits:

The pipeline didn’t record many metrics. The ones it did have made it look like things had gotten worse. My bug discoveries caused the overall bug count to increase. The pipeline’s failures increased because I made it fail fast on anomalies instead of silently passing along bad data. I drastically reduced the time developers spent repairing those failures, but there were no metrics that tracked developer time.

Believe me, I’ve been there — working for organizations which value the wrong things. It’s sort of surprising to see it happen at a place like Google though. Institutionally, it would seem they should better understand the issues with the metrics they collect (or do not collect.)

I spent the early part of my career working for political campaigns, where the only metric that mattered was the number of hours you worked (this is still the case today.) As long as you are on the job 18 hours per day, nobody cares if you are doing your job well or doing it efficiently. If you dared to leave the office before 8pm, you would probably find yourself fired.

I do not miss campaign life.

LOL

Posted 2018/02/28

Trump: ‘Take the guns first, go through due process second’ | TheHill:

President Trump on Wednesday voiced support for confiscating guns from certain individuals deemed to be dangerous, even if it violates due process rights.

“I like taking the guns early, like in this crazy man’s case that just took place in Florida … to go to court would have taken a long time,” Trump said at a meeting with lawmakers on school safety and gun violence.

“Take the guns first, go through due process second,” Trump said.

In the world before 13 months ago, this would have sent the House into immediately drawing up articles of impeachment, right?

Does this really surprise anyone?

Crisis

Posted 2018/02/24

I’m not going to pretend to know what combination of solutions is necessary to fix this crisis. And it is most certainly a crisis in every sense of the word. I will say there is overwhelming evidence, like the above, that the “let’s just arm the teachers!” argument is bullshit.

If that is the solution, then no more half-measures. Let’s have the full militarization of our schools and public places. Blockades and security checkpoints; student and faculty background checks; random searches; roving security patrols; full SIGINT. We’ll also need to develop HUMINT in the classrooms, probably starting around 2nd grade.

That is the logical conclusion to the “arm the teachers” argument. And it is a bullshit fallacy which makes us no safer. As the military and other protective services frequently demonstrate, arms and training are not enough to prevent tragedy. Not when the attacker can be anyone at any time.

Email is your electronic memory

Posted 2018/02/15

From the FastMail Blog:

Yesterday, Google announced that Gmail will use AMP to make emails dynamic, up-to-date and actionable. At first that sounds like a great idea. Last week’s news is stale. Last week’s special offer from your favourite shop might not be on sale any more. The email is worthless to you now. Imagine if it could stay up-to-date.

More:

Over time your mailbox becomes an extension of your memory – a trusted repository of history, in the way that an online news site will never be. Regardless of the underlying reasons, it is a fact that websites can be “corrected” after you read them, tweets can be deleted and posts taken down.

I agree with FastMail here. I look to my email as a source of “truth”. I can count on it to be static and unchanging. I have an archive of emails stretching back to around 1996, and I count on all of remain unchanged forever, safe in my archive.

Also not to be discounted are the legal ramifications of dynamic emails. I work in politics and, while not frequent, my emails have had to be turned over for discovery in litigation. That entire process assumes that the contents of emails have remained unchanged and will be turned over in the same state. AMP tosses that entire premise out the window.

AMP for email is a bad idea.

Also, if you’re in the market for a new email provider, FastMail is fantastic. I’ve been using them for a number of years and they are absolutely the best. Fast, reliable, trustworthy, and inexpensive. Visit this link to sign up.

Branded in Memory: NFL Edition

Posted 2018/02/10

This was really interesting:

Considering how important the NFL and its teams are to millions of people, we asked over 150 people to draw 12 of the most popular team logos from memory. With nothing to go off of but their own recollection, we wanted to know just how well these sports icons stand out in the mind of NFL fans and non-fans alike. Here’s what they showed us.

As a fan, how well could you draw your team’s logo?

Apple Backs AV1: What Does This Mean for the Future of Video Codecs

Posted 2018/02/06

Apple Backs AV1: What Does This Mean for the Future of Video Codecs:

Earlier this month, Apple joined the Alliance for Open Media (AOM), which is working on the next-generation AV1 video compression standard. It’s interesting that Apple is now supporting AV1, after having just announced backing HEVC in both devices and software tools (i.e., publishing, browsers).

The importance of free and/or open high-quality video standards cannot be overstated.

Thanks for the memories, Chico’s

Posted 2018/01/25

Columbia Basin Herald::

The news that Chico’s Pizza Parlor was destroyed in a weekend fire hit many hard. The Moses Lake community and former residents showed their concern online with a flood of comments on the Herald’s website and Facebook page. People even kept talking on Facebook late into Saturday night, sharing memories and photos of the longtime business. I was right there with them because I loved Chico’s too. Starting the conversation was easy.

An entire region mourns the death (hopefully only temporary, but you know how these things usually turn out…) of an iconic pizza parlor.

I grew up there, and Chico’s was an institution. It’s unthinkable to my own children, but my hometown didn’t have a pizza restaurant. Our choices were: 1. Heat up a Tombstone or, 2. Make the 40 minute drive to Chico’s. Option 2 was always preferred.

It was one of the few places in the area where you could take a group of people for a meal and just relax. So many memories there. The arcade where we kids could play while the pizza baked. The ancient bench seats. The mountains of toppings.

Sausage and black olive was my thing.

Thanks, Chico’s.