One of the costs of saying no to meetings is that going to other people's (useless) meetings is a super low effort way to say "I value our working relationship." Not going often explicitly sends the opposite message.
Sometimes there is a whole set of rituals used to "prove" you actually care about the group, and the rituals only ever happen in meetings, and you cannot change them without bothering a lot of people.
Am I the only one who was really underwhelmed? I saw that it was supposedly a very tense trainwreck situation and sure, it gets sarcastic and stuff, but most of it was
Interviewer: "so I heard you were/are doing a bad job with moderation"
CEO: repeats banal PR talking point for the 10th time
Repeat.
I mean, at no point did the CEO say anything interesting about the moderation problem or what they are doing. The interviewers seem too skeptical to be genuinely interested. He explains to them that cost =/= quality and that 2016 =/= 2025 for what feels like an eternity. I was bored.
So historically, when someone accepted an interview yet refused to engage with any questions, or stay on topic, AND also was not interested in the smooth polish of PR-style transitions that would give an appearance of basic cooperation.. it was considered unhinged and obviously crazy behavior.
If interviewee acts clueless, drawling, or drooling then they could be pretty uncooperative and mostly get a pass because it's not very polite to point out stupidity. But for the big bonus crazy-points though, interviewee may opt in to escalation, becoming unabashedly and almost childishly combative, talking over each other, etc. Obviously all of these tactics are pretty normalized now though.
> I was bored.
This is basically the goal. After the interviewee realizes the interviewer is hostile, they just double down on their talking points to signal to investors and ignore the intended audience of the interviewer. Mistake on the interviewers part honestly to publish it at that point IMO.
Well said, my reaction was basically, what he is saying is not really for a listener like me.
> AND also was not interested in the smooth polish of PR-style transitions that would give an appearance of basic cooperation..
I agree this is a big part of it and would add that the "unhinged" look is probably just a lack of PR skill. Both sides are hostile but the interviewers "win" here by staying within the rules of the game, and they also do a beautiful job of sort of winking at the audience like "wow this dude is crazy right?"
It's impressive but sorta annoying, I'd rather listen to actual content.
> a private company shouldn’t have to decide what counts as “illegal” content under threat of legal action.
Immediately reminded me of patio11's amazing write up[1] of debanking, featuring banks being deputized as law enforcement for financial crimes (which is completely non controversial), and even used as a convenient tool to regulate other industries that the white house didn't like (kinda controversial).
I strongly disagree that financial institutions being a de facto extension of law enforcement is "non-controversial".
It may be the way things are; it may be a pre-req of making financial crime tractable; but that does not detract from the fact that every financial institution is in essence, deputized law enforcement, and negate the chilling effect that comes as a consequence thereof on a business environment subject to it.
Fair enough. It was something that impressed me when I first read about it. You hear about disputes between Apple and the FBI over unlocking phones and meanwhile banks are like "and over here are whole floors of analysts tracking suspicious stuff." I definitely agree there are downsides and not everyone is happy about the floors of analysts, but I do think they are very far away from the Overton window.
I think it makes more sense in languages where you use the "let" keyword. Then it sounds like assignment, though you still have to get comfortable with the X being on the right side too.
Not all engineers are in the target audience, and not all details of research findings need to be conveyed to the target audience to make a real impact. The point is if no findings ever make it to engineers (in the broadest sense), there is zero real world impact. I guess real impact is not the only goal but it's a valid one.
> active science communication has been sparse in the area of software research, and those who have tried often find their efforts unrewarded or unsuccessful.
The authors suggest:
> Identify your target audience to tailor your message! Use diverse communication channels beyond papers, and actively engage with practitioners to foster dialogue rather than broadcasting information!
What I would emphasize is that many researchers just don't know how to do it. It isn't as simple as just thinking up a target audience and churning out a blog post. If you are the median researcher, ~0 people will read that post!
I think people underestimate:
- How hard it is to find the right target audience
- How hard it is to understand the target audience's language
- How hard it is to persuade the target reader that this work you've done should matter even a little to their work, even when you designed it specifically for them
- How few people in the audience will ever understand your work well
- How narrow your target audience should be
I also think many researchers want to be able to, if not as a primary career goal then at least as a fulfilling, public service type activity. Currently testing this out a bit (more: https://griffens.net).
There's a certain kind of work that's productive and doesn't take much "effort," at least not in the sense of that super annoying voice in your head that says "I really should focus... I didn't get much done yesterday, gotta make up for it now! Other people are working, look at how smart and productive they are! I need coffee, just one coffee then I'll have enough energy to do this."
Used to happen all the time playing piano in a concert or just an intense practice session. I'd notice that I had been incredibly focused, shockingly focused, like my brain had decided this random sound making activity was its One True Purpose and if it didn't work hard enough it would probably shrivel up and die. And thinking back it hadn't felt strenuous, it felt weirdly calm in the moment, but I think "ease" is totally the wrong word here. It was obvious that I had been working extremely hard, it was as intense as it was calming (? somehow?), and after I'd be totally exhausted.
I think the article really means "what if hard work didn't feel incredibly annoying at the same time?"
On the other hand there's "what if work that feels relaxing isn't also nearly useless"? Because there's a great way to make hard work feel easy, which is to just stop worrying, man. Take it one step at a time, it's probably the right step. There's no rush, slow down, you'll probably get there at the same time as you would by stressing yourself out and stopping for more coffee all the time. Here, use this easy framework...
I feel like it's obligatory to also drop a link to the 3blue1brown series on linear algebra, for anyone interested in learning - it is a step up from what's in this post, but these videos are brilliant and still super accessible:
One of my favourite internet things is seeing other channels, for instance Reducible (https://www.youtube.com/@Reducible) use the framework. Everyone has their own special take on it, and it's so awesome that Grant made it OS!
It's funny how people's mindset shifts when they work for a company versus independent contracting, but this is another case (like salary negotiation) where it should be the same. If your client asked you to do something illegal you'd be thinking about liability and drop the client. If your employer does, you should realize not only do they not have to protect you, it's probably in their interest to turn around and blame it all on you!
I wouldn't be surprised if there were a much more clear and concise way to introduce it, but on the other hand, the topic doesn't seem all that useful to someone without exposure to some fundamentals, so it seems fine to me if it has a bunch of jargon. Lambda calculus programs that actually do something useful are extremely weird and hard to read and write, even very simple ones, so that's not where its value comes from. Probably a better thing to learn in connection with stuff like interpreter and compiler design when it isn't weird to say "function application" and expect you to know what that is.
The host site plato.stanford.edu is an encyclopedia written by academics, and suffers from academic culture's predeliction for abstruse writing as false precision.
Sometimes there is a whole set of rituals used to "prove" you actually care about the group, and the rituals only ever happen in meetings, and you cannot change them without bothering a lot of people.