Netflix employee here, there are no "mass layoffs" that I'm aware of (would also have WARN act require issue of notice >75 employees). We have involuntary attrition when people do not meet "the keepers test" in performance/impact and are exited from the company with severance. This is a regular part of the business and explicitly called out in the company's culture memo (see the top of the HN comments). Perhaps, the friend of a friend falls within this category, or just hearsay.
The WARN act requires an announcement 60 days before the workers stop being paid. Tech companies typically offer more than two months of severance, so this announcement can happen after people are notified they've been laid off.
This late into the workday, the fact that there's no news about layoffs at Netflix makes me suspect there isn't a large layoff.
> This dramatically limits the levers that can be pulled.
I don't disagree, but this feels like slapping a bandaid on a bullet wound. It's unclear to me how this will fundamentally make improvements at the source of the problem vs. temporary forgiveness.
What do you think it would take to gain some majority alignment to actually move the needle effectively?
>> "we are forced to own nothing and be happy. Bitcoin, Blockchain and crypto solves this."
Serious question, what/where does this apply to? I get NFTs for digital authenticity, but PKI solves this too. How does one "own nothing without blockchain" when we have property deeds, automobile titles, jewelry and fine art certificates of authenticity all without blockchain? Your comment comes off as a solution looking for a problem.
All of those things requires us to trust somebody, which is a glaring single point of failure in the system. Things can go wrong.
When any of these deeds, titles or certificates are lost, burnt or stolen. You have to rely on an outside body to keep a backup safe for you.
Blockchain allows us to be super efficient too. Which is a perk. Rather than the need of waiting for someone to certify, deliver, inspect, notify, return, process. Depending on the industry, this could take years. Blockchain tech allows everyone to see the validity of a claim in real time.
My family sold out family home a few years ago. It took 6 years of unnecessary admin work to get it sold. If we relied on blockchain tech, it would've been processed in a day.
The problem with blockchain implementation is that most of them still rely on us to trust someone. It is not implemented in the distributed self hosted way people think. The top hacker news submission about Web 3 (blockchain) points out that NFTs and other blockchain technologies are centralized and reliant on trusting someone in practice [1][2].
This is true. Many NFTs (not all) rely on trusting some random server. People are doing it, but it doesn't make it right. It's a bad business practice.
There are enough reliable methods to not rely on trusting some random server, but some money hungry developers cannot be asked to implement them.
Similar to how some websites do silly things, like storing plain-text passwords in their databases. People do it, but it doesn't make it right.
>If we relied on blockchain tech, it would've been processed in a day.
Why? This is an unsubstantiated claim. Blockchains still have an outside body that you're required to trust, several in fact. The most prominent one is the miners.
I can't tell what the admin issues with your sale were because you didn't mention them, but it seems like being able to see the validity of the claim wasn't the issue that took 6 years for lawyers to resolve. You can show them the validity in person on the day of the sale.
Laszlo Bock was recently interviewed on this topic via Fortune (article below), and I tend to agree with him. It will be a slow roll over time for most companies returning to work (see Apple taking harder stance) with some exceptions on hybrid model 3-2 at work vs. remote.
> Bock says that after three to five years of flexible work models and hybrid plans, the normal in-office schedule will prevail at Google—and beyond. He predicts this transition will happen over the next few years, telling Bloomberg it’s the “boil the frog method.”
I think he vastly overestimates the percentage of employees who feel that they need to be seen. This is not about the rank and file. This is about middle managers trying to impress corporate execs.
Fair point. Out of sight out of mind and reduces ability for advancement up the corporate ladder. It plays a role in office politics and positioning for better or worse in organizational structures and accolades.
My time at Dell immediately brought this to mind. No coffee offered other than overpriced you had to purchase from the cafeteria. I brought in my own espresso and coffee maker, and got chastised by facilities as a fire hazard. We weren't even allowed to put in the tiny kitchenette, which was a sink with plastic utensils in a couple of drawers. Ridiculous.
You're telling me. (not so humble brag) I developed a software solution and 3 patents granted over 10 years ago to stop these kind of shenanigans. Ahead of our time.
*Unfortunately, matrix barcodes may sometimes reference malicious websites, which may be used to steal confidential information (e.g., user credentials or credit card numbers) as part of a phishing attack or exploit vulnerabilities in mobile web browser software that may allow malware to be downloaded to a user's mobile computing device. Furthermore, some legitimate Internet resources (through the use of spam, comment posts, etc.) may be used to redirect users to malicious websites. Accordingly, the instant disclosure identifies a need for systems and methods for providing security information about quick response codes.*
LOL. I had three graduate students (PHd CompSci candidates) working for me back at UMass. I come around the corner to see them all clustered around one of the PCs. Apparently one of the graduate students had slid a CD-ROM between two of the blanking panels instead of opening the CD-ROM tray. They were trying to figure out where the CD had gone.
After a chuckle, I showed them how to open the case and retrieve the CD.
That quote is misattributed and I also think it is not something Dijkstra would have said. Quite the opposite actually. However, I think this quote from him is much more beautiful:
In their capacity as a tool, computers will be but a ripple on the surface of our culture. In their capacity as intellectual challenge, they are without precedent in the cultural history of mankind.
He did say it because I heard him say it. The sentence just before was: "Our field should be called 'Computing Science' rather than 'Computer Science.'"
In my language most university courses/majors are actually named like that.
Common names:
"Ciências da Computação": Computing Science
"Engenharia Informática": (Informática is usually translated as computer or computing science, or just computing) CS Engineering
Less common:
"Ciencias dos Computadores": Computer Science
"Engenharia Informática e Ciências dos Computadores": I bet you can translate this one
For those suffering from depression, anxiety, stress please consider meeting with a psychiatrist and psychologist.
Some brains are neurologically misconfigured and prone to chemical depletion or lack receptors for it (ex: serotonin or dopamine). All the pushing through and search for answers, triggers, or source of problems won't solve this.
Secondly, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can work well for analyzing the 'why' you feel and/or behave the way you do. It provides perspective, insight, and tools for helping cope with problems (control/mitigate or potentially eliminate).
Both of these are tools that can dramatically improve your life. I've been there and still am. Seek the support you deserve. Tomorrow will bring a better future.
This is almost always symptomatic. There's a fair amount of research on dopamine depletion. Addiction, including but not limited to drug use (e.g. high-fat-high-sugar food, pornography) can show deceases in receptors. Vitamin D3 deficiency can pose a problem. Sedentary behavior. etc.
I'd recommend CBT principles to anyone, research shows they're as effective as prozac. The point is many changes can be implemented before resigning to perpetual medication.
I'd be cautious of the claim that CBT is 'as effective as Prozac', or another chemical solution, in general. A cursory glance at the Wikipedia Criticisms section for CBT points out at least several concerns with the existing research[0]. Anecdotally, a family member of mine went through a complete round of CBT, for a mental health disorder, and they said that it seemed mostly just like standard therapy, and perhaps increases mindfulness a bit, but definitely felt it could not hold a candle to standard treatment. I should point out that they followed the protocol quite rigidly, and embraced the therapy with an open mind.
No doubt CBT has varying effectiveness between individuals. Somewhat tangentially, I find this[1] article cited in the Wikipedia page[0] to be an interesting read; a meta-analysis of ~70 studies, showing a seeming decrease in effectiveness of CBT over 30 years.
A single study is listed as being challenged. Have others:
From 2010 - "In this 36-week study, partial and nonresponders to placebo, and responders and partial responders to Prozac, CBT, and combination treatments in the 12-week trial were openly treated (TADS Team, 2007). As in Phase 1, Prozac and combination groups received additional encouragement and contact (medication management). Despite this, all treatment conditions converged by 30 weeks and remained so by Week 36, with significantly more suicidal ideation in the Prozac-alone group. The percentage of suicidal events for those on Prozac, whether in combined or alone groups, was nearly 12%, double the 6% in the CBT group. Despite the convergence of efficacy and continued risks, TADS is often cited as evidence that combining psychotherapy and medication produce superior results (e.g., NIMH, n.d.)." -- https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dickson_Adom/post/What_...
"Collectively, the findings detailed inA.C. Butler et al. / Clinical Psychology Review 26 (2006) 17–3127 this review suggest that CT is highly effective for adult unipolar depression, adolescent unipolar depression,generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder with or without agoraphobia, social phobia, PTSD, and childhooddepressive and anxiety disorders. The comparison-weighted grand mean effect size for these disorders when compared to no-treatment, wait list, or placebo controls is 0.95 (SD=0.08). CBT is associated with large improvements in symptoms for bulimia nervosa, and the associated effect sizes (M=1.27, SD=0.11) are significantly larger than those that have been found for pharmacotherapy. CBT also has shown promising results as adjunct to pharmacotherapy in the treatment of schizophrenia." -- https://www.get.gg/docs/Empirical-Status-of-CBT.pdf
Prozac yields a risk of side effects, and ceasing use brings a strong risk of relapse. Comparatively CBT offers a lasting solution.
Directly, less so. I imagine it will come because other addictive behaviors have been linked to dopamine depletion.
"Another metabolic parameter strongly supporting a neurobiological basis for natural addiction is found in studies examining dopamine receptor depletion. Wang et al., demonstrated dopamine (D2) receptor downgrading with obesity similar to that seen in drug addiction, and the levels correlated with BMI.[31] An animal study recently published by Johnson and Kenny found that rats exposed to “palatable, energy-dense food develop a profound state of reward hyposensitivity and compulsive-like eating. The maladaptive behavioral responses in obese rats probably arise from diet-induced deficits in striatal D2R signaling. Overconsumption of drugs of abuse similarly decreases striatal D2 receptor density, induces a profound state of reward hypofunction, and triggers the emergence of compulsive-like drug taking behaviors. " -- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3115160/
How can be almost always symptomatic but at the same time run in some many members of the same family? When you go to see a psichiatrist one of the first questions the ask is if there's history of mental illness in the family.
That's still not causation. A history of depression doesn't mean these members all had inherent brain misconfigurations. The brain's chemistry is not static in the first place. There could be afflictions, deficiencies, environmental conditions or cognitive biases spanning generations that could lead to these issues. Everything we experience is expressed as a chemical reaction in your brain, whether you're happy or sad. No one looks at an ecstatic person's brain and assumes they're wired to be ecstatic. Grief and depression can run long.
By virtue of the success rate of therapies such as CBT and others, the evidence for inherent "bad" brains runs thin.
> Some brains are neurologically misconfigured and prone to chemical depletion or lack receptors for it (ex: serotonin or dopamine). All the pushing through and search for answers, triggers, or source of problems won't solve this.
Do you have proof of any of this or are you just regurgitating the bullshit you've been fed? I've been searching for years and all I can find is that this hypothesis is bullshit without any evidence behind it whatsoever. Even psychiatrists and neurologists know it's bullshit. It doesn't help anyone to pretend like this is true and it can be harmful. Encouraging people to take drugs based on what is essentially a fantasy is likely a huge part of the problem. If I'm wrong, I'd like to see the proof I've been trying to find now for over a decade.
You can show via SPECT brainscans that the over- or underactivity in certain parts of the brain correlates strongly with psychological symptoms. For example you can show that people suffering from ADD have a lowered activity in their prefrontal cortex. Or that people with an overactive deep limbic system suffer from depression. Check out Dr Daniel Amen's work. He did over 83000 brainscans.
Proof that "Some brains are neurologically misconfigured and prone to chemical depletion or lack receptors for it (ex: serotonin or dopamine)" and that this is the cause of depression.
No I read that, I meant, what type of experiment that proves that statement would you like to see. Because I feel like if I point out some research you would find something weird about them just to dismiss them, so I'm asking beforehand what kind of setup or study would like to see.
One that demonstrates that serotonin/dopamine is actually the cause of depression and that taking drugs affects those neurotransmitters and relieves depression. If we're going to say to someone that you are depressed because of a chemical imbalance, you must first prove that is actually the cause. Then you must prove that the medicine affects that neurotransmitter and relieves the disease. This hand wavy "chemical imbalance" idea is barely a hypothesis. Prove it. Measure serotonin in a live brain and demonstrate the causation with depression. Demonstrate that the level is truly imbalanced compared to a non depressed person. Show that changing the level relieves depression.
Instead, we don't even know how depression drugs work and last I checked, measuring neurotransmitter levels in a live brain was impossible. That would be ok as science doesn't know everything, but then we need to stop with the idiotic "chemical imbalance" lie.
So according to that logic, we should also stop with the lies for the current medications we use for schizophrenia or epilepsy or Alzheimer's disease because we don't know for sure the cause and we can't prove it? Even when we see many people getting effective treatments from these drugs?
So you say but provide no proof. Also, that's very different than saying it's caused by a lack of/too much serotonin, dopamine, or some other neurotransmitter or receptors without a shred of proof, as the parent claims. The reality is, there is no proof of anything like that causing depression, anxiety, or other mental health issues. How would we know if such things cause disease when we can't even measure them in a live person? The whole chemical imbalance idea is bullshit to sell drugs to patients. I'd love to be proven wrong but no one has any evidence to do so. Even professional psychiatrists know that the idea is bullshit. But it does sell a lot of drugs whose efficacy is questionable at best. So the facade lives on and people continue to parrot this harmful bullshit.
This. I had great results from working with a cognitive-behavioral psychologist. She helped me see patterns in my life that I had never even suspected were there before. I'm skeptical that I could have gotten the same results by reading a couple books on CBT on my own. The exercises were valuable, but so was the outside perspective, and I don't think either would have worked as well without the other.
A problem with the emphasis on CBT over the past couple of decades is that it cannot work for a fair percentage of chronically depressed people because it emphasizes challenging negative thoughts on the assumption that they are untrue.
The problem is, what if you have depressing thoughts that are totally rooted in reality? CBT doesn't have a very good answer for that.
There are other strategies and models. IPT. Psycho-dynamic. ACT (which does address the gap I refer to above).
So, a patient may well have to shop different practitioners, clinics, and models to find one that addresses your needs. After all, the response to a bad haircut is to find a different stylist, not to give up on haircuts forever.
Out of pocket costs can get excessive. If price is a major factor, consider university teaching clinics, which can often provide talk therapy (generally with student therapists, and quality/interest can vary a lot) on a sliding scale based on ability to pay. In SV, for example, there is the Gronowski clinic staffed from Palo Alto University).
“ The problem is, what if you have depressing thoughts that are totally rooted in reality?”
I thought the point of CBT was to avoid making negative assumptions or falling into thinking traps. For example, “I’m on the street and hungry. I’ll probably be like this for the rest of my life.” This is a thinking trap - thinking that bad situations will last indefinitely. Instead, we can think, “I’m on the street and hungry, but I’m alive, and I can probably turn things around.”
just to throw my hat in, I've found CBT difficult to put into practice. a vicious cycle formed as I increasingly blamed myself for not working hard enough to help myself and buckled under the pressure of completing exercises.
psychodynamic approaches and group therapy had much more palpable impact, as the missing piece I think was seeing and relating to others. not being alone and talking through issues made a world of difference compared to applying what felt like mechanical exercises of CBT.
CBT definitely won't work for everyone, but this seems like something a good therapist could help someone work through. Self blaming like that is one of the cognitive distortions that CBT should be able to help root out.
I realize that it very likely just wasn't the type of therapy that works for you, just throwing out the alternative perspective for anyone reading this and considering CBT.
for sure! i feel a lot more capable of applying the self reflective tools of CBT at this point in time. but it really felt like CBT was consistently suggested to me at a point in time when i just wasn't ready. and it took some (difficult) time to understand that there's nothing wrong with me for not being receptive to it.
> vicious cycle formed as I increasingly blamed myself for not working hard enough to help
Something that took me way too long to understand. Beating yourself up for feeling bad makes it twice as bad. A counter argument is negative emotional stress is motivational. My argument is negative emotional stress is one of the crummier types of motivation.
> My argument is negative emotional stress is one of the crummier types of motivation
i agree. i am jealous of people who find empowerment in struggle this way but insistence on CBT just made me feel more alone. now that I do not feel so hopeless about being able to affect change, i am more able to reach for self-help tools, but i'd argue that it could be dangerous to have it be suggested as the first line of help for someone that's already holed up in self-destructive tools, especially if they lack self awareness.
>Some brains are neurologically misconfigured and prone to chemical depletion or lack receptors for it (ex: serotonin or dopamine).
Readers: please be aware at best the science on this statement is hypothetical, at worst it's a marketing slogan designed to sell someone drugs for the rest of their life.
IME, it's best to start with the psychologist. They can determine whether talk therapy will be enough to correct the chemical imbalance without drugs. If necessary, they can refer you to the psychiatrist, who can give you the medication, but doesn't want to talk.
They can also work in tandem. You might be more receptive to therapy and analyzing your feelings when you don't feel like the world is ending. IMO, there's a threshold where antidepressants are necessary. When I lose interest in everything I care about, I don't feel like cooking, everything seems boring, and I have no energy (anhedonia), that's my threshold.
I've been leery of CBT because it seems like it's too focused on how the patient thinks about their situation and not on actually creating a situation that's worth living.
It seems like for many people the issue isn't so much that they are sad or in pain so much as it is that their life lacks any sort of meaning or direction. The problem isn't so much the presence of something bad as it is the lack of something good.
In your experience does CBT engage with those sorts of issues?
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