While I don't have a good grasp on the larger issue, I hope we can protect small players from being squeezed. In my limited understanding, there are really two separate things here: Comcast vs Youtube and Comcast vs startup. As I understand it, Comcast gets mad that they have to invest in infrastructure so people can watch Youtube. They think Youtube is free-riding on their infrastructure. Comcast is envious of Youtube's profits and eyeballs. So Comcast wants to squeeze money out of Youtube. A battle between giants.
The other issue is that small sites including startups could get throttled almost incidentally in this war. They don't use much bandwidth, being small, but if Comcast enacts some "bizdev" process where it takes six months of negotiations to get into the fast lane, any deal below $1M is probably not worth their time.
This is how cell phone software worked before the iPhone - get permission before you can develop (IIRC). If we end up with fast-lane preferential pricing, it should really be available to the smallest players. Ideally it should be free, but the Apple app store model would work - $99/year for fast lane access until your bandwidth is really significant. But would the individual have to pay $99 to every major ISP out there?
Seems to be a subset of libraries and frameworks in general. They are not up front with the limitations of their software, so you have to invest a lot of hours finding them.
There's no absolute answer to the "build vs buy" conundrum. A lot of us are biased towards "build" and its useful to recognize that bias in our decision making. But the "buy" side often has hidden costs. In the author's case, which involves targeting multiple platforms, the "buy" side gets more attractive. In general you are deciding whether to code on platform X or on platform Y built on top of X.
Fashions come and go, and if you invest heavily on top of Y it may become "obsolete". Will you be willing to stay on Y when the developer/community has abandoned it? You may have to reinvest to port onto Y', while X remained somewhat stable.
The higher level the platform, the more likely you are to hit surprising limitations late in the process. Your role gradually transitions from technology producer to technology consumer.
Programming an AVR chip in C gives you a great feeling of space and power because the platform is so clean, while using Arduino you rapidly hit limitations and spend your time getting around them. Higher level platforms tend to make the easy things easier and the hard things very hard.
I wouldn't rule out the subjective factors. For many of us building is more fun than sorting through what others have built. The brain works a lot better when having fun, which is why MBA-style decisions about programming don't always work.
It's the lack of mechanical keyboard that really differentiated it. They all had number pads or mechanical keyboards, because everyone dismissed it. Now none of them do. Even Google's early prototypes had mechanical keyboards. When Schmit took took the idea to Google, they switched to screen keyboards.
However Carnegie doesn't advocate self-disclosure. Quite the opposite - he advises shutting up about yourself (and your organization, product, etc.) and listening to the other person.
That's the way I understood his writings as well. The older I get the more I disagree on that. It is just as important to share and position one's own identity and actively communicate it.
On the topic of scary chemical plants: check out the Chemical Safety Board's videos on Youtube. Mostly computer-animated recreations of serious industrial accidents.
This is a great idea. I wish more of the more serious post-mortems were this thorough in our industry. But I guess people rarely die, they just have millions of peoples data leaked or result in serious service interruptions, so we don't have much of an incentive.
This comment seems to have touched a nerve; it's voted way down.
Can anyone rebut Shivetya's claims?
1. Subway is the most expensive transportation option per passenger mile, when you include subsidies.
2. Only one other US city (besides NYC) has 10% of workers riding the subway. (If I'm reading that right - is heavy transit distinct from "light rail" here?)
If you can't rebut them, what good is voting them down?
I would turn that request on its head: can Shivetya produce any numbers to prove the claim about 10% of workers or the subway being the most expensive option? We're under no obligation to rebut a point that doesn't back itself up.
The article seems biased: it pathologizes power. However our ability to adapt to social role is probably an important asset. Most likely the changes they measured are good for the group's survival. A leader should not be seeking approval as much as a commoner. Maybe the problem is that we've violated some unstated "design assumptions" of our tribes. As for this CEO who got hauled before Congress - a blank affect sounds like the right approach. It's just a ritual for politicians to show off for the cameras, but expressing contempt (as Shkreli did) is dangerous.
> Most likely the changes they measured are good for the group's survival.
Unless I've missed something it seems much more reasonable to assume that the changes they measure were good for the leader's reproductive success, historically. That's a very different thing though...
A potentially useful instinct that has exceeded its bounds of usefulness is still a pathology. Eating lots of food is useful when you don't know when your next meal is, but in a modern context it leads to obesity. In this case, or seems like the CEOs' performance objectively went down, do I don't see how that's "good for the group's survival" in 2017.
I'm not sure what relation pathologizing power has with bias? I'm also not sure that losing your empathizing ability when in power is any more adaptive than any physical sort of atrophy is adaptive when bedridden. When you're powerful you don't have to exercise the empathizing muscle and so (many) leaders don't. But they should in the same way that I should go and exercise my physical muscles even though I don't have to.
Muscular atrophy is definitely adaptive as an anti-starvation tool. Don't need that particular muscle? Lose the muscle and become more calorie-efficient. And you get some free caloric energy out of consuming the muscle at the same time.
Muscular atrophy certainly is the result of adaption over time. Pissing your pants when you get scared enough is also a product of adaptation. But neither is particularly convenient for a modern human today, which is clearly the actual point of the post above.
Reflexive lack of empathy for people in proportion to the degree you have power over them may be a logical product of the evolution of the human organism. But it might not be something a democratic society benefits from in its leaders, to bring thing back to the topic.
It would be legal if you can prove in court that IQ is reasonably related to the job.