The interesting contrast, though, is that the blog post demonstrates strong communication skills and self awareness.

Yeah I was thinking it was extremely well written. I want to be on their side after reading it, but I've encountered enough individuals that are completely different people online than how they are in real life. Especially in the way they communicate and how they speak.

All that being said, I would not be able to take the OP's side until I heard the interviewers side of the story as well.

As another neovim/vim expat using VSCode these days (because I got tired of fixing configuration), this is also my number one complaint. I want to be able to view any file in any split. Honestly, I wish my whole window manager worked this way (stacking WMs get close). And my browser - why can't I display any "tab" in any window with a couple of key strokes? It drives me batty how inflexible the split/buffer/pane/window model is outside of vim and emacs land. I don't want tab groups; I don't want independent windows; I don't want VSCode editor groups that are pita to close. For the love pixels, I want to make the content I care about appear in the window I have in front of me, where those windows are arranged to consume my monitor's space without overlap. /soapbox-dismount.

Using Github issues as a manager of multiple teams using multiple repos in GitHub has so many gaps, I often wonder if I'm just doing it wrong. The multi-repo issues feature a few years back was a huge step forward but also is very incomplete, still. Multi-repo labels and milestones, for example, are an obvious missing feature.

Exactly this, they are so close!

But it’s acceptable to put in the hands of Elon Musk?

No, that's not acceptable either. Elon should never have been allowed to get full control of Twitter/X. But that is a separate battle. And it doesn't make the issue with TikTok being under CCP control any less of a problem (unless you're China and trying to shift the narrative with "what about Elon", and if you are that basically proves the point that you can't have a foreign adversary in a position to be able to heavily, while subtly, influence public opinion through an algorithm.)

> Elon should never have been allowed to get full control of Twitter/X.

We can't just ban everything though. It'd be better to just allow everything.

Honestly X is pretty crazy on the propaganda these days, it's a little scary. The issue with TikTok would be way more subtle or speculative. Anyway if it is "unacceptable", I don't want that to be for the govt to decide. Even if it was being overtly politically manipulative (which is less scary than being subtle I guess) - I'd still support it. I like consuming foreign media, recognizing bias, being exposed to different view points, and thinking critically to make my own decisions. If you don't think the average american can do that, well too bad, we can't just spoon-feed people "approved" content.

I like consuming foreign media too, and I have no problem with Americans have access to CCP media.

But control of an algorithm that can shift public opinion in ways that are imperceptible through promotion / demotion of posts on certain topics, is a different matter altogether. And the CCP are masters at this (since their own social networks in China are heavily controlled).

I 100% agree with open access to all sources - but you should know what the sources are. If the CCP secretly owned the NYT, that would be a problem as I would want to know that when I read the NYT it's likely reflecting CCP authorized views, just like I know what to expect when I read the Economist, WSJ, or The Times.

From a geopolitics standpoint, the effective question here is “whose guns are the owners of the company worried about?” Elon is a bit of an outlier here because he’s effectively bought the government now, but in theory, if the US government decides to arrest Elon and seize his assets, that’s a big problem for Elon, whereas if China does, that’s a lesser problem for him (yes, Tesla, I know). It’s the same reason the US banned Huawei from US telecoms: the US government can’t threaten Huawei like they can Cisco.

None of this is a normative statement - I’m not saying that this is good or bad, but if you want to know why the US government thinks Elon is better than ByteDance, it’s because they can shoot Elon tomorrow if they decide to, but they can’t shoot Zhang Yiming without causing an international incident.

No making decisions by a committee of individuals doing their best in an open and transparent way is the correct method.

Basically what Twitter was before Elon bought it.

That incessant whataboutism is the only recourse of those who oppose the ban really helps the cause of those who are for it.

Elon Musk doesn't have a military hostile to the US, nor are his companies controlled by any, so for the purposes of this concern, yes.

When it comes to actual harm done to Americans (particularly via their own data), that harm is continually done by US commercial and government interests.

This law isn't a consumer protection law, nor does it attempt to be.

He does take regular phone calls from Putin, the content of which we're not privy to, and he meets with the Iranian government on the down-low.

I think those alone would be grounds to at least take a close look at his access to Twitter data, his censorship choices and any input he has into the algorithms.

I'm glad that darkness is respected in some places. The need to live in constant light is, to me, unnerving. Light pollution, like noise pollution, creates a myopic dome of sensory oblivion, separating us from experiencing the sounds of nature, the splendor the night sky, the emotions of isolation. I think we'd be better off with a nightly reminder of the natural world and expansive universe beyond our city block.

People are afraid of the darkness.

I really wish that wasn't the case. But removing lights is an uphill battle powered by irrational arguments and doomed to failure even on the cases where it's clearly the best option.

Even dimming the lights is hard.

I've grudgingly come to admit that also people who don't have great vision love bright lighting. I can usually see perfectly well by starlight, but that's not the case for everyone.

Median wealth of a US households by race: white $250k; black: $27k; asian: $320k

https://www.pewresearch.org/2023/12/04/wealth-gaps-across-ra...

That actually shows that helping poor people would help black the most. So why not do it?

The message is also that consumerism is driven by demand creation - and that demand creation takes its toll on both the demander and the buyer.

The greatest minds of our generation are hard at work creating algorithms to give kids eating disorders, making the next iPhone 3mm thinner, and figuring out how to make a TV dinner that contains no actual food.

Our modern world is so incredible. I wish we could do some good things.

Many studies find that a majority of personal bankruptcies in the US involve medical debt with some estimates of ~500,000 medical-cost contributed bankruptcies per year. A hospital (might) not kick you to the curb if you are dying in their emergency room. However, this is not the same as catastrophic coverage.

It is functionally the same for the recipient of the medical care who wouldn’t be able to afford it out of pocket. You get the medical care, and you don’t pay for it. Then declare bankruptcy if you have to.

The article discussed this and had an interesting point (and some stats for evidence) - that shooters waiting in the corner create space for driving to the basket.

I think the author dismissed that too casually. Anything that makes the three less valuable will result in less space around the hoop. That's not necessarily a bad thing if we want to reemphasize the mid-range shot. The only way to tilt the game back that way is to change the math on the current dunks/layups & threes meta.

Right? Trans people being comfortable being open in public. Obama's "open borders" while deporting record numbers of immigrants (https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-polit...). Uncomfortable protests in support of Palestine. What a shit-show. I can't believe we made it out alive.