Technologies: Backend engineering - databases (SQL and NoSQL), APIs, making complex systems work together. I know Typescript / Javascript and Ruby, but happy to learn other languages.
I'm a backend engineer with ~7 years of experience, most recently in the Risk division at Stripe for 3.5 years. On my teams, I've been known for making myself an expert on complex code and data, for being an excellent debugger and reviewer, for improving efficiency (on my last team, I took our core cron job's runtime from 8 hours to 15 minutes), and for working to invest in technical foundations.
I'm especially interested in complex technical problems, working with data and databases, and gaining new skills.
Not all, only most Americans. For Brits it's usually after Sir Garfield (spear field) St Aubrun Sobers.
And even before Gary Cooper there were people using it for Gerald (spear power), Gerard (spear hard/brave), and (old) Gerbert (spear bright). It is a cousin to, but believed not historically derived from, Garrett/Garrod. It is unclear whether German/Germain derive from this root or not. It is usually unrelated to Jared (which is usually a Hebrew name, but does have spelling variants that overlap Garrod).
Well, programming is a tool, right? There are clearly incorrect ways to program, but that doesn't mean there's one correct way to program - because it depends on what you're trying to make.
It's incorrect to make a bookshelf that can't hold the weight of books, but IKEA isn't incorrect to make a crappy-but-adequate bookshelf that will get given away when you move, and a master carpenter isn't incorrect to make an expensive-but-beautiful bookshelf that will be used for many decades.
A seed-stage startup trying to see if anyone cares about their product at all should probably accept it being 100x slower than it theoretically could be. And the Linux maintainers should be working hard to shave milliseconds.
It's not really relevant to bring in radical overhauls to our economic system when people are talking about what politically-possible changes might help improve the housing market.
> Gen Z were heavily supporting Trump in the recent election
What on earth are you talking about? 18-29 year olds were the most Democratic age group, as usual. 18-29 year old men might have slightly favored Trump, but to a significantly lower degree than older men.
Gen Z only voted democrat by a 4% margin which is an absolute death sentence for the democrat party considering people only vote further right as they get older. For context Obama won that demographic by 20% in 2012, and won it by even more in 2008. If those numbers hold democrats have no path to winning national elections
> Gen Z were heavily supporting Trump in the recent election [and therefore Zuckerberg needed to change political course for his social media to stay relevant]
which is the false claim I was responding to.
> If those numbers hold democrats have no path to winning national elections
Yes, it's certainly the case that if Democrats keep getting the same percentage of votes as in elections they lost badly, they'll keep losing elections.
Did you just arrive from Mars to judge our discourse norms?
It's completely typical to expect someone who makes a surprising factual claim to back it up with evidence. You're talking to them because you think they might know something you don't, and be able to point to how they know it - or they might not, and them offering weak or non-existent evidence would show that.
> It's completely typical to expect someone who makes a surprising factual claim to back it up with evidence.
A citation does not necessarily provide evidence, it only guarantees the words of a third-party. A third-party can spout complete nonsense as well as anyone else. The request ultimately serves to appeal to a flawed assumption that a third-party's words are more valuable than the words of who you are speaking to.
Which also incorrectly assumes there is someone else's words to even draw from. HN is well known for attracting experts in their field. It could have very well been that the parent commenter is the only person who knows anything about the subject. There may not be anyone else. Even if there was, to dismiss his knowledge as the hypothetical leading expert to hear from some other random nobody doesn't make sense.
But, to give the benefit of the doubt, if we assume there is a greater subject matter expert who can give you better words than the parent to describe the knowledge you seek: What purpose does the middleman serve? Why not talk directly with the expert? You are going to get a lot more out of it. The middleman, if not a valuable party to the subject, isn't going to relay what is most useful if for no other reason than because he doesn't know what is useful. A citation remains pointless.
> You're talking to them because you think they might know something you don't
Of course. Which, again, questions why you would want to defer to a third-party? If you have good reason to believe someone knows something you don't, why wouldn't you want to hear it from them directly in their own words? As I said before, in this case elaboration is what would be valuable. A citation is not. A citation is completely useless here. While citations do have a place, asking for a citation in the middle of a conversation is a fallacious device.
> Which also incorrectly assumes there is someone else's words to even draw from.
The claim in question is that there is a prevalence of hyper-mobility among programmers.
That can only be backed by data. Data gathered from a large number of people. Even if we suppose that the claim is the result of a solo research effort --- one person did all the data gathering and analysis --- and that that solo researcher is the very person making the comment on hacker news, there are still other words that can be referenced. They are not another person's words, but that same researcher's words hosted elsewhere, giving interesting details about the research!!!
The comment, whether we believe it or not, simply contains insufficient detail to someone interested.
Don't you understand?
Indeed, it's as if you came from space to dictate alien discourse protocols to humans.
Okay. But the request was for citation, not data around mobility. A request for the latter would at least carry something, albeit unless you are an expert yourself you likely won't be able to take much from it, but that is not what was requested. Still, I posit that elaboration is the better approach. If the person is, in fact, an expert in the subject they may have better ways of broaching the subject with you than dumping raws value upon you. And if dumping raw data is truly the best they can offer, that is still apt to be where they end up in their elaboration anyway, so in the worst case you haven't lost anything. Demanding that you know the best way to continue the conversation when it is you without the requisite knowledge seems foolhardy.
> there are still other words that can be referenced
Why reference when he can reiterate his own words, if there is merit in retelling what he has already told before? HN is not a Wiki trying to index historical knowledge, it is decidedly a link aggregator combined with discussion forum, with the latter being the feature that is relevant to the context. Further, this seems to imply that you don't trust the words on HN, but if that is the case why bother with HN at all? There is no utility if nothing can be taken from the words posted here.
> Indeed, it's as if you came from space to dictate alien discourse protocols to humans.
I have never seen this behaviour outside of Reddit (and where Reddit memes have leaked into HN). Humans having a discussion usually talk to each other in the present, not go back and forth pointing to quotes written in the past and likely written by a third-party. Even from my alien vantage point I recognize that as something humans would find strange. What makes you think it is human protocol?
Just an hour ago read somebody say that the California fires were caused by a combination of 5G and coronal mass ejections.
At the time I dismissed his words is not being supported by scientists or other authorities but in future I will remember your wisdom that it is "a flawed assumption that a third-party's words are more valuable than the words of who you are speaking to."
> "I dismissed his words" ... "you are speaking to"
Which is it? Did you dismiss him or did you speak to him? If you dismissed him as you claim, the quote, even ignoring how it is taken out of context, doesn't work. It explicitly refers to where there is an exchange happening.
Something being in a business's best interests is very far from a guarantee that it'll happen.
I've worked on a team in a household-name big tech company where our mission was almost exactly "make sure we're not blowing up our most important customers for no reason". It's not nearly as easy as it sounds: defining who's important is hard, and defining what should and shouldn't be allowed is hard, and then implementing that all correctly and avoiding drift over time is tricky too.
"Doctors won't mention that losing weight and exercising more will make you healthier" is quite a take.
I've heard exactly the opposite from any number of people: that if you're overweight at all, many doctors will tell "lose weight and exercise" and then usher you out the door, rather than pay attention to the specifics of your medical problems - sometimes missing serious issues as a result.
When they have to turn patients over at the rate of 10 per hour due to the policy of the private equity group that owns their practice, they will be inclined to offer blanket advice that, while actually good and applicable for 80% of people, will tend to miss the edge cases.
Remote: Yes
Willing to relocate: No
Technologies: Backend engineering - databases (SQL and NoSQL), APIs, making complex systems work together. I know Typescript / Javascript and Ruby, but happy to learn other languages.
Resume: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/d0s3bj143o1rab1vrpgyj/Sam-Lie...
Email: samliebow [at] gmail [dot] com
I'm a backend engineer with ~7 years of experience, most recently in the Risk division at Stripe for 3.5 years. On my teams, I've been known for making myself an expert on complex code and data, for being an excellent debugger and reviewer, for improving efficiency (on my last team, I took our core cron job's runtime from 8 hours to 15 minutes), and for working to invest in technical foundations.
I'm especially interested in complex technical problems, working with data and databases, and gaining new skills.