Hacker News: euix

New comment by euix in "Amazon tells employees to return to office five days a week"

euix — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 15:12:17 +0000

Well I mean, look back to the Covid mandates - if employees were compliant than, I see no reason why management wouldn't think they would be compliant now. Having worked middle management in the corporate world - corps are self-selecting, all the people I have met there who have been around 10-20 years already internalized their state a long time ago. My direct boss was quite transparent about this, once referring himself as "a slave for 18 years".

New comment by euix in "Mobile Ad Blocker Will No Longer Stop YouTube's Ads"

euix — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 14:28:32 +0000

I think between Invidious and Freetube there are enough alternative feeds to to Youtube these days.

New comment by euix in "Anatomy of a credit card rewards program"

euix — Thu, 04 Apr 2024 12:51:45 +0000

Often times you will find cash only businesses, especially in Chinatown and restaurants that will give you a discount on the final bill if you pay in cash. I have been to some mid-range restaurants that will knock 10% off my bill if I pay in cash instead of credit. This is the merchant fighting back using their own stratagems.

In many cases in my experience the vendors who can successfully pull off this strategy have a high quality, high value product and operate in a no-frills store front and are often family owned, maybe a generation or two already. There is a Vietnamese banh mi sandwich vendor where I live who has been around for 30 years only accepts cash - they have the history and patronage to pull this off.

New comment by euix in "I worked in Amazon HR and was disgusted at what I was seeing with PIP plans"

euix — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 14:34:18 +0000

I have a colleague at Amazon who mentioned this last point as the explicit reason he planning to leave Amazon. He was (is) a people manager and every year, having to cut off a member of his team for no reason was not something he wanted to do on an ethical level. He described the process with me and in the end his solution was to give the IC a tip off that a PIP was coming and in that case that person was able to move to another team quickly enough to avoid the chopping block.

New comment by euix in "I worked in Amazon HR and was disgusted at what I was seeing with PIP plans"

euix — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 14:28:06 +0000

It's all about the money, the writer himself mentioned he had 100k's of stock that would vest. When you get into the 100k range of windfalls, people will do all sorts of things, even people you have known for years. That's why sometimes you only see people's true nature when their parents die and estate settlement comes into the picture.

If you don't want to deal with this kind of stuff, don't allow the almighty dollar to control your life.

New comment by euix in "Microsoft Swallows OpenAI's Core Team – GPU Capacity, Incentives, IP"

euix — Mon, 20 Nov 2023 16:10:47 +0000

I am somewhat reminded of Mike Pondsmith's Cyberpunk world where corporations effective own the nation state's that they are headquartered in.

New comment by euix in "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (November 2023)"

euix — Thu, 02 Nov 2023 14:37:33 +0000

  Location: Toronto, Canada
  Remote: Yes
  Willing to relocate: Would consider relocation to US
  Technologies: Python, C++, experience in machine learning, 6+ years of exp as a data scientist
  Résumé/CV: https://www.kuhanwang.com/static/KWANG_CV_NA.pdf
  Email: kw@ownmail.net

I have a lot of experience as a data scientist, I was trained as a physicists. I consider myself a good generalist and sleuthing, rough around the edges. I am currently taking a career break and working on an indie isometric game engine. If you care about that sort of thing you can look at the latest prototype here: https://kwgames.itch.io/macrocosm. I am looking for new opportunities in the near future. I am generally agnostic as to the role as long as I can be intellectually challenged and valuable to the effort.

New comment by euix in "FreeTube – The Private YouTube Client"

euix — Mon, 16 Oct 2023 16:40:52 +0000

I think there is an additional issue here - which is if you want to pay to remove ads from youtube you have to have an account and that by definition provides your analytics and browsing history to youtube no? There is no way to remove ads without turning over your behavioral analytics to youtube.

New comment by euix in "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (October 2023)"

euix — Tue, 03 Oct 2023 03:09:29 +0000

Hi, I am a generalist, with a strong specialization in Data science and machine learning. I have an academic background in physics and over 10 years of programming experience in C++ and Python.

Location:Toronto, Canada Remote:Yes Willing to relocate:Depending on location, could consider it. Technologies:Python, C++, Machine Learning Résumé/CV:www.kuhanwang.com Email:kw@ownmail.net

New comment by euix in "Cash payments above €3000 to be outlawed in Netherlands"

euix — Wed, 23 Aug 2023 14:20:30 +0000

I can't believe in a lot of these countries this is enforced or obeyed to any degree. The closer the empire is to collapse the stupider the laws.

New comment by euix in "Cash payments above €3000 to be outlawed in Netherlands"

euix — Wed, 23 Aug 2023 14:18:50 +0000

I have heard of someone (on a talk show) crossing over with a large amount of gold coins. Since the coins (the Gold Loonie) has a nominal face value of something like 200 CAD - he just told the customs that he was bringing over the nominal face value of the coins. This only works with coins not rounds, as rounds are not legal tender and maybe that is why rounds trade at a discount to coins?

New comment by euix in "We need scientific dissidents"

euix — Sat, 12 Aug 2023 14:18:19 +0000

The entire Covid years and the way government and society responded was the most cynical thing I have ever witnessed in my life and it completely altered my worldview and the way I see government, society and people in general. Some reckoning on this is in the future is small catharsis.

New comment by euix in "Johnson and Johnson sues researchers who linked talc to cancer"

euix — Mon, 17 Jul 2023 13:21:46 +0000

I don't know if you looked into pursuing academic career and running the post-doc circuit (maybe that doesn't happen in ML) but academia is ultimately a business and academics are overwhelming pressured to publish and increase the stats.

New comment by euix in "Ask HN: What one skill are you proud of developing on your own?"

euix — Thu, 13 Jul 2023 14:05:23 +0000

Several actually but here is one:

I learned passing reading comprehension of Chinese in high school. My parents were immigrants and I left China after kindergarten so I never could read or write Chinese - this always rustled me the wrong way because I didn't like the tone my mother used when she called me "illiterate" and I was too proud to go to Sunday Chinese school (also video gaming took its toll on my social development).

What I did was try to memorize five simplified characters a day - I would write them down in my little notebook, copy them out by hand 100 times each. I have stacks of paper with nothing by Chinese characters written on them stashed somewhere.

I based the curriculum on the Chinese language grade school textbooks. At that rate I would still remember maybe 1-2 of the 5 after 6 months, so factoring the attrition by the two year mark I had enough to figure out the meaning of newspaper articles or simple dialogue. From there it was possible to fill in the gaps of unknown characters by logical deduction. Although even today as a grown man reading in Chinese is a pain.

New comment by euix in "Rapid Covid tests miss 90% of asymptomatic cases"

euix — Thu, 13 Jul 2023 13:36:14 +0000

Can long covid be considered post-viral fatigue? I remember being knocked out with Mononucleosis years ago and being tired out for over a month afterwards. Or is long Covid something entirely different?

New comment by euix in "Excellence is a habit, but so is failure"

euix — Fri, 07 Jul 2023 14:40:53 +0000

It's very honest of him to breakdown how he makes his living on SerenityOS - really enjoyed that blog post, helps give people an idea of how a very technically saavy person can make it in today's world as a "nomad".

New comment by euix in "How the great firewall of China detects and blocks fully encrypted traffic [pdf]"

euix — Sat, 01 Jul 2023 03:52:51 +0000

I always wondered where the talent and technical expertise inside China for manning and refining the GFW comes from and how many people it feeds - it seems at this point like family planning, an agency so big it exists simply to perpetuate and provide livelihood to a host of people. Also how much truth is there to the statement that Cisco helped setup the GFW for China in the 90's?

New comment by euix in "YouTube is testing a more aggressive approach against ad blockers"

euix — Sat, 01 Jul 2023 03:34:03 +0000

This might be okay with me if it weren't for the fact that browsing through an account means Youtube can track my viewing habits.

New comment by euix in "Turning a height map into a nice looking 2D map"

euix — Sat, 01 Jul 2023 00:39:25 +0000

This is pretty cool, what kind of noise algorithm is allowing you to generate the the height map? Is this Perlin noise? I have been working on a game where the map is procedural generated.

New comment by euix in "Being “rockstars”: when software was a talents/creatives industry"

euix — Thu, 29 Jun 2023 20:25:55 +0000

I started my first industry job in 2015 well after this and I was still wined and dined the night before the interview. The cocktails were $12, I had three, my future manager assured me that there was nothing to worry about the next day. In my last job, there was still lunch at a "$$$$" restaurant (at least according to google reviews) after the on-site interview.

I once got flown out to Shanghai from NYC, all expenses paid for 3 nights to interview for the China operations of an European tech company.

I guess everything is now different with remote work but before the pandemic companies, especially your prospective manager, would go out of their way to make you feel good if they really wanted you. Those were the places you wanted to work, even if the salary was higher somewhere else, because you knew you would be privileged and respected before even stepping in the door. That meant getting more resources, having more leeway and freedom to do what you want.

I also get the feeling hackers and "creative programmers" are not as valued as much in today's market. Managers want "I" shaped as opposed to "T" shaped hires.