Hacker News: troels

New comment by troels in "Switch from Chrome to Firefox"

troels — Thu, 30 May 2019 18:23:10 +0000

I wonder if that might backfire. I've been using Chromium for a while now, but whenever I need to see video, I copy paste the url over to Firefox. At some point, I'm going to be bothered enough to just switch permanently to Firefox.

New comment by troels in "Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets"

troels — Sat, 18 May 2019 12:37:59 +0000

Yeah, but for those they have a cheat sheet next to the register.

New comment by troels in "Aldi, a brutally efficient grocery chain, is upending America's supermarkets"

troels — Fri, 17 May 2019 21:51:09 +0000

They stuck to it for a long time and the argument was indeed speed and to some extend ergonomics (the cashier doesn't need to lift up items). There is a system to it (100-199 is liquor, 400-499 dairy etc.), so it's fairly easy to memorise it.

New comment by troels in "We Can Do Better Than SQL"

troels — Thu, 09 May 2019 21:24:41 +0000

Some dialects allow you to hint to what index to use.

New comment by troels in "Tell HN: My usability pet peeve – am/pm times with a leading zero"

troels — Mon, 06 May 2019 12:42:15 +0000

wtf

Brought to you by the same folks who figured that locale settings should determine how CSV is generated/interpreted.

New comment by troels in "We Don't Have a Talent Shortage. We Have a Sucker Shortage"

troels — Sat, 20 Apr 2019 21:39:58 +0000

And because everyone knows this, a contractor can easily charge 2-3 times what an employee makes - aka what they're actually worth. The system works (Except of course for the employees)

New comment by troels in "Great developers are raised, not hired"

troels — Fri, 12 Apr 2019 21:09:39 +0000

This is the "common knowledge" thing to do, but I don't think it's always applicable. If you have an advantage in the market (e.g. are sought after), you can simply present a high figure and either they accept or you move on to the next. By playing the let-them-go-first game, you're implicitly signalling that you don't know where the ceiling is. On the other hand, if you say a high figure with confidence, they may accept it even if they weren't really prepared for that to begin with. Information asymmetry can also go the other way.

New comment by troels in "Engineer refusing to file/disclose patents"

troels — Sun, 24 Mar 2019 20:33:34 +0000

You seem to assume that the company/management would act rationally. I'm going to guess that you are an engineer?

New comment by troels in "To lure young talent, banks mimic tech workspaces"

troels — Tue, 12 Mar 2019 08:43:19 +0000

This is very accurate. I think it might be somewhat true for the majority of the workforce though. For specialised roles such as developers, management etc. I think the spread is bigger.

If I were to guess, I would say that the lower bound is higher, giving a skewed distribution with a big bloc of salaries around the same avg. range. Couple this with a reluctance for high earners to speak openly about it and you have the illusion of everybody getting roughly the same.

A very clear sign that wages are kept superficially low, is that as a contractor I can get away with asking 3x what I would as a perm developer. In theory I get less job security this way, but in reality there is so much demand that this is a non-issue.

New comment by troels in "To lure young talent, banks mimic tech workspaces"

troels — Tue, 12 Mar 2019 08:27:23 +0000

It also seems to apply to all types of employees, not tech specifically. The executive is from ISS, which is a services company, not a tech company.

New comment by troels in "How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former industry execs tell all"

troels — Wed, 06 Mar 2019 10:53:03 +0000

Ok - Thought perhaps I was missing something. The analogy probably isn't a good fit for luxury watches, which is a truly weird industry. Rolex, with their near-mythological status could probably shut down all advertisement and still sell their watches.

But your original point might still be true, regardless.

New comment by troels in "How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former industry execs tell all"

troels — Tue, 05 Mar 2019 21:55:15 +0000

Curious - Where do you have the information fro that TAG have a smaller advertising budget than Rolex? I would've assumed the opposite.

New comment by troels in "Ask HN: Top three questions for a startup before accepting a job offer?"

troels — Thu, 31 Jan 2019 20:46:21 +0000

It really depends on why you want to join a startup/where you are in your career. If you are young, you probably want to focus on gaining experience and build your network. If you are older, you may value financial aspects more.

New comment by troels in "The Overloaded Soldier: Why U.S. Infantry Now Carry More Weight Than Ever"

troels — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 10:03:33 +0000

    The Army decided some years ago to give every Company (~140 people) a Raven drone for recon. However, it's a huge deal if it gets lost (if the GPS guidance were to suddenly fail), so no one ever uses them to avoid the fallout associated with losing Army equipment.

That sounds like a serious problem?

New comment by troels in "The Social Credit System in China [video]"

troels — Thu, 27 Dec 2018 21:06:50 +0000

Same in Denmark, at least for DUI. You'll get roughly 10 x BAC x monthly salary (post tax). A local footballer famously got hit hard by this, with a fine of DKK 842K (~ USD 130K).

New comment by troels in "Ask HN: What's the largest amount of bad code you have ever seen work?"

troels — Fri, 16 Nov 2018 12:04:54 +0000

> It's a bit heartbreaking at first (you spend hours/days/weeks working on something, and then a fellow hacker comes and cuts of the unnecessary pieces), but in the long run I'm grateful we do that.

The single hardest thing about programming, I'd say.

New comment by troels in "Ask HN: What was the best decision you made in your career?"

troels — Wed, 26 Sep 2018 07:04:00 +0000

How does that benefit you though?

New comment by troels in "Chrome 69 will keep Google Cookies when you tell it to delete all cookies"

troels — Tue, 25 Sep 2018 10:14:43 +0000

I'm sure Microsoft had the same reasoning about IE.

New comment by troels in "How America lost its love for the stick shift"

troels — Wed, 12 Sep 2018 07:05:41 +0000

" ... so I transitioned to an automatic"

Clever.

New comment by troels in "How an International Hacker Network Turned Stolen Press Releases into $100M"

troels — Fri, 24 Aug 2018 10:49:20 +0000

Somewhat related. I wonder how often someone would plant false information that would cause a panic sell-off, then buy on the dip, before everyone realise that it was a lie? It's like the opposite of inside information. (Does this particular scheme have a name?)

* Edit:

A quick googling suggests this is fairly prevalent. Must be keeping the SEC busy.