still cheap compared to those things. lab down the hall in grad school had an onyx [1] with the fancy polarized shutter 3d glasses for playing what we called "chem tv" or semi-empirical small molecule docking experiments - that was something like $250k or so in the early 90s.
I used to get it at Cafe Brussels in Houston. They used to have a dish with braised rabbit leg called Le Lapin aux Pruneaux. Instead of a beer stew they made it sweet and savory with prunes, raisins, onions, and carrots. Sooooo goooood.
> Fascism is to cancel others with opinions different to yours.
No. That is not what fascism is and using the word like that saps it of all meaning.
This is what Fascism is: [1]
> Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/ FASH-iz-əm) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement that rose to prominence in early-20th-century Europe.[1][2][3] Fascism is characterized by support for a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy
As others have said, one can reasonable debate whether Yarvin should be identified as a fascist or "merely" an authoritarian monarchist. But either way he advocates for the replacement of democracy with an oppressive authoritarian system, is in a position of some influence and power, and is an enemy of anyone who values a free and open society.
If you're not familiar with the Paradox of Tolerance, you should look it up. [2]
> The paradox of tolerance is a philosophical concept suggesting that if a society extends tolerance to those who are intolerant, it risks enabling the eventual dominance of intolerance, thereby undermining the very principle of tolerance.
There is a valid argument to be made that if we want a free, open, and tolerant society we can not tolerate those who publicly argue against that. We don't have to throw them in prison, but they should be "de-platformed" -- boycotted in all public spaces. Their authoritarian ideas discredited and ignored. That's what the parent comment is referring to. And that belief -- that certain ideas that threaten a free, open, and tolerant society should be discredited, de-platformed, and boycotted -- is in no way similar to fascism.
I mean facists were not known for writing HackerNews comments and you are kknd of doing the same thing you're complaining about. Not a good look in public.
while yarvin does not explicitly adopt the label of facist (and I might personally argue that it doesn't match him), he explicitly espouses for the fall of American democracy, and a return to a monarchist system.
I would imagine many people would find support of a modern-day, somewhat influential (he has several followers in Trump's administration, as well as among several right-wing billionaires) monarchist to be notable/distasteful.
Throughout my career, I've almost always been close enough to the user that I hear about it quickly when something is wrong. It's a tough problem that so many Google engineers are typically so far removed from end users. Or maybe it's just that a small part of the company has long subsidized the rest of the employees to the point that it doesn't matter how good their work is because they'll get paid anyway.
The engineers are pressured to significantly reduce "dependencies" for projects. Anything that could become risk or create friction is dramatically less appetizing.
Simply because of how many people that *must* agree with your proposal. Getting all the relevant tech leads, some you have never heard of or ever spoken with, to agree on a proposal for your team's project is a nightmare.
So you keep it as simple and agreeable as possible. Given the circumstances, it makes sense as one of the engineers. It's fairly fine advice in general wherever you work, but it just haunts all the work you do at Google in particular. Nothing gets done otherwise.
If you have a dependency that can be dropped from an engineering perspective, that's the route the 9 leads reviewing your design doc will take:
"Let's iterate and start with just the basics (no user testing)", "let's get this working and user test in a later phase", "I think this problem is obvious enough we don't need to consult with users about it."
I worked in Ads Integrity at the time, and for one of my projects I was concerned how it would impact the manual reviewers. Then I learned I couldn't talk with them, only by proxy through another person if we really had to. And that proxy takes time, so...
Very insightful. I've worked in only one company of Google's size, but it was a vastly different industry. I personally never got to speak with a user on a massive internal application my team worked on for years. :)
Right. In a global financial services organization, a strategic analysis app used by thousands of internal users was pretty high touch. SME business analysts would sit with the users to make sure they liked it and had no trouble. Every user generates significant revenue. Worldwide B2C is a different ball game, and Google barely makes money off of each individual user.
> The engineers are pressured to significantly reduce "dependencies" for projects.
Is a major factor of this Google's tendency to kill entire products, so you obviously don't want to make your hot new thing dependent on some other internal thing that might be killed off?
Interestingly there is less opportunity for that to happen.
Most of the internal infrastructure is quite available and stable, and there are clear choices for almost all of your application-level and backend-level needs.
Bringing up Google Maps here does nothing for your point because on web or native mobile you pay money to use the API for Google Maps (outside of the store fee). Offering a free version to end users does financially benefit Google.
There are numerous examples of people needing a smartphone to do things in their daily lives. I’ve read compelling stories of people who ran into trouble after ditching their smartphone.
There are lots of parallels to the railroad monopolies. Choice is not as available as you say it is.
You don’t get Maps “for free”, you pay with your data (your searches, your preferences, etc.). For Google maps is the bait to reel you in, you are the product they sell to their real customers: businesses. Google can shape your preferences by showing you what their paying customers want you to see.
I thought it’s self evident that products like Gmail, Search, Maps and others aren’t free because Google is aiming to do charity but because your personal data allows them to build a digital model of you and charge other businesses for access to that knowledge.
Around me I can’t think of a bank that allows any remote operation without a TAN only available on iOS or Android. That’s the root of a lot of future problems, not the least of which being that the bank charges you more for in person operations.
I understand that, but how does that factor into the larger conversation? Are you saying that Google should want to make sure these services should work flawlessly on other stores so we can be tracked by them even if we don't use the Play Store?
Other stores are a different topic or concern for Google. They want to retain control over anything that runs on the Android platform. Google thus ensures everyone must comply with rules that benefit Google. Anything that Google doesn’t like for whatever reason gets booted or screwed with.
Having the “valuable” apps like Maps only in their store is just another way to cement that authority.
Good point. Most of us at the conference are still trying to make a living with Rails. That's not a concern for him. Can he remember what it was like to have to do that? Probably, but he feels very differently waking up each day than the rest of us.
Here is the description for the Rails World 2026 Opening Keynote:
"Opening Keynote highlighting what's new in Rails, what's coming next, and where Rails is headed in the future."
DHH literally did not cover that. Not even close!
The first response in the conference chat described it as the "worst opening keynote possible to setup the Rails World conference." While someone soon disagreed with that, another guy later said he felt it undermined the later talks, and someone else said the Laracon conference had more about what the framework is doing in the AI age. He barely mentioned Rails. I get how he was excited about his experiments but I certainly wish he had focused more on what Rails is doing for this new era.
Around the turn of the century, my grandmother lamented how Wal-Mart had ruined the shopping experience in her small town. When the local hardware store and other stores closed, she ended up only with Wal-Mart where she said the employees didn't know anything and couldn't really help you. Anecdotal, I know, but this is a common refrain throughout the country, that by using their monopoly power they're able to undercut local businesses until they go bankrupt. The assumption is that we're left with is a net win due to lower prices for the consumer, but let me tell you another story.
An older relative had a very successful small conglomerate of businesses. One of them manufactured something costing close to $100 that Wal-Mart was interested in selling in its stores. After extensive negotiations, my relative told the Wal-Mart VP no because Wal-Mart was pressuring them to use cheaper parts that would make the product wear out more quickly. Wal-Mart didn't care because they'd be able to make the sales and then consumers would come back to buy again sooner, but my relative felt that was dishonorable. The VP said it was the first time a potential supplier ever walked away from him. They are notorious for their abuse of suppliers, and the ethical concerns are often very palpable. You might suggest this is simply market forces playing out, but we decided long ago that monopoly power often leads to a market we don't want to see in this country.
We the people get to decide what kind of society we want to live in. Their monopoly power means that in so many of the rural areas where they are, they might be one of the few viable employers. When people are poor, it's not so easy to just tell them to relocate to another geographical area, so it's easier for the entities benefiting from that to maintain the status quo at the expense of others. If we decide that for Wal-Mart to stay in business in the USA they need to pay employees more, with health insurance, then so be it. If they can't, then they can just go out of business and be replaced by a company that is able to navigate that balance better, offering pretty low prices while paying a bit more in wages.
California is the only state that regulates wait times for specialists. When you uttered the words "Bay Area" it signaled that you enjoy better service than most Americans. I know people in states very close to yours (as well as my own) who have had extensive wait times.
FAANG employee health insurance? Something like 1% of American workers get that, if even that many. Then throw in my oil company friends here in Houston and a few other industries which give premium benefits and you still have a tiny subset of the American workforce getting exceptionally strong benefits. Not at all indicative of the experience of most Americans.
The universities I worked for (both public and private) provided the same level of PPO insurance, as did a random fitness startup, a clinical diagnostics company, and a construction company. I invite you to reread the part where I said “several employers [plural] ranging from university to FAANG”.
Here in Houston, my friend who works at UH has excellent insurance. A quick search online confirms that it is much better than average. Different structure for employees at Rice, my alma mater, but still excellent. Gemini describes these employees being in a kind of "benefits bubble" here in Texas, and they're getting something way better from what most Texans get.
You said FAANG, so perhaps you're in California, a state that has laws regulating health insurance to an extent that make it unique in the USA?
> You said FAANG, so perhaps you're in California, a state that has laws regulating health insurance to an extent that make it unique in the USA
That is definitely a confounding factor, although I’m curious how much of that is the urban vs rural split in other states. (The construction company was not in California but oil boom-town adjacent in Texas)
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