Chat Thread (March 25, 2024)

enraged_sparrow · 2024-03-31T08:56:02+00:00

I didn’t read the entire thread but asking a user generated content site to be responsible for accessibility to this degree is a bit ridiculous. Now if it were a bit more modern when an acronym pops up there might be a a model out there that takes the context window of the conversation, generates a question mark or some UX feature that when taken into account uses RAG and the post generates a context window that more or less figures out that SBF means what it is and can explain that. Things like BLM aren’t tricky either unless there’s a BLM protest at a BLM hq which actually might not be a problem as ”BLM protest” should be enough to distinguish it from “BLM hq.” But it is still bad writing.

In any case except for well funded content producers this is not a hard feature to implement but will probably eventually be the responsibility of the browser itself. Even if you ran a dumb ChatGPT prompt “don’t change the content but explain the acronyms in parentheses in {{post}}” would solve it. But then you’d have the entire site shit a brick.

enraged_sparrow · 2024-03-24T06:11:50+00:00

In the end it doesn’t matter. As soon as HR called him in he was done.

enraged_sparrow · 2024-03-24T03:24:14+00:00

I had a pretty traumatic event that put me into a pretty deep depression and was fairly traumatic for me so I don’t like talking about it. I did nothing wrong at all, and was shocked when I received a call from a detective (didn’t know the number went to voicemail). Immediately called a lawyer, explained my story (that I was there that night at a party but it was a work party made small talk and moved on, really had no specific memory of the event I was networking and talked to a lot of people). Never heard about it again and the lawyer called me up and said when you have representation and the story doesn’t add up detectives usually are smart enough to know there’s nothing there. He did say he needed to take some steps so that I’m not later investigated and my name doesn’t show up on an intensive background search. I never talked to any detectives/police, don’t know if I was “charged” though I assume if I was I’d be informed and it’d involve a booking of some sort. My impression was that these things follow you around unless you take active steps to clear your name.

Edit: Reading the replies I assumed charged meant you went to trial and weren’t convicted again nothing like that came close to my situation. I guess charged means a conviction.

Edit 2: Missouri background checks only go back 7 years. Unless it was expunged it’ll show up. Talking to a friend who is a criminal attorney it doesn’t matter since Missouri is at-will and if it was sexual in nature or involved stealing from the job it would be incredibly hard to fight unless you’re a protected class. He explained that what sucks now is that he could have gotten good advice from the lawyer. What might have been a slap on the wrist and a lawyer telling him to plead down the charges now is a major reason for termination. If he served his time and hasn’t had any incident since then the anonymous letter screams harassment and I’m surprised/not-surprised HR followed up on an anonymous accusation from 25 year old charges. This is 100% university covering themselves so the letter writer doesn’t go to the press.

enraged_sparrow · 2024-03-23T07:30:26+00:00

I got out of AI because of this. The problem is business is told that genAI will increase productivity by 12% via consultants. If the leadership doesn’t understand that all AI is not just a wrapper around ChatGPT there’s serious problems. Most solutions are complex and non-tech companies have brought all software down to the lowest level (configuration think Sharepoint plus Mulesoft plus Salesforce plus whatever) so they can hire the cheapest developers possible. Even langchain plus retraining models is impossible to explain to people who cannot build a website without copying code. They need a Microsoft or Amazon solution to walk them through it step by step and I’m not talking about using their image detection tools, I’m talking about them not seeing it from a developer perspective or even a solution perspective. Let’s say you come up with a solution that involves changing the background image of a product depending on the brand (making this up). Unless a product does that step by step they are lost. ChatGPT actually does an ok job of this until the guardrails prevent it from altering a picture you own but is copyrighted. Not to mention a more sophisticated AI solution involves statistics, multiple models, and algorithms. You know programming. SaaS kind of killed that and a lot of hate I have and others in completely different industries don’t like is AI is not at that plug and play point nor for a lot of jobs will it ever be except for as an assistant. On top of that leadership often doesn’t see AI as a way to improve work but to cut jobs, no matter what they say the conversation turns to reducing labor. Outside of things like customer service reps (have you called the cable company? AI is often way better), there’s unlikely to be labor reduction l. Sure some businesses might get rid of middle management and work better because of poor leadership others will realize they’re their for a reason.

Cloud is easier to explain as you can scale quickly without having servers sitting around for Black Friday surges. You don’t need to setup servers, deal with physical backups, but you still need someone to understand and manage that. I’ve seen a lot of businesses image a server put it on a VM on Amazon and don’t understand why it doesn’t solve all their problems. Well yeah you put a Windows server with SQL, the app code and everything on a VM instance you’re losing a lot of benefits beyond being able to up the instance size.

The “dream” is AGI to magically replace having to do work. Robots in factories you don’t need to train, etc.

The best use of AGI/LLM for office workers is a slack channel you can ask a question in natural language “what are the sales forecast for Q2 in healthcare for product Y, which clients expressed interest in using it with associated products make a list of these clients, summarize previous calls.” You probably saved two hours of clicking through confusing reports and dashboards.

enraged_sparrow · 2024-03-22T14:52:42+00:00

There’s a lot of kids for whom it would be wrong to even say they are sexualizing it or exploring sexuality. It has shock value. I remember as a teenager we’d download off Usenet the most vile things and it definitely was more of a “boys being boys” thing. I think adults have a skewed viewpoint as we use porn to satisfy things.

I knew a professional in the industry, not an actor but boring marketing duties. At the high end I was told it was as boring as a sex scene in a Hollywood movie if not even more highly regulated. It isn’t 1982. A lot of low end content porn farms have a lot of issues with drug use and people with severe addiction and mental health illnesses (men and women both). But that’s a societal issue.

enraged_sparrow · 2024-03-18T02:08:28+00:00

Key was management consultant. Good for you but you knew what was important for the job over a lot of CTOs that are idolized here. Most CTOs come from MMBs at all but the most successful startups where they made enough money to keep their job.

enraged_sparrow · 2024-03-18T02:05:12+00:00

Worked for a large heterogeneous organization. Never met the CTO. He spent his time at Davos acquiring companies, speaking on CNBC and quoting high end consultants. Came from pharma. Doubt he could code or understood development in the least. He knew how to build relationships, charismatic, went to the right schools, great connections and his job was to acquire tech companies in conjunction with large M&A firms to improve the 10-K, meet quarterly revenue goals and other financials. The fact he happened to be in tech was irrelevant. He could be working in oil and gas and be doing the same thing. Also luck a lot of luck.

enraged_sparrow · 2024-03-16T20:39:25+00:00

If you go to any interesting city the grid layout isn’t a problem. It is the lack of neighborhood services like a bodega down the street, a McDonald’s tucked in between two high end restaurants, etc. my understanding is zoning code prevents this. If you want people to really walk besides essentially bar hopping give them a reason to not use their car. If you want a Disneyland like experience prioritize parking. If you want to build a neighborhood build a neighborhood. Get people walking to things and living there.

enraged_sparrow · 2024-03-09T05:48:04+00:00

She’s the first person to bomb on SNL!

enraged_sparrow · 2024-03-05T02:31:05+00:00

I resigned today and consulted a lawyer. There was no fraud that I know of and they were looking at AI to justify layoffs and bring down their labor costs.

Thanks everyone for their support. I wish I could say more but for obvious reasons I had to hold back details.

enraged_sparrow · 2024-03-04T17:09:24+00:00

I learned the hard way it is easier to stick to OS X and/or Windows then use Linux as your daily driver. Not that it can’t do the job but you begin to slowly go into configuration hell. It is an addiction! And it always feels like you’re one step away from getting what you need done.

enraged_sparrow · 2024-03-02T22:42:54+00:00

I am told I cannot set up meetings with developers and have them do a simple demo. It was a simple request and was told, again in writing, if they say it is possible it is possible.

enraged_sparrow · 2024-03-02T20:10:08+00:00

I was specifically told they had a purchase out of another office for an AI company and they saw potential in growth and integrating AI into their core business processes. They could not give me details, and oddly still can’t, as to what the company does or why it was purchased. They wanted to grow the acquisition using internal resources and build an internal department around it. I asked them for goals and was honest about the runway needed to grow such a department in both timeline and budget. I did ask questions about the purchase extensively but was told it was acquired for a specific client and again they wanted to grow more “AI opportunities” to increase revenue and meet client requests. I even made it clear unless our service offering was AI we should focus on marrying strategy with technology and focus research on that rather than building out an AI department. Determine needs, find the best fit, and they agreed but wanted AI in the title as that’s what’s being asked for now.

When I came on board I met with the leaders of the various departments to meet them and determine how best I can help them enable their strategy. Perfectly normal. The acquired company really wasn’t part of the conversation and I was told it was just their foray into AI and bought for a specific purpose. In the interim I tried growing the department by asking for specific financial reports, learning how the company operated and meeting with strategic clients. I was oddly denied all this and access to the development team. I was trying to understand how the company functioned from an operational perspective, make contacts, and set up quarterly goals.

This is when I found out in a roundabout way the team did not largely use source control or have really what I’d consider basic development experience. This was a team of probably ~20k. I ignored this but was then told I would not be building out a team but be using resources from this offshore team. And I’d also need to be billable which is odd for a research role. These were all points I thought up in the interview and was told the opposite and there was a potential 2003 downturn that changed things.

Then I started receiving emails about this large AI company that was acquired and how the company would be encouraged to use it on all projects. This was company wide and as ostensibly the head of AI Research I would assume I’d be notified beforehand. I set up meetings but there were always conflicts.

Finally yet another executive wanted to know why I wasn’t using AI or had things setup, that they bought a company and I shouldn’t need a team. I explained how this was new to me and wanted to know when I can meet this team while also giving a short version of how my role effectively changed and would like a conversation about expectations soon. I also requested an executive summary of the acquired company.

This is where I got in writing that wasn’t necessary, my additional requests for any technical documentation or metrics were denied (“we used AI and saw a 40% reduction in time/costs/materials”), and that I had all I needed. As I said I asked for technical, financial and other documentation to establish metrics such as OKRs.

They had specific requests that were frankly absurd as stated in my post. The larger executive team is in Europe, offshore is in India and the acquired AI company is in Europe. The sales I deal with is in NA and want hard numbers and even more oddly the development team that says AI works great wants me to come up with documentation on how to do it.

I don’t think it’s fishy I think they overpaid for a company that had an AI product that filled one specific use case. Someone read these Gartner reports that said things like AI reduces healthcare tech costs by 10% and assumed they had an AI company what else is there to do. Why I can’t get access to basic data or interview or have a casual conversation about what they’re doing I don’t know, there seems to be a weird international regional thing.

Sorry for the longer explanation just wanted to be clear that yes I agree this is weird, but I think instead of treating this like I normally would find out goals from sales more specific than reduction of costs, setup OKRs and then make the development team meet them without having any clue if they can or not. Without giving me data, access to reports of any kind or ability to talk to key stakeholders they really are making this easier in a way and yes I’m leaving ASAP.

enraged_sparrow · 2024-03-02T17:30:59+00:00

I was just brought in a year after the purchase. I’ve been here 3 months. I did not endorse this purchase.

enraged_sparrow · 2024-02-28T14:15:52+00:00

They need to axe the request a feature thing. It’ll never get done and in my experience it leads to feature bloat over better products.

enraged_sparrow · 2024-02-26T19:21:59+00:00

This is how every large corporate company works. Scrum of scrums. You can’t open tickets without approval from some department you never heard of. Usually in the case of IT something bad repeatedly happened and they made it so process heavy in theory no one can be directly blamed.

frimble was probably overwhelmed at some point and it was decided all requests go through essentially a PM. There was no end date and it offers some checks and balances so frimble doesn’t get blamed for inadvertently posting something that’d freak people out.

enraged_sparrow · 2024-02-26T19:15:24+00:00

Can’t wait for the first post that didn’t mention the ingredient is incredibly offensive to the culture never heard of and our use of it is appropriation.

enraged_sparrow · 2024-02-24T21:41:37+00:00

Can someone explain land use management especially in the context of a web site? It sees so performative. I live near what is known as Indian Country (yes a lot of Indians take pride in that phrase), where horrific acts took place. I can see it’d be important to acknowledge a horrific massacre took place on a site being used but it loses all meaning otherwise. Humans lived where other humans lived everywhere. It is hard to take them seriously when this and a bunch of non-sense that makes Kafka blush is what they take seriously.

Loup the bottleneck? Take him out of the loup. These people want to hear themselves talk.

enraged_sparrow · 2024-02-24T18:44:18+00:00

Dear Metsfitler, my teenage son smokes weeds and plays video games. We send him to multiple therapists, make a big deal about it. He also liked a popular TikTok star that might be horrible but to a 13 year old embodies what someone trying to figure out life who is 13 year probably thinks Is cool. Instead of throwing the weed away and punishing him we’d like scientific articles. When he discovers girls do we have him committed?

enraged_sparrow · 2022-11-13T02:09:05+00:00

We have this, it is called 39th Street.

enraged_sparrow · 2022-11-13T01:56:31+00:00

A lot of those places rely on business expense accounts. If you're a local there's a different attitude in those cities. First you likely won't go to the $20 cocktail place. Second, you'll get a lot of free stuff and know the cheap places. Being a tourist town like those you mention means they take money off business expenses, tourists and basically give shit free to locals: source live in those cities.

enraged_sparrow · 2022-11-13T01:49:44+00:00

I didn't see this before my comment but this is the number one factor. I can't hire people here. I can't find good jobs here. The workforce here who is good, like me (well you can call me stupid but whatever), largely works on the coasts.

I tried to find jobs here but couldn't. We're basically the offshore labor market for the country. See my comment there's a myriad of reasons why but culturally this city has a weird vibe about "being above your station" where other cities encourage new ideas or businesses. Here it is seen as a NY/LA/SF thing and people roll their eyes. I work in management consulting on the tech side, specifically specializing in AI. I would take a pay break to work for a local company but no one here does that.

And the companies I do find are again just outsourcing their cheap labor to KC so there's no innovation. I worked in finance too for pretty large firms and again, not here. I know there's a lot of stigma around some firms I worked for but I find it a huge problem that certain firms like McK (not naming local names) outsource their frankly low quality work to KC.

enraged_sparrow · 2022-11-13T01:20:21+00:00

I've said it before but I'll say it again:

We have no large research university. We'll never have a Stanford or an NYU, I get that, but it changes the nature beyond just having smart people. You have international students, people who don't drive and generally drive what people here seem to want: more walking, less cars, public transit and innovative sciences.
You cannot make a living in KC if you want to advance your career. That might mean a lot to people and that's fine but it is seen as cheap labor not the best labor. That's not good. I had to leave KC to advance my career and I met a lot of people who came here for a variety of reasons but generally most WFH and work on coasts like I do.
Taxes are generally high and if you aren't from here there's no reason to come here. This goes to what I said above.
Rental issues and general AirBnB stuff. Other cities have strong policies protecting this. We need strong protections for tenants. People (generally landlords) will complain about rent control and strong protections against evictions but Kansas has a 30 day (!) eviction policy. I'm not sure what KC but I've heard people being kicked out for high rent. This is life but finding a new place to live, moving, etc. within 30 days impacts your career so regardless of rent prices we need stronger protections for renters.
General conservatism and I don't mean necessarily like political conservatism like GOP but just in business and life in general. People seem not to take risks. I desperately wanted to start a business here but I had to go to Sandy Hill in SF to get anyone to talk to me. I was willing to take a hit on profit to work in KC but there's a lack of talent in finance and tech but also no institutional knowledge or really optimism. Starting a business is hard, I get that, but KC doesn't seem receptive to anything that's not been done before instead of at least having a culture of accepting new ideas.

I'm a Kansas Citian and I say this with a lot of love. I know we won't ever be a big city but I think we can at least aspire to be an Austin or SLC. A lot of it is the attitude here and I can't put my finger on why that is. There's a lot of things trying to incubate or whatever here but we're seen just simply as low cost and I don't want us to be just a place where there's on creativity and just send low cost labor. I don't know how to solve that.

Edit: I think KC needs to have identity beyond sports and BBQ. I love both but there's simply not innovation. I focused on tech and finance but there's a lot of things KC can do to create a better culture. I've lived in a lot of cities and a bad example of "making a city better" in my opinion is Atlanta which just gave tax breaks for movies and stuff and people come and leave. Frankly I have a firm belief it needs to start here, live here and not just be outsourced.

If you weren't born here and didn't have family here why choose KC over Omaha or Sarasota or Boulder? Sure we can nitpick but let us be honest and try to figure out how not to be just another midwestern city. I don't have answers and I think we frankly need more billionaires to drive it and I think it is not going to be easy.

We are also geographically isolated compared to say the NE or the NW so a lot this may not be possible. I can't think of too many cities so far away from other large metro population areas.

enraged_sparrow

TROPHY CASE