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Big picture first
Why are the ethics in the software industry so bad? Why do people like Evan Spiegel get made– and, make no mistake, most of them are produced by their backers, merit having nothing to do with it– into...
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Mood disorders, cheating at Monopoly, a fundamental truth, and more on Agile...
One of the common rules of ethics in Monopoly is not to hide money. While players don’t have to make great efforts to keep their cash holdings transparent, it’s not legal to stick a pair of $500 bills...
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Is it OK to enjoy the deaths of “unicorns”?
It will happen, within a year or few: the era of “unicorpses”. Startups currently valued at billions of dollars will collapse. Some will end entirely, while others will hit valuations of pennies on the...
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Chapter 1 of novella, “The Struggles”, is out.
Chapter 1 of a Silicon Valley novella, “The Struggles”, is out: here’s the link.
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More fiction, and 2016
After putting out the first chapter of “The Struggles”, a novella set in Silicon Valley, I’ve had a couple of requests come in about a more serious project that I had let a few people know about. I’m...
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Stupid shit that I have to deal with.
In August 2015, Dan Gackle (moderator of Hacker News) had been searching, for months, for a pretext to ban my account. I’d previously suggested that Silicon Valley engineers might be better served by...
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Insights into why a contravariant type can’t be a Haskell Functor
In learning Haskell’s core types, type classes, and concepts, one often finds counterexamples useful in learning what these abstract concepts “really are”. Perhaps one of the most well-understood type...
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The Anne Frank Test
This is the Anne Frank Test: If I were a Jew in Nazi-occupied Europe, or a political dissident, or if my eye color became cause of persecution overnight, could I trust this person to protect me? Or...
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Understanding elemental talent. Or: why Paul Graham hates me.
I’m changing jobs. It’s not really anything wrong with the company, but they’re changing the technical direction and it’s not one that interests me, so I’ve decided not to stay. So I’ve been on the job...
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What I’ve failed at
I’ve been called an “organizational expert” because of some of my writing, but I often have doubts about whether I really know what’s going on. Sure, I’ve learned a lot, but it’s mostly been through...
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Quora update and clarification
There’s a rumor about me, pertaining to Quora, that I’ve now heard from two different sources, and it’s recently been published on the Internet. It’s… yet another thing that I have to deal with. Okay,...
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My name is cleared.
This came from a very high-ranking person at Google, earlier today. It is posted here with the author’s permission. Dear Michael, Your continuing outspokenness, with regard to your time at Google, has...
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Why “Agile” and especially Scrum are terrible
Agility is a good thing, no doubt, and the Agile Manifesto isn’t unreasonable. Compared to a straw-man practice called “Waterfall”, Agile is notably superior. Yet, so much of Agile as-practiced is...
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Insights into why a contravariant type can’t be a Haskell Functor
In learning Haskell’s core types, type classes, and concepts, one often finds counterexamples useful in learning what certain abstract concepts “really are”. One of the more commmon type class...
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-32-
I’ve had a lot of people ask me recently about why I’ve taken down all of my old posts. Yes, I will probably republish the ones that are of highest quality, possibly with some editing for clarity and...
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Two chapters of Farisa’s Courage
After putting out the first chapter of “The Struggles”, a novella set in Silicon Valley, I’ve had a couple of requests come in about a more serious project that I had let a few people know about. I’m...
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“Did you call [female tech personality] a cunt?”
The answer is: No. Of course not. So… just why was I ever asked such an odd question? A few months ago on Y Combinator’s forum, Hacker News, I pulled a word out of Middle English: queynte. This word...
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It’s time to stop hating and start learning
There’s a strong resentment that software engineers and technologists have toward “non-technical” people or “business people”. We compare our situations, and our impulse is to find the arrangement...
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Pyramid vs. obelisk
I may not be able to save the world, but I think I’ve come up with the fundamental idea that will be necessary in order to restore (and, afterward, preserve) the integrity of, at the very least, the...
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I’m over tech people.
TL; DR: I started an “Ask Me Anything” account on Reddit and got hit by a 45+ account voting ring. Reddit is still investigating whether there is a connection between it at Y Combinator. I’ll be honest...
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