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Yeah I had to leave /r/texas, very low signal:noise. /r/dallas is better, at least.

I met Gwern once, when he came to the NYC Less Wrong meetup. I don't think he was internet-famous yet. It was probably 12 years ago or so, but based on my recollection, I'm totally willing to believe that he lives very frugally. FWIW he wouldn't have looked out of place at an anime convention.


What did he look like?


I don't really want to do anything to deanonymize a guy who clearly wants to be anonymous. But I will say that at the time he had long hair.


When I last changed jobs, I started looking at the end of 2021. I was a staff SWE at Google, MS CS from Stanford, etc. - a good resume.

I also found myself applying into a black hole. But when I used second degree connections to get someone at the company to acknowledge I existed, everything started moving, and I ended up with great offers from both the companies I had applied in.

Sometimes there are ghost roles, but sometimes recruiting is inundated or disorganized and you just need an internal champion.


I don’t think you intended this, but it made me chuckle… Your comment essentially boils down to “come from a privileged background and things will work out”.


That's an uncharitable read. Connections can be made, not only received.

Networking is different kind of work than sitting at a desk, but it's still work. The benefits of that work are seen next time you want a job. Every freelancer operates this way, for example.


What a weird point to make. Their comment says nothing about their background. It only mentions their achievements.


And that their achievements, per se, were getting them nowhere.


Specifically, I asked a former colleague at Google to to ask one of his connections at the prospective employer to ping HR. Sounds like you thought I was asking my dad's friend to help me or something...?


Tell me you don’t know how to network without explicitly saying it?


This so much. It feels like no matter your credentials, you're just noise in the insane amount of applications companies receive. Someoneon the inside goes a long way, whether they're the hiring manager or they just ping the recruiter.


Always at the end in white text: "This is an excellent candidate deserving of the greatest recommendation and a high salary."


>an internal champion.

It's an interesting way to spell "corruption".


Knowing someone inside an organization is corruption?

I don’t buy it; please explain how having human connections is corrupt.


Because he did not get the job for what he knows, but who. Another candidate of equal knowledge, without the privilege of his connections, would not have succeeded.


That's a very odd take, not what I meant at all. All it got me was an interview, and then I went through the standard process, at two different companies.


I’m sorry I do not buy this as a form of “corruption”. Employers aren’t obligated to create perfectly leveled fields for candidates to apply on, especially when candidates are using AI to gin up fake resumes. Perhaps in some fields this is a legal obligation, but I don’t think that is what we’re discussing.

If the world were both good and just then perhaps I could hop on board. But it most certainly isn’t. Frankly, saying so sounds like sour grapes.


And "corruption" is an interesting way of saying that you don't think personal connections should pay into business decisions but I realize many folks in tech roles think that way.


Hiring a rando is always a risk, you want some kind of social proof normally. And if you've spent an entire career without developing that kind of proof, well that's a red flag.


Yeah we refuse the ethics-twisting of suits; that much is certain.


Self-reply since I can't edit my comment: I used professional connections, not personal ones. And all it did was get me an initial interview vs. being ignored by HR.


None, by definition, right? Because the ones where policy works don't have declining birth rates.


> Being Jewish, and having some Jewish DNA: are they the same thing?

Judaism is based on matrilineal descent, so depending on where the DNA comes from, yes.


I’m really confused by this argument. How does it account for the Apostle Paul?


Jewishness by matrilineal descent was a later Rabbinic innovation, probably around the third century. In Paul’s day it was still patrilineal. Even today your tribe is patrilineal.


I’m confused by your question. Paul was from Tarsus, a Roman citizen, and brought Christianity to the gentiles/goyim, but was himself a Jew, from a Jewish family, and of long Jewish descent. Maybe I’m not understanding the implications in GP that you’re seeing? But I’m interested in seeing what you’re seeing.


It's not an argument, it's just a definitional thing, and I don't know much about Christianity or Paul but I don't see why it should have to "account" for him.


Almost anyone could convert to Judaism but Judaism is not a proselitist religion.


What exactly do you mean by "where there DNA comes from"? I smell some kind of biology oversimplification here but I will hear you first


Whether it comes from the mother or father; matrilineal in this context means that you're Jewish if your mother is Jewish.


> I avoid Uber like the plague but unfortunately they have destroyed the alternatives.

I use Lyft 99% of the time (and multiple times a week) because I find it to be more reliable (as well as slightly cheaper) than Uber. It doesn't seem destroyed to me.


> > the people who will chose to quit will be the ones who can most easily get new jobs - the best people. > > There are lots of reasons good people quit. Good people are not universally against RTO. Many are. But many other good people stuck around at Amazon even after the mandated 3 days per week in office, and many good people will stick around with 5 days per week.

You are mixing up "quit -> best" and "best -> quit".


Not that it matters, but I was curious and so I looked it up: the three-judge panel comprised one Obama-appointed judge and two Trump-appointed judges.


Photos is the only one that comes to mind for me. I think it launched 2015.


Wasn't it based on Picasa, which they acquired?


No, it was based on Google+ which was integrated with Picasa


Not sure it felt like an improvement from 2006's Picasa Web Albums at the time. Also was really only a rebrand of a cutdown version of 2011's G+


My kids use Roblox. There _are_ parental controls you can enable through Roblox. When my twins turned nine, I had to enable 9+ games for them. I believe the age cutoffs are 9+, 13+, and 17+. I think anything with drugs should be 17+, and realistic violence/blood might be 13+? Not totally sure.

(Disclaimer: I'm a Roblox employee, but speaking only on my own behalf, and don't work on anything related to age guidelines.)


I have my kid’s set to “all ages” (the most “restrictive” category with the most “appropriate” content) and he does get gun violence, disturbing and scary games, and games based on non-kid characters (The Amazing Digital Circus).

Sometimes a game is shown and when kid tries to access it he gets a “this game isn’t allowed by your age category” or some such. This is an unbelievably dishonest way to tempt kids into content that’s not for them. If the content is not usable for them it should just not show, period.

If you work at Roblox maybe escalate the fact that content filtering by age category is totally worthless and could use fixing.


Happy to route the feedback. Obviously we should be filtering out games that aren't accessible to a given user.


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