Did a bit of soul searching and manually optimised to 1087 but I give up. What is the number we are chasing here? IMO I would not join a company giving such a vague problem because you can feel really bad afterwards, especially if this does not open a door to the next stage of the interview. As an alternative we could all instead focus on a real kernel and improve it :)
Author of the take-home here: That's quite a good cycle count, substantially better than Claude's, you should email it to performance-recruiting@anthropic.com.
IMO the idea of providing more in OSS usually stems from various third parties who use that code in production but do not really contribute back to it. The only sensible thing the person publishing code online needs to do is to protect their copyright and add a license. This weird idea that somehow you become responsible for the code to the point that you need to patch every vulnerability and bug, and now identify the use of AI is wrong on so many levels. For the record I’ve been publishing OSS for years.
Personally for me, who is bought into the Apple ecosystem this is worrying. I am aware how PCC is supposed to work (which is the likely target platform) but the deal with Google of all the companies sends bad signal to consumers who are privacy focussed. If such a feature will be baked in without a way to switch it off, the next device will not be iphone or macbook or ipad.
You can already run quantized models without much friction, people also have dedicated apps for that. It changes very little for people because they everyone who wanted to do it already solved it and those who do not they dont care. It is marginal gain from consumer, a feature to brag about for apple, big gain for google. Users also would need to change existing habits which is undoubtedly hard to do.
When my wife picked up her replacement passport, they had a scanning machine in the waiting room so you could check the NFC details before leaving the premises. (it also happily told me what my blue one reported over NFC)
Depending on Google’s explicit product to build a startup is crazy. There is a risk of them changing APIs or offerings or features without the ability to actually complain, they are not a great B2B company.
I hope you just use the API and can switch easily to any other provider.
I bet the core of the problem for Google is that more folks use programmatic access to search which is not great on their side. Naturally you end up using Serp or other similar search APIs as they are great for the job. I believe this is also an issue especially in cases where search is performed on behalf of the user (scripts, ai tools). Google is just losing ground here, why would they bother otherwise, think what will happen to their stock if the search usage will drop? Another thing is that this builds pressure to whoever is integrating such a search tool in their products, clearly Google wants to grab that market as well.
I’d agree on most of these but the biggest value in such a list is for the writer to actually put it on paper. You have to reflect on multiple aspects in your career and synthesise those. Reading them is close to useless, like scanning a page full of news, it all just evaporates once you start your daily work routine.
The best suggestion would probably be to try and write such a list yourself IMO.
Eastern europeans speak multiple languages where russian was a second language due to everyone being in the union (occupation). Languages are different and span multiple language groups. IMO there is no strong correlation here not to mention the fact that english is more popular. German language and its presence in the curriculum has other reasons, like the fact that german economy is closer rather than say english or american, there was more incentive to learn german due to economical necessity. But nowadays everyone chooses english as it is a simpler, and considered the real business language.
AFAIK there is no evidence to suggest that the uptake of german is easier for people living in the eastern parts of europe
I think it is generational. A hundred years ago, most Eastern Europeans would have learnt German, fifty years ago they would have learnt Russian and nowadays they all want to pick up American English.
There is a saying that you should learn the enemy language to understand them. I suppose the time has come again. Why else would you learn it otherwise? It is not like many of us can even visit the place without consequences. The books were translated years ago anyway.
Slavic languages are similar, IMO you just need to bombard your brain with a lot of it to start discerning the patterns (just like any other language I guess). Reading is not necessary, writing likewise. I never had a single lesson but speak fluently in russian and ok polish, can understand ukrainian, can read also.
Given that you need content for your brain it would be hard to find something nice created in russia recently, might be easier to start with polish if you are in the west.
Careful, by learning russian you also become an oppressed russian minority that needs to be "liberated". It's not just your brain that will get bombarded.
You've just associated actions of a certain fascist government with the whole language spoken by hundreds of millions of people who are against the war it waged and which is orders of magnitude older.
That's not very bright of you, to put it mildly.
Mind you, the language argument was just as well employed by the putin's propagandists, as in something along the lines of "just listen how silly Ukrainian sub-language sounds, lol".
Which is an argument every sane human being finds disgusting and stupid beyond all comprehension, of course.
Their propaganda was saying a lot of different things, including both mentioned above.
Ukrainian is magical language that is both the same as russian (so not real language of its own) and difficult to learn, so russian not being an official language is literally genocide.
A certain part of speakers - yes. A large part, no doubt, otherwise there'd be no one to fight this war.
But what about the other part?
The part that is guilty fell for the same trick that you're falling for - they perceived the whole nation as one single entity that, as they were told by the propaganda, was all Nazis, from newborns to the elderly.
We both know that was bullshit, but you keep painting all Russians in the same way the zombified part of Russians has been painting Ukrainians.
Wrong in Russia you mean. If they stop assassinating people, threatening nuclear strikes, conventional attacks, and so on, they wouldn't be anyones enemy.
There are some good people among Russian citizens, abroad or not. Some great people even. Unfortunately they are few and far between and are not representative of the mindset, aspirations and values of their home nation. So saying "the Russians are the enemy" is entirely fair. It is an actively hostile society much like Nazi Germany was during the WW2 and this nitpicking over good individuals is not making the blanket evaluation unfair in any way.
>"There are some good people among Russian citizens, abroad or not. Some great people even. Unfortunately they are few and far between and are not representative of the mindset, aspirations and values of their home nation."
You lost me here. You sound exactly as the people you are trying to put a blame on.
Well I for one didn't start, participate in or have supported the ongoing war of extermination and conquest. And I am not trying to win any Russian hearts and minds; that's one thing about being enemies.
I think you miss the point. I am talking about the incentive to learn somebody’s native tongue. I doubt people want to know it to meet an emigrant in Germany and have a conversation in russian. Equally I do mot learn spanish to talk to my neighbours but to have a conversation with a local in spain.
But by your own reasoning, you're also saying it's reasonable to learn Russian as a way to better understand Russia because your country happens to be opposed to them.
If you accept that this relatively obscure reason is a valid motivation (which I agree it can be) then you must also accept that there are all sorts of other motivations that are equally valid including "so I can speak to emigrants" or even just "because I find it fun".
It's not an obscure reason, many people engage with the enemy professionally. That's one of the most frequent motives to learn a language probably. Either you want to immigrate to a country or you want to conduct business with it or it's your enemy and you need to undersrand it. First two options are out for the Western world at the moment
There is a large, growing Russian diaspora and many writers/artists create works in exile. The language helps if you want to understand the millions who left their homes out of principle, but they are not the "enemy".
"The end of history is a political and philosophical concept that supposes that a particular political, economic, or social system may develop that would constitute the end-point of humanity's sociocultural evolution and the final form of human government."
So are you implying that I should start treating every foreigner as an enemy just because we as a humanity didn't, and maybe will never come up with a political system that will bring peace on Earth once and for all?
Allright then, I'll still regard most of you at least as non-enemies, if you so object being friends with me;
but you are free to continue considering me your enemy if your current political fartwinds turn your wind vane that way.
Polish person here. Don't try to learn Polish. It's insanely difficult, the "rules" make no sense whatsoever, and almost anybody that you'll want to talk to will be able to communicate with you in English.
As for Russian, I also don't see any point in learning it. I was forcefully taught Russian in primary school back when Poland was under Russian yoke. The general idea here is that we'd like not to be in that situation ever again. Learning the language of a nation where a significant percentage of population supports war and killing is not something I'd consider.
Polish is great because there is a lot of content to learn from. And it is a gateway to other western slavic languages in the region. I basically forced myself to learn it because Manga was all in polish at the time. Their movie industry is great as well.
As someone studying Polish, and making excellent progress, I mostly agree with your take. If you want to explore other languages, something like Spanish will get you much more mileage. Polish is difficult and the community of speakers isn't exactly warm to foreigners or people acquiring the language. On the other hand, if you truly enjoy languages and are passionate about them, I have found Polish to be really interesting and beautiful in its own way. Definitely not recommended, but still enjoyable to read/write/speak.
Do you believe that a significant proportion of native English speakers support the idea of imperialistic invasion and occupation, and the rape and torture of women and children?
Which war? The Iraq War started with around 62% support. When the US started its involvement in the Korean War (one of the biggest mass atrocities we'd carried out since, well, about 5 years earlier when we atom bombed Japan...), around 78% supported it. Around 71% of Americans supported a large scale troop invasion of Afghanistan when it started.
Honestly, even for the wars with bad public perception, like Vietnam, it was mostly because Americans were tired of our guys being drafted just to be turned into dogfood on the other side of the world, not because we were occupying and brutalizing them.
I think the essence of my question is what did "support" look like here?
I can empathise with the position that the invasion of Iraq was warranted (which is not to say that I agree with it), in the context of the September 11 attacks. What I haven't seen is any popular support for the slaughter of civilians or the annexation of territory — there is no grand narrative that the USA is actually liberating its historical lands in Iraq. I think the support was conditional, and based on claims that later collapsed. The end goal was withdrawal after regime change.
What I haven't seen is any analogue to egregious instances like this[0], of which there are many in russia's war against Ukraine.
You're ignoring the mass atrocities committed by both sides in the Donbas throughout much of the 2010s that provided easy propaganda to achieve the same outcomes as the Iraq War propaganda.
I have another example of a "war" carried out recently with overwhelming support in its nation and in the US (initially) due to rapid propaganda around an attack that was likely intentionally intensified in effect by things like moving civilian events next to a military target the day before. But I won't post that one lol
Ah, the usual whataboutism that derails rational discussion. While the world isn't black and white, there are rare situations where things actually are totally black and white, and we are witnessing one of them right now.
> Learning the language of a nation where a significant percentage of population supports war and killing is not something I'd consider.
Are you a european/white supremacist who doesn't consider the victims of the anglosphere to be human, or are you historically illiterate, even of extremely recent history?
I don't see a third option here since you learned english also, would appreciate an explanation for this special pleading rather than furious downvoting when identifying basic empirical discrepancies in the face of what looks to be materially false claims.
You're really deep into painting everyone with the same brush, aren't you?
Define russian federation first. Am I it? Is it land? Is it government? Is it those zombie mercenaries who execute criminal orders? Is it those who got jailed after protests against war? Is it those who got conscripted? Those who fled the country to avoid that? Those who struggle to meet ends? Those cruising aboard 150 meter yachts?
It's pretty simple, actually. Do you hold a Russian passport? You're Russian.
If you "don't support" the invasion and killing, either start changing the system, or get rid of the passport. Yes, it's inconvenient. So are the missiles and bombs falling on the heads of people in Ukraine for them.
> start changing the system, or get rid of the passport
Right after you, my friend, as soon as you singlehandedly stop the US special military operation in Venezuela and extrajudicial killing of people off its coasts, or jail the commanders and mercenaries of EU forces in Syria, Afghan and Libyian war, depending on your passport. Or get rid of it.
And before you deploy your strawman about "terrorists" - that's exactly the same term that has been used by the kremlin to excuse the invasion into Ukraine.
Your illusion of possibility to change the system shall pass soon, rest assured.
This kind of historical blindness and hysterical hypocrisy has never ended well.
Is HN becoming a place where we should expect people to lie to us and promote trivially disprovably rationales in order to foment cultural and racial hatreds based on current political conveniences?
"Never believe they are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. By giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert."
When the russian military fired missiles and drones at my house, I should just accept it because some of my distant ancestors persecuted brown people. Is that your take?
Also, russia’s war against Ukraine enjoys popular support in russia today. Is your argument that the majority of UK and/or US citizens are eager for their respective countries to engage in war against former colonies today?
I think that if you clicked on the links and reviewed the original claim, you'd see that you removed every single word and concept and overwhelmingly mutually agreed upon fact and then replaced it with nonsense.
Russian and English are both languages of empires that have engaged in countless acts of violence and aggression. They are not equivalent, but to deny this or heavily qualify it (like dismissing acts of war and violence that happened literally yesterday as "distant") in either direction is inherently hypocritical and dehumanizing.
Honestly, I am starting to suspect you are a Kremlin agent designed to make europeans opposed to their war look so crazy that global opinion shifts against the Ukrainians by tying them to denial of and advocacy for the worst acts of europeans.
> Honestly, I am starting to suspect you are a Kremlin agent
Ok, I'll clarify my position, for the avoidance of doubt.
The terrorist state of russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and ongoing genocide is the darkest chapter in European history since the Holocaust. The putin regime has no regard for human life, and russian soldiers brag about raping women, and murdering children, sometimes by shooting them in the head at point-blank range. Many of these rapes and murders are even encouraged by the wives of russian soldiers — thousands of kilometres away from the front lines. We have it all on tape.
While I am not a soldier, I have two medals from the Ukrainian military for volunteering, and I will continue to help Ukrainian soldiers protect civilians in Ukraine, and to put russian invaders in the ground where they belong.
Unfortunately that just leads to more questions, since you did not answer the previous ones at all, and personally volunteering is what most double agents and saboteurs do in order to be in a position to cause more harm by first gaining trust.
Numerically, the numbers of civilians killed are far greater and we have substantive evidence of rape as military policy along with the murder of children.
In order to clear things up, you need to explain if you believe that either:
A) Those lives less valuable by some measure? Ie, did they deserve it, is it all a hoax and no one died, or is there something about them that makes those lives inherently worth far less than yours?
B) You have reason to believe the Ukrainian government is lying about the casualty figures and that over 600,000 Ukrainian soldiers and over 200,000-500,000 Ukrainian civilians including ~50,000 Ukrainian children have already been killed.
Is it A or is it B?
If you can tell me if you agree with statements like this made by Ukrainian officials about Indians and Chinese being inferior races of lesser intelligence, I think that would clear things up also: https://www.livemint.com/news/world/ukrainian-official-says-...
> Those lives less valuable by some measurement you need to explain
I do not believe the lives of different races/ethnicities of humans are of different intrinsic value.
What an incredibly fucked up, sick question.
> Numerically, the numbers of civilians killed are far greater and we have substantive evidence of rape as military policy along with the murder of children.
Comparing death rates numerically like this is also incredibly fucked up, and you should be ashamed of yourself. I am disgusted by this.
> You have reason to believe the Ukrainian government is lying about the casualty figures
Where are you getting your figures? I have strong reason to believe that it's near enough impossible to determine accurate figures since so many civilians were slaughtered by russian soldiers and then buried in mass graves on territory that russian soldiers are still occupying. That, and the Ukrainian government explicitly does not divulge how many military casualties they've taken.
> If you can tell me if you agree with statements like this made by Ukrainian officials about Indians and Chinese being inferior races of lesser intelligence, I think that would clear things up also
I do not agree with this racist statement by one Ukrainian politician.
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Nobody should take your geopolitical analysis seriously, since you cite kremlin apologists like Mearsheimer and Sachs. You just don't know what you're talking about.
My claim is that we see the same terrible violence and wars of aggression with subsequent public support (for a time) in both the Russia and the West. Ie, there is a fundamental hypocrisy to either set of alliances to condemn wars of aggression and the mass murder of children. It's quite clear that both sets of elites consider either one to be a policy option if they think it will get them results they want.
And your response is that things should "not be counted numerically" and that it is "incredibly fucked up" to consider human lives to be of equal value.
Altogether, it seems like you can only see things in terms of one ethnically european empire or another as morally righteous, with no other options. You cannot understand or imagine the perspective of someone who considers neither empire to be moral agents who deserve to have their crimes ignored or downplayed.
You have made no argument and your emotional appeal looks identical to eurocentric white supremacy which denies its nature but can only use emotional blackmail and threats when people point out the discrepancies.
It is not disgusting to ask why some raped and murdered civilians are "the worst thing since the holocaust" while others which preceded it that are of a larger scale are not merely forgotten but denied.
All of the current western leaders who forced Ukrainian denuclearization and talk openly about using Ukrainian lives as a "cheap" way to harm Russia are your true friends...
Why did one "Kremlin apologist" argue persuasively that Ukraine must keep its nuclear weapons to prevent a situation exactly like this war, and why did the other do everything he could to make Poland a stronger country? You have left reality behind.
Your "support" is so irrational that when Putin and Lavrov dishonestly argue there is no one credible to negotiate with on the other side, people around the world who want a lasting peace will reluctantly conclude that while they often lie, this time they are telling the truth.
I continue to think you are being paid by Russia or Russian proxies or that you are functionally equivalent to someone who is. Your rhetorical tactics and emotive language are so similar to RT and other Kremlin propaganda outlets that collusion seems more likely than linguistic convergence at this point.
All that said, Russia was in the wrong to invade and as someone with many Ukrainian friends who are now refugees, I hope you can understand why I hope the Ukrainian authorities are able to identify you and access your personal devices and documents.
An investigation seems warranted to find out if you're really this mentally ill or if you're being paid to make it seem like most Ukraine supporters are, especially since you're a decorated volunteer in a military conflict.
This is the most unhinged load of drivel I have ever read on this website. Ever.
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> And your response is that things should "not be counted numerically" and that it is "incredibly fucked up" to consider human lives to be of equal value.
You have very clearly twisted my words.
I do not think it is moral to turn human suffering into a pissing contest.
I very clearly stated that it is incredibly fucked up to compare human suffering in the way that you're doing. In fact, my first sentence was "I do not believe the lives of different races/ethnicities of humans are of different intrinsic value". You are framing your attack as though I said the complete opposite of what I actually said. What you are doing here is dishonest, and frankly, disgusting.
> Meanwhile, people like Mearsheimer … and Sachs … are "Kremlin apologists."
I am not a party to the conflict and I now restrict my efforts to assisting refugees and deserters on both sides. I supported Ukraine's July offensive because it was still capable of changing the strategic balance, and I hoped for a peace with significant russian concessions to be made at the high-water mark.
Now, because of people like you who are bloody-minded and impossibly idealistic when it's not your blood and you can always walk away, it's far too late.
I regard both sides maximal war aims to be impossible in the short and medium term and that all further loss of life is for nothing other than to accelerate the demographic collapse of both Russia and Ukraine in exchange for a few hundred kilometers of nearly worthless and already-depopulated land.
I think you should contact the Ukrainian authorities and ask them if they believe your advocacy is contributing to their goals. Furthermore, you should consider how things will change if there is a peace deal, at which point it seems like you will be someone who will, from a safe location, be working to undermine the Ukrainian government and to restart a losing conflict.
You are part of a larger conflict and you do not set policy, and when it changes, if you don't change with it, you become an enemy of Ukrainian government and the majority of Ukrainians. This majority and the Ukrainian government have stated they would like to have a democratic election without martial law and press censorship in order to decide their future.
Are you against democratic elections? Would you support a coup against a civilian government in order to continue the war?
You said the invasion of Ukraine was worse than the invasion of Iraq, but you reject all quantitative measures. You also have fatal anomalies in your argument you have not refuted by citing opinion pieces that also ignore this information.
Why did John Mearsheimer say Ukraine should keep its independent nuclear deterrent? Because he regarded a war like this as inevitable and that regardless of the outcome, both sides would lose and a large number of people would die, in addition to strengthening China significantly. And so it is.
I care about the average person who is stuck in this geopolitical clash between military blocs that have no regard for russian or ukrainian lives. You seem to care about achieving a military solution with little or no diplomatic consideration.
You are unwilling or unable to comprehend that people in Venezuela and the Middle East are not in fact, members of a lesser race of humans to whom acts of war and the mass murder of civilians "don't count" and don't fundamentally change the way that 90% of people on earth see western claims of moral principle.
I think you should contact the Ukrainian authorities and prove your commitment to your beliefs by volunteering to serve on the front lines: men willing to kill and die for a field are what is most needed now. Being a propagandist trying to get other people to give their lives while refusing to risk your own shows exactly how you feel about things: your life is more valuable than anyone else's and other people's sons, brothers, husbands, should die for your beliefs.
Putin doesn't care how many Russians from rustbelt towns in central asia and small towns get killed and the strategic military balance is in his favor. It is in his interests that diplomacy be seen to fail but not be his fault, because he does care about the willingness of other countries trying to make sense of the current situation to disregard and circumvent western sanctions. So yes, every word you speak and your point of view aligns perfectly with Russian strategy.
Maybe you're simply a dupe and part of an FSB influence operation, but you could make up for it by serving on the front. Anything else is chickenhawk cowardice or a false friend with murky motives.
Age is no restriction, Ukrainian men in their 50s and 60s are on the front lines. Will you fight for the cause you believe is both realistic and a moral necessity? Or perhaps... their lives are worth less than yours?
Why is it appropriate for a Ukrainian man in his late 50s to be drafted (in a way which resembles kidnapping) to kill and die for what you say you believe in but aren't willing to risk your own life for?
If you're working for the FSB you should be ashamed, and if you're not, you should be even more ashamed!
As for myself, I am an enemy of pointless, unwinnable wars, dictatorship, and coercion, so I am an enemy of both governments and a friend of the common person who had no say in this and is trapped between two corrupt cliques that get other people's families killed while vacationing safely in luxury: https://www.kyivpost.com/post/11648
I hope you provide your personal information to a Ukrainian recruiter and put your own skin in the game, because without that, you are functionally identical to an FSB functionary.
People who alienate the 90-92% of the non-white/european global population against Ukraine by repeatedly asserting that only white european lives should have any kind of moral impact or even be remembered at all are feeding into Putin's international propaganda operation. Could it be by accident? Perhaps, but it fits so perfectly with the Kremlin's diplomatic strategy to win over the rest of the world...
Perhaps you're right and I just don't want to believe that the goons in the Kremlin are telling the truth about how ignorant and mendacious the worldview of many of their (very real victims) are.
This is poorly informed, it’s quite easy to get a visa to Russia. Easier than many other countries, actually. Just follow the laws and use common sense (same rule applies when you are traveler anywhere) and you will be fine. Don't believe me just check YouTube, plenty of bloggers go there - “Sly’s Life” channel, Russia videos. He also goes to Ukraine after before you start calling me or him a shill for Putin or whatever.
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