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Comment It's not very reliable data. (Score 3, Insightful) 65

It's not very reliable data.

They took the similarity vectors from the job postings, not from resumes, so rather than "what you're likely to know", they computed "what an employer is likely to want at the same time as wanting something else", and then declared that a similarity due to an already skewed cosine similarity metric. This happens because employers are more likely to copy other, similar job postings, or other job postings for companies in a similar business as them, or those of a company whose employees they wish to hire away.

They claimed that they tried using resumes, but that the resulting data was not as "clean"; uh... duh?

This visualization was not actually very useful, unless you are trying to design a resume to get yourself hired, regardless of your actual current capabilities.

Comment Re:Drone It (Score 0) 843

Drone pilots more removed from the action than infantry? Hell yes.

More removed then the rest of the Air Force? Hell no.

The way a drone strike works is a drone loiters on station for weeks on end. During this time the drone's pilots figure out who is in the house when, so they can avoid blowing it up when the local equivalent of the Girl Scouts are in the living room. Which means drone pilots know when their target takes the trash out, whether the teenage daughter has a boyfriend who sneaks in sometimes, etc. This makes for attacks that are much easier on the civilian population then normal bombing, because you can skip the night when the girl and her boyfriend are enjoying themselves, but it makes for very stressed out drone pilots.

OTOH, an F-16 would only be able to loiter on target for a half-hour at a time, and the pilot would be spending his time there focussing on the attack, so he has no fucking idea that the terrorist mastermind he's about to attack has a daughter up to hijinks. He'll drop the bomb, write on his paperwork that the building was totaly destroyed, and dance the Dance of Successful Combat Missions.

So why is it they keep blowing up weddings? And then blowing up everyone who comes to help?

Cowards. But thats become the American way.

Comment Re:Drone It (Score 2) 843

It's not as easy to sneak onto a military base (where, you know, base housing is located) as the TV/movies would have you believe. You do know that, right?

Grandparents included, I bet they don't all live on base. Aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews etc, you can't keep them all under armed guard all the time. Any relatives who live overseas get big giant targets painted on them. Oh and this info was all recently leaked. It shouldn't be too hard to find them.

Its ugly but thats how you have to fight against an opponent who acts like this. Its basic Sun Tzu; in response to an enemy who takes shelter in an impregnable position you attack something (outside of that position) they MUST defend.

Comment Re:Drone It (Score 1) 843

Drone pilots are actually burning out due to extreme crisis of conscious issues. They work 9-5 killing people, then go home to their families; they're not living in a constructed fantasy of good versus evil fueled by the fact that other people are living in the same fantasy and mutually trying to kill you under the impression that you're the invader. They see themselves as terrible assassins, not righteous heroes fighting a murderous enemy.

Well good then because they are terrible assassins.

Comment Re:Drone It (Score 0, Troll) 843

Drones with weapons aren't autonomous.

Drone pilots don't seem to have much of a conscience either. They are far removed from the action, the consequences, less involved.

If I were up against drones my first response would be infiltrators who would target the drone pilots families, the shops they go to, the people they owe money to, people who owe them money etc etc. Go Kaiser Sose on them. If they want to hide behind drones let them face the consequences.

Comment Re:Goodbye free speech (Score 1) 210

How can you tell? Just because the plaintiff says so? Some of those reviews look legit and yes a few look fake. I notice he doesn't complain about the obviously fake good reviews (how does a company in Cali get a positive review from a teen in New Jersey.)

If the images are anything to go by, then one of them is a Hasidic Jew from Israel, another is an actress in Chicago, and another is some guy in New York.

Unless they aren't, in which case their picture icons are being used in violation of Copyright, unless they have written permission from the image owners...

Comment It's the non-engineers. (Score 5, Insightful) 125

The stories about jobs and careers are getting so tiresome. I realize Dice bought Slashdot to datamine the comments (free focus group!), but it seems like half the stories are a variation on the same these days.

It's the non-engineers.

They have this misconception that people used to dealing with the intricate semantics of programming languages are going to be unaware of the intricate semantics of English. Therefore, if they ask a question once, and do not get an answer they like, they will repeatedly ask the same question in different guises, hoping to obtain the answer they wanted to hear.

This really comes down to who is more patient than whom.

I usually attempt to buffer my answers in order to soften the blow, but you can ask the same question as many ways as you want, and the answer will likely not change, so long as it is fundamentally the same question. And I usually have the patience of Job. However, there was one incident where I was up against a deadline, and was being asked to "just cobble together something that works, and we'll (read: you'll) fix it (read: in a binary compatible way) later. Which was an impossibility (I was working on some very complex database code written in C++ which did subschema definitional enforcement on an upper level database schema, and the semantics had to be correct for the data stored in the binary backing store to be usable going forward, when we did the next update). The code had to be *right*, as opposed to *right now*, and the time difference was important.

We had a UI person who was in a management position, and they brought her over to argue their case that immediate was better than correct (correct would fit under the deadline, but only if everyone left me alone to finish the code). The UI person was constantly revising the UI in each release, and each release was practically a full rewrite. And she did not understand why I could not write my code the same way she wrote hers. Finally having had enough, I explained "It's OK if your code is crap; you are going to rewrite it in the next release anyway. My code has to work now, and it has to continue to work going forward, and therefore it needs to be correct. I understand that you are feeling the approaching deadline. So am I. However, while your code can be crap, mine can't be because I have to maintain it going forward. Now if you will get the hell out of my office, I will be able to finish the code by the deadline."

Needless to say, there were some ruffled feathers. The director of engineering sided with me. I completed the (correct, rather than expedient) code by the deadline, and the product didn't turn into unmaintainable crap vis-a-vis the update process going forward.

What's the moral to this story?

Well, with specific regard to DICE:

(1) Repeatedly asking the same question in different ways is not going to get them a different answer, if the first answer was correct. Any other answer than that answer would be incorrect, for the question asked.

With specific regard to the current topic:

(2) Engineers who actually reliably, repeatedly, and consistently deliver what they are asked to deliver, within the timeframe that was agreed upon, can, and often do, wield more authority than the managers nominally set above them in the food chain, so it's not like going into management is going to give you any more real authority than you already have by way of your relationship with the team, and their trust of your judgement.

A management path can be a good idea if:

(A) You want more perks (stock options, etc.), although in a good company, if you are a great engineer, you will get those anyway

(B) You are tired of doing engineering for a living (which probably means you didn't qualify as "great engineer" under option 'A' anyway)

(C) You feel you would be more useful and/or happier in such a position (but if your happiness is based on power, don't expect it will necessarily follow)

(D) You are an OK (but not great) engineer at a company which engages in age discrimination, and you are happy to continue working for such a company going forward, and it's your only way to do so (at which point, I pretty much need to question your personal ethics)

Other than that... DICE: Asked and Answered. Please go on to the next survey question.

Comment Re:It has this. (Score 1) 191

Do you defend every company which charges premium prices for a product where they limit your ability to do something every computer has been able to do for the last 50 years

Of course.

I will happily defend IKEA for selling me a chair that is limited from being able to do *anything* "every computer has been able to do for the last 50 years".

Except, you know, being sat on. If I can't sit on the chair, I'd be pretty unhappy. On the other hand, not every computer in the last 50 years has been large enough or flat enough to sit on. You gotta draw that line somewhere!

Comment Re:Dangerous (Score 1) 177

Your mom, your wife, your baby and you. Makes it 4, of which one of you can't take photos.

You aren't getting it. My mom is in another country, she hasn't met the baby and wants photos of us all as a group. Its nice for her. Understand now?

Not everyone who uses a selfie stick is using it to just get a narcissistic photo of *themselves*.

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