Robert Ma

Live in the shell, or a Miata :) Work at Faire; opinions are my own.

[Ethan Evans @EthanEvansVP]

As a retired Amazon VP who experienced a 9082% increase in Amazon stock during my time, I am out of touch with many common life struggles. The SVPs and CEOs above me are often more so. Talking about wealth and it's impacts is a taboo subject most executives avoid. I'm going to try to address one small piece today.

It would be hypocritical to talk about "executives" in general without owning my own situation first. For brevity, here are four examples:

1) No mortgage
2) A maid service cleans every two weeks
3) Someone else mows the grass
4) I retired at age 50

The average family, even the average tech or knowledge worker, does not have these benefits.

In the level above me, I have seen much more:

1) Multiple staffed vacation homes, with caretakers
2) Private jets (PJs in the lingo)
3) Personal assistants. Never pay a bill, get groceries, or pick up a kid when you are busy. The PA handles it all.
4) Drivers (security and efficiency)
5) Breathtakingly expensive and exclusive private schools for their kids
6) They live wherever they want. Cost is not an obstacle

Let's look at one example of how disconnection from the daily experiences of employees can lead to very different priorities: return to work.

The disconnect here really starts with differing priorities. Executive wealth then supports the different choices.

Most executives place work and career success very highly in their lives. If they do not, they rarely become top executives. Most of them (myself included) then use our pay to free up time. Most time goes to work, some to family.

If work is the main focus of your life, then returning to the office might seem like a natural priority.

Now imagine:

No need to commute, your driver takes you door to door while you work in the back
No need to hurry home to pick up the kids, the PA does it
No need to shop, clean, or cook, the staff does it all
No need to help with homework, the amazing school provides tutoring

With these circumstances, returning to the office feels very "worth it."

This is not a screed against executive wealth. After all, I paid with 25 years of my life and I got some of the wealth. Instead, it is an explanation so that you can understand the disconnect.

If you need to influence an executive where their experiences may be out of touch with your reality, help them see the impact through stories, videos, and data.

Remember, they live literally in another world. This doesn't necessarily make them evil, just disconnected. I do not want to be "out of touch" but it is important to acknowledge that this does happen over time.

[酸欠少女 さユり @taltalasuka]

さユりに関するお知らせ

[Robert Ma @Hexcles]

I'm never going to subscribe to some random free buzzy newsletter that's trending on Hacker News again. I think it's 99% likely that an AI newsletter I subscribed to sold out its subscription base or spun up a whole bunch of other newsletters...

[Robert Ma @Hexcles]

I don't know if it's just me, but asking LLM to be "factual' or "unbiased" seems like a fool's errand. It's probably better to just give up and train users to treat it as a random weirdo on the internet.

[Robert Ma @Hexcles]

https://t.co/Vqk0ZwXDMG this is bonkers. You want other browser engines? Fine, give back your PWAs?

[Robert Ma @Hexcles]

@Ceecirno 回来啦？

[Robert Ma @Hexcles]

Wow

[一阁 @yegle]

TIL 组里的老人说他写while的时候都是写 while(3) 避免 https://t.co/erfS3ZEhn2

[Robert Ma @Hexcles]

Last-minute cancellation with a late tweet and a faint PA. What a joke.

[Kitchener Train @GOtransitKT]

The Kitchener GO 05:11 - Union Station 06:59 train will begin at Guelph GO because of a track switch issue. Customers can board the route 17 GO bus departing Kitchener GO at 05:11 to Guelph Central GO.

[Robert Ma @Hexcles]

I kinda hope that's true. Couldn't sell my brand new, unopened first-gen Nest Cam at original price :shrug:

[DHH @dhh]

Same with Google Nest cameras. 2nd gen models don't work with the Nest app, only the abomination that is Google Home, so 1st gen models trade for a premium. Big G is suffering from a terminal case of late-stage resource curse infection. https://t.co/vgd8SBs3Ac

[Robert Ma @Hexcles]

@middlefeng Code review? 如果整个团队C++平均水平都一般，可能就是另一回事了？

[Robert Ma @Hexcles]

What a tragedy. RIP.

[DR @Media371]

Fatal collision involving two dragsters @tmpcayuga on Saturday afternoon. #Cayuga

Media Release --->

[Robert Ma @Hexcles]

@kevinzhow 打印代码？？？

[Robert Ma @Hexcles]

At least the driver signalled, right? ;)

[401_da_sarpanch @401_da_sarpanch]

Vehicles Takes Left From Right Turn Lane. 📍Hwy410/Hurontario In Brampton.
.
#Hwy410 #Brampton #ONHwys #Caledon #RoadSafety #reckless #OPP #PeelPolice #trucking #Toronto

[Robert Ma @Hexcles]

@TekSavvyCSR it's been a day and there's still no ETR for the outage in Waterloo. Do we get credits for this?

[Robert Ma @Hexcles]

Well let's hope Svelte library developers are all top 1% rockstar engineers? Sure the code base is in a good place now but try maintaining it for another couple years without types. 🍿

[Rich Harris @Rich_Harris]

@jutanium nope, the article is correct. SvelteKit is written in JS and distributed as source code — no build step — and it's been miraculous for productivity. build steps make sense for apps, they make much less sense for libraries

[Robert Ma @Hexcles]

NLP/LLM is the real no-code.

[Mitchell Hashimoto @mitchellh]

I've developed a lot of plugin systems, and the OpenAI ChatGPT plugin interface might be the damn craziest and most impressive approach I've ever seen in computing in my entire life.

[Robert Ma @Hexcles]

Great news!

[Firefox DevTools @FirefoxDevTools]

🚀 Exiting news for the #webdev community! The upcoming #firefox 113 release will pass almost all web-platform tests specific to #WebDriver, a huge leap from Firefox 111. A new #geckodriver release will still be needed, but we're thrilled with the progress! 🎉🦊

[Robert Ma @Hexcles]

Interesting. Let's have a philosophical debate on the semantics of computational "photography".

[Halide + Kino aka halideapp.bsky.social @halidecamera]

Reddit user ibreakphotos discovers that Samsung's 'Space Zoom' simply replaces user's moon photos with higher-res images of the moon through a clever testing process.

https://t.co/5cLybMld5s

This isn't computational photography — it's inserting imagery that simply isn't there.

[Robert Ma @Hexcles]

Finally people realize Git is not a great CDN/database...

[Robert Ma @Hexcles]

@lyzgeorge 我已经不在谷家了

[Robert Ma @Hexcles]

Google Canada finally dropped the hammer.