jthodge

Stevey's Google Platforms Rant

I was at Amazon for about six and a half years, and now I've been at Google for that long. One thing that struck me immediately about the two companies -- an impression that has been reinforced almost daily -- is that Amazon does everything wrong, and Google does everything right. Sure, it's a sweeping generalization, but a surprisingly accurate one. It's pretty crazy. There are probably a hundred or even two hundred different ways you can compare the two companies, and Google is superior in all but three of them, if I recall correctly. I actually did a spreadsheet at one point but Legal wouldn't let me show it to anyone, even though recruiting loved it.

I mean, just to give you a very brief taste: Amazon's recruiting process is fundamentally flawed by having teams hire for themselves, so their hiring bar is incredibly inconsistent across teams, despite various efforts they've made to level it out. And their operations are a mess; they don't real

jthodge

https://danluu.com/web-bloat/
https://danluu.com/octopress-speedup/
https://tonsky.me/blog/pwa/
https://hpbn.co/
https://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm
https://blog.codinghorror.com/an-exercise-program-for-the-fat-web/
https://developers.google.com/speed
https://mobile.twitter.com/danluu/status/1252792626257866754 (Google AV1 announcement)
https://developers.google.com/search/blog#speed-and-google-search (1st link from Google Pagespeed Insights, "Read the latest Google Search Central blog posts about performance & speed."
https://calendar.perfplanet.com/2020/the-mythical-fast-web-page/

jthodge

{
  "baseUrl": "http://localhost:3000",
  "chromeWebSecurity": false,
  "projectId": "$PROJECT_ID",
  "viewportWidth": 1920,
  "viewportHeight": 1080,
  "defaultCommandTimeout": 10000,
  "retries": {
    "runMode": 2,
    "openMode": 0

jthodge

We want PlanetScale to be the best place to work. But every company says that, and very few deliver. Managers have a role in creating an amazing work experience, but things go awry when the wrong dynamic creeps in.

We have all seen those managers who collect people as “resources” or who control information as a way to gain “power.” In these cultures, people who “can’t” end up leading the charge. This is management mediocrity.

What will make us different? At PlanetScale, we won’t tolerate management mediocrity. We are building a culture where politics get you nowhere and impact gets you far. Managers are here to support people who get things done. They are as accountable to their team as their team is accountable to them.

We evaluate managers on the wellbeing and output of their team, how skillfully they collaborate with and influence others, and how inclusively and transparently they work.

You can expect your manager to:

• Perceive a better version of you and support you in getting there

jthodge

58 bytes of CSS to look great nearly everywhere

When making this website, i wanted a simple, reasonable way to make it look good on most displays. Not counting any minimization techniques, the following 58 bytes worked well for me:

main {
  max-width: 38rem;
  padding: 2rem;
  margin: auto;
}

jthodge

Fixing macOS 10.14, 10.15, 12

Dark main menu without the rest of dark mode

1. Set Light mode
2. defaults write -g NSRequiresAquaSystemAppearance -bool Yes
3. Log out and log back in
4. Set Dark mode

jthodge

layout	title
post	RethinkDB: why we failed

Posted on Github by Slava Akhmechet

When we [announced][shutdown-announcement] that RethinkDB is shutting down, I promised to write a post-mortem. I took some time to process the experience, and I can now write about it clearly.