train ride home
Archives for July 2014
We started off equals, but at some point all the effort I put in started to pay off, and where they stopped improving themselves, I continued, and I got better and better. Where they were afraid to try new things because they would fail, I tried and I got better and knew more, till I was good enough for the job I hold now.
/2014/07/07/we-started-off-equals-but-at-some-point-all-the/
Working at a large, successful company lets you keep your isolation. If you choose, you can just ignore all the inconvenient facts about the world. You can make decisions based on whatever input you choose. The success or failure of your project in the market is not really that important; what’s important is whether it gets canceled or not, a decision which is at the whim of your boss’s boss’s boss’s boss, who, as your only link to the unpleasantly unpredictable outside world, seems to choose projects quasi-randomly, and certainly without regard to the quality of your contribution.
I can relate to this. (via The Curse of Smart People)
Estimating social reach
Look at a post on the time-based newsfeed services, such as Instagram, Tumblr or Twitter. Assuming people like or comment when they are using the service, you can use your friends list to calculate the number of ‘active’ users at any point. Based on their activity and the time you choose to post, you can estimate who was exposed to you work. There is a deviation based on the percentage of people who lurk without ‘liking’ and people who directly come to your site. This varies a lot, but the estimation is valuable.