ricardobayes

I hear you're passionate about this, but why a fine? They were the victims, in our society the victim of a crime doesn't need to be penalized further, moreover, the only damage was to themselves.

The way some of these publicly listed companies work now they would "rather have" a cyber incident and claim the damages on insurance than hire engineers, because that looks worse on a quarterly report to have salaried workers.

That tracks, I was actually shocked by the state of the average public restroom in Switzerland.

Perhaps it's time to... hire more engineers?

In most places around the world, it wasn't and still isn't an option. I grew up in Eastern Europe where you needed to fight tooth and nail to even return a defective one under warranty - when I learned in certain US retailers you can return anything anytime (Target), that blew my mind.

In my area it is that bad, when the torrential rains come yearly, streets become rivers, with trash cans floating. Is it not like that in your place?

How can you even claim infrastructure is not bad in our country?

There were two fatal train accidents in the UK this year, one of them being a rear-end collision, despite no one even citing them in this thread, and definitely not claiming the UK having low safety culture. Sadly the Spanish "black legend" is still very much in force, portraying Spain as some lower place than it actually is.

What you mention makes me frustrated, as it also signals the infrastructure is so underdeveloped even moderate rain grinds daily life to a halt: kids don't go to school if rain is forecast. We need to elevate our professionalism in Spain and not accept African-level infrastructure in the 21st century. It's really sad within one continent we have countries producing AI and photon computing, and others can't even figure out how to put gutters and rain drains.

Let me provide some context to that. At the highest levels of Spanish earning or net worth brackets people experience a completely different life than most everyday people. With a net worth of $1-2M you can live in a bubble essentially, living in a gated community with 24/7 security, with a helicopter landing pad. As a wealthy expat you can brute-force most of the societal struggles. Having 1-2M in your pocket enables a life that requires 20M+ in the US.

Yes, I do agree with some of that. People in this latitude don't want "private" anything because of the reasons mentioned before. It all boils down to a bad company culture, hiring is not merit-based, companies don't compete in the classical sense. And on Portugal, taken in context, salaries have been even lower in Portugal, but they are improving, and there are many more high-tech jobs going around in Portugal. It might not be a major difference from where you are looking, but they do tend to take their "world of work" more seriously.

I think Spain needs a complete mindset change, to fully come to the 21st century. While there are truly many people who "take their job" seriously, the overall "world of work", and professional standards are very, very low in Spain. Yes, it's a generalization, but anyone living in Spain will tell and complain about bad company practices, no or slow responses, and a general lack of professionalism, in all sectors.

Further than that, almost all problems and tension in Spain would disappear if earnings caught up to at least the European standard.

In short, Spain needs to re-invent its world of professionalism. I'm not saying that it should become like Swizerland overnight but the current mindset is incompatible with the 21st century's complexities. Portugal is currently further along that road.

Contrast that with NVIDIA's princely $2.5M net income per employee.

Anecdotal, but I had an acquaintance try to use the buyout and was point blank told by management "it's not for you".

Is it that you feel it's amazing, because San Francisco never had the European-style, cheap and elegant taxi that gets you chaffeured around in a Mercedes E-class by a shirt-wearing, well-dressed person who helps you with your luggage? You can call them with an app.

For me, Waymos are a downgrade in the same way Uber was, too. I'm not even going to expand the conversation to German/Swiss/Dutch-style clean, fast and cheap public transportation. Waymo is basically good public transportation to places which don't have public transportation and don't want it. I have no doubt this comment won't really land with those who have not experienced the European-style taxis or public transportation.

Not meant as a bad faith response but have you shipped anything? Do you have income from this? Why 10 projects apart from fueling ADHD and "never finishing a project"?

Lol... can't believe this armadillo thing caught on.

In a few years AI-driven pet-to-human translators are going to be all the rage.

This is a great book, not just for competitive programmers. It compiles a few gotchas that apply in general programming, regardless the language.

You have to be optimistic about the future, to have kids. And Germans lately are targeted with propaganda, algorithmic and amplified bad news. Every kind of german-speaking media and social media is full of dread, how the country is in a "freefall", etc. I saw the same in UK pre-brexit.

It was very unlikely there was actual coding involved, as even the C++ build and test toolchain would run for ages (in my automotive days it would run for 45 minutes and that was just build, link and static analysis). In this case it's probably just a config change.

Yes, exactly, I agree. I'd argue that's what the smaller, viable cities would fix: in Germany, big cities are equally expensive, but you can rent a very nice flat for 5-600 euros, in Erlangen, Nürnberg, Dortmund, Jena, etc. Spain has a lot of available space and great infrastructure, with fast trains and fiber internet everywhere. As a thought experiment, it would be pretty cool if Spain could create a digital city, in say, Teruel province, with brand new housing and high added value jobs, perhaps paired with lowered company taxes to attract companies settling. Perhaps it would also achieve nothing, I'm just brainstorming here.

You are right to be sceptical and should be. However in this particular case, what we see today, is exactly the outcome of central planning, from the previous regime that ended in the 70s, which effectively decimated industry on the countryside and forced everyone to live in large cities.

> was to force the owner of the flat to pay the expenses for signing the leasing contract of their tenants

The reality is, anyone renting in Spain can readily tell you things don't work this way, if you query this, they go with someone else. Tenants paying the contract fee has an enormous momentum and it's way to easy for landlords to ignore it, in our hot housing market.

I also reject "just building more", at least in already too big cities. I think a more viable long-term approach would be to foster the economy in such way that creates more jobs in smaller cities. Spain needs cities like "Düsseldorf" or "Austin".

They mentioned it specifically because the evicted lady lived there on a very low, outdated rental contract, think $500 in Central Park.

It's difficult to comment on news like this, if there was a good, fast solution, it would have been enacted by now. I do somewhat agree that more renter protection is unlikely to solve much. Spain had years of complete eviction bans, meaning even if you completely default on your rent, the owner couldn't do anything. Even if a court ordered removal, enforcement was impossible.

This lady was living in a very desirable, central area of Madrid, paying peanuts for rent. Think Central Park rent for $500.

The spanish public generally doesn't want to, "build more", as they reject megacities. One of the biggest problem is there are no good, viable second and third-tier cities that have jobs. While there are very cheap places on the countryside, no one wants to live there as there are no jobs.

A complex solution would help: Canada-style ban of non-resident ownership, at least in stressed areas, "building more", but not in Madrid, Barcelona or Valencia, and in parallel, boost small businesses and remote work to help de-centralize living. However I don't think any country really cracked the code how to fix housing.

Sorry to say but that part about the waymo being the only car pulling over is the embodiment of "f*ck you, I got mine". I could never live in a society like that. Germany has many issues (or at least, its adversaries like to portray it as such), but the moment traffic stops on the Autobahn, cars split into forming a corridor immediately. And yes, the fact German society is, broadly speaking, very considerate of others, makes it a better place to live there, overall, despite lower income.

Is there anything that you learned through the FF/PM job that you find applying in your SE job? If I would have to guess, it's estimating outcomes quickly, people and expectation management?

Pretty cool write-up. Being an EMT is basically the polar opposite of being a software engineer, instead of dealing with computers and automated systems, you are dealing with people and everything is manual, "custom" workflow instead of automated. However it can still use the same debugging, engineering mentality we have. Good luck in whatever comes next to you.

This looks like a backend engineers take.