2022 February
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We used to attend these online quiz nights where at the top of the quiz, the host would do his introductory spiel explaining how the quiz night works. This is typical of quiz nights. But this quiz group in particular always had a semi-complicated final round where each team makes a wager against how many answers you can get in the final question which has multiple answers. They introduce this mechanic during the intro spiel, and at the end of the night, if there are any new teams during the quiz, they will inevitably raise a question or two that
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Dan Luu had a pretty good thread over on Twitter about communicating nuance at a high level. My favorite part of it is this tweet: As noted previously, most internet commenters can't follow constructions as simple as an AND, and I don't want to be in the business of trying to convey what I'd like to convey to people who won't bother to understand an AND since I'd rather convey nuance Hard agree. I already have low expectations of other people in general, so it's unsurprising that we shouldn't expect most people to be good at boolean algebra. The topic
2020 April
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Unless you’re working at a small shop that only serves local clients, software development these days is often an international endeavor. That means the aspiring software developer needs to be able to work with and get along with people of different cultures. In the company I worked with, most projects back in the day we would have a person from the foreign office in charge. Their roles were either as project manager (PM) or system analyst (SA). They were the ones who would be interacting directly with the clients so they get to decide which things need to be done
2018 November
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The larger the audience, the more careful you have to be with your words. When you're hanging out with a small group of close friends, you can say anything ridiculous and irresponsible and it's fine, your friends can call you out on it. When you're a commencement speaker you need to be more careful with what you say, even jokingly. Since you're talking to a large number of impressionable youths, there's a good chance someone will misinterpret what you say. When you're the head of a company, you have to be more careful with what you say, even jokingly. Your
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Had a slightly confusing conversation a couple of weeks ago with my mom which went something like: Me: "Oh, the bar exam starts next weekend, <my cousin> is in Manila a week early." Ma: "No, it's this weekend." Me: "That's what I said, next weekend." Ma: "No, this weekend, on the 4th." Me: "That's what next weekend means!" Ma: "No, next weekend is the 11th." "Next weekend" is definitely confusing, so I should avoid using it in the future for the much clearer and more definitive "this weekend" which is unambiguous when used on a weekday. Or to avoid any