leepowers

Yes, that's the point. As a software freelancer you have no responsibility to take on risk for a client company that you have no ownership in. You'd be a fool to do otherwise.

Every hourly billable contract I've signed has included a detailed scope. Contracts that very clearly delineate responsibilities and compensation. Both parties are agreeing to the value the freelancer is providing. You'd be a fool to hire a freelancer without understanding the value they provide. And as a freelancer you'd be a fool to sign a contract without clearly defined responsibilities.

The author seems to believe the method of compensation determines the value provided. But these things are orthogonal. I've worked with multi-million dollar agencies that bill by the hour. They provided a lot of value, they knew precisely the outcomes they were responsible for, and delivered those outcomes.

Blog posts like this come along every so often, usually when a freelancer discovers that there are circumstances where they can make more money on a fixed cost contract. For instance "This project will take me 40 hours. If I charge $100/hr I'll gross $4000 total. Or I could quote a fixed cost of $5000 total, and net an additional $1000".

The downside is estimating software is hard, mostly because the end product is almost always a moving target. Generally speaking, clients have a good idea of what they want. But "what they want" almost always changes as a project progresses.

The upside for the freelancer is that if the scope can be nailed down, and a client is predictable, a fixed cost model allows the freelancer to capture any additional value/profit from their productivity.

Which is why savvy businesses are fine with paying hourly rates. They want to fully capture the value of the freelancer's productivity.

In my experience, from a freelance point of view, it tends to be a wash. There are many fixed cost projects where you will come out ahead. But there are always projects with tons of scope creep, and cost increases are almost always more difficult to negotiate on fixed cost contracts. But YMMV, and there's no single correct answer.

“I hope this revelation serves as an ontological shock sociologically and provides a generally uniting issue for nations of the world to re-assess their priorities,” Grusch said.

A conspiracy spanning the better part of century should have more high-level whistleblowers than Grusch and Grey. If their claims are proven out the names Grusch and Grey will be immortalized in history. We still talk about the Gutenberg printing press. Centuries from now people will still talk about Grusch and Grey, and how they kick-started a new era of human knowledge.

Are we to believe that over the course of eighty years, comprising hundreds if not thousands of individuals, many of whom would have access to the same documents and materials, not a single one of these individuals, motivated by either honor or ego, decided to make this world historical disclosure?

The story seems engineered to appeal to the conspiracy theorist. A brave iconoclast bucks the system and exposes a massive coverup - a truth that just happens to confirm all the poorly sourced and speculative claims made by the true believers. Wait, why haven't we seen any miraculous technology derived from alien tech? Ahhh, this tech exists, but it's hoarded by a secretive cabal who may or may not themselves be aliens/reptiles or blood-drinking elites. Etcetera, etcetera.

On the other hand ... it would be apropos if bureaucratic inertia led to a world-shattering disclosure. And the conspiracy theories could be 95% b.s. and 5% truth.

For all those reasons I'm not really convinced. Are Grusch and Grey convinced because the evidence is that overwhelming? Are they seeped in online UFO conspiracy culture, and reading a very slanted interpretation into the intelligence documents they have accessed? Are the analyses the military has run on any recovered materials sufficient to determine an origin in non-human intelligence? Have any experts outside the military examined and tested these materials? Does there exists genuine recovered craft ala Independence Day or are the "craft" large meteors that, if you squint, kind of look like a spacecraft? Have they recovered biological material?

Ultimately we won't be able to make a true determination until we get some actual evidence. First, reviewing any documents that supposedly contain these extraordinary claims. Second, interviews with other intelligence officials who have spoken with Grusch and have had access to the materials. Third, getting these materials into the hands of relevant experts, to determine if non-human intelligence is the most likely source.

> 1. Give a very wide estimate with a lot of padding > 2. Get pressured to be more accurate and to bring the estimate down > 3. Get pressured to work unpaid overtime to meet that estimate > 4. Watch management get congratulated by upper management for running a tight ship

Imagine I had plumber at my house and he gave an estimate of 3 to 4 hours to replace a rusted pipe. And I responded with "I think it should only take you 1 hour". He would look at me like I was crazy. That's because trying to substitute my layman's estimate for a professional estimate is crazy.

OP is providing estimates - that's a reasonable ask. The problem is management is ignoring the professional estimate and using their position to substitute in their preferred estimate. OP is being used to launder management's expectations. So of course they're patting themselves on the back. If the plumber ignored his own professional experience and only charged me for 1 hour of labor I would think of highly of myself as well, even though in reality I had no idea what I was talking about.

The solution is to set estimates that you can explain and justify. If management ignores your professional opinion you need to make it clear it's their decision and not yours. If you don't respect your own opinion no one else will.

Maybe working in an adversarial or dysfunctional work environment is what leads to misinterpreting a detailed message as hostile.

Or the team needs to learn to use communication tools effectively. Slack messages should be concise. But a bug report doesn't always fit neatly into a few lines of text. Use an issue tracker for detailed reporting and Slack/email for informal conversations.

Either way the point of the blog post stands - everyone needs to communicate clearly and avoid ambiguous language. If I send an ambiguous message to 10 people, I've just increased their mental overhead and frustration, ultimately distracting the team and slowing them down. Instead, I should take a moment and try to look at it from their point of view and try to communicate what they need to hear and not what I want to say.

The author focuses on energy sources for machine power. But what about generating high heat for metallurgy? Coal burns longer and hotter than wood, and releases fewer particulates. Also coal is more energy dense than wood, making it easier to transport.

1) If they take false content down that will reinforce her beliefs.

2) If they leave false content up, she will keep consuming it, which will reinforce her beliefs.

3) So - when it comes to changing her mind (and the millions like her), 1 and 2 are a wash. She's adopted an unfalsifiable position. There is no policy Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, et al. can adopt to reason her out of this position. She will have to reason her self out of it at some point.

4) The purpose of taking down false content is not to change her mind, or change the mind of anyone else who has adopted an unfalsifiable position. The purpose is to stop the spread of false and untrue information. If there's 10 million people who have taken the unfalsifiable position the goal is to prevent another 10 million from adopting the same viewpoint.

5) However I can't be sure #4 will actually work. Its very difficult to lockdown information and prevent its spread.

6) And can these platforms moderate edge cases with accuracy? If they bungle the job users will lose trust in them as an information source. But - since these platforms are the main driver of misinformation, then discrediting them as information sources would be a net good.

7) So - no moderation means we continue the status quo of information and vaccine hesitancy.

8) Requiring moderation might combat hesitancy by a) preventing the spread of misinformation and b) discrediting platforms in the eyes of the hesitant or hesitant adjacent.

9) Because these platforms are public and performative they are ill suited for mea culpas. Rarely do people relish engaging with ideas that might prove you wrong, especially in a public setting. The work of helping people reason themselves out of unreason will be done outside these platforms.