Not quite the same question, but what’s the most unusual and/or interesting project you’ve ever assisted a customer gather materials for (assuming the customer stated the purpose)?
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Well, we’re not supposed to help the customers design things. Some of the staff is better at this than others…oh wait, she’s leaving for an office job, lol.
Hmmm…helping a pair of African-American ladies find what they need to in order to decorate a baby girl’s high chair. Not unusual, but it was very rewarding, as they took my ideas seriously and respectfully, after admitting they weren’t all that crafty themselves.
I, as much as I express my inability to contain my contempt for the contemptible, do sincerely believe that most people are nice and good, if not especially smart; having said that, I do sincerely like to help others who ask me for help. I mean, isn’t that kind of what we’re here for, to help each other through whatever this is?
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Y’know. Men in trench coats asking about the glue and bubble wrap in a sweaty way.
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When I first started there this past July, there was this guy who looked like Hunter S. Thompson wanna-be without the shades, smelling of Salem Lights (my dad smoked those for the last 20 years of his life, so I know the smell), all sweaty and…repulsive.
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True story: I had a co-worker who is also a musician. He does a lot of deep listening things and electric violin stuff - pretty out there. One Monday we were having lunch and I asked the usual, “What’d you do this weekend?” His response, “I was playing electric violin, naked except for being wrapped in bubble wrap, in a cage.”
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Thank you @Lucy_Gothro!
Now up at bat, @enso.
Enso, please answer these questions to kick it off:
- What is your job?
- What is one skill (other than the actual skill you get paid for) that is indispensable to your work?
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Not your AMA (or his) but I have to ask: was the bubble wrap considered a separate instrument?
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I’m a security program manager for Firefox and our engineering organization. I’m also the manager of a seven person team of engineers that engage in Software Fuzzing to find security and stability issues in Firefox and associated code.
I’m not sure of one skill as opposed to mindset. I work in security. An absolutely fatalistic view of software informed by many years of experience and of human nature is useful, along with a know going back a decade of our horrible historic security flaws.
My wife says that as a manager, the ability to wrangle toddlers is essential. I’m the adult in the room officially.
I’m going to get on a five or six hour plane flight shortly so I’ll check in later.
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What is software fuzzing? Is it as warm and cuddly as it sounds?
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https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Fuzzing
My non-managerial job, as security program manager, is taking security bug reports from external researchers and internal to Mozilla folks and shepherding them through being fixed. We triage them, give security ratings for severity, and I run our bug bounty program that pays bounties to researchers. I write Mozilla’s security advisories as well.
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I thought it was more of a fashion accessory, but given what he does, perhaps an instrument as well.
And, if you are wondering, no, he’s not the kind of guy you think, “He could totally pull that off.”
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I’m not sure there is anyone who could totally pull that off, except maybe in parodies.
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I had a coworker when I was in high school who had to shave half of his hair off because he lost a bet. He was so good looking, he actually pulled it off. This guy is, well, not the kind of guy where you think, him in bubblewrap:
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Perhaps, but, if “hot in bubblewrap” has become a performance criterion, the performance has already slipped over into parody.
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What’s the deal with Javascript and Fash and why should I be happy they’re going the way of programs on tape cassette?
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Flash is dead. As a binary plugin full of security holes that is constantly being patched you should be happy.
JavaScript isn’t going away in the slightest though. Check out WebAsm and BinaryAST.
Beyond that, I don’t understand your question!
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That was just putting you at ease for the next one;
Software, and tech in general, has taken on a pretty bad reputation in recent years. Some of this nasty reputation include;
- Having a large percentage of MRA scum.
- Thinking Ayn Rand and South Park are moral and philosophical guiding lights for some fucking reason.
- “Scientific” racism and evopsych woo-peddlers.
- Ceaseless Sea Lioning.
- Being the online backbone of the self-named “Alt Right” movement.
- Uber in general.
And I don’t just mean that manifesto guy from Google.
Do you feel any of this is reputation deserved or is the field being badly tarnished by a very loud and very active minority of assholes?
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I’m not sure that tech as a whole has taken embraced that kind of crap. Most of the tech folks that I’ve known well over 20+ years have been relatively progressive. Microsoft, ironically, was probably the most blue place I’d worked until Mozilla.
I do think that there is a significant libertarian male douchebag component in silicon valley specifically but it is unevenly distributed.
I also think a lot of tech folks come from pretty privileged backgrounds, never having seen much hardship, and the industry is overwhelmingly white and male, which, as we’ve seen, becomes self reinforcing. I do think that it is also important to remember that a lot of these people you encounter online are in their 20s and are not even fully human yet.
Short version: problems are real but I also think the media conflates parts of California with the industry as a whole and also loves to fan controversy. That side, my wife is in tech and she has lots of opinions on entitled male bullshit she’s seen, though in more than one career and industry.
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Your thoughts on AGILE?
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