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Comment on The Man Who Killed Google Search

It overall seems like a good article but this is why I kind of hate Ed Zirtron’s reporting:

For those unfamiliar with Google’s internal scientology-esque jargon, let me explain. A “code yellow” isn’t, as you might think, a crisis of moderate severity. The yellow, according to Steven Levy’s tell-all book about Google, refers to — and I promise that I’m not making this up — the color of a tank top that former VP of Engineering Wayne Rosing used to wear during his time at the company. It’s essentially the equivalent of DEFCON 1 and activates, as Levy explained, a war room-like situation

Overall the reporting is interesting, but weird comments like this show his naked disdain for everyone and everything in the tech industry which does not make him a particularly trustworthy source.

Like “oh my god, how dare a company choose an arbitrary alert system based on a quirky influential engineer’s practices, what crazy psychos!”

If he sees the code yellow tank top thing as some crazy ridiculous thing that no company should do, then I can’t really trust his interpretation of the rest of the emails and documents etc.

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TurtleJoe@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It seems clear to me that he hates the people that are ruining the tech industry, ripping off customers, and pumping out shitty projects for short term stuck pumps, and he takes every opportunity to shit on those people and point out their idiosyncrasies. That’s pretty much every tech CEO these days.

It’s also pretty clear to me that he believes in the promise of the industry, and thinks that workers deserve better than the people that they work for.

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frezik@midwest.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Hunter S Thompson wrote a scathing eulogy for Richard Nixon, which I think is relevant here:

“Some people will say that words like scum and rotten are wrong for Objective Journalism – which is true, but they miss the point. It was the built-in blind spots of the Objective rules and dogma that allowed Nixon to slither into the White House in the first place. He looked so good on paper that you could almost vote for him sight unseen. He seemed so all-American, so much like Horatio Alger, that he was able to slip through the cracks of Objective Journalism. You had to get Subjective to see Nixon clearly, and the shock of recognition was often painful.”

(Non paywalled link: web.archive.org/web/20150213034115/…/308699/)

Sometimes, you need one or two journalists who are in a position to say “you know what? These people suck, and I’m sick of pretending they don’t”. It doesn’t need to be every journalist, and it probably shouldn’t be, but someone needs to say it.

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- masterspace@lemmy.ca ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yeah, I mean that’s kinda of the whole conceit of Behind the Bastards, the host is explicitly and inherently calling everyone they cover a bastard by default, but if you listen to Ed Zirtron’s appearances, he always just immediately wants to boil them down to a bastard as the root cause of their actions, when the literal entire point of that show is to examine what factors and backgrounds turn someone into a bastard.
  
  Or again, I just can’t understand why he would be flabbergasted by a company naming their alert system after an early engineers’ tank top colour. Yes, there’s value in calling people bastards and scum and villains, but Ed Zirtron does it immediately, every time, which makes his judgement of them untrustworthy. It seems more rooted in some pathological need to boil everything down to simple binary systems.
  
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  - turmacar@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    There’s quirkiness and [whimsy?], and there’s needless obfuscation. ‘Code Yellow’ meaning ‘Code Red’ is dumb. Like I get it, it probably started as an equivalent to ‘Code Wayne’ and subverting expectations is funny, but it’s a punchline from an old adult swim show more than anything. I get that Google HQ isn’t a Hospital or the military, but sometimes clarity is important. More now because they’re actively doing contracts for governments and militaries, not a scrappy startup. They became a trusted resource and are now cannibalizing themselves for short term gains.
    
    Whimsy at the top of a company while their workers are protesting their actions isn’t great.
    
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    masterspace@lemmy.ca ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    There’s quirkiness and [whimsy?], and there’s needless obfuscation. ‘Code Yellow’ meaning ‘Code Red’ is dumb. Like I get it, it probably started as an equivalent to ‘Code Wayne’ and subverting expectations is funny, but it’s a punchline from an old adult swim show more than anything. I get that Google HQ isn’t a Hospital or the military, but sometimes clarity is important. More now because they’re actively doing contracts for governments and militaries, not a scrappy startup. They became a trusted resource and are now cannibalizing themselves for short term gains.
    
    Lol, this is dumb AF. If someone at a company tells you “code yellow” do you stop what you’re doing and follow your drilled into memory code yellow training from school, or do you say “hey, what does cod yellow mean?”.
    
    Again, you’re being as big of a blind hater as Zirtron.
    
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  - bitwaba@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    There’s the old adage that “if everything hurts when you poke it your finger is broken”
    
    I feel Iike the correct application of this analogy here is “if everyone you examine is a bastard, you’re the bastard.”
    
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jqubed@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It’s an interesting piece and starts in the traditional journalism mold, but moves much more into opinion and blog. Like going from NewsHour to Last Week Tonight. That’s not to say it’s not an interesting read or he’s not supporting his argument, but it is about persuading, not just reporting. Of course, I haven’t actually gone through all his references to see if they’re mischaracterized or taken out of context.

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- Moneo@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I agree with both your comments, but there’s something so satisfying about reading vitriol about a type of person you fucking hate. I kinda liked that he doesn’t hide his bias or disdain for these people.
  
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GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
If I hear code yellow, I assume I need to grab a mop and bucket.

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- WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  And an illustrated book about birds.
  
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raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

Overall the reporting is interesting, but weird comments like this show his naked disdain for everyone and everything in the tech industry which does not make him a particularly trustworthy source.

I’d disagree - what this shows is only disdain for everyone who’s fucking up technologies for the sake of profit. And I’m with him there, I found it refreshing to read an accurate account of what pieces of shit work behind the scenes in the industry. Not that I am surprised, but the account of what seems to have happened in detail and in that sequence was new to me.

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- masterspace@lemmy.ca ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  I’d disagree - what this shows is only disdain for everyone who’s fucking up technologies for the sake of profit.
  
  Well you can disagree all you want but you’re clearly and objectively wrong.
  
  His criticism of the code yellow is not because anyone involved in the code yellow procedure, invention, or naming deserves anything, he just hates people everyone in tech so much that a whimsical name must be a bastard move, and not just people at their job trying to make the most of it.
  
  I found it refreshing to read an accurate account of what pieces of shit work behind the scenes in the industry
  
  Yeah, cause you’re accepting his characterizations of everyone as bastards at face value despite not knowing them and despite knowing that Ed Zirtron thinks everyone is a bastard because it makes his world simpler. Yes it is “refreshing” to stop thinking about complex chains of actions and consequences and just think “he’s an evil bastard man and it’s his fault”.
  
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  - raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    “[considering] everyone as bastards” is a strawman argument. Furthermore, the people described are assholes by the evidence provided, assuming the evidence is noy falsified.
    
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    masterspace@lemmy.ca ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    Furthermore, the people described are assholes by the evidence provided
    
    No, far from it. Noone involved with the naming of the code yellow name has any evidence of bastardry presented at all.
    
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Telodzrum@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
It’s like a reverse Lara Swisher. Which, though I hate her work and her complete lack of integrity, I don’t want. I totally get and agree with your take.

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