There's a lot of the rider's bias leaking through here. "Men who seemed to be of higher social class", "Middle Class Men", complete assumptions and biases that aren't used to form any sort of conclusion. Frustrating in an otherwise enjoyable and interesting essay.
I imagined it to be similar to how some "blue collar" professions attract mostly men who openly discuss women in sexual ways with each other while at work and will cat-call a pretty woman walking by.
Likewise, a group of business men in suites are less likely to engage in this behavior. It's impossible for the unicyclist to measure people's class standing but you can get a lot of context clues by their appearance and behavior. Maybe it includes some bias, but for the purpose of logging all interesting responses I thought it was approximate enough.
> I imagined it to be similar to how some "blue collar" professions attract mostly men who openly discuss women in sexual ways with each other while at work and will cat-call a pretty woman walking by.
Bro if you're trying to count those responses by class you can't use those same responses to put them into the bins in the first place, and reproducing a classist stereotype for no reason doesn't make the point any more valid.
Social and ethnic differences seemed to soften the male response, and such a softening was also noted when unicycling in Framlingham, a small Suffolk town to which I had moved from Newcastle.
responses varied between a large hard industrial northern England city and a softer more rural and idyllic town.
I saw a comedy video recently in which the comic suggested that a man using an umbrella in Newcastle was enough to provoke comedic insults from passers by.
I work at AWS in the UK and also do interviews in a Software Engineering role. I have no CS degree and at least where I am we do not look at degrees. We are hiring btw.
The man who got his party to government off the back of promising to abolish tuition fees, then immediately tripled tuition fees landing an entire generation with massive debt has questionable character. Who’d’ve thunk it?
As a junior part of a coalition, they could only get through a few policies. The media put a lot of focus on tuition fees, but they weren't high up the Lib Dem agenda (e.g. the first mention in their manifesto[0] was on page 33).
In contrast, the Lib Dems did manage to pass same-sex marriage (frustratingly, many seem to credit the Tories or Cameron for this despite a majority of Tories voting against it at both readings[1]).
The Lib Dems also managed to block the Digital Economy Bill, AKA the "Snoopers Charter" (the Tories later passed it, once they got a majority in parliament).
The Lib Dem's top priority has always been voting reform, and Clegg seemed to gamble away far too much in an attempt to get it. All they managed was a referendum on a watered-down AV system (AFAIK the Lib Dems want STV, as used by Northern Ireland); which was heavily campaigned against by both Labour and Tories, and failed spectacularly :(
I would accept not being able to abolish tuition fees, but having a three-line whip imposed to vote to increase them after making a "personal pledge"? No, that was definitely wrong. The Lib Dem party should have revolted at that point and fees should have been left at their level.
Agreeing to a referendum on the voting system without securing agreement that the Tories would not campaign against it was also incredibly tactically stupid.
The coalition negotiations were far too quick and cheap. It should have been over a few weeks rather than a couple of days. Anyway, the public punished the Lib Dems by re-relegating them to minor party status.
> I would accept not being able to abolish tuition fees, but having a three-line whip imposed to vote to increase them after making a "personal pledge"?
This was key for me that turned it from being the unfortunate reality of politics into a serious breach of trust. I remember saying at the time that I'd have accepted keeping fees but tripling them was like slapping your voters in the face.
I understand they were stitched up by the Tories: the budget gutted university funding, meaning the choice was increase fees or watch higher education collapse. That being said, they needed to find another way.
From a strategic perspective, too, it was the biggest cause of their 2015 annihilation. Their entire message of "we'll moderate the Tories" had the ready response of "you mean like tuition fees?"
I always assumed that the LDs planned to stay in coalition for a few years, then exit over some point of principle, restoring their reputation as an independent party. Failing to do that seems like a clear mistake on their part, in hindsight. A lot of things could have been different now if they had made that move in 2014 or so.
Maybe with hindsight, but their main policy was/is electoral reform which would end up with more coalitions. They needed to prove coalitions can work. Funnily enough, I'd argue they managed to do that after seeing the governments FPTP has given us since the 2015 election.
It might not have been high up in their agenda, but it was still there and every single Lib Dem MP signed the Vote for Students pledge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote_for_Students_pledge) in support of it. So no matter what the outcome was, generations of students have incurred fairly ridiculous levels of debt as a result and many hold the Lib Dems responsible and feel betrayed. They may have been powerless to stop it, or they may have been ineffective - but the damage is done either way
It might not have been high up their agenda, but it was high up their campaign material and was a major reason why they won so many seats. It's also worth noting that they positioned themselves to left of Labour in that election campaign, and that as "kingmakers" they had the option of forming a coalition with Labour which would have allowed them to have gotten a lot more of their manifesto passed.
I am 100% not a fan of the LibTory years, but LabTory would have been a minority government. At the very least this would have been difficult to pull off.
>In contrast, the Lib Dems did manage to pass same-sex marriage
It's my pet peeve when people claim this.
The UK already had same sex marriage, it was just not called marriage. Labour brought that in. The bill you refer to just renamed it, plus it gave religious orgs a get out from equalities legislation and tidied up non-same-sex marriage rules.
And the only reason it passed was because of Labour. The majority of Tories voted against their own parties bill. And 10% of Lib dems did too.
Like so many of Clegg's achievements, it was a triumph of (false and misleading) advertising over substance...
In exchange for not supporting a bill that didn't really do what was claimed, the tories got total support for all of their economic and social policies.
> The UK already had same sex marriage, it was just not called marriage.
Sure, but marriage isn't just about legals/financials. Socially/culturally, civil partnerships are a "runner up prize" compared to marriage; e.g. the recent extension of civil partnership to opposite-sex couples didn't get much fanfare.
In any case, I was specifically referring to the 2013 act, rather than the broader notion of marriage/partnerships/etc. It's the inconsistency which frustrates me, to see people thanking Cameron/Tories for delivering same-sex marriage (i.e. the 2013 act) in one breath, and blaming Clegg/LibDems for delivering tuition rises in the next.
> And the only reason it passed was because of Labour
Absolutely. The LibDems couldn't do much to swing votes themselves; hence the back-room negotiations, whips, etc.
> And 10% of Lib dems did too.
True, but that's still just 4 MPs; so I'm not sure it's too statistically insightful. Still disappointing considering the whole point of liberal philosophy is personal freedom (unfortunately some like to interpret "personal" as "the corporation I own/represent", and "freedom" to include freedom to pollute, freedom to choose my own health & safety levels, etc.)
> In exchange for not supporting a bill that didn't really do what was claimed, the tories got total support for all of their economic and social policies.
To be clear, the bill which did that would be the AV referendum (which LibDems most cared about). Also, some Tory policies were blocked by the LibDems, e.g. the Digital Economy Bill.
I also used to argue that it was unfair to criticise the Lib Dems too harshly over tuition fees, because they hadn't won the election, and as the junior partner in a coalition obviously had to compromise on parts of their manifesto. Reasonable people could perhaps disagree on how hard they should have negotiated with the Conservatives on that point.
Then someone pointed out to me the tuition fee thing wasn't just a manifesto policy. Every Lib Dem candidate in that election had (at the direction of the campaigns department) signed a personal pledge to vote against a rise in tuition fees during the next parliament. Most of them broke that pledge in pretty spectacular fashion (at the direction of party leadership).
I didn't really have an answer to that, and still don't.
> The media put a lot of focus on tuition fees, but they weren't high up the Lib Dem agenda
Lib Dems target students and young people who are generally more liberal, their main selling point to them was tuition fees. Young people got them to government and they immediately turned on their voters.
I think the Lib Dems rapidly found the difference between being in permanent opposition and being able to promise what they like, and being in government where hard choices need to be made.
It was a coalition, though, and whatever he betrayed for that, you could argue he might have prevented the Tories from running an even worse government than they did during those years. Given what's happened afterwards, the evidence would be on your side.
For all that, I think he made a serious mistake going into coalition with the Tories when he could equally well (going on election results) have done so with Labour (plus possibly SNP I forget), whose policies I thought should have better aligned with Lib Dem.
But I'm assuming the best of intent here, and will continue to do so until proven otherwise, so this case is an interesting development.
From what I remember due to the figures if he'd gone with Labour it would have been a massively rainbow coalition. I think he got conned by the superior sliming skills of some of the tories and saw a bit of power, then messed up. He went all out to try for proportional representation giving up all other policies and then the tories were able to market that as looking so bad or just uninteresting that the majority either didn't understand the vote or didn't care, so it lost.
Clegg voted for raising tuition fees, in direct contradiction to the pledges. It was a betrayal and one that's on public record.
Cameron was a disaster. Austerity was incredibly cruel on the poorest of the population, and the UK wasn't exactly a shining light in its recovery from the financial crisis. He led a weak remain campaign and then stepped aside as soon as Brexit became difficult, and the following governments have had to deal with his mess, the covid outbreak and the effects of the war in Ukraine.
So I think you could equally say that the coalition is a root cause of many of the issues of today. That and the lack of any credible opposition for years.
> Cameron was a disaster. Austerity was incredibly cruel on the poorest of the population, and the UK wasn't exactly a shining light in its recovery from the financial crisis.
Although austerity did indeed start under the coalition (so it has the Lib Dems' fingerprints on it), didn't much of what many dislike about Cameron's premiership stem from after the end of the coalition?
> He led a weak remain campaign and then stepped aside as soon as Brexit became difficult, and the following governments have had to deal with his mess
He was rumoured to have campaigned in the 2015 general election on the assumption he'd renew the coalition with the Lib Dems, who would block the EU referendum he'd promised his voters, and who he could continue using as a human shield. But the backlash against the Lib Dems after just one term of coalition with him was so severe that he had to lead a single-party majority government and uphold his negotiating position as if it were a plan for government.
There were not the numbers of MPs to be able to form a coalition with Labour, a better solution could have been to just support the Tories with a confidence and supply [1] agreement.
I get the impression Clegg was concerned about any Prime Minister (whether put in place by a coalition, by a confidence and supply deal, or as head of a minority government) calling an early election just as soon as polls indicated it would be to their advantage. Partisan elections being a zero-sum game, that would be to the disadvantage of other parties, likely disproportionately including the junior party of any deal. This was before the Fixed-Term Parliament Act, and some of Clegg's energy, attention and political capital went into that act, rather than into electoral reform, tuition fees, etc.
Wow nail on the head. Just did this and out of the first 8 videos, 5 were reaction videos, 4 with the exact same "shocked" faces. Scrolling down the page it is much the same. How can google allow whatever algorithm to present such homogenous content on such a general platform?
Notably though, if I log in and visit my home page I have only one video of this nature on the front page in the first ~50, so it does appear possible to teach the algorithm you will not engage with such content even without conscious effort.
- difficult to gauge how much they know, and how slow/fast I should in explaining stuff
Generally I think this is a difficult problem. Some people will agree and nod as if they understood everything without understanding anything, while others will ask dozens of questions when they already understand 99% of what you're trying to explain but just wanted to clarify details. I think the best way to gauge how this is with different people is to explain a problem or task, see how they react and how many questions they ask, then set them on the task and see how they solve it. That gives you a reference for if they agree to everything and solve the task quickly and easily they understood, or if they struggled it gives you an opportunity to talk about them asking questions and saying something if they weren't clear. You can use this to calibrate from there.
Additionally, I've found that people can be more forthcoming with talking about problems they're facing in a role in a more social setting. Going to lunch if in office or in some unstructured chat if remote.
- distraction (I am excited to mentor, hence my brain keep coming back to that (providing resources, reviewing their work, etc.) while I am supposed to do my work)
I think this is human nature to have your mind on the most interesting problem you're facing, which in this case to you at the current time is your mentee. It's something you just have to overcome to focus on your current task. If you have a team try to spread the reviewing across the team, this is helpful to the person as somebody else on the team may learn the same way they do and be able to explain something in a way that makes more sense to them and that's okay, as a mentor understanding that people need more feedback from different sources and providing a way for them to get that both frees yourself up and helps them.
- how detailed/nitpicking should I be in reviewing, how to explain the right concept at the right time
I generally think that nitpicking should be avoided in all reviews, point out things that are wrong for clear reasons and keep to your same review process you use for the rest of the team. Wrong could be opinionated if it doesn't fit the working style of the team. Explain concepts when they ask how something works, or if they have done something that is wrong.
You will see a lot of anecdotal opinions, obviously, as each persons advice will come from their own history but I'd like to echo the comments that there's no real linear path of what you "should" do next after learning Python. You have endless opportunities.
My own 2 cents would be that I would recommend sticking around before moving on. Learning one language until you're fully proficient as you said you're not yet "professional in python", find problems that you can solve so you get used to solving the actual problems not working on learning the language syntax. Python is incredibly versatile and you have endless projects available to you. Once you have done that, you can start to consider what languages would've made sense to use for the project, what would the advantages/disadvantages be and try to pick the most appropriate language for each project.
