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Long-time Slashdot reader mtaht writes: Comcast fully deployed bufferbloat fixes across their entire network over the past year, demonstrating 90% improvements in working latency and jitter — which is described in this article by by Comcast Vice President of Technology Policy & Standards. (The article's Cumulative Distribution Function chart is to die for...) But: did anybody notice? Did any other ISPs adopt AQM tech? How many of y'all out there are running smart queue management (sch_cake in linux) nowadays? But wait — it gets even more interesting... The Comcast official anticipates even less latency with the newest Wi-Fi 6E standard. (And for home users, the article links to a page recommending "a router whose manufacturer understands the principles of bufferbloat, and has updated the firmware to use one of the Smart Queue Management algorithms such as cake, fq_codel, PIE.") But then the Comcast VP looks to the future, and where all of this is leading: Currently under discussion at the IETF in the Transport Area Working Group is a proposal for Low Latency, Low Loss Scalable Throughput. This potential approach to achieve very low latency may result in working latencies of roughly one millisecond (though perhaps 1-5 milliseconds initially). As the IETF sorts out the best technical path forward through experimentation and consensus-building (including debate of alternatives), in a few years we may see the beginning of a shift to sub-5 millisecond working latency. This seems likely to not only improve the quality of experience of existing applications but also create a network foundation on which entirely new classes of applications will be built. While we can certainly think of usable augmented and virtual reality (AR and VR), these are applications we know about today. But what happens when the time to access resources on the Internet is the same, or close to the time to access local compute or storage resources? What if the core assumption that developers make about networks — that there is an unpredictable and variable delay — goes away? This is a central assumption embedded into the design of more or less all existing applications. So, if that assumption changes, then we can potentially rethink the design of many applications and all sorts of new applications will become possible. That is a big deal and exciting to think about the possibilities! In a few years, when most people have 1 Gbps, 10 Gbps, or eventually 100 Gbps connections in their home, it is perhaps easy to imagine that connection speed is not the only key factor in your performance. We're perhaps entering an era where consistently low working latency will become the next big thing that differentiates various Internet access services and application services/platforms. Beyond that, factors likely exceptionally high uptime, proactive/adaptive security, dynamic privacy protection, and other new things will likely also play a role. But keep an eye on working latency — there's a lot of exciting things happening!

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

1. “A strict parent.”

2. London accent over the centuries.

3. Why are many book prices now so stratespheric on Amazon? (NYT)

4. Most expensive purchases at AbeBooks this year.

5. Advancing mathematics by guiding human intuition with AI.

6. Household manual.

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This post, can I ask a new hire to use a nickname, getting out of an office basketball game, and more , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

I’m on vacation. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives.

1. Can I ask a new hire to use a nickname since we share the same first name?

We’re in the process of interviewing and we’ve found a great candidate that we might be ready to move forward with. A big snag though is that she has the same first name as me. We work in a small office with less than 10 people, but we utilize over 300 volunteers, most of whom are 60+. Because of my position, I don’t have day-to-day interaction with most of the volunteers, but it’s important that they know that I’m the one in charge. We’ll also both be out in the community doing outreach events and again, it’s important for the community to know the difference. Is it out bounds to I ask her to go by a nickname? (For example, if we’re both named Amanda, could I ask her to go by Mandy?)

It is indeed out of bounds! Names are really personal, and you can’t ask someone to change what they go by. But you can certainly suggest that she go by Amanda S. or whatever her last initial is — just as you’d have to do if the name didn’t lend itself as easily to a nickname, like Karen or Lila. And when you suggest that, it’s possible that she’ll volunteer that she sometimes goes by Mandy and would be happy to do it at work, but you’ve got to let that come from her.

Or, of course, you can be the one to use a nickname, if you want the first names to be different — but I think you’ll find that people figure it out and make do. (Ask all the Sarahs and Matts out there.)

– 2018

Read an update to this letter here.

2. How can I get out of my office’s basketball game?

I work in a small sales team (two groups of five people) for a university selling tickets to athletic events. All of my coworkers are hardcore jocks and sports fans. I love my job, but I’m not the biggest sports fan. My boss knows that I don’t like sports nearly as much as my coworkers and he’s fine with that, particularly because it doesn’t affect my job performance.

The problem is, as a reward for reaching our January goal, our boss has scheduled some time for us to play basketball as a team together in the university’s stadium. The rest of the team is understandably excited about this but I couldn’t be more nervous. I’m absolutely terrible at basketball and do not enjoy playing in the slightest. My boss has emphasized that we’re not there to be competitive but rather to just bond as a team. However, I fear that the whole affair will be terribly awkward because I’ll stand out in stark contrast to my very athletic coworkers. I’d prefer to just not go, but how can I communicate this to my boss? I worry that because we’re a sports-based team that my not participating will look counter to the culture of the office and reflect poorly on me.

Ugh, I’m right there with you. I wouldn’t want to do with this either. That said, I think you should go, but you don’t have to play. Instead, offer to keep score, cheer people on, hand out towels (is that a thing?), or some other job that has you there but not doing the part you don’t want to do.

You can either tell a white lie (“I have a bad back that would aggravated by this”) or tell your boss the truth (“this would a punishment for me, not a reward — I’m going to keep score instead”). Note that in that last one, you’re not asking to sit it out, you’re letting him know that you will be; you’re an adult and this isn’t high school gym class, so you get to do that.

If you really don’t want to go at all, you can adjust that wording to “this would be a punishment for me, not a reward, so I’m going to skip it — but have fun!” But I’d really recommend going and just doing something that doesn’t involve playing.

– 2016

Read an update to this letter here.

3. Can I give more feedback to someone I recently fired?

I recently fired a member of my staff. She was chronically late, frequently wanted to leave early, often called out very close to her scheduled start time (this is not a job where working from home is an option and coverage at the desk is important), and – towards the end – she was very distracted and her attitude was poor. We’d had a couple meetings about these concerns and I was going to put her on a PIP before she called out again and I’d had enough, so the firing wasn’t completely a surprise, but hadn’t had as much preparation as I’d have liked.

We had something of an exit interview (over the phone – again, not the way I would have preferred to do this), and discussed why she was being fired. She wasn’t rude but it was pretty clear that she wasn’t hearing what I had to say. I really want to wait a couple weeks until she’s cooled off and email her a little feedback, not as a former manager, but just as a person who worked with her, to help her improve. All her issues aside, I really liked her and want to see her succeed, but I felt like she got in her own way a lot. I have no idea how she would take this, and I don’t want to start any drama with her, but I saw a lot of my younger self in her and just wish I could help her do better in the future.

Is this crazy? I feel like it is, but the impulse is also really strong.

Don’t do it.

While she was still working for you, you had complete standing to talk to her as much as you wanted about why this stuff was a problem. But you’re no longer in a position to do that; she no longer works for you, and it’s highly unlikely that she’s interested in having a postmortem with the person who fired her about what happened. While I get that you’re thinking this could be genuinely helpful to her, it won’t come across that way to her — it’s going be “why the hell is the person who fired me and who I no longer work for emailing me weeks later to continue to talk about what I’ve done wrong?”

– 2016

4. I used an alias to reapply for a job with a company that just rejected me

I applied to a job and went to the third round and then never heard back. Later I learned that the position has been filled. I was not getting any reply from the company after my interview, although I was told “you did great and you’ll hear back in a week.” I was trying to reach HR, the team, and everyone, but nobody answered, so I made another profile in their online application system with the same resume, but I changed the name to my alias.

I applied for anther job in same department using my alias. Yesterday I got a call from HR (phone screening) and he scheduled me for interview with the team. What should I do? Should I attend?

I am so confused about what you were attempting to accomplish with applying again with an alias. Obviously if you meet with them, they’re going to realize that it’s you and they’re going to wonder why you’re using an alias. It’s going to look like you were attempting to trick them into interviewing you, and it’s also going to look like a really weirdly-thought-out plan, since they’d of course realize it once you showed up in person.

This is a bad idea.

The only thing I can think of that you could do to try to salvage this would be to immediately fess up to the HR person who scheduled the interview and try to come up with an explanation that might make sense. (I’m racking my brain here and all I can come up with is something like, “I want to mention that I interviewed with this team last month. They know me as Barnaby Warbleworth, my legal name. I use Percival Montblanc socially and I didn’t realize I’d put it on the application.”) But … it’s going to seem weird.

– 2015

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