antipaul

"It can be hard to see if they're contributing anything valuable"

Indeed. It's easier to evaluate "the appearance of change" than actual value or improvement.

When I consider this problem, my current belief is that only long-term discipline from senior leadership can change this system.

Here is a response, that PC himself references on his site:

https://nintil.com/building-skyscrapers-and-spending-on-majo...

Excerpt:

> So all in all, if we control away war, and increasing complexity, and the fact that you can't optimise people beyond a certain point, and sprinkle on top some regulation-induced slowdown it's not clear that there has been a slowdown or stagnation in general for major projects.

As another comment points out, what about "preparation" time?

I guess the timelines depend on when you start the clock.

Does anyone have a credible example of going fast, and where it really was a "zero to one" kind of process?

> On August 9 1968, NASA decided that Apollo 8 should go to the moon. It launched on December 21 1968, 134 days later

But they were planning to get to that destination, with the same Apollo program, for years before that...

This example seems a bit of a stretch, which makes me hesitate on the other examples.

And another source of hesitation comes from this parallel: - During Covid, it was said that China built a new hospital in like 8 days, and it was claimed "we can't do that" etc - But then we created a temporary 1000-bed hospital in 7 days: "It was much quicker than we usually design, engineer and construct a project... We worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week with our vertical team to spec out the sites [and] award contracts, and then began work immediately after the contracts were awarded." [1]

[1] https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/21...

For a long time, I thought this was bullsh*t too.

But I think they make a subtle dig at many other consumer products.

I have seen too many examples, where the "latest" product is inferior to previous-gen.

EG:

- A few car models I am familiar with had adaptive cruise control a few years ago, standard. Now, you need some expensive package. Definitely not "our best model xyz ever"

- Consumer appliances like refrigerators and washing machines just get more expensive, and more complicated, and crappier.

- A key. A friggin door key. How can you make a "next-gen" key that is worse than a piece of metal? Hello, every "digital" key fob. They SUCK! Slow, cumbersome, annoying sounds. Did I say slow? No, many keys are not "the best ever key".

- Ever update Microsoft Windows to a new version? Through today, I am scarred that an "update" to a device will be a regress.

So yea, when Apple says "our best ever", it may sound obvious and trite.

But other companies can't say this for _so many of their product lines_...

"Apple's relentless pursuit of thinness and lightness"

That ended in the previous generation.

The 12" MacBook and previous-gen (final-gen Intel) MacBook pros were the most beautiful and the most thin/light MacBooks

With the new MB Pros, Apple went with much more compromise towards functionality and quality. I think they are almost flawless – just much more ugly than previous gen!

I am not sure about the Airs – and maybe that's your primary comparison.

That's a fine opinion, but I haven't found a more widely available tool to describe a project "recipe", where project is written in one or more, of many possible languages

* Snakefile -> requires installation

* bash -> macOS is now ZSH. (Is bash a better choice than Make?)

* python -> what if I'm not using python?

What else is as "accessible" as Makefile?

EDIT: formatting

This tutorial feels like its only for C++ (-like) coders, since it focuses on "(re)compiling"

> Makefiles are used to help decide which parts of a large program need to be recompiled

I've found uses for Makefiles, where users don't have a clue what "compiling" is.

(Though other commenters may not necessarily appreciate such use cases!)

Did SpaceX do this? Who’s been their CEO?

Edit: lol, I guess she’s the President and COO, not CEO. Dunno if the point still stands, or not…

> It looks like Woz is not scared of Tesla’s “hardcore litigation” team, which has been a bit trigger-happy when it comes to suing people for defamation lately.

Anyone can expand?

Why does Google X exist?

For excellent front-end alternatives, without recommendation, see:

https://invidious.io

Click "Use invidious" and bookmark 1-2 of the choices

If I sum up that chart, I barely get ~40%.

(software engineering is “highest”, at 19.3%)

What roles are in the 60%??

The overlap in "deployment" between MLOps and Software engineering was hinted at in that well-known 2015 NeuriIPS paper, "Hidden Technical Debt in Machine Learning Systems":

"It may be surprising to the academic community to know that only a tiny fraction of the code in many ML systems is actually devoted to learning or prediction – see Figure 1"

https://papers.nips.cc/paper_files/paper/2015/hash/86df7dcfd...

PDF: https://papers.nips.cc/paper_files/paper/2015/file/86df7dcfd...

Who are the "people"??

I'm very confused what this actually is

ELI5, anyone?

Can you `grep` it?

Text-based files like CSV can be `grep`-ed en masse, which I do often.

eg, to find some value across a ton of files.

Is that possible with parquet?

Very useful perspective

… in order to, primarily, save money.

(I assume human models get paid??)

Need a wartime CEO, right?

https://a16z.com/2011/04/14/peacetime-ceo-wartime-ceo/

Although personally, I’m not seeing chatGPT bulldoze the world just yet. They need to monetize it, which means ads. Are they better at ads than the others? It’s not a given

Is it ok to predict that, like so many things before, the noise of chatGPT will die out more quickly than we imagine?

Is the metric right?

It’s not how quickly you can get a tower up

It’s average speed of square feet built per year

Which is not really speed. Just how “much” you’re building, on average per year

Right?

Good, concise memo.

Notably, none of these top mistakes are technical mistakes.

The implication seems to be that the person in the manager’s role is critical.

I mean, if they don’t even let the team know they’re bringing in another person to the team, then good luck.

[2011] or thereabouts

Of “kill cash” fame

“Apple says the first vehicles with support for the next-generation CarPlay experience will be announced in late 2023, with committed automakers including Acura, Audi, Ford, Honda, Jaguar, Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Porsche, Volvo, and others”

This is the saving grace.

And luckily, the next generation CarPlay will span the entire dashboard, including in front of the driver [1]

I can’t wait to abandon my native “infotainment” cluster**

[1] https://www.macrumors.com/2022/12/28/next-generation-carplay...

These people should be banned from making software. Some imposed penance would be good too.

“MBUX” is buggy and confusing as heck in a brand new 2023 model.

Apparently one of the most requested features in new cars [1] has been CarPlay - people are tired of the native “infotainment” garbage

[1] It's also a top feature for many drivers and car buyers. Twenty-three percent of new car buyers in the U.S. say they "must have" CarPlay https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/05/29/apple-carplay-massive-su...

Exactly, that’s why the Apple Newton didn’t work out - wrong timing.

"This is like only half of Manhattan, one of 5 city boroughs" would be more accurate

Though to be fair, most people _do_ associate Manhattan with NYC

Aren’t these called drones, and haven’t they been around a while?

Predator drone entered service back in 1995 per Wikipedia, and it’s use only skyrocketed since (Iraq, Afghanistan, etc) There are other models like Reaper

Turkey, Iran also seem to be big players here, among others