ci5er

Start here: https://www.andykessler.com/andy_kessler/excerpts/How_We_Got...

Message me after. I am at wmarchibald@gmail.com

EDIT: Oh! Also "Eat People" by same author - Kessler : https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0049U4KC6/

Semi-edited: Everybody else will say Zero to whatever, and the Hard things about Hard Things, and Jimmie's book Good to Great and Crossing the Chasm, and you might call me mad (and I may be!), I am the only person who will recommend a book called "Eat People". (It is a good book, though)

EDIT2: U - akjha - Please let me know what you thought. You have my email address.

That makes perfect sense. They are looking for jobs. (Which is not bad!)

"We" were going to build a new world. So I guess we were some kind of idiots. After I sold my first "game" on an Apple 2 in 1984 (they paid me a lot), I went to work a semiconductor manufacture, and AT&T and Apple and General Magic and Motorola were going to re-invent the world. Good engineering work - bad vision. Didn't work.

Meanwhile in Japan, where I worked, I translated Nintendo Games (In addition to the adobe and lucas arts stuff, which was more for Sega) to the 6502 (hey, I'm old), and made money trying to make the meet the new.

I think it was easier back then. I think there was less intergenerational hostility.

Why do we have inter-generational hostility? I know how to bring the old arcades alive! :-) (Actually I know how to activate satellites - if we want low-cost back-haul - packets here - packets there - There are 0.1% utilized GPRS networks out there.

AND Now we are getting into topics that you don't want to hear about.

I do really appreciate your willingness to share tonight. You broke open a couple of pre-conceptions. And I guess that's the reason you talk to people.

Thank you.

Fair enough - I was just curious if the average modern software developer read books by Andy Grove ("Paranoid"), or Crossing the Chasm, or the biography of Steve Jobs, or kept track of what's up with the top 250 global tech companies on planet Earth every week for 20 years.

Now, that's a little unfair because I read really fast.

But - I guess I was just curious about how a tech person couldn't know about SAP.

NOT as a criticism, btw -- just I don't know how this could be? They are not a secret company. I just (apparently) don't know how young software engineers are wired? (Yeah yeah - Ok boomer, I get it)

But, because people actually do matter to me - I would like to understand better how they are wired...

EDIT: I am also stimulated by my healthcare projects and my energy projects and my stupid stupid project to build a carbon-nanotube elevator to the sky (which may have more funding than practical deliverables!), but I am completely stimulated. I assumed you were too, so it wasn't intended to be an either/or.

EDIT2: If you don't know the answer to the question I was asking, don't worry about it. Nobody else appears to know either. Just because I have a question doesn't mean that there is an answer. Thank you for engaging and have a good night.

I am sorry to hear this.

It sounds as if you are like one of my sons.

I miss the "buzz" of human interaction that TV in the background never gives, but I can usually get that from Starbucks.

I'm an introvert, and I've been doing independent consulting over the phone for clients for, gosh, 7-or-so years now, and I love talking to my clients, but I don't want to be in the office with them.

One of my sons is about to go bat-shit crazy. The other loves his ability to get tasks in the morning and focus.

I guess we are all wired different.

I was in the process of putting together a "Remote First" business plan, for my next venture, where -- there simply was no home office.

But reading comments like yours really brings home how bad an idea that might be, because I'd be losing out on incredible talent by doing so.

BTW: My current main client has an office (mostly shut down), but I've made it a point to take out a different engineer for lunch (of something similar, depending on the lockdown harshness), 3 times a week (we're small, so I tend to take out everybody for lunch, including my boss) about every six weeks. That's not enough ... but it's the little things that make you feel connected, right? We had a young (28 y.o.?) superstar that was about to lose his shorts release week about two weeks ago and simply bringing to my place with pizze and Netflix and Nintendo (we got shitfaced and he beat my ass at Super Mario Cart), it was good. He felt better, I felt better, nobody got laid, and we both woke up refreshed...

I think you have a solid point that people need people. But, my question is: Can this be done virtually?

I'm a USian, but I lived in Japan for over 10 years, and my mother always wanted to see me, but I never understood why, when I could read her voice better over the phone than in person. She wanted to see me because she could read my body language better in person than over the phone (which I did not like, actually), but is there a way via which you can feel connected without being in the same room? My girlfriend (I live in Texas) is in Taiwan and we have pretty engaging conversations every day and she comes to see me (or vice versa) about 10 times/year. Would that kind of work satisfy you, or do you literally need to see people every day? (As an introvert, I guess I don't know how extraverts work).

Anyway - A bit more disclosure than I usually do - but I am sincerely interested in your perspective.

Why don't people copy the deb-tree to their local repo and/or pin the version that they want, so that they can be free of node terrorists?

EDIT: To be clear - maybe I am REALLY old-school, but every time we did a release, we archived our tool-chain (GCC blah blah, Make blah blah, bash blah blah), our depencies, our vendor libraries and our code, so that IF in 20 years, if we had to rebuild a particular release (12.x) for a particular client (Chase) on a particular platform (AIX), we could do so de novo. Maybe that was overkill, but in a world where everything changes, why wouldn't you snapshot everything for every release?

I've got a - maybe silly - question: Do you think that software engineers read about the business of technology?

I mean, some of these behemoths (or used-to-be behemoths) of technology, like Oracle and Intel and Microsoft (Ok - everyone knows them) and Dell and Apple (mostly the 2nd one) and places like SAP (which is arguably the biggest database and logistics and supply chain (sans the EDI middle-ware vendors on the planet) and Synnix (which is arguably the largest ODM supplier of white label servers to the largest data centers in the world), and, well, Wistron? BBG? (Submarine - https://www.visualcapitalist.com/submarine-cables/) Satellites? Aerospace? What it takes to wire our world together?

This is not a criticism - it is simply curiousity - as a tech person - you don't read up on (or do you think people do or do not read up on?) the way the world works technologically?

My son graduated with an engineering degree recently and his friends always want me to take them to lunch (free food!), but also so I can tell them how the world is connected (power, telecom, SDN, Satellites (launch - cradle-to-grave), and I'm always a little amazed because I grew up libraries of books and they've got google, but want to be lectured?

I guess I don't understand. If you have a moment, could you edumacate me?

This is interesting to me. I used to be very "into" agent-based computation economics - trying to synthesize macro from micro. And small-worlds neetworks and the intersection, and a a fair amount of systems biology.

After a blow to the head that caused some noticable brain damage and loss of IQ points, I'm still interested, but it's a LOT harder! I remember thinking much vaster thoughts than I can think now.

Which sucks, actually. But I don't actually know what I can and cannot do, or what I am not willing to work hard enough to achieve, because before, I didn't ever have to work for it, you know?

Programming itself, though, say Genetic Programming or embedded systems for video codec for satellites or the such is still simple enough, so I guess I should be grateful for that! :-)

I more-or-less don't disagree, except I do. I think the entire UN has lost its way: Look at the membership of the Human Rights Council. What a joke.

It barely worked in the first place, and is all sorts of corrupted now; I believe they should burn it to the ground.

But! Opinions vary! :-) And I am often wrong in matters outside my particular domains of experience.

Taiwan is an interesting case. They are not recognized as, really anything, except part of "One China" by the UN. Anyway - WHO wouldn't talk to them, even when they asked nicely.

But they, like HK (and Vietnam, and SG and I don't know who else) are part of the "China is asshoe" club (i.e. the TW believe that the Chinese government will always lie and obfuscate, true or not), and had pretty direct experience with SARS and the other corona virus (not MERS, but my brain isn't working). In any case - they had protocols in place start mandating masks - pretty much day 1. They also paid for a factory expansion of the largest vendors, pretty much day 1, and pre-paid for a pretty large order.

I heard a rumor that the Vietnamese actually hacked a Chinese "mainframe" and stole materials that allowed them to prepare. I don't know if this is true, and it is not related to Taiwan's already-in-place response plan.

Like the USDA food pyramid - it's SCIENCE!

Best comment evar!

Do people sit in front of the computer watch/listen-to these instead of reading something like https://www.newline.co/fullstack-react/ ? I mean - without committing suicide?

If so, ... how?

I know the concept. Schiff just tried to apply it to not having to reveal his subpoenas.

But "Qualified" immunity is an adjunct concept.

> Anyway, if they didn't donate them, the Goverment said they are gonna confiscate them, and this was already clear.

There are going to be lawsuits going on for a decade because of the government ordering things that they are not allowed to do.

Maybe yes, maybe no.

But evolution didn't decide on the structure and behavior of our throw-away-cup bodies in order to make our puny minds sitting on top our puny brains happy.

For better or for worse, in humans (we are not turtles, for example, they have their own success strategy), AVERAGE 2nd generation reproductive success is the measure of our existence. The collection of strategies to maximize that are different for human men and human women. But aligned. On average. 2nd-generation reproductive success is our "purpose" in a universe made mostly out of hydrogen. Nothing more - nothing less.

I don't know. I don't think I started that way. I think I started out normal like?

But when your mother awakened certain hidden feelings in me with her sex toys when I was 9, I did feel feelings against her other object of sexual obsession, you; I developed an urge to put my hands around your neck.

It's been years, but I carry it to this day.

I miss her.

It's a client (several), it allows other clients, and it does the SMTP, POP3 and IMAP thing. It filters spam and sorts things into enumerated named folders, and you can download everything and store everything as mbox files with attachments in a big-old folder, and still be able to locally elastic-search it all, or leave it on Google's servers and search through their web UI. Isn't that email-ey enough? If not, what's it missing?

1) Please don't read too much into that. I meant it as an umbrella term. When I say "it wasn't", I'm sort of un-smearing all of them, as an umbrella. I have no problem with Russians (I actually like them - fun people - except in winter). I have problems with American disinformation.

2) Agreed. That was not a point of contention.

I came across more recent statements from Crowdstrike, but failed to save them, and must dig them up again. Will attempt to do so (I've noticed that Google has gotten more efficient at letting me fail to find previously discovered materials, but I hope to be able to be back with my references)

Re: Assange - yes - he is quite circumspect.

It also makes the reasonable point that the Assange grand jury had been dismissed, but IIRC (and it's only been two or three hours) the court's statement was clear that incarceration to compel was not necessary. (Probably motivated more by the grand jury's conclusion than the suicide), but if you'd like to tell all of us what you think they said, that would be super!

I am baffled that no matter how many times Assange (and a fair number of NY State Fed LEOs) say "It wasn't the Russians", that the "system" nor the "media" nor the "people" seem to be able to take him at face value: It wasn't the Russians. (Even CrowdStrike seems to be backing away from those claims in this last week)

Uhhhh, yeah. I was curious about why this is a "good thing". I think I got a response that tries to respond to that more specifically up-thread. Thank you.

I think she was being compelled to testify here in the Assange case, no?

Why?

I'm not familiar with the facts of the case.

And, I further realize that facts are almost completely immaterial to motivated reasoning about the case, but...

... assuming that you (or someone) is a straight-shooter, why is this "fantastic news"?

She attempted suicide and a judge decided that she need not be incarcerated to compel her to be a witness.

That's on the plus side of its attributes.

Schemaless has become a horror-show.

Floats are ugly because the distance between any two successive numbers are not the same. This makes them inappropriate for discretized time and anything accounting-related (money).

And, now, we know why we have an explosion of libraries that do the job badly OR end up with bloated binaries by including LINPACK when a one-liner would have done the trick.

You triggered a conversation thread that made me understand the ecosystem dynamics a bit better. Thank you.

2x2?

Do it by hand. No dense math involved. One line of code (or so, depending on coding style).

If you want to implement or call LINPACK to do a 2x2, you've got other problems.

Backblaze doesn't give you a random read/write like DropBox, and wanting your disk drive back takes some time...