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Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

blog.stephenwolfram.com

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Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#131

Post by adenverd »

biztos wrote: post #95

Here's a guy I think of as very successful, and very smart, and yet he seems extremely tethered to his computers. Meetings while walking, and assuming nobody notices? Questioning the practicality of time spent outside? That's kind of... really... sad.

I think most of us would be sad or depressed if our lives were like his. But it seems like he has intentionally conformed the rest of his life to the things that matter most to him (his work, company, personal productivity) rather than what you or I think of as happiness or a good life. I certainly wouldn't want to be him, but if he's living how he wants to live, who am I to judge.

I might be a little biased though, WolframAlpha got me through countless hours of college homework assignments.

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#132

Post by agumonkey »

noir_lord wrote: post #42
vortico wrote: post #6

How cow, this guy is the world's most organized person. I operate in the exact opposite way. The more disorganized, temporary, inconvenient, and cluttered my workspace is, the more I can ignore the outside world and focus on the abstract problem at hand.

Funny how people are so different. My desk has to have exactly, 1 keyboard, 1 mouse, 1 A4 5mm graph paper pad and that's it. I used to struggle to work on a slightly cluttered desk but these days it has to be basically empty. In terms of paperwork, it goes behind me on shelves sorted by "Important, will need soon, Important, will need later, Not important" everything else goes in the bin. Periodically I rip the pads…

Younger I loved having all my shit around me on my desk. It was hyper natural and hyper efficient. Nowadays ... nope. It feels a bit like reading your own undocumented one night epic project .. with age you just love a bit of structure and cleanliness

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#133

Post by JauntyHatAngle »

duado wrote: post #105
roel_v wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article says 800. I can't imagine what it would be like, to be part of a machine of 800 people basically set up to cater to the whims of one overlord.

Every company is set up to cater to the whims of one overlord. Then there is a group who can change the overlord. Most effective companies are dictatorships with a fairly reasonable dictator.

I don't think I necessarily agree. While having one person who has complete control and effectively focuses a business to the correct decisions and technical goals is super effective, part of that effectiveness is getting the rest of the business on the same mindset as you and giving employees room to add their technical nous to the work.

The criticism leveled (which I do not actually any insight to the truth of) is that essentially people have to follow his "whims" and are micromanaged, which does not bring out the best of employees and can be very stifling.

But that said, I don't know the truth of that criticism.

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#134

Post by argd678 »

77pt77 wrote: post #120
argd678 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of this Sir Issac Newton quote: > Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.

Do you have a source for that? That does not sound like Newton ar all.

If you google “Newton” Google attributes it to Issac Newton on the side bar, seems like it must be wrongly attributed unfortunately. Thanks for correction.

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#136

Post by Arbalest »

mlevental wrote: post #41
ranie93 wrote: post #22

Through the article I found he livestreams many of his meetings on Twitch! This is particularly candid moment I happen to find: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGjvFyRk_4I&feature=youtu.be... edit: I wasn't aware of the negative opinions regarding his ego, but from listening to this meeting I can say they aren't unsubstantiated!

you know what's insane about that video? the CEO of a 100 (200?) person software company is writing docs. but then again i'm not surprised that wolfram is a micromanager.

The way you say it is like you're saying that Documentation should be second class, not just that it is anyway. Keep in mind that the software in this particular case, is software used mostly for the API, so the Documentation is front and centre.

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#137

Post by pfranz »

techgipper wrote: post #5

Funny, I do this with my digital trash can: When I was consulting at Bell Labs in the early 1980s I saw that a friend of mine had two garbage cans in his office. When I asked him why, he explained that one was for genuine garbage and the other was a buffer into which he would throw documents that he thought he’d probably never want again. He’d let the buffer garbage can fill up, and once it was full, he’d throw away…

I had previously tried setting up some sort of Apple Script or folder action to do this in macOS for someone. The other day I noticed they added a, "Remove items from the Trash after 30 days" in macOS Sierra.

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#138

Post by chubot »

Some pretty cool things:

- He's a CEO who dogfoods his own software! Not only that, he seems to be one of its most prolific users. That's amazing.

Having worked for over a decade at Google, I sometimes wonder if the founders still use the products. Larry Page used to always harp on latency (rightly), and now Google products are slower than ever.

- He's a remote CEO, and supports remote working! It sounds like the company was ahead of the curve in this respect.

- He's grown his company to 800 employees over 28 years, and it's still relevant today. And I believe he never took funding. Also amazing! Most tech companies that are 28 years old have gone through a ton of turmoil.

I've heard all the bad stories about Wolfram's personality. Combined with NKOS, that made me think poorly of him.

But maybe has mellowed with old age. People forget how insufferable Bill Gates was 20 years ago too. Gates really rehabilitated his image and maybe Wolfram will too. Despite the ego, he's definitely contributed interesting things to society. And I hope that I'm as excited by my work as he is when getting to that age.

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#139

Post by voltagex_ »

noir_lord wrote: post #42
vortico wrote: post #6

How cow, this guy is the world's most organized person. I operate in the exact opposite way. The more disorganized, temporary, inconvenient, and cluttered my workspace is, the more I can ignore the outside world and focus on the abstract problem at hand.

Funny how people are so different. My desk has to have exactly, 1 keyboard, 1 mouse, 1 A4 5mm graph paper pad and that's it. I used to struggle to work on a slightly cluttered desk but these days it has to be basically empty. In terms of paperwork, it goes behind me on shelves sorted by "Important, will need soon, Important, will need later, Not important" everything else goes in the bin. Periodically I rip the pads…

What's a "bypass scanner"?

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#140

Post by dang »

adwhit wrote: post #48
ballooney wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please do and ignore dang. It’s important to remind people.

Interesting how when it was top-voted comment it read more as the light-hearted poking of fun which I intended (I really have no problem with Wolfram, I think he's funny). But now it has been demoted to the bottom of the thread it has started getting lots of downvotes and somehow reads (even to me) as being mean and bitter. Curious example of how the thread position/reaction of others really primes how we receive a c…

I thought your comment was funny too. But alas we have tons of experience with Wolfram threads collapsing into nothing more than "wolfram wolfram wolfram" in an outraged mirroring of the very thing they're criticizing.

https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

It's just another black hole, and one of the most trivial. And since (Wolfram being Wolfram) there are also interesting things in the submission to discuss, that's what we should focus on.

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