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Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

blog.stephenwolfram.com

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Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#211

Post by kilroy123 »

splittingTimes wrote: post #188
_lbaq wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been working remote for decades and my observation is that whats standing inbetween great communication in remote teams are often trival, easily fixable things like poor software and hardware. When it comes to hardware, people use whatever headset and camera they have, connected to wifi served by the a cheap SOHO router. More or less the stuff you use to call your parents over skype once a week.

Just curious: In your opinion, what are proper tools / setup in hard- and software terms that makes remote collaboration as efficient as on-site interaction?

I've worked remote for the past 4 years so I think I can weigh in on this.

If there are meetings in person you really need to have a good conference call phone, preferably with an external mic.

Like this: https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/images/i/000/016/072/origi...

For things like screen sharing, the conference room must have a very solid connection as screen sharing typically uses a lot of bandwidth.

For the remote employee, you need:

* Solid headset. I've tried using a USB one but it had interference at terrible times. Once I was on a call presenting to the client when interference started making odd noises. Now I use a USB headset with noise canceling mic.

* Good fast reliable internet!

* Solid voice-over-ip phone if you need to talk on the "phone" a lot. I use DialPad which are the makers of UberConfrence. The quality is _way_ better than using Google Voice, skype, etc.

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#212

Post by Tepix »

pishpash wrote: post #206
sidcool wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree. Unless there are genuine reasons to work permanently remote, an face to face interaction is always better. I also worry about the loneliness aspect of remote work. For all its downsides, the Office provides a real life socially active environment. It's pleasant to have people around, and to have water cooler conversations, or share a coffee with an employee from a totally different department. It's f…

That's all very nice but it's all not work related. Water cooler conversation may be great for incubating the very very beginning ideation of some 20% project, but come on, how often does a 20% project really happen. When it comes to real work (well defined work), where what you need is a mix of concentration time and focused interactions to address questions, remote call could be much more efficient than face-to-fac…

Humans aren't robots. If you want to keep them productive you should treat them as humans.

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#213

Post by zero4ll »

splittingTimes wrote: post #188
_lbaq wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been working remote for decades and my observation is that whats standing inbetween great communication in remote teams are often trival, easily fixable things like poor software and hardware. When it comes to hardware, people use whatever headset and camera they have, connected to wifi served by the a cheap SOHO router. More or less the stuff you use to call your parents over skype once a week.

Just curious: In your opinion, what are proper tools / setup in hard- and software terms that makes remote collaboration as efficient as on-site interaction?

Full commerical network hardware. Netgate makes the pfsense firewall and they make hardware for remote workers. You can traffic shape and have a VPN to your company and ensure that voice and your workstation have the bandwidth they need and your home gets the rest. A good firewall at your home can make all the difference and once that doesnt have yearly subscriptions is a good route to go.

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#215

Post by seanp2k2 »

sidcool wrote: post #186
cma wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how much smoother everything would have gone if everyone had been in the same room. Definitely true, but you'd also have to watch the livestream of everyone prepping for and commuting to work for a fair comparison.

I tend to agree. Unless there are genuine reasons to work permanently remote, an face to face interaction is always better. I also worry about the loneliness aspect of remote work. For all its downsides, the Office provides a real life socially active environment. It's pleasant to have people around, and to have water cooler conversations, or share a coffee with an employee from a totally different department. It's f…

I feel like some people get a lot out of it, and others not so much. As in, if someone has the type of personality where they work best with lots of "heads-down" time on projects (and frankly many of the best engineers I know are like this), give them that space to do their best work without being interrupted by That One Person Who Always Comes Over to Chat. Most offices and even most orgs / teams have THAT DUDE. If you can't think of who it is, it might be you. Sometimes Dude has good ideas, but a lot of the time Dude just wastes time, and worst of all, wastes the time of others. Time that those other people could be spending Doing Work, but because Dude doesn't know when to can it, and because they're obligated to have their butts in their seats, they just make small talk while dying a little inside each day.

I've also seen people be incredibly productive because they can just walk over with a few people to another person and settle something in real-time. Doing that over email might take a day or two. Doing that over Slack could also probably work, and given how many people are in a meeting / out at lunch / OoO / whatever not at their desk, I'd say it's about a 50/50 chance that the unannounced walk-up actually works in person anyway.

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#216

Post by Kluny »

hellofunk wrote: post #166

I personally wonder what has the modern world come to, that an individual cannot take a leisurely walk without distraction, and thus feels like they must be working on a computer while getting in some basic movement for their body.

To be fair, he's a very weird individual, and pretty old too (not all that modern).

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#217

Post by neokantian »

kevinventullo wrote: post #152
chubot wrote: post #138

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 com…

To be honest, the conference call linked lower in the thread has increased my skepticism for remote work. Another commenter pointed out how much smoother everything would have gone if everyone had been in the same room.

The criticism on remote work confirms the same thing all over again. There are almost no real hackers commenting at "Hacker News". A corporate IT drone is not a hacker. He is first and foremost a corporate drone, and has nothing to do with hackers.

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#218

Post by pishpash »

Tepix wrote: post #212
pishpash wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's all very nice but it's all not work related. Water cooler conversation may be great for incubating the very very beginning ideation of some 20% project, but come on, how often does a 20% project really happen. When it comes to real work (well defined work), where what you need is a mix of concentration time and focused interactions to address questions, remote call could be much more efficient than face-to-fac…

Humans aren't robots. If you want to keep them productive you should treat them as humans.

I think you're confusing "comfortable" with "productive". At some point in life a job is just a job and the job of the job is to get the job done. I'm happiest when I get it done, when everyone around me gets it done, together, on time and well.

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#219

Post by repomies68 »

pishpash wrote: post #206
sidcool wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree. Unless there are genuine reasons to work permanently remote, an face to face interaction is always better. I also worry about the loneliness aspect of remote work. For all its downsides, the Office provides a real life socially active environment. It's pleasant to have people around, and to have water cooler conversations, or share a coffee with an employee from a totally different department. It's f…

That's all very nice but it's all not work related. Water cooler conversation may be great for incubating the very very beginning ideation of some 20% project, but come on, how often does a 20% project really happen. When it comes to real work (well defined work), where what you need is a mix of concentration time and focused interactions to address questions, remote call could be much more efficient than face-to-fac…

Efficiency isn't everything. In my experience the problems with remote work are often more trust-related. If course this depends on the industry. We had a case in a fintech company where remote employee ended up doing some quite bad things for the company for financial gains. I think it is much more difficult to do that kind of deeds if you actually interact face to face with the people affected.

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#220

Post by juskrey »

kevinventullo wrote: post #152
chubot wrote: post #138

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 com…

To be honest, the conference call linked lower in the thread has increased my skepticism for remote work. Another commenter pointed out how much smoother everything would have gone if everyone had been in the same room.

I love such comments. The guy has a multimillion dollar private business which is at the same time his hobby and a dream, and does it in the way he likes. And someone comes and says his meetings can be more efficient..
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