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Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

blog.stephenwolfram.com

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Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#261

Post by vonseel »

dagw wrote: post #252
qes wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may find it pleasant to have people around and water cooler conversations, but many others do not and have no need or desire for work to double as a social outlet.

It's not (just) about social outlet, it's about growing and learning professionally. Unless your job is to blindly implement features someone else adds to a spec sheet it's always worthwhile to get professional input from people from different fields. Often they'll have unique ideas and insights that comes from having a different background and different experiences.

To add to this, in no circumstance have I ever seen developers spending 100% or even close to 90% of their time actively writing code or thinking about code and working. Heck, for most of the ones I’ve worked with, it’s probably closer to 60% productive time during office hours, with the most productive being somewhere between 80-100% busy.

Just because you (the person before you, actually) are a reclusive jerk, doesn’t mean everyone else also hates people and chitchat.

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#262

Post by jnty »

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.

Given the alternative would be working while being sedentary, I think it's probably a fairly good (if odd) setup? I'm assuming he doesn't take the laptop like that when we he wants to walk to the shops at the weekend.

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#263

Post by vonseel »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #229
kilroy123 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 remo…

If you want what they use in places like the Senate and other Big Boy meetings, get a Shure MX418D/C and a real external audio interface with phantom power. I use mine for gaming, and while it's totally overkill, it's a purpose-made professional quality desktop voice mic. They're tanks and will last 20 years. You can buy replacement parts for them. They're also on eBay for ~$120 if you keep an eye out. Pair that mic…

RME user here with plenty of nice microphones and preamps to choose from.

It’s been years since I went through the trouble of setting one up for a conference call. These days I just use my Sony Bluetooth headphones. IIRC, the difficulty with most (not DAW or professional audio) software on Mac and any external audio interface, is that it doesn’t actually allow selecting which input to use, only the device. So while I might select “RME Fireface 802” in Chrome as the input device, I can’t select Input 1, 9, or 12 as the input channel to use for microphone. This used to be possible with apps like Soundflower, though, I’m not sure what the best solution is nowadays.

UA DSP for conference calls, now wouldn’t that be something. Ha-ha.

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#264

Post by vonseel »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #230
zero4ll wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I used to be a big pfsense fan, but Ubiquiti's UniFi is my jam now. If you get their gateway, PoE switches, and a couple of APs, it's by far the best SoHo system I've ever used. Enterprise features that are easy enough for non-network admin technical users to figure out, auto firmware updates, rock-solid reliability, all for around the cost of a high-end "gaming router" that will crash weekly.

Unifi WiFi + edgerouter lite isn’t bad either, software isn’t as cohesive but the ERL is solid and hasn’t been an issue for me at all over 4 years on gigabit internet. WiFi is rock solid after initial setup in a VM (does not need to be running controller continuously).

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#265

Post by vonseel »

petercooper wrote: post #35
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 do this but don't throw the documents away. Instead I put the "buffer" into longer term storage (read: jammed into a box in my shed that can at least be searched even if it takes ages). It turns out that, for me, there are quite a lot of things you suddenly need a year or more later that felt unimportant at the time.. insurance documents, warranties, car related documents that are useful when selling the car, docum…

Car documents - glovebox. I don’t even attempt to organize them anymore. Buy oil to do a change myself? Put receipt directly in glovebox, writing mileage and date on it if I am diligent. Occasionally I’ll throw away the old insurance / registration papers in the stack.

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#266

Post by yiyus »

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…

It's not always about projects. In order to be productive at a company, there is much more to do. In water cooler conversations, you learn who you have to talk with for this or that, you learn about meetings you may attend to learn new things, you learn that little trick that makes your work more efficient or about that colleague who is really weird, or about how to solve administrative matters. Not everything is in a manual or in a web site.

To give a very appropriate example, I think that if I was working in the same office as Wolfram, I may learn about his cool setup in water cooler conversations. In fact, I think it would make me a better engineer having water cooler conversations with Stephen Wolfram. I am not sure I would get the same benefit from interacting with him through screen sharing or phone calls.

I work in research, surrounded by PhD students. These students learn from the interaction with more experienced people, and I have to admit I also learn many things from them. Remote working would in theory be possible for most of us, but it would not achieve the same result.

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#267

Post by ianai »

jessriedel wrote: post #250
juskrey wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..

But commenters are taking evidence of how this guy runs his business as evidence that that method is effective. Shouldn't there be comments pointing out if this isn't effective?

Not really. It will always be easy to look at something from the outside and point out all the ways it should or can’t work or could work better. The systems and people involved are usually much more complicated.

The world also owes itself more compassion. “Thousand foot” criticism lacks compassion.

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#268

Post by ianai »

vonseel wrote: post #260
seanp2k2 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sometimes Dude is also one of the best engineers you know when he can just get some “heads down” time to himself, but when forced to be in an environment with many easy distractions, he acts like a kid on the playground. Or something.

I’ve been Dude in the past. Yesterday I was probably in danger of becoming Dude but for my general introversion and maturity. I walked around listening to James Brown instead. I think flexibility and a culture demonstrating proper time management and production would help. It’s important to socialize but without detracting from others. Yesterday, I just couldn’t sit or stay at my desk - I needed some air. In hindsight, I was pretty amped up from a meeting.

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#269

Post by jessriedel »

ianai wrote: post #267
jessriedel wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But commenters are taking evidence of how this guy runs his business as evidence that that method is effective. Shouldn't there be comments pointing out if this isn't effective?

Not really. It will always be easy to look at something from the outside and point out all the ways it should or can’t work or could work better. The systems and people involved are usually much more complicated. The world also owes itself more compassion. “Thousand foot” criticism lacks compassion.

You're describing a policy of not making frank assessment of the efficacy of business practices.

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#270

Post by porker »

vonseel wrote: post #261
dagw wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not (just) about social outlet, it's about growing and learning professionally. Unless your job is to blindly implement features someone else adds to a spec sheet it's always worthwhile to get professional input from people from different fields. Often they'll have unique ideas and insights that comes from having a different background and different experiences.

To add to this, in no circumstance have I ever seen developers spending 100% or even close to 90% of their time actively writing code or thinking about code and working. Heck, for most of the ones I’ve worked with, it’s probably closer to 60% productive time during office hours, with the most productive being somewhere between 80-100% busy. Just because you (the person before you, actually) are a reclusive jerk, does…

> Just because you (the person before you, actually) are a reclusive jerk, doesn’t mean everyone else also hates people and chitchat.

Downvoted for tone. You do not need to name call here on HN.

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