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Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

blog.stephenwolfram.com

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Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#311

Post by ardy42 »

thestepafter wrote: post #200
ardy42 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm left-handed, and I don't think I've ever seen someone put the mouse on the left. I'm left-handed. I mouse left-handed at work and right-handed at home. I used to mouse exclusively right-handed, but I started developing wrist-aches and realized I could prevent them by not using one wrist so disproportionately. > How much difference would it make to accuracy, or does the other hand eventually learn to compensate?…

Do you use a left handed mouse or the same mouse you would use for your right hand? Also, which mouse are you using?

I use generic ambidextrous mice, but flip the left/right buttons so my index finder is always main-click and my middle finger is right-click.

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#312

Post by dkersten »

eertami wrote: post #302
vonseel wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yeah but the difference is when you work remote, you can use that other 40% of your time to: - run errands - do the laundry - hit the gym for a while - cook a tasty lunch or even dinner for later. Whereas in the office, you just use that time for chitchat, HN/reddit, wondering around etc. And I'm not a reclusive jerk, I like my coworkers and I do enjoy it when we meet up in person, but I don't need to see them every…

I also do a lot of "watercooler chit chat" over slack and, to a lesser extent, voice chat. I don't need to be in the same physical space as my coworkers to do that. I mean, before starting my career, most of my tech chit chat was online, since my offline friends at the time were typically not too interested in tech.

What I do find problematic is when the majority of a company is in the same physical space and only a few are remote, as then the remote people tend to lose out.

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#313

Post by dkersten »

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #240

I always find it interesting to see what personal productivity improvements highly successful people _do not_ implement. Considering that the typical productivity speel for technology & progaming tasks is tiling window managers (minimize mouse movement), mechanical/ergodox/split keyboards (ideal hand width and orientation), possibly linux or OSX w/ homebrew to automate tasks using scripts. It's interesting to see how…

Personally, I use tiling window managers and mechanical keyboards not to be more efficient, but rather for 1) physical comfort and 2) personal taste.

By physical comfort, I mean that I rely on my hands too much to not take care of them to avoid RSI and personal taste, well, I like not having to reach for a mouse, being able to have what I need side by side with the press of a button and just the minimalist look of tiling window managers.

Does it also make me more efficient or productive? Maybe, possibly, who knows! It probably does, as it removes roadblocks from my workflow, but its not something I pay a lot of attention to.

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#314

Post by xkcd-sucks »

sytelus wrote: post #173
mlevental wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Attention to detail is not micro-managing. In fact, it's very very good thing and you should have respect for people at CEO level having this kind of care, understanding and passion for their products. It's kind of thing that makes Steve Jobs, the Steve Jobs.

Especially as documentation is kind of the core value proposition of Mathematica

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#315

Post by tchaffee »

a2tech wrote: post #304

I applaud his work ethic, but can you imagine how many people it takes to support this work style? Programmers building custom interfaces, around the clock monitoring people for his streaming whims (mentioned in the article), system admin's keeping his home cloud running, his personal dev cloud at the office, and the syncing between them. It seems pretty personnel intense

Which is a crucial point. While his infrastructure might be interesting (or perhaps bizarre), it's not repeatable for the vast majority of people.

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#316

Post by Retra »

dmos62 wrote: post #275
hirundo wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought A New Kind of Science was wonderful. It's a deep dive into cellular automata by a very creative, systematic and productive mind. He doesn't succeed in remaking physics with these models, but he does succeed in demonstrating that the natural world is full of vast computational potential that emerges everywhere from simple interactions. It's a vision of an awesomely fecund ordinary reality.

I loved the book as well. I found it exceptionally well written, researched. The content was eye-opening and the author was . This is the first I notice that there's so much discontent with it. I'm not sure where it's coming from. Edit: actually, I'm understating things. I found not only his central ideas very noteworthy, but how he managed to portray the historical development of mainstream science as largely random…

I think a lot of the discontent is that (reportedly, I have not read it) he seems to present the material as 1. largely his original work, and 2. revolutionary, while the ideas may be interesting and well presented, neither of those things are actually true.

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#317

Post by tchaffee »

avinium wrote: post #90
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!

First, it's awesome that these are live-streamed and publicised. Second, I didn't hear anything unreasonable in that meeting. SW has a reputation for ego, but honestly this particular extract just sounds like frustration with buggy/messy documentation. I mean, the fact that the CEO is personally going through documentation is telling in itself.

It's not professional for a mentor to take out his frustration on employees. I'm not saying I never get frustrated with poor quality work, but I don't see it as helpful taking out that frustration on someone. Better things I can do: 1. Figure out how to inspire quality with positive reinforcement. 2. Eliminate blockers to quality. 3. Automate quality checks so I'm not even reviewing code unless it already passes a certain QA level. Sometimes people are broken and that's fine. Let them go instead of beating up on them. But very often it is the processes that are broken and you should be fixing those instead of trying to fix people.

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#318

Post by levesque »

nadc wrote: post #294
levesque wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't kid yourself, it's not going to be as efficient. Audio and delay are big issues, as not everybody can talk at the same time. But the point is that it is doable, and some companies have good success with that. They are usually small-medium companies though, my guess is we won't be seeing any 100% remote unicorns popping up.

Both GitLab and InVision are 100% remote unicorns, last valued at $1.1B [1] and $1.9B [2] respectively. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/19/gitlab-raises-100m/ [2] https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/11/invision-valued-at-1-9-bil...

Haha I did set up the stage for the multiple slam dunks I received as replies. This is really amazing.

Re: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

#320

Post by VBprogrammer »

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.

One thing that had me wondering about is how on earth he deals with reflections on the screen. Any attempt I've ever made to work outside in the sun (usually when it's too nice to be indoors) has resulted in me frustrated and giving up when I can't see a bloody thing on the screen. Maybe I'll give it a go on the Macbook Pro I've just gotten at work.
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