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What I Worked On

paulgraham.com

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Re: What I Worked On

#281

Post by btilly »

aborsy wrote: post #246
btilly wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't we see what he says? In https://www.thespacereview.com/article/1037/1 you'll find that he is very critical of manned spaceflight in general, but about Apollo he says, "No, at the time of Apollo, the astronauts did do some useful things. They brought back Lunar samples. They placed a laser reflector on the Moon that has been used ever since to monitor the motion of the Moon with incredible accuracy." Earlier…

He is critical of manned space flight and says plainly in a number of his talks, recalling from the top of my head, “man spaceflight has costed such and such billions of dollars and has produced nothing of scientific value” or “this was sold to public as a scientific project but it’s nothing of the sort”, and that “it’s all done on earth.” He mentions one area, but then says, “but actually that could have been done m…

Here is the unmanned rockets quote that you refer to.

Those were useful things that could have been done by unmanned rockets, but in those days, the state of the art in computers and robotics was not what it is now.

The whole "the state of the art" bit I understand as saying that with modern computers and robotics, unmanned vehicles could have done the job. But they didn't have advanced enough computers and robotics at the time.

Re: What I Worked On

#282

Post by vinger »

sjg007 wrote: post #210
chrisaycock wrote: post #9

> during the first year of grad school I realized that AI, as practiced at the time, was a hoax. I had a similar realization during grad school about a lot of the popular topics at the time (early 2000s). I even used to call them "the hoaxes of computer science". Things like grid computing or formal methods of software engineering had a lot of resources behind them, but nobody was able to use the results. Instead, ve…

> the low end eats the high end: that it's good to be the "entry level" option, even though that will be less prestigious, because if you're not, someone else will be, and will squash you against the ceiling. This happens with jobs too.. especially software jobs. Nobody wants to do software QA, want to know how to get a software engineering job when the market is tight or otherwise inaccessible... software QA.

If developer numbers go down the need for QA reduces. QA jobs are a proxy for developer roles.

Re: What I Worked On

#283

Post by jger15 »

Great little lesson here:

"It's not that unprestigious types of work are good per se. But when you find yourself drawn to some kind of work despite its current lack of prestige, it's a sign both that there's something real to be discovered there, and that you have the right kind of motives. Impure motives are a big danger for the ambitious. If anything is going to lead you astray, it will be the desire to impress people. So while working on things that aren't prestigious doesn't guarantee you're on the right track, it at least guarantees you're not on the most common type of wrong one."

Re: What I Worked On

#284

Post by selimthegrim »

zozbot234 wrote: post #27
chrisaycock wrote: post #9

> during the first year of grad school I realized that AI, as practiced at the time, was a hoax. I had a similar realization during grad school about a lot of the popular topics at the time (early 2000s). I even used to call them "the hoaxes of computer science". Things like grid computing or formal methods of software engineering had a lot of resources behind them, but nobody was able to use the results. Instead, ve…

> Things like grid computing or formal methods of software engineering had a lot of resources behind them, but nobody was able to use the results. Instead, very different formats of these ideas are what took root: cloud computing and advanced type systems. The clearest example of this dynamic is probably the "Fifth Generation Computing Systems" initiative, which was described as a "hoax" for a long time but managed t…

paging Mt Scott Locklin for the inevitable eruption

Re: What I Worked On

#285

Post by nl »

a letter from the Accademia, which had been delayed because they'd sent it to Cambridge England instead of Cambridge Massachusetts

One wonders over the years how often this mistake has been made. I recently made timezone assumptions about someone who said they were in Cambridge that turned out to be wrong.

Re: What I Worked On

#286

Post by alberth »

Spinnaker_ wrote: post #102
alberth wrote: post #38

How does PG recall so much about college. I was a computer science major as well. I made good grades. I went to university similar to PGs. I’m younger than PG and it wouldn’t surprise me if I’ve forgotten that I even took a particular class, let alone recall the professor and certainly don’t recall the small details described by PG. Just curious if I’m the only person who can’t recall as vividly courses as PG can.

Go have a beer with a college roommate. I bet the memories will come flooding back. I have a terrible time recalling stuff like this. But then I meet up with an old friend and I start remembering a huge amount of stuff I hadn't thought about in a decade.

I seem to recall mainly experiences or events (not details like PG).

Eg I can recall the super bowl party from 10 years ago, no idea who played or won.

Re: What I Worked On

#287

Post by ed25519FUUU »

> but during the first year of grad school I realized that AI, as practiced at the time, was a hoax.

This is a lesson we learn over and over and over decade after decade. At the same time, AI makes incremental improvements to existing software and services without actually replacing anything.

Re: What I Worked On

#288

Post by sillysaurusx »

totemandtoken wrote: post #234
xiaolingxiao wrote: post #83

This comment really resonated with me, I found myself in this exact situation at 25, in a "very prestigious and selective place" for AI nonetheless. It took me a couple years to realize the smart people are just playing the game, the unsuspecting losers are "playing it straight" and getting endlessly frustrated. I found my balance by, frankly, taking advantage of a system that is FUBAR. Incidentally, I also took some…

I fear I'm one of these unsuspecting losers...except I guess that comment makes me suspecting. IDK, I don't want to play the game but it only gets worse in the corporate world. I wish there was a good solution, where someone could play it straight and get rewarded justly. Your art work is beautiful by the way.

Nah, that feeling is just corporate life. It’s not you.

Or put another way, it would be a bit strange to say that everyone who works at a corporation is an unsuspecting loser.

From what I’ve seen, academia is both worse and better. So don’t feel like you’re missing out on something.

Just do what makes you happy.

Re: What I Worked On

#289

Post by sillysaurusx »

mywittyname wrote: post #157
hinkley wrote: post #120

> One of the most conspicuous patterns I've noticed in my life is how well it's worked, for me at least, to work on things that weren't prestigious. You might be able to reinterpret this through the lens of the old saying about how, during a gold rush, the people who "made shovels" made most of the money while a few miners got all the press. We don't usually hear about the folks making provisions or shovels. If you d…

> If you're not a local, you'd never hear and probably never care about such things. Regardless of whether or not you're a local, the Underground Seattle tour is definitely a must-do if you ever find yourself there.

Whoa, I’m in Seattle. I’ll look it up! Kinda cold at the moment, but we’ll be moving by May, so.

Re: What I Worked On

#290

Post by barry-cotter »

alisonkisk wrote: post #153
_Microft wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'll have to say reading this makes me feel a bit sad for pg. It seems that he worked on Bel extensively for four years, and the end result was something which appeared on the front page of Hacker News for one day and then disappeared. This is not unlike a doctoral dissertation. Invest years of your life and effort, produce nice results, have people cheer for you after you successfully defend it and then nobody car…

At least a dissertation is a school project where you learn a skill to use in future.

If writing Bel did not make pg better at Lisp and programming generally I will be very much surprised. Producing something that anyone cares about for any length of time is more than almost any school project achieves.
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