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Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011]

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Re: Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011]

#121

Post by cpeterso »

huckfinnaafb wrote: post #84
aridiculous wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is cynical past the point of healthy. There are plenty of sectors that would be revolutionized if smart people focused their attention on them. You don't have to cure cancer; that's absurdly binary and based on fame. You can do less sensational things like invent a device that improves patients' lives using modern robotics and sensors. You can design a system for Alzheimer's patients that incorporates your knowl…

In addition, even "cat picture project" technology can sometimes be used to implement "world changing" technology. I think "do what you love doing and always challenge yourself" still generally applies here.

e.g. YouTube.

Re: Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011]

#122

Post by nkassis »

hirenj wrote: post #77
awj wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess my biggest question is: in what way can programmers outside that specific discipline pitch in and help out? Are there relevant open source projects that could benefit from someone with a lot of programming experience and a slightly-better-than-layman science background?

Bioinformatician here: First of all, I think it's got to be clear that a lone bioinformatician, or even a group of them isn't going to go about changing the world. Essentially, when you sign up for this, you're still a cog in a machine, albeit a slightly more altruistic machine. Here's my pet peeve in bioinformatics - If there's one thing that's poorly suited to science, it's the building of computational infrastruct…

You don't always have to get new data to make a splash. I particularly like this project (it's in neuroscience but similar things probably exist in biology)

http://neurosynth.org/

They are doing meta-analysis of the neuroscience literature.

Re: Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011]

#123

Post by cpeterso »

AndrewTerry wrote: post #34
abijlani wrote: post #24

Let's stop focusing on the fact that he quit. And focus on WHY he quit. I'm sure we all can relate with what he's saying at some level. He's talking about tackling hard problems and not just low hanging fruit that might (emphasis on might) make a buck. And most of all he's leading by example. I haven't seen this much bravado from anyone in our industry in a long time.

While I applaud his motives for change, we should also focus on HOW he quit, too. IMHO, his boss deserves the professional courtesy of being told personally (be it face to face, or by letter of resignation), rather than finding out via a YouTube clip...

How do you know he didn't tell his boss before the conference and just announce his resignation publicly during his talk?

Re: Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011]

#124

Post by Create »

jianshen wrote: post #118
jacoblyles wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels hard to get into Bioinformatics without a PHD. I would love to tackle problems in genetics, medicine, and etc. But I'm not going to commit 7 years of my life to breaking into a highly regulated sector before I get to "Hello World!". Is there a hacker scene in Bioinformatics?

My father is in the hospital right now and I feel the same frustration. A family friend who is a professor of radiology mentioned that a major driver of research in medical imaging comes from video game graphics work. He even submitted a paper to siggraph around interpolating 3d space from 2d CT scans. There are direct and indirect applications from the techie scene, it just doesn't get the kind of press like consume…

http://www.ted.com/talks/anders_ynnerman_visualizing_the_med...

Re: Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011]

#125

Post by jarek »

espeed wrote: post #85
cletus wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is definitely something weird going on. 7. MS-DOS is 30 years old today (extremetech.com) 44 points by ukdm 3 hours ago | flag | 11 comments 8. Bring your half-baked idea to the Half-Bakery (halfbakery.com) 54 points by rfreytag 4 hours ago | flag | 11 comments And this... 22. Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011] (youtube.com) 162 points by kodisha 3 hours ago | flag | 35 comme…

It may be that managers don't want their employees seeing this and being inspired to quit to work on more meaningful stuff -- it would be like a run on the banks in the tech world.

Clearly, said employees need a video of Steve Yegge saying this in 2011 to realize they're working on meaningless stuff. xkcd #137 five years ago came close to marking the point, but it took Steve on Youtube to really drive it home.

Re: Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011]

#128

Post by camillionaire »

david927 wrote: post #6

Please change the title to: Stevey gives up the being part of the chase for the superfluous (in money), and calls for us to do something about the necessary No one needs a million dollars. No one. Why are we chasing it and dying of heart disease -- heart disease we can cure if we start chasing that instead? Our priorities are absolutely messed up and it's time we start realigning them. This isn't a speech; this isn't…

'No one needs a million dollars. No one.'

Yeah, but it helps.

I think it should be noted that Steve is probably fairly wealthy by most any standard from GOOG & AMZN stock.

And with that wealth comes more freedom...to work on 'big' projects.

I think it's a bit disingenuous to ask people to work on non-lolcat projects when you are wealthy and set for the rest of your life. It's admirable to devote your life to working on big ideas, but I would argue most people who are doing so (even those mentioned in his talk - Gates, O'Reilly, etc) aren't really worried about money.

Most people are simply worrying about how to pay next month's rent or handle their family expenses. Sorry, but these people are not 'in' when it comes to working on big ideas.

In my case, if it came down to working for Facebook and making $10+ Million on the IPO or working to cure cancer - Facebook wins. Maybe after that I'll work to cure cancer.

Re: Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011]

#129

Post by nkassis »

enjalot wrote: post #119
wccrawford wrote: post #36

Am I the only one that fails to be inspired by this? I think I'm not inspired because it's something I've already thought about. We've always had the option to go make money, or go try to fix the world... And whatever that brings us. I am very clear on my chances of making big changes to the world: Almost nil. Instead, I decided long ago that I'd do my best to make money and improve my own life. I'm not saying I don'…

I just recently decided to not pursue a PhD in scientific computing, so I'll be finishing my Master's and working at a startup starting in September. One of the biggest reasons I decided to not do further research is that I have noticed that there are an unfathomable amount of people hobbling about on ancient and primitive tools when there are existing implementations and papers available that would make their lives…

"My point is that even though you think you can't compete with these guys who read, study and do 'real' science they could use a lot of help from the likes of you. Sure learning some linear algebra and bayesian statistics can help in directly implementing the algorithm, but usually the biggest problem I've seen is a complete lack of software engineering and hard coding specific to certain data sets."

Yup you said it exactly right. More programmers to assist the scientist. The scientist know the science part but they need help with the informatics part (lots of it). If not they do it themselves and you end up with some software that becomes critical but with no one being able to maintain it.

Plus working with the scientist means you have access to expert in their field and usually they like to talk about it so you'll learn overtime the science and whys behind the stuff you work on.

Good luck with the startup.

Re: Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011]

#130

Post by contextfree »

p_h wrote: post #90

I've had multiple math professors tell me to study as much math as I can while I'm young, because once you're over 30 it's a lot harder to learn math. I'm in my 20's so I'm not sure if this is true. It also seems to me that the math you would learn in an O'Reilly book isn't in depth enough to contribute to research.

I think a lot of "it's much harder to learn X when you're older" (languages for example) is more about not caring as much or not having as much time than it is about having less ability to learn given those things. At least I hope so, since I'm rapidly approaching 30 and there are vast and deep realms of knowledge I'd like to explore but am just getting started now. =)
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