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I’m taking some time away from Comma

geohot.github.io

241–250 of 437 posts

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#241
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"recent years"? This guy has always been like this, going all the way back to ios hacking days or even wii hacking days.

I used to talk to him on one of those IRC networks for iOS hacking, forgot the name, but a good old friend of mine was involved in the scene, so I dropped in. He is definitely a skilled individual, but he lacks the key thing I think all true senior engineers need: humility. Without humility you're going to find yourself bikeshedding and wasting time and effort on things that may actually not be attainable within your…

Just a note on humility: some people are taught it from childhood. Enough failures mixed with the steady hand of support renders humility (usually). If you have too many failures where you're the only one picking yourself back up it can render a non-humility that can get you where you need to go but in the long term is not very useful. Colloquially I believe this is reflected as having a chip on your shoulder. There's also lots of early success where failures are just forgotten, smoothed over, or not learned from that can render another form of non-humility. People in the latter situations can learn humility at adulthood but it probably takes other people, who are very patient, to help get someone there. I personally have at times worn the chip on my shoulder despite not needing it anymore and can attest it's difficult, but worthwhile, to shake.

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, not everyone lives in San Francisco, and no one wants to take an Uber literally everywhere. So, like most people, I want to own my self-driving car. And I personally don't think the industry is mature enough to accept the realities and limitations of the technology we work with to just say, "Hey, actually, we can let attentive drivers basically be hands-free for 80+% of their drives." And to me, that would be g…

Not everyone wants to own a car either, and everyone owning a car is not exactly environmentally sustainable. Replacing Uber & Lyft with robots would add a ton of value and be practical for a very large percentage of the population. > And I personally don't think the industry is mature enough to accept the realities and limitations of the technology we work with to just say, "Hey, actually, we can let attentive drive…

Even a "selfish driving car" would be a major step up - I'd think about not owning a car if I could order one on an app and have it at my doorstep in 15 minutes; even if after I get into it I take over and drive it. Self-delivering rental cars, if you will.

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to talk to him on one of those IRC networks for iOS hacking, forgot the name, but a good old friend of mine was involved in the scene, so I dropped in. He is definitely a skilled individual, but he lacks the key thing I think all true senior engineers need: humility. Without humility you're going to find yourself bikeshedding and wasting time and effort on things that may actually not be attainable within your…

I think I have to disagree with humility in engineering. There's a certain arrogance intrinsic to engineering, in that you have to be capable of believing you can find a better solution to a problem than literally every other person in history. Obviously it needs to be tempered in interactions with the outside world, but without that core idea, an engineer can't do their job effectively, like a surgeon who loses thei…

[deleted]

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree he does come off as arrogant at times. There are plenty of times when he's right, though. Those times are pretty fun to read about: https://twitter.com/jinglejamop/status/1310718738417811459

I want every last thing on this website related to cryptocurrency to be annotated as such. everything about it is just a supreme waste of time and energy. including my own. everyone is a genius at something and the easiest way to negate any positives that you could possibly provide is to be an arrogant prick, and geohot is exactly that.

While I agree on crypto in general, and on arrogant pricks in general, it can be extremely satisfying to have an arrogant prick who is right and on your side.

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, people aren't really understanding the motivations that Geohotz has for looking into this stuff. He is being a bit cryptic about it. Here is a basic summary though. The atheist world, of no life after death, is scary. We have not invented immortality. And even if we do, well there is an even scarier thing called entropy, that will end the universe anyway. There is no escape from death, as far as we know, and this…

>Because if the current atheist world is the real one, then we are doomed. That kind of discussion always reminds me of a very short poem by Stephen Crane A man said to the universe: “Sir, I exist!” “However,” replied the universe, “The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation.” the second law of thermodynamics has never invoked any sort of feelings of impending spiritual doom, but more importantly even if it…

It's all a matter of personal preference, perhaps, right down to the aesthetics. One person's naturalistic universe where the garden is sufficiently beautiful without there being fairies living at the bottom of it is another's indifferent cold universe of Lovecraftian horrors beyond the ken of mortal men.

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#247
post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he was only working on problems several orders of magnitude smaller in scope Isn't that kind of the point? Tesla would have L4 if the architecture was built right, but it wasn't, and now they're scrambling. I think George made it very clear that the architecture is what these companies spending billions are getting wrong. Tech debt is more expensive than you think at the cutting edge. You know what is total fluff?…

> I think George made it very clear that the architecture is what these companies spending billions are getting wrong. Tech debt is more expensive than you think at the cutting edge. And yet the architectures he disapproves are the only ones who have shown fully autonomous driving is possible. There are driverless robotaxis running now, albeit in small areas but expanding. > You know what is total fluff? Tesla FSD. D…

> And yet the architectures he disapproves are the only ones who have shown fully autonomous driving is possible.

They did not.

> There are driverless robotaxis running now, albeit in small areas but expanding.

Running in small areas shows that they can drive in small mapped out areas under specific conditions. Not that we have fully autonomous self driving.

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, not everyone lives in San Francisco, and no one wants to take an Uber literally everywhere. So, like most people, I want to own my self-driving car. And I personally don't think the industry is mature enough to accept the realities and limitations of the technology we work with to just say, "Hey, actually, we can let attentive drivers basically be hands-free for 80+% of their drives." And to me, that would be g…

Not everyone wants to own a car either, and everyone owning a car is not exactly environmentally sustainable. Replacing Uber & Lyft with robots would add a ton of value and be practical for a very large percentage of the population. > And I personally don't think the industry is mature enough to accept the realities and limitations of the technology we work with to just say, "Hey, actually, we can let attentive drive…

> Not everyone wants to own a car either, and everyone owning a car is not exactly environmentally sustainable. Replacing Uber & Lyft with robots would add a ton of value and be practical for a very large percentage of the population.

Yeah, no one wants this.

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#250
Seems like he came to the same realization as Karpathy. Any problem of the scale of self driving requires massive organization and work, its not a short term project. There's a ton of managing and planning involved, and if what drives you is the engineering then its simply not for you.
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