331–340 of 437 posts
I used to like watching his streams but he seems to have become somewhat unhinged in recent years. Perhaps he is believing too much about what people have said about him. The arrogance and aggrandizement was the turn-off for me. Well that and his belief, while at comma, that how fast you can code is the most important metric when assessing software engineers. Competition programming is fun to watch but a poor indicat…
> geohot
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Nah. But I do recognize his story. I've worked with many people who have the same story, not all of them software engineers. They trade on the fact that it only takes 20 percent of the time to get the first 80 percent. So they do the 80 percent, and people are impressed. Then they bail. It is pure genious, because you leave on a high note - knowing that the last 20% is going to be difficult to impossible to deliver o…
> Nah. how ironic
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The situation you're describing is no different to 5 years ago: autonomous vehicles exist but can only operate in a limited environment. That's where Waymo was 5 years ago, it was just an even more limited environment. Read the "Road Testing" section on Wikipedia, specifically, 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waymo
>it was just an even more limited environment Huh, so are you saying maybe we're a little close to autonomous cars than we were 5 years ago?
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A certain amount of arrogance is cheeky and endearing. Then there's the kind where the talented musician in the band announces their departure and solo album. And starts talking about finding God and becoming a modern day Prometheus. I can't put my finger on when the transition happened but it was somewhere just before the Lex interview for me.
He doesn't come off as particularly arrogant to me, more like a straightforward and direct type. I've yet to meet someone who's good at what they do who isn't convinced of themselves, so that's a given. A philosopher might argue you need this sort of mindset to be successful in the first place. However knowing that you're better at something than most other people doesn't equal arrogance when it's true. There are als…
I don't think so. I know at least a couple of great engineers who were not so sure of themselves. They were just eager to try, over and over again. Both of them developed novel 3D engines. One formed a company over his engine, the other one taken on one of the best liquid simulation teams, head on, and gave them a good run for their money by being equal to the whole team by himself and his wife.
I'm also on the same bandwagon. I'm not sure that I'll come up with a great solution before touching the keyboard. I'll only say it's a good solution after finishing it and comparing it with other available solutions (if there are any) or similar ones.
I did great things, and I failed miserably too. In every case being not sure about myself allowed me to have a level head, and see through my solutions' shortcomings and iterate over them.
The only thing I'm sure about myself is, I can give a shot, and iterate over it as time and my abilities allow. That's all.
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The situation you're describing is no different to 5 years ago: autonomous vehicles exist but can only operate in a limited environment. That's where Waymo was 5 years ago, it was just an even more limited environment. Read the "Road Testing" section on Wikipedia, specifically, 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waymo
It's different because San Franciso is not Phoenix. It's much harder. Do you expect to wake up one day and have self driving cars work in every city? That's just not what today's technology can accomplish. You either end up with broadly applicable L2/L3 (Tesla, Comma) driving, or you get narrow scoped L4 driving. The scope of L4 widening is a real change.
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"I have had a completely autonomous waymo come to my location, pick me up, and take me to another location." - Waymo uses 3d mapping, limited geofencing, remote operators and mobile roadside assistance teams because those cars are not even close to any type of autonomy. Those cars are "mice" in a well designed and designated (inch mapped) maze. The car without a driver in the driver's seat is like David Copperfield f…
Anyone can use 3d mapping and geofencing. That's not a disqualifier. As long as the remote operators and assistance teams are an order of magnitude smaller than putting a driver in every car, then it's close enough to autonomy to count as "closer" and to be useful.
"As long as the remote operators and assistance teams are an order of magnitude smaller than putting a driver in every car" - the entire gig is way to expensive and requires "time travel" level of scientific achievements, which is 100% fiction and 0% reality.
I used to like watching his streams but he seems to have become somewhat unhinged in recent years. Perhaps he is believing too much about what people have said about him. The arrogance and aggrandizement was the turn-off for me. Well that and his belief, while at comma, that how fast you can code is the most important metric when assessing software engineers. Competition programming is fun to watch but a poor indicat…
> Programming all night in a do-or-die mode is fun and all until you get a bit older. For many people who lived this life they realize only too late that they didn't spend enough time making friends and building a community around themselves of genuine relationships. I feel like this is a false dichotomy that bad engineers tell themselves to justify not working hard at being a good engineer and instead screwing off.…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"I have had a completely autonomous waymo come to my location, pick me up, and take me to another location." - Waymo uses 3d mapping, limited geofencing, remote operators and mobile roadside assistance teams because those cars are not even close to any type of autonomy. Those cars are "mice" in a well designed and designated (inch mapped) maze. The car without a driver in the driver's seat is like David Copperfield f…
Does it matter? They are functional and safe enough for most sunbelt cities. We may not have FSD from day one but what we do have is leagues ahead of what's possible 5 years ago.
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Hotz's story is our story. He is the embodiment of the top comment of every HN thread in existence. "Of course the author doesn't know a damn about what their writing about. They're wrong. And no I won't deliver a better solution," is Hotz in a nutshell. To be critical of him is to be critical of us. It's great if we can do that, but I'm not sure we can. There's a certain essence of digital rhetoric that runs through…
> There's a certain essence of digital rhetoric that runs through our veins and we wouldn't be the same without it. Both in the case of HN and with Hotz, I'm 50/50 on whether this is even a bug. It's hard to do anything interesting if you're not both highly opinionated and highly critical about the current way of doing things. That said, I think some of us are more self-aware of this mentality than others. In my case…
One can have confidence and still be humble enough to be open to being wrong.
One can be idealistic without being cynical.
And you, and the people around you, will be happier and more effective because of it.
Some lessons I wish I had learned earlier in my career.
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> Programming all night in a do-or-die mode is fun and all until you get a bit older. For many people who lived this life they realize only too late that they didn't spend enough time making friends and building a community around themselves of genuine relationships. I feel like this is a false dichotomy that bad engineers tell themselves to justify not working hard at being a good engineer and instead screwing off.…
Great engineers don't do all nighters frequently. Some of the best software engineers I've met (quantum computing for Amazon, ML for protein design, etc.), go to bed at reasonably early and get eight hours of sleep, exercise and eat regularly, and have downtime. My guess is this type of life discipline helps keep up productivity over the long term.
If you want to make it to your 40s and still be an effective IC you need to learn how to regulate yourself and follow a disciplined approach to work. Cognitive performance from chronic sleep deprivation takes years to show up.