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Paul Graham Keynote at PyCon

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Re: Paul Graham Keynote at PyCon

#91

Post by [deleted] »

AmericanOP wrote: post #81
jacobolus wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Technology has made college much easier than it was 20 years ago. [...] Yet, [sic] the curriculum has not scaled up in difficulty. If your statement is correct, you wouldn’t know it from reading the schlock that students pass off as papers even at “world class” colleges. Doing all the reading and writing clear, solid analyzes of difficult material is just as hard as it ever was. Harder, even, because there are a wh…

I don't refer to grades anywhere, that's a projection. I'm addressing the day to day experience of most students. Most students spend very little time actively learning, and the work they do is diluted by technology. Large universities aren't treating students like adults- they aren't engaging them at all. I'm not recommending a high school format curriculum, but the trope that students spend two hours reading/workin…

[deleted]

Re: Paul Graham Keynote at PyCon

#92

Post by jarek »

saraid216 wrote: post #87
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see your (and PG's) point, and I think he tied it to a terrible example. Basically, Colombus won big despite being wrong on so many aspects. In truth he was just very (incredibly) lucky. Thus I take the point as "do something stupid, you might just get lucky on something unrelated!". But I understand that PG's real point is "trust your instincts, don't listen to the naysayers, but adapt to the circumstances".

I don't think it should be necessary to be right about a lot of aspects. Going out and discovering how thoroughly wrong you are is a huge achievement.

Even better when your friends can arrange for you to get paid a couple million for that.

Re: Paul Graham Keynote at PyCon

#93

Post by binarycrusader »

I felt Paul's analogies about copying things and selling smells in talking about copyright were a little awkward. They were a response to an audience member that asked how he could justify disparaging the music industry selling copies of music in view of software depending on that model.

In fairness, as he stated himself, he wanted to write a proper essay first about it so was attempting to come up with something on the fly.

I felt the proper response should have been something more along the lines of: Copyright only exists because society in general recognizes that right. So if society in general no longer believes it is a right, then business models will have to change to reflect that.

I personally don't know what the right long-term answer is, but clearly, since you can copy bits for "zero" cost, it's going to be even harder to convince people to pay in the future as they come to that realisation collectively.

Re: Paul Graham Keynote at PyCon

#94

Post by pron »

bambax wrote: post #37

> inbox is a todo list. email is the protocol for putting stuff on it I see these categories of email 1. Email from people you know that you're likely to respond to, and which therefore lead to "conversations" 2. Reminders and "things to do" that you need to act upon; once you have acted upon it you usually update the status of the task by mailing back 3. Read-only email: email sent by corporations that you somehow n…

http://zeromail.com/ seems interesting.

I always thought that a simple first step would be to group messages by senders, but AFAIK the only client that does that is the concept client persona (http://personamail.info/).

Re: Paul Graham Keynote at PyCon

#95

Post by mnutt »

dgallagher wrote: post #79
bambax wrote: post #37

> inbox is a todo list. email is the protocol for putting stuff on it I see these categories of email 1. Email from people you know that you're likely to respond to, and which therefore lead to "conversations" 2. Reminders and "things to do" that you need to act upon; once you have acted upon it you usually update the status of the task by mailing back 3. Read-only email: email sent by corporations that you somehow n…

A replacement for email probably won't look very much like email. It'll inherit the good and drop the bad. Speech ---> messenger ---> letters ---> telegraph ---> telephone ---> fax ---> email ---> ??? What's good about email? You can send it at any time. It's standardized and supported everywhere. UTF-8/UTF-16. Cheap/free. Extremely fast. Extremely easy. What's bad about email? Spam. Conversations get broken (reply i…

Also somewhat related is Zed Shaw's Utu. It's a chat room where all messages are encrypted, and if you start annoying people they begin increasing the amount of work your computer has to do to encrypt the messages sent to them.

http://www.savingtheinternetwithhate.com/

Re: Paul Graham Keynote at PyCon

#96

Post by elangoc »

pron wrote: post #78
nostrademons wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he addressed this - the way to solve big, world-changing problems is to start by solving ordinary, day-to-day problems and then expand from that. If you start by saying "I'm going to solve poverty", about a year in everyone will say "Why haven't you solved it yet?" and you'll find it very hard to find people to help you. You end up accomplishing far less than if you said "I'm going to help a hundred underpriv…

I agree with everything you said. Yet, I don't think that's where Mr. Graham was taking this (though I haven't heard the actual speech, but, for the purpose of this discussion, let's assume that the summary has, indeed, captured its spirit). I think that his advice focused on how to build a successful business - important, sound, advice for any professional, but hardly a source of inspiration, which, I guess, was his…

I can relate to where you're coming from. When it comes to the motivations that drive some engineers (vs. the ideals that ought to drive them), you'll probably like the recent talk by Bret Victor, "Inventing on Principle" (vimeo.com/36579366).

You (correctly) point out the places where capitalism comes up empty, if capitalism is our implicit system of determining the worth of goods and services. Apart from the environment (which seems unaddressed by the major economic models of the world) or the other causes you mentioned (unaddressed by capitalism, at least), I suppose it's fine to rely on the adequacy of money as some measure of the wealth we add to the world (http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html).

Even if the world is being eaten by software (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405311190348090457651...), the transition to using software happens fastest through startups, I'm coming to believe. I used to work in a life-sci research lab, and there's just an exponentially growing divide between data growth and the tech resources to handle it. NGOs and government can be disorganized and unmotivated, so working for them is not necessarily going to be the best use of your engineering talents. But that might be aside your point, i.e., try to work towards noble goals.

Lastly, and most importantly, I find the model of the Aravind Eye Hospital as truly inspiring and business-model bending: a company set up to help the ones who are the _most_ in need. The ones who can least afford it. And yet in the process, generate income that goes back to serving and accelerating the mission. _This_ is what "social enterprises" ought to be: http://infinitevisionaries.com

Re: Paul Graham Keynote at PyCon

#97

Post by yummyfajitas »

romaniv wrote: post #35
larsberg wrote: post #5

Curious point: > replace universities > heading down wrong path last couple decades. not fun for students or professors. Is that (fun part) generally true? I'm in my thirties, and I certainly had lots of fun at my previous job (MSFT, on developer tools), but none of it compared with either my undergraduate or Ph.D. student experiences. That also seems to be true for most of my colleagues and friends --- who have done…

Are non top-tier universities really that bad? Here is my experience in undegrad. 1. Most students simply don't care about their major's subject. 2. Most professors don't care about the subjects they teach enough to care about how students are doing. 3. Grading is aimed at punishing mistakes, rather than rewarding for learning things or doing things. 4. Guess what those things do to your group projects. 5. If you try…

2. Most professors don't care about the subjects they teach enough to care about how students are doing.

I would disagree with this quite strongly. Most profs I've encountered love the subjects they work on - it's teaching they don't care much about.

This is mainly because teaching and research are minimally related topics which a single person is forced to perform for legacy reasons.

Re: Paul Graham Keynote at PyCon

#98

Post by pron »

elangoc wrote: post #96
pron wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with everything you said. Yet, I don't think that's where Mr. Graham was taking this (though I haven't heard the actual speech, but, for the purpose of this discussion, let's assume that the summary has, indeed, captured its spirit). I think that his advice focused on how to build a successful business - important, sound, advice for any professional, but hardly a source of inspiration, which, I guess, was his…

I can relate to where you're coming from. When it comes to the motivations that drive some engineers (vs. the ideals that ought to drive them), you'll probably like the recent talk by Bret Victor, "Inventing on Principle" (vimeo.com/36579366). You (correctly) point out the places where capitalism comes up empty, if capitalism is our implicit system of determining the worth of goods and services. Apart from the enviro…

Thanks! Interesting stuff. My point is actually broader. I don't want engineers to be inspired by nobler things - I just want them to be inspired by bigger things. They may want to enslave everyone on the planet - that is a big goal indeed - and though I believe most will try to do good rather than bad, first they have to learn to think about the why before they start thinking about the what and the how.

The what will be cooler gadgets and "increased productivity" or "streamlined processes" only if the why is money. Money is perfectly OK as motivation; it's just so... pedestrian.

Re: Paul Graham Keynote at PyCon

#99

Post by tdfx »

pbreit wrote: post #64
tdfx wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making/receiving calls in Gmail is the reason I stick with the web client. I don't actually use the chat much, but I'm a huge fan of the simplicity of Google Voice's integration with Gmail.

I would kill for a Google Voice app! I can't stand missing pretty much every call because I don't have Gmail open.

I use GrowlVoice for Mac for almost all my SMS, and I jailbroke my iPhone 4S and installed "Phone GV Extension" and "SMS GV Extension", which makes GV work seamlessly with Apple's native phone/messages app. If GrowlVoice somehow found a way to use the AV plugin that Gmail chat uses so I could make calls through the app, I'd be one happy camper.

Re: Paul Graham Keynote at PyCon

#100

Post by imaginaryunit »

timr wrote: post #88
larsberg wrote: post #5

Curious point: > replace universities > heading down wrong path last couple decades. not fun for students or professors. Is that (fun part) generally true? I'm in my thirties, and I certainly had lots of fun at my previous job (MSFT, on developer tools), but none of it compared with either my undergraduate or Ph.D. student experiences. That also seems to be true for most of my colleagues and friends --- who have done…

It's sad but kind of expected that the average response to your question is essentially undergrads complaining about coursework. That's the common answer, but not the informative one, because the people who get caught up in complaining about the trials and tribulations of undergraduate life aren't generally the talented ones who are going to create great businesses. Life is about the management of bullshit, and the b…

My 2c as someone who has a similar background to yours (did PhD, post-doc, now an entrepreneur): a startup is in most ways more fulfilling than an academic environment. I think startups force you to be good at many things whereas in an academic environment, you're rewarded more for being the expert in a single narrowly defined subject. I do have to say though, given the way fields are getting narrower and narrower and the way the academe has devolved, I see little real connection between stuff being shown in academic research papers and the technology that we'll be hyping in 2032.
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