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Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

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Re: Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

#51
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"y'all are black pilled about computers and security. You believe, incorrectly, that computers can't be safe AND secure AND easy to use all at the same time" This is basic fact. Man can make it; man can break it. I've never come across anything in my 44 years of life where this wasn't true.

OK, produce a SHA-2 collision.

[deleted]

Re: Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

#52
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"y'all are black pilled about computers and security. You believe, incorrectly, that computers can't be safe AND secure AND easy to use all at the same time" This is basic fact. Man can make it; man can break it. I've never come across anything in my 44 years of life where this wasn't true.

OK, produce a SHA-2 collision.

[deleted]

Re: Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

#53
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why a collision? Abuse it where it is being used. Infect the chain of certificates that guarantees that the hash you are checking is actually the one you want. Send a million legit documents with bad hashes, so that the forged one looks like another legit one. Infect the library that calculates hashes so that these specific documents have a special hardcoded hash.

Because man made SHA-2, so it must be breakable. I don't dispute that there are systems humans make that are breakable (that would be weird given my career).

Well, if you are that picky, then you will have to wait. MD5 was created in 1991, the first collision was found in 2004.

Re: Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

#54

> “I almost fell into this trap (...) I was raised by conservative Christian parents and thereby had so, so much to learn, and unlearn, in order to date comfortable and confidently. Is this engagement bait? Is this a cultural critique? What is meant to be said here? At any rate, this is the kind of speech which will alienate a lot of people. Look, I'm more on the progressive end of things, I get it, but I think this…

[flagged]

Re: Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

#55

> “I almost fell into this trap (...) I was raised by conservative Christian parents and thereby had so, so much to learn, and unlearn, in order to date comfortable and confidently. Is this engagement bait? Is this a cultural critique? What is meant to be said here? At any rate, this is the kind of speech which will alienate a lot of people. Look, I'm more on the progressive end of things, I get it, but I think this…

The man is running a slide deck in front of his colleagues that is full of crude graphics, memes, and, I guess some anime or something. It’s an unserious talk given by an unserious person for entertainment value. He dons the jester’s hat and signals his alignment with the monied San Francisco tribe to keep his easy job in an air-conditioned environment. If not, he might suffer the awful fate of having to earn his bread hanging drywall or driving a solid waste truck.

Re: Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

#56

> “I almost fell into this trap (...) I was raised by conservative Christian parents and thereby had so, so much to learn, and unlearn, in order to date comfortable and confidently. Is this engagement bait? Is this a cultural critique? What is meant to be said here? At any rate, this is the kind of speech which will alienate a lot of people. Look, I'm more on the progressive end of things, I get it, but I think this…

I liked the talk and was about to post a link to it in the $dayjob slack, but this threw me off as well. Still watched it to the end, and I still recommended it to a friend (along with the Youtube channel of the "Software should work" conf), but I'm saddened that the talk paints Christianity as something that is inflicted upon you and that you should strive to get rid of.

It's clear that he had a bad experience, and I'm nobody to tell him what to put on the slides and what to leave out, but my impression is that there are lots of believers out there who do cherish their faith, experience it as a very positive force in their lives, and draw from it the power to make the world a better place around them. Speaking for myself, I'd say faith has been a net positive so far in my life.

Re: Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

#57
post #19

So in case you're worried about watching a 35 minute video and wishing you hadn't, here is what I think is an interesting observation that the speaker starts coming around to at around the 7 minute mark. Why does software suck? Management often has other priorities, and isn't interested in doing the hard work required to increase the reliability and reduce the technical debt in software. Engineers who care about such…

I think such comment are the exact reason why "the speaker" has quit HN. This is literally some AI transcription from the video + "I find this interesting". Why is this even in the top?

Re: Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

#58

So, today I'm one of the lucky 10,000[1] who finally understands what "black pilled" actually means. (Edit: The video explains what black pilled means) As a mapper[2], that knowledge now gets subconsciously checked for matches and usefulness against all the other chunks of knowledge I'm fairly certain of. The first thing that popped out (and there will be more over the next 24+ hours) is that y'all are black pilled a…

"y'all are black pilled about computers and security. You believe, incorrectly, that computers can't be safe AND secure AND easy to use all at the same time" This is basic fact. Man can make it; man can break it. I've never come across anything in my 44 years of life where this wasn't true.

> Man can make it; man can break it.

Man can make mathematical proofs that will not be broken. Man is not going to disprove the Pythagorean Theorem. Software is just hifalutin math. There can exist software that, for a given mathematical specification, can be proven correct, and will not be disproven.

Re: Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

#59
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unreliable software is also expensive. Rather, building reliable software is incompatible with a management policy that rewards and punishes people based on KPIs (basically leading indicators). The concept of KPIs is fine, but they should (a) be actual indicators of progress, and (b) be kept secret from employees (so that we can avoid or mitigate Goodhart's Law). Both of those things are difficult, because you need a…

> … kept secret from employees [to] mitigate Goodhart's Law While I empathize with the need for mitigation, secret goals and milestones are an excellent way to mistreat employees and eliminate morale.

I mean, my point is that we would all be better off without any of the KPIs, and stack-ranking, and so on, in large part because they are not reliable metrics, and making them reliable is itself a difficult problem to solve. You need engineers that seek to understand your business, your problem, and are willing to use that understanding and their experience of building software, to solve those problems in as permanent and correct a way as possible.

The reason this is so difficult to manifest, is that only about 2% to 4.6% of the college-educated population are software engineers at any given point, which means that 95% of all the people that we interact with, have no clue what we are talking about, and do not understand why they cannot have more, more, more, now, now, now. For comparison at least 20% of people have a degree in business. And most of those, in non-concrete roles seem to be cargo-culting their way through a career.

Re: Don't Take the Black Pill [video]

#60
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because man made SHA-2, so it must be breakable. I don't dispute that there are systems humans make that are breakable (that would be weird given my career).

Well, if you are that picky, then you will have to wait. MD5 was created in 1991, the first collision was found in 2004.

You want to pick a date and make a bet?
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