181–190 of 528 posts
Dude, the folks doing websites aren't greatest minds. They aren't even engineers. It's a bunch of ADHD kids rushing for cash. All this social web bullshit is not really even programming, and programming is not even engineering.
Bad incentives. Maybe smart people don't care about money all that much, but they want their lives to not suck, their effort to not feel wasted, their identity not wrapped up in the service of dysfunction and politics. There are not many places where you can better humanity for a living and live the life such a person deserves, and it is not the job of humans to sacrifice themselves for no reward. That's why people w…
Is there any indication that education needs geniuses? Does it substantially improve innovation? When America was world dominant in innovation, were its geniuses in academia, or industry?
Oh goodie, another arrogant whine by raganwald where he can't understand why the greatest minds (implying people writing code are somehow the greatest minds) aren't doing what he thinks is important. This post makes two incorrect assumptions. First, that the things he derides (Google automating targeted content, Facebook introducing new search features that are tangential to their current features, Apple changing for…
I would hope it's uncontroversial that saving people's lives, health and sanity is categorically more important than making money or trivial social interaction.
Clicking ads is literally what supports Google.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because consenting adults aren't allowed to engage in an exchange of medical services without the approval of federal bureaucrats + lurking personal injury lawyers. All we need is just one state with medical contractual freedom.
No thank you, Christian Scientists are "experimental" enough. We don't need the Tim Ferrises of the world selling snake oil to parents (as medicine).
Spin the FDA off as a non government agency, with no force of law behind it, let it create a voluntary approval process (something akin to the UL process for approving home electrical devices, for example) and let it be.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because they make 100k straight out of college.
Clearly I'm working for the wrong employer
I agree that masses of people are working on ridiculous problems, it is like those people in wall street working on how to squeeze out few pennies more during a trade. In part, it is because we live in capitalism and money is only measure of success, so if you make 40K and i make 60K, I am better then you and 150% better to be precise :).
Plus, these other problems are really hard and if you start tackling them you really stir up things.
I believe Elon Musk is, for example, a guy who is trying to work on real problems.
My fellow HNers: It does depress me, daily, that I do not have a career in physics or chemistry or biology or medicine where I could work on "big problems." The simple truth is, I'm not smart enough, I don't work hard enough, and I've been napping when opportunity knocked a few times in my life. That being said, sometimes a man in a saloon has a few drinks and yells at the television, telling the coach of some footba…
OTOH, just because you don't have a career in a basic science doesn't mean you can't change the world. IMO, the biggest challenges facing us are in the field of computer science and computer/electrical engineering.
We need to make computers more efficient and we need to find a way to power the future expansion of data centers around the globe. Less than half of the world's population is taking part in the information economy, and already our data centers are using about 2% of the electrical supply. And all we are doing with those is Siri, Maps, and facebook.
If we want our cloud computing resources to do the heavy lifting in the future, we are going to need massive amounts of computing power and a way to supply electricity to that.
Oh goodie, another arrogant whine by raganwald where he can't understand why the greatest minds (implying people writing code are somehow the greatest minds) aren't doing what he thinks is important. This post makes two incorrect assumptions. First, that the things he derides (Google automating targeted content, Facebook introducing new search features that are tangential to their current features, Apple changing for…
I would hope it's uncontroversial that saving people's lives, health and sanity is categorically more important than making money or trivial social interaction.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've had Type 1 diabetes for about 20 years now; it's a little bit of pain in the ass, but I don't get why people bellyache about it so much. Blood sugar meters? Check. Fast-acting insulin? Check. Insulin pumps? Check. Blindness, amputation and kidney failure are no longer guaranteed and I'm grateful as heck for that. For now I'll count my blessings: one of which is the fact that my wife has yet to find me laid out i…
My dad had type 1 diabetes. He had all the problems you mention, and died when I was 11. Yes, died essentially because the equipment wasn't as good back then (he was born in the late 1930s, died in the 1980s) as it is now. He also taught me to program when I was 7 (by pairing together on a ZX Spectrum!).
Awesome that his hacker spirit lives on in you...
These companies have impact that are not easily measured. Google gave people knowledge at their fingertips while Facebook and Twitter have become tools for democracy.