21–30 of 59 posts
> my mother's partner was diagnosed What business is this mother in? An accountancy? Perhaps you meant to say spouse?
I respect the fight, but we don't all fit into the marriage binary either.
(And hey, maybe someday the two of us will be married too, heh.)
The adversity is an asset thing I completely understand. Although I was trained as a biologist/chemist, I always shied away from ideas like "curing cancer/AIDS" but when my "adoptive grandmother" passed from cancer, and a cancer drug development project fell into my lap, I took it as a sign and now my resolve is steeled. I also never imagined I would be running a company (or a nonprofit one, at that)... Yet, here I am.
We're rooting for you.
> Isn't it my moral duty to do that? No, there is no absolute "moral duty" to anything or anyone. There is a thing called "guilt", that some people try to induce (moral manipulation), when you don't do the things they want you to do. You only duty is to do things that you think are right. > Could I have saved Kristie, or if not her, others like her? Saving her - quite unlikely, unless you manage to find a cure for th…
Always remember that no amount of specialist skill by itself gets things done. Healthcare, and everything else, depends on the vast capital structure of our global economy. If you sent a great doctor back in time to the 15th century, she could do somewhat better than the locals (hand-washing helps a lot). But she would come nowhere near her capabilities when backed by a modern economy. If you can make one little piec…
Always remember that no amount of specialist skill by itself gets things done. Healthcare, and everything else, depends on the vast capital structure of our global economy. If you sent a great doctor back in time to the 15th century, she could do somewhat better than the locals (hand-washing helps a lot). But she would come nowhere near her capabilities when backed by a modern economy. If you can make one little piec…
Nice! Spoken like an economist (I recently read Economics in One Lesson).
Every little bit of tech I get to use which has a net positive affect on my efficiency reduces the time of my deliverables/milestones. My team and I develop the tools/software/data which the doctors/nurses/practitioners rely on to provide care, solve interesting medical puzzles, etc. It is a race against the clock. I get the privilege of writing code that has the potential to help cure cancer.
I switched from TextMate to Sublime Text 2 recently. I've been monitoring Light Table and ST3 as of late. Keep up the good work.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I apologize if my post implies I believe we're out curing cancer - we're not and that was not my intent. If you point out to me where I've somehow stated that, I'll be happy to fix it. That being said, I'm not sure I agree with your argument. Both indirect and direct means are ultimately necessary for any serious change or innovation. By your logic, a microscope is just an item that lets you see things up close. Now…
Both direct and indirect tools are absolutely equally necessary, and my apologies if that sentiment did not come through -- I would never debate the usefulness or effectiveness of these tools, but instead their fitness for achieving a specific goal. The parallel to curing cancer was mainly drawn from this paragraph: I could've become a doctor. All signs pointed to me likely being a very good one. In doing so, I would…
I don't think it hurts anyone when he says he's helping solve cancer, he's not stealing anyone's thunder. There's plenty of evidence of tool/library developers not getting any credit in the end product. If someone directly finds a cure using Light Table as their IDE, I'm pretty damn sure not a lot of people are going to seek out Chris and congratulate him on curing cancer. But he would've helped and that's the important thing. So let him have his motivation and keep building things.
The question of whether my contribution to the world and how meaningful it should be has been in my head for a long, long time. It's not an easy answer. Working on an IDE certainly isn't performing life-saving surgery on someone who's bleeding out, but it does serve its purpose in the world.
I used to criticize people working on social apps until I started training in the hospital here and noticed kids spending hours in their stretchers browsing Instagram and the like. Social apps likely help a huge number of patients get through their hospital stays. And while they're not contributing directly to a person's physiological stability, I don't think they are that less meaningful than the services being provided by the hospital. There's a patient here who listens to his iPod all day, and another who is constantly on Facebook, and another who is always watching movies on his iPad, and I'd bet a cool million that all those products and services contribute to their mental, and eventually physical health.
If your product/service is providing value, making lives easier, and you're satisfied providing it, I would try to ignore the "meaning" question, because your mind will always default to you being the Nobel piece prize winner who discovered the cure for cancer, or the doctor who just single-handedly resurrected a patient (and all the glory and status that comes with that). The point is you will always undervalue the contribution you're currently making while overvaluing the contributions you could be making. I'm not saying you shouldn't pursue stuff like cancer research, but before you do, objectively evaluate the contribution you're making.
Know there is much more to a meaningful life than health, like friends, families, hobbies, entertainment, work, etc. Helping facilitate any of that makes you a positive-contributor in my book.
I hope that you and Kristie stay tenacious. All the best.
This post has some special meaning to me. I work as a developer at a cancer hospital. The work I do directly helps clinical trials. I handle everything from trial conception to actual patient accruals and the resulting deluge of data. Every little bit of tech I get to use which has a net positive affect on my efficiency reduces the time of my deliverables/milestones. My team and I develop the tools/software/data whic…
PS : I'm not even building an IDE, so that makes me even further away from helping anyone help someone.