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I’m taking some time away from Comma

geohot.github.io

101–110 of 437 posts

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#101
post #11

One of my favorite tech articles of all time involved this guy. He was showing off the self driving capabilities of his framework and took a reporter out on a drive. Everything went well and while they were wrapping up the interview the reporter said "Well I bet you're just driving around all the time hands free, it must be amazing" and Hotz says "Oh well I just got it working this morning". Classic. I love it. My ki…

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Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>autonomous cars are no closer to reality today than they were 5 years ago Why do people keep printing things like this, which are objectively wrong? I have had a completely autonomous waymo come to my location, pick me up, and take me to another location. That didn't exist five years ago, it does exist now. How is this not "closer" than it was 5 years ago when it literally exists now, and didn't exist then?

because that's like arguing that because you can now climb your way up a tree which you couldn't do five years ago you're closer to climbing to the moon. Self-driving is still incredibly limited and progress is often overstated because people make headway on some tiny issue. A thing I always liked for people who think progress is rapid, this is Germany in the 1980s where Ernst Dickmann had autonmous cars drive thousa…

What?

No, it would be like if somebody said "some day we will travel to the moon", and then after the Apollo missions there were articles being published that said "we are no closer to traveling to the moon than we were 5 years ago".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHdKm0kW4l0

This is a video of a person riding in a fully self driving car.

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#104

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…

Oh yeah. I've met more than a couple of engineers who spent their teens and twenties coding like that was the meaning to life, all suffer from deep regret, burnout, resentment, depression. They are better than average technically, but their social skills fail them. Which in a paid employment situation carries a lot of weight. I feel sorry for these guys

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Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#106

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…

Oh yeah. I've met more than a couple of engineers who spent their teens and twenties coding like that was the meaning to life, all suffer from deep regret, burnout, resentment, depression. They are better than average technically, but their social skills fail them. Which in a paid employment situation carries a lot of weight. I feel sorry for these guys

>paid employment situation

Just don't get yourself in such a situation and you'll do fine :)

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#107
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped reading when he brought the Bible into things. I have no time to waste on that sort of thing.

You have no time to waste on western civilization's foundational text? edit: to the people who want to argue this: show me a body of work which has been more influential on western society. What people seem to identify as 'western' values are largely just judeo christian values. The influence of the bible is so ingrained into our society that you will live out the values within it even if you don't realize it. And th…

Not everyone eats everything Jordan Peterson says. The values you say are 'Christian values' are expressed, (in many cases more eloquently), in classical Greek texts. Values like democracy itself are indeed much more prominent there than in the Bible, which is why I imagine you're seeing the sort of replies that you are.

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, he was recently in the news saying self-driving cars are a scam. https://cleantechnica.com/2022/10/09/george-hotz-autonomous-...

>autonomous cars are no closer to reality today than they were 5 years ago Why do people keep printing things like this, which are objectively wrong? I have had a completely autonomous waymo come to my location, pick me up, and take me to another location. That didn't exist five years ago, it does exist now. How is this not "closer" than it was 5 years ago when it literally exists now, and didn't exist then?

I think Waymo first launched early access to nobody-behind-the-wheel hailable rides in Arizona almost exactly 5 years ago: https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/7/16615290/waymo-self-drivi...

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#109
post #27

It strikes me as surprising that George Hotz is religious. Very few people I’ve met with similar personalities are.

I've seen this change dramatically in the last few years. The people I knew 10 years ago who were the sortof frighteningly brilliant hackers have almost all become religious (mostly traditional Catholics). I'm not saying this is an objective truth, just that this has been my experience.

I think part of that (specifically Catholic) stems from the fact that it's one of the few religions that is compatible with a scientific understanding of the world, where science is seen as a worthwhile study of creation, and not something that's dangerous and evil (like many modern fundamentalist groups seem to think).

The danger IMO comes when people tie their religious belief too strongly to political movements, or think that just because there is doctrine around a certain aspect of human culture/life, there is no questioning it or investigating it further. A healthy skepticism (especially over one's own beliefs) is central to a good life IMO.

Re: I’m taking some time away from Comma

#110
post #27

It strikes me as surprising that George Hotz is religious. Very few people I’ve met with similar personalities are.

In my experience it's the opposite, Hotz comes across as someone with high-functioning mental illness (he mentions a manic episode in this post) and this can often include religious belief (along with delusions of grandeur). It's all anecdotal either way, and I'm never really comfortable with dissecting someone's religious beliefs or mental state much beyond a loose concept.
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