I have just talked to Steve. I have confirmed that he has not quit Google.
Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011]
111–120 of 144 posts
Re: Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011]
#112I've had multiple math professors tell me to study as much math as I can while I'm young, because once you're over 30 it's a lot harder to learn math. I'm in my 20's so I'm not sure if this is true. It also seems to me that the math you would learn in an O'Reilly book isn't in depth enough to contribute to research.
Im in my 40s and still learning plenty of math. I think it's more a function of focused practice than age. I've also seen several profs doing good work well into their 80's so I dont know what your profs are talking about!
Re: Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011]
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
How would you describe the attention to craftsmanship of software in scientific computing? The most illuminating thing about Climategate to me was the state of the software: is this kind of code widespread? Is there interest in improvement? If I went to work for a research team and suggested pairing, code reviews, version control, continuous integration, or other accepted good practices from my experience in software…
Software Craftsmanship is often disastrous in Computer Science departments, never mind other fields. I remember getting a C program from one of the biggest names in both undergrad CS education and machine learning and finding it wouldn't run on 32 bit machines because it had a static array that consumed 4 GB. Even in computer science, the product is papers, not working software, and the situation is worse in other fi…
to add to your last paragraph, I would like to quote someone, who asked the rhetoric question at a self-celebration event at a (supposedly) flagship research institute:
"How should we make it attractive for them [young people] to spend 5,6,7 years in our field, be satisfied, learn about excitement, but finally be qualified to find other possibilities?" -- H. Schopper
What an euphemism. Almost like a scam.
Re: Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011]
#114while listening to the talk, I took notes. (Not exact notes, I probably reworded several things, hopefully not twisting the meaning too much.) Here they are, if you don't have time to watch the talk. ----- Google, "where I work right now", they are doing great work to attempt to change the work. At least more than other companies. I work on compilers. I like to work on big data, learn about data mining. Because even…
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Re: Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011]
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess my biggest question is: in what way can programmers outside that specific discipline pitch in and help out? Are there relevant open source projects that could benefit from someone with a lot of programming experience and a slightly-better-than-layman science background?
Bioinformatician here: First of all, I think it's got to be clear that a lone bioinformatician, or even a group of them isn't going to go about changing the world. Essentially, when you sign up for this, you're still a cog in a machine, albeit a slightly more altruistic machine. Here's my pet peeve in bioinformatics - If there's one thing that's poorly suited to science, it's the building of computational infrastruct…
I know a professor who has a big grant to sequence a whole bunch of animals, and will also do a high res CT scan of each specimen. He plans to make a comprehensive site where scientists and school children can access the data they are interested and learn more.
He even has money for a dev position for 4 years, I'm just worried that he gets someone who slaps together a proprietary and incompatible site when this would be a perfect chance to experiment with implementing some standard data access APIs.
I've heard bioinformatics people complain about the lack of standards and fragmented nature that comes from various small groups of scientists doing it on their own.
If anyone is interested pm me and I'll put you in touch, he is in South Carolina so he can't offer the salary and other perks of the Bay, but it's a real chance to put good development energy into science.
Re: Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011]
#116Everyone should work on the problems that are close to their heart, that they have a passion for.
He says something similar in the begining but then he confesses he's gonna do exactly the opposite.
this is major bulshit and I would not take this guy advice even if he payed me a million. Because he himself is not following it.
And even if he did, it is bullshit.
You should work on what YOU find important. Not on what someone else decided somewhere else.
YOU have intuitive intelligence that knows what's important and what you and ONLY YOU have a UNIQUE talent for (because you are unique).
Re: Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011]
#117while listening to the talk, I took notes. (Not exact notes, I probably reworded several things, hopefully not twisting the meaning too much.) Here they are, if you don't have time to watch the talk. ----- Google, "where I work right now", they are doing great work to attempt to change the work. At least more than other companies. I work on compilers. I like to work on big data, learn about data mining. Because even…
It feels hard to get into Bioinformatics without a PHD. I would love to tackle problems in genetics, medicine, and etc. But I'm not going to commit 7 years of my life to breaking into a highly regulated sector before I get to "Hello World!". Is there a hacker scene in Bioinformatics?
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Re: Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011]
#118while listening to the talk, I took notes. (Not exact notes, I probably reworded several things, hopefully not twisting the meaning too much.) Here they are, if you don't have time to watch the talk. ----- Google, "where I work right now", they are doing great work to attempt to change the work. At least more than other companies. I work on compilers. I like to work on big data, learn about data mining. Because even…
It feels hard to get into Bioinformatics without a PHD. I would love to tackle problems in genetics, medicine, and etc. But I'm not going to commit 7 years of my life to breaking into a highly regulated sector before I get to "Hello World!". Is there a hacker scene in Bioinformatics?
My father is in the hospital right now and I feel the same frustration. A family friend who is a professor of radiology mentioned that a major driver of research in medical imaging comes from video game graphics work. He even submitted a paper to siggraph around interpolating 3d space from 2d CT scans. There are direct and indirect applications from the techie scene, it just doesn't get the kind of press like consumer tech and the hacker scene tends to be at universities and learning hospitals.
Re: Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011]
#119Am I the only one that fails to be inspired by this? I think I'm not inspired because it's something I've already thought about. We've always had the option to go make money, or go try to fix the world... And whatever that brings us. I am very clear on my chances of making big changes to the world: Almost nil. Instead, I decided long ago that I'd do my best to make money and improve my own life. I'm not saying I don'…
I just recently decided to not pursue a PhD in scientific computing, so I'll be finishing my Master's and working at a startup starting in September.
One of the biggest reasons I decided to not do further research is that I have noticed that there are an unfathomable amount of people hobbling about on ancient and primitive tools when there are existing implementations and papers available that would make their lives orders of magnitude more efficient. So I've made a personal choice to not pursue the latest, fastest and most cutting edge algorithms and rather bring my knowledge, experience and problem solving abilities to people who are trying to solve real problems right now.
My point is that even though you think you can't compete with these guys who read, study and do 'real' science they could use a lot of help from the likes of you. Sure learning some linear algebra and bayesian statistics can help in directly implementing the algorithm, but usually the biggest problem I've seen is a complete lack of software engineering and hard coding specific to certain data sets.
I think the scientists can gain a lot from the software engineering field, especially open source practices. They will be resistant to it, as others have pointed out the incentives don't always line up, on the other hand there is a lot of low-hanging fruit in terms of improvements a decent programmer can pluck.
Re: Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011]
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
They had something, I think it was a protein database search goog labs project. It wasn't very popular, so I guess it didn't stick. btw 23me is close enough, and is also misleading enough (in scientific value)...
How is 23andMe misleading in scientific value? They just published "Web-based genome-wide association study identifies two novel loci and a substantial genetic component for Parkinson’s disease" in PLOS Genetics: http://spittoon.23andme.com/2011/06/23/plos-genetics-parkins... http://www.plosgenetics.org/doi/pgen.1002141
correct me if I am wrong, but the debate which started at about and around [1] didn't quite finish.
Would you trust the output of this chip, as it has been presented/used in the paper [2]?
1.Katsanis, S.H., Javitt, G. & Hudson, K. A Case Study of Personalized Medicine. Science 320, 53 -54 (2008).
2.Konstantinopoulos, P.A. et al. Integrated Analysis of Multiple Microarray Datasets Identifies a Reproducible Survival Predictor in Ovarian Cancer. PLoS ONE 6, e18202 (2011).