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Tell HN: Thanks and hats off to all the non software engineers

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Re: Tell HN: Thanks and hats off to all the non software engineers

#121

Post by barbazoo »

SimianSci wrote: post #61
barbazoo wrote: post #20

Let's pay respect in ways other than money too. Money isn't everything and the goal isn't to have everybody ranked by income as a proxy for how useful or how much "worth" they are.

There are vanishingly few places in the US where you can occupy space without paying money. If you don't believe it is all that matters, you will quickly be reminded of how wrong you are to believe that.

I know what you mean and it's obviously true. I just wish it wasn't and it begins with all of us to change that. If we keep it up without adjusting how much we pay people for their work based on how important their work is to society then you'll just have people always chasing the money and doing whatever gets them up the ladder with a net loss to society I'd presume.

Re: Tell HN: Thanks and hats off to all the non software engineers

#122

Post by simne »

Thank You for warm words, I'm electronics dev by first education.

But, I must admit, in modern tech, each day larger share get software.

For example, because of sanctions, Russians have troubles in buy industrial chips for automobiles, and their govt decided, to accept manufacture new autos without modern safety systems - no airbags, no abs, no esc, etc.

Military jet planes are now micro datacenters, for example, F-35 just have few racks with triple redundant computers, because they are nearly impossible to fly without software; similar thing with Russian Su-27 and all their relatives (Su-33, Su-35) - to be more maneuverable, they designed to be extremely unstable, so software constantly correct their air-dynamic configuration, also their air-dynamic configuration automatically change with speed change.

If You prefer numbers, from ~ F-16, about half cost of military jet plane is software.

Re: Tell HN: Thanks and hats off to all the non software engineers

#123

Post by anm89 »

polishdude20 wrote: post #19
lumberjack24 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

geez.

Louise

You are literally asking why we don't say what is literally true and instead we say something that elicits an image by comparison.

That's the answer. Because they choose to use a metaphor instead of speaking literally.

Re: Tell HN: Thanks and hats off to all the non software engineers

#124

Post by MilStdJunkie »

pvg wrote: post #74
MilStdJunkie wrote: post #47

If you've seen Margin Call , you know the scene I'm thinking of right now. The "I Built a Bridge" scene. Beginning in the mid-70s something went horribly, horribly wrong with the way capital handles risk management, resulting in "real stuff" being undervalued by orders of magnitude, since it was by nature riskier. Hence that aforementuioned scene. Russian-style command economies failed in some part because they lacke…

They were Soviet rather than 'Russian-style' and they very much had ways to 'borrow from the future' - externally they were connected to the global economy and there was an internal system of industrial credit and settlement strictly separated from the cash economy individuals used.

Oh yeah. The invention of the Eurobond was a turning point not just in economics but for the history of the Soviet Union itself. It made the security state the sole gatekeeper, since you couldn't trust a design bureau to approach a London bank.

From what I understand, Gosbank-supervised credit system relied entirely on dynamic metrics from Narkomfin and higher up in the government, which made the pricing of such "debt" completely opaque. Like, deliberately so, unlike our Western variants which are theoretically transparent. I won't editorialize that.

I am not a super-expert, but the story of Rowland Barin and the Eurobond - and its effects on Soviet economics - captivated me after the Western financial system effectively collapsed in 2007-2008.

Re: Tell HN: Thanks and hats off to all the non software engineers

#125

Post by MilStdJunkie »

disqard wrote: post #52
MilStdJunkie wrote: post #47

If you've seen Margin Call , you know the scene I'm thinking of right now. The "I Built a Bridge" scene. Beginning in the mid-70s something went horribly, horribly wrong with the way capital handles risk management, resulting in "real stuff" being undervalued by orders of magnitude, since it was by nature riskier. Hence that aforementuioned scene. Russian-style command economies failed in some part because they lacke…

Tbh, your comment looks like it was authored by an LLM -- what is a "telluric state"?

I'm not an AI, at least, I don't think so. It's been co-opted by Russian weirdos, but the concept of a "land holding civilization" versus a "maritime civilization" is one of those historical metaphors that aids understanding rather than undermining it. In my opinion at least.

The two organizational principles are so fundamentally different, they're almost apples and oranges.

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