51–60 of 68 posts
It still blows my mind to think that I can manipulate information by manipulating the states of very small switches.
It is black magic.
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That's along the lines of what most programmers do, and each defeat is chipping away at inefficiency. You're doing your part in the greatest productivity revolution in history :)
So something that could be done by anyone with a paper, pen, and the technical know-how to operate a ruler, is now replaced by someone with a specialized domain knowledge that is creating something that will need to be maintained and likely obsolete in a few years. And they call this progress.
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Step into the 1970s, and try doing some of these things: - Professional-quality publishing (text, images, printing) - Sending text/images to your friend in another state - Looking up any kind of information (Library trip?) - Buying things that aren't at your local grocer (Mail-order?) Try this experiment: Spend a week doing everything without a computer. How productive are you, compared to before? How often did you f…
Step into the 1970s and not need to do those things. If you had to type stuff on a typewriter, you didn't spend hours picking out a pretty font, you used the one you got: the typewriter font. Nobody cared if your publishing wasn't professional quality, theirs wasn't either. You didn't IM your friends inane updates regarding your current thoughts on whatever Sarah Palin said five minutes ago, you sent them actually in…
Your comment about imdb and USB cables reminds me of this post on Penny Arcade: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/3/9/
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Katana were too long for a ninja - they'd more likely use a Ninjato which was shorter... [Puts geek credentials away and gets back to the point] Yes programming is great and useful but I think super power is overstating it and is just meaningless, sightly immature hyperbole. If people want programming to be attractive and interesting to more people then they should possibly think about not using super hero, fantasy a…
I think the point is that the super hero meme is specifically targeting the group of people who are already aligned with much of your stereotypical "geek" culture. The difference is that nowadays there are so many avenues to take following this path that won't necessarily end up at programming. I think the point that cicero made here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2350004 is crucial. There was a time where being…
We absolutely should be selling the industry and the career - the best teams I've worked in have always been diverse (in pretty much every respect) but you're not going to do that with this sort of pitch.
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However I feel like our "productivity revolution" is for naught, when we still end up working ourselves to death and having no free time to show for it. Whatever happened to "computers will make our lives easier?" For whom? When does it pay off? When does the programmer get to rest?
Step into the 1970s, and try doing some of these things: - Professional-quality publishing (text, images, printing) - Sending text/images to your friend in another state - Looking up any kind of information (Library trip?) - Buying things that aren't at your local grocer (Mail-order?) Try this experiment: Spend a week doing everything without a computer. How productive are you, compared to before? How often did you f…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's along the lines of what most programmers do, and each defeat is chipping away at inefficiency. You're doing your part in the greatest productivity revolution in history :)
However I feel like our "productivity revolution" is for naught, when we still end up working ourselves to death and having no free time to show for it. Whatever happened to "computers will make our lives easier?" For whom? When does it pay off? When does the programmer get to rest?
Speak for yourself. Why are you working yourself to death? I am a programmer and am not working myself to death.
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By this standard, pretty much anything that doesn't involve trivial desk job paper pushing is a super power. Bricklaying? Check. Welding? Check. Mech eng? Check. Digging ditches? Check. Everyone's special, Dash.
I see a fairly natural superpower line with welding and mechanical engineering (alongside machining or some rapid prototyping ability) on one side, and bricklaying, ditch digging, etc. on the other side. Bricklayers and ditch diggers don't often think of something cool and then make it happen with those particular skills.
To paraphrase Erasmus: In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is a super-hero.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Step into the 1970s, and try doing some of these things: - Professional-quality publishing (text, images, printing) - Sending text/images to your friend in another state - Looking up any kind of information (Library trip?) - Buying things that aren't at your local grocer (Mail-order?) Try this experiment: Spend a week doing everything without a computer. How productive are you, compared to before? How often did you f…
Step into the 1970s and not need to do those things. If you had to type stuff on a typewriter, you didn't spend hours picking out a pretty font, you used the one you got: the typewriter font. Nobody cared if your publishing wasn't professional quality, theirs wasn't either. You didn't IM your friends inane updates regarding your current thoughts on whatever Sarah Palin said five minutes ago, you sent them actually in…
I specifically remember my godfather running around the house in his underwear yelling "I have shit for brains!" when being proven wrong about a movie after 20 minutes of arguing back and forth.
The elimination of that ritual is a net benefit for society.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Step into the 1970s, and try doing some of these things: - Professional-quality publishing (text, images, printing) - Sending text/images to your friend in another state - Looking up any kind of information (Library trip?) - Buying things that aren't at your local grocer (Mail-order?) Try this experiment: Spend a week doing everything without a computer. How productive are you, compared to before? How often did you f…
Step into the 1970s and not need to do those things. If you had to type stuff on a typewriter, you didn't spend hours picking out a pretty font, you used the one you got: the typewriter font. Nobody cared if your publishing wasn't professional quality, theirs wasn't either. You didn't IM your friends inane updates regarding your current thoughts on whatever Sarah Palin said five minutes ago, you sent them actually in…