Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011]

youtube.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 144 posts

Re: Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011]

#61

Post by dpark »

david927 wrote: post #31
abijlani wrote: post #24

Let's stop focusing on the fact that he quit. And focus on WHY he quit. I'm sure we all can relate with what he's saying at some level. He's talking about tackling hard problems and not just low hanging fruit that might (emphasis on might) make a buck. And most of all he's leading by example. I haven't seen this much bravado from anyone in our industry in a long time.

Let's organize this: http://digitalauteur.wikispaces.com - We will work on projects that make the world better, not to get rich. - We will study different subjects to better tackle existing, important problems. - We will work as a community, sharing our findings, learning from each other

not only to get rich

Pretty sure Yegge's 'auteurs' are getting rich.

Re: Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011]

#62

Post by Create »

kodisha wrote: post #15
kodisha wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What we all can do is to donate our CPU cycles to folding@home or WCG projects. How many of you have your PS3 siting idle? Do you know that you have folding@home built in your PS3, you just need to tour it on :)

http://folding.stanford.edu/English/FAQ-PS3#ntoc3

I hate to say this, but protein folding projects aren't good for any practical purposes (or show me a breakthrough). It is good for PR (public participation, awareness of the topic), but like SETI (FFT on essentially CBR noise from space) it is quite futile: while in theory it could work, it is really not a reasonable way to use scarce resources.

It is literally burning electricity (oil, coal, Fukushima) for no real reason (MS wants to patent computational heating?)

We have no clue how proteins work/interact (this is why epigenetics is hyped these days). We have some "educated guess", but it is mostly data harvesting from public databases and then doing some simple Bayes or correlation analysis, without much scrutiny on the harvested data itself (ie. was it made up using multiple imputation?)

Re: Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011]

#63

Post by orangecat »

I'll watch this tonight, from the summaries I generally agree with him. I feel the same way about brilliant math and physics people doing HFT for Goldman Sachs. But I'd also point out that from a comparative advantage perspective, it may be optimal to earn lots of money in a "useless" area and then donate where it makes a difference. If you can earn $500k/year at a hedge fund and give half of that to SENS, that's probably better than quitting your job to learn molecular biology from scratch.

Re: Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011]

#64

Post by awj »

tom_b wrote: post #42

So I'm not really an ask me anything type guy, but I work on a bioinformatics team at an academic cancer research center. We have genomic sequencers and a software stack running 24/7/365 plus your normal collection of IT and small dev projects here. If you have questions about what it's like to be a hacker in this type of environment, post them here and I'll share what my experience is like. BTW, I completely wish I…

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?

Re: Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011]

#65

Post by espeed »

adw wrote: post #43
wccrawford wrote: post #36

Am 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'…

Making the world better is a complex problem which depends on a hell of a lot of systems. Having worked in academia, you rapidly appreciate that the people who keep the lights on - administrators, lab techs, librarians - are about the most important people there. And that system? Depends on taxpayer funding. If you're doing things which are ethical, and you're doing them well, then you're helping cure cancer and all…

I don't think he is trying to minimize the work of others. Steve is saying if you see a meaningful problem that you know how to attack, it's up to you to make it a priority rather than putting it off because you can't be bothered.

He's talking about working toward your potential and possibly making short-term sacrifices in exchange for the greater good.

Because if you have a unique perspective on a problem, you may be the only one in the world right now with the vision to solve it. Don't waste your time working on mundane shit when you know you could be doing something more.

Re: Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011]

#66

Post by [deleted] »

almightygod wrote: post #57
kbutler wrote: post #48

tl;dr Work on data mining and bioionformatics to change the world, rather than just seeking money by doing trivial things. Plus publicity stunt of quitting so you'll listen [at 14:15, sounded like quitting a cat-photo-sharing project, rather than quitting Google]. Plus implication that bio is the only domain that is world-changing.

I never heard him say "bio is only domain that is world-changing". But unlocking the genome would have unequivocal implications on quality of life and longevity for all of humanity, what is more important then improving someone's life?

[deleted]

Re: Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011]

#67

Post by CBgrad »

tom_b wrote: post #42

So I'm not really an ask me anything type guy, but I work on a bioinformatics team at an academic cancer research center. We have genomic sequencers and a software stack running 24/7/365 plus your normal collection of IT and small dev projects here. If you have questions about what it's like to be a hacker in this type of environment, post them here and I'll share what my experience is like. BTW, I completely wish I…

I'm a CS guy (programmer with a heavy interest in Biology) going to get a Master's in Computational Biology (from CMU).

What's it like to be a hacker in that sort of environment? :P Really, anything you could tell me about what you do now, the state of the industry, and your experience would be really valuable.

Re: Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011]

#68

Post by Create »

kodisha wrote: post #4
conorh wrote: post #2

At around 14:10 in the speech - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKmQW_Nkfk8&feature=playe... Also I'm not sure if he quit Google, or if he just quit the project he was working on.

Well I don't think that Google has anything similar to human genome project, so I think he quit Google. But yes, it is a but unclear.

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)...

Re: Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011]

#69

Post by david927 »

VladRussian wrote: post #38
david927 wrote: post #6

Please change the title to: Stevey gives up the being part of the chase for the superfluous (in money), and calls for us to do something about the necessary No one needs a million dollars. No one. Why are we chasing it and dying of heart disease -- heart disease we can cure if we start chasing that instead? Our priorities are absolutely messed up and it's time we start realigning them. This isn't a speech; this isn't…

>No one needs a million dollars. No one. food, roof (with internet connection reaching under it), freedom. In Bay Area, if you have a mortgage, it is half a mil bare minimum and even a million may not take you far enough. There have been experiments to build societies with decreased degree of connection between food, roof, freedom and money - somehow it always went like this one http://www.globalsecurity.org/military…

You're missing my point, Vlad. We're chasing superfluous amounts of money, instead of doing more important things.

Re: Steve Yegge quits Google in the middle of his speech [OSCON Data 2011]

#70

Post by david927 »

tom_b wrote: post #42

So I'm not really an ask me anything type guy, but I work on a bioinformatics team at an academic cancer research center. We have genomic sequencers and a software stack running 24/7/365 plus your normal collection of IT and small dev projects here. If you have questions about what it's like to be a hacker in this type of environment, post them here and I'll share what my experience is like. BTW, I completely wish I…

We're creating a group here:

http://digitalauteur.wikispaces.com

Post reply on HN