I’m afraid what you wrote was not purely what you state here, and to the extent it was, poorly so.

I don’t think I’m the one here for whom the message is lost.

Ha, ok. Well I think your response is rude, meaningless, petulant, and a waste of space.

But I’m really glad we have people like you on social media to remind us what it’s all about.

Many, myself included, may not like to hear this, but I think it’s the bitter truth.

For better or worse, the majority like this technology. AI companies have stuck the landing in a sales sense.

For those who find it cringey or offensive or whatever, we may have to get used to being black sheep (even more).

Techno feudalism … seems plain and simple to me.

Our independent value and sustainability is no longer a given.

In a monopolised AI world (and how can it be anything other than a big tech monopoly) … you give yourself over, as training data, in exchange for permission to survive … and rely on the AI trained on your data.

Let’s be real … big tech cornered us over the past couple of decades. And now they’re trying to grab us by the balls. It’s happening fast. And most don’t have the philosophical agility to keep up with the implications.

Most notable part for me in the article was not the AI stuff … but that Atlassian has never been profitable.

Not surprising for a tech company. But for one as big and kinda foundational in the service it provides … I found it surprising. Imagine if MS or Apple or Google were never profitable and companies were just entirely reliant on their services!

Couple that with how little love anyone has for Jira/confluence … and yea … good luck with that Atlassian.

I hear what you’re saying … but earning a living may be a necessary priority after coming out of academia.

And it certainly is a weird time to set course for a new career.

Ya Rayah by Rachid Taha

wikipedia page

Loved it on first listen and it made me a fan of Taha’s. It’s kinda Arabic pop rock but with traditional instrumentation.

If you like this, maybe checkout the album Diwan 2 afterwards.

The lua escape hatch is interesting.

Are there other lisps like this? I’m guessing closure has some similar features re Java/JVM?

Surprising twists there about the tomb having been vacated by Egyptians due to flooding with the second tomb yet to be discovered.

Yep! Embracing boredom is likely the path back. Because it’s not a dead space. It’s a canvas.

I’ve been starting to think that it’s something us older millennials can actually do for our younger friends … remind, demo and teach what a less tech ruled life can look like, how tech can be treated as more humane and not a necessity.

Not to claim equivalence or anything, but smartphone and the internet (ironic saying so here I know).

I’m a xennial … old enough to remember living without all this and the middle time where computers were either games or just useful tools.

For me, and I’m pretty sure many others, I’m pretty convinced it’s better that way.

I’d really like to get away from these things, at least just to relearn older habits.

Yyyep! That’s what this mind rot gets you!

Because the office is an awful thing in so many ways. Perhaps nice to visit occasionally. But to be forced to live there!? Fucking trash society.

EDIT: I’m agreeing with you here. My tone was probably confusingly aggressive. I just meant to add the idea that managers wouldn’t even know if WFH was good or bad let alone know whether you should keep your full pay.

How about we decide on what doing the job actually is, in a way that can reasonably be measured, and then see if we can do it better from home or the office?!

I’ve always felt that the elephant in the room on this is that remote work highlights the incompetence of management. And so instead of embracing the notion that remote work can work well provided the work force is well orchestrated, they’ve embraced fear mongering around uncontrolled labour.

I’ve read plenty of books digitally. And it’s fine and convenient. But there’s something fundamentally missing. Each time I’ve finished a digital book I’ve had the urge to buy a physical copy. To have it on my shelf as a constant reminder … something I can go back to with the ease of moving into a neighbouring room.

It’s the big elephant in the room with modern tech IMO … it’s big obvious failure … that it’s all stuck in little screens. Look at the desktop computer … replacing a whole desk with … a single screen (sure things have gotten bigger now, but still, desks and whiteboards and pin boards can be quite large too).

I’m in a new office and there isn’t a single piece of useful information on the walls. No whiteboards or posters or pinboards or anything. So much is hidden in the computer where mostly no one sees it but where we are all supposed to consult and update it like a shitty ritual that no one believes in. And don’t get me wrong, I’m “pro-computer” as a knowledge work tool. It’s just we’ve bought into lies and the dumb promise that having all of the Google or Microsoft things will just make us productive provided “we learn to use it properly” (where not enough ever do, and things change regularly enough that there probably isn’t a point anyway).

First, no need to apologise.

Second, no I don’t think you summarised the video, IIRC, it mostly gets into the theory of the techniques used and what can be done to do a better job.

Possibly, but when scientific knowledge and problems were smaller, one person could actually make a mark alone IMO. And if they happened upon a new discovery or insight then they’d appear to be geniuses, all alone.

At some point, when the work to make a discovery requires more than one person and the amount of theory involved in understanding its significance is too much for one person to be authoritative on all of it, then it’s a team sport.

Yep. There’s a whole world of people happy to work very hard on research for the rest of their lives … and instead we have them writing emails wrangling spreadsheets for … ??

Sometimes “shitty” work needs to be done, obviously … but I think it’s far less obvious that the pool of things that need to be done lies entirely in the random inefficient shit the business world just accepts. Instead, that’s just where the money flows.

Absolutely. It’s a shit show.

And interestingly, making the general public more aware of this is likely quite important. Because 1, they have very idealistic views of what research is like, and 2, just about everyone is entering research blind to the realities. It’s a situation that needs some sunlight and rethinking.

IMO, a root cause is that the heroic genius researcher ideal at the base of the system’s design basically doesn’t really exist any more. Things are just too big and complex now for a single person to be that important. Dismantle that ideal and redesign from scratch.