You should really consider things from a “what can humans perceive” standpoint.
There are things you can do with ML and eye saccades that you will literally never see because of perceptual delay. If I can push a saccadic event below 50ms you will never notice it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccade
It’s because of the extreme amount of contracting, outsourcing, and in general “I don’t care how our developers or admins feel, we can always hire more”. This stuff is all incredibly for profit and the software getting worse isn’t going to change that much. (I think “so bad” is a level we haven’t reached yet, right now we are at “janky”)
I think there is also no willingness to change this. People cash out, aren’t concerned about anyone else needing to use something or any major impacts changes will have beyond profit generating or profit saving.
Maybe convince the companies that having good software is more profitable than mediocre software and industry dominance.
The simulation stuff is just “Plato’s Cave”:Reloaded for people who never understood the concept of the cave in the first place. At a basic level you can interpret it from Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, which state that systems of logic need some form of observer to function. That observer concept reaches way back across different philosophical domains and authors as well.
That is not at all what the incompleteness theorems say.
The first incompleteness theorem says that for any consistent formal system T (with a recursively enumerable set of axioms) capable expressing of elementary arithmetic, T can express a statement which it can neither prove nor disprove.
The second incompleteness theorem says that T can't prove the statement "T is consistent". (I've still glossed over a number of technical details here; pick up a book on model theory if you want all the messy internals.)
First order logic is notably not capable of expressing elementary arithmetic. And observers aren't involved in any way.
Sorry if you can’t read deeply into it or something. I’m not posting for grad students. I can sense you just like to correct people. Ahhhh I’m so wrong, you’re right?
Godel's theorems mean something quite specific, and rely on an equally specific set of hypothesis.
It's tempting to try to apply them (or rather the same kind of conclusions) in other (non math) contexts, but it's very not obvious that you'll get something sensible. While you can play with the ideas, invoking Godel's theorem outside of its specific context doesn't make much sense.
I usually think of logics as search algorithms, since that's how the semantics for the meta-language describing them are defined.
I guess you could call a Turing Machine implementing the search algorithm for proofs implied by a logic an "observer", since it produces "reachability observations" i.e. proofs.
You can’t really learn Math at school. Not really from the perspective of understanding mathematical beauty deeply. I wish there was an outlet or means to do so. I always found schooling to be woefully inept at assisting in learning the craft.
Hey you know, it’s a good thing! This helps you not be attached to the past, and let’s be honest here… people make things for money, not love or art. Otherwise they wouldn’t copyright it.
> it’s a good thing! This helps you not be attached to the past
What an interesting way to spin into a feature the copyright industry's inability to give people what they want. You know what else is a good thing? Emulation. Amazing thing.
> people make things for money, not love or art. Otherwise they wouldn’t copyright it.
Not only is this false, it's a huge factor in authenticity and quality. We want creators who have an intrinsic drive to create, who something to say, who have a vision they want to realize, who would create regardless of profits. Nobody cares about cheap cash grabs. The money is meant to enable their creations.
I’ve never seen this in practice. It’s usually to fuel buying some big house that no one normal could ever afford and then acting like you were granted a lordship.
I am more than happy to change my perspective but not to have a headache by deluding myself that “everyone just has to take profits!”
Maybe that’s the world you live in. I don’t want to live in it.
Investment into information property (IP) goes unseen because you only ever publicly see what happens after the success. Without a legally guaranteed return on investment on IP, investment into developing it would be stunted.
Now is usually when someone counters with open-sourced initiatives, but they themselves still have copyrights legally protecting how they are used after being developed.
You don't need to have empathy for investors, you simply need to acknowledge that if the investors won't have the financial motivation to invest in something, they won't; so anything that needs investment to be created won't get created.
Well, I have developed IP myself. Emphasis on myself. Half the time dragging along people down a path they can’t see. I’m not sympathetic or empathetic to anyone doing the same because in generally they’re doing so from a perspective of having more resources.
In other words: dude I have done things for rich people like crazy rich people, and they’re babies who can’t do for themselves and got money through generational wealth or wealthy relatives or knowing wealthy people. I have done for myself with less than most get and my lack of empathy comes directly from people who are allowed to fail in luxury.
So because a couple people you worked happened to be wealthy and you didn't like them, we should throw out protecting IP with copyright law everywhere?
i was friends with a lot of artists for a while. some did it for the cash but others have a deep drive. some creators just want enough money to keep creating. one friend sold nearly everything that she owned in order to keep creating plush toys. i work sporadically and use the money i make to fuel video video game development (i originally did this to give myself extra time to self-educate on how to make games). I have been doing this for around 8 years.
I'm in the middle when it comes to money for creation. I'd buy a house and a car if i could because it would be nice to have a stable place to live as i get older and a way to get around, but my primary thought is always: "how can i make enough cash to give me the time i need to work on my project?" because creative projects are literally the only thing i do with my time. I can't live without creating things.
I worked for over 35 years, to have enough money to be able to work on stuff I love to do.
I'm not rich; and never will be, but I have enough, not to be worrying about starving. That's a rare luxury.
And I work on the kinds of things that I want to work on; not that someone else wants me to do for them, so they can make a bunch of money. Most of my work is given to people and organizations that can't afford talent like mine.
Ideally someone would value your creativity or recognize the value in paying you enough to do a task that has value to them while also giving you time and space to work on the things which are valuable to you.
We can all be paid more and work less and things will get better. Now, making people actually understand that is an entirely different beast.
I can sympathize with your friend, I made digital art for a while and distribute it for free still to this day without any license whatsoever. Because I love to make art. I write with no expectation that I will get a book deal, that someone will pay to read it, or that I can convert it to some form of sellable text.
> Ideally someone would value your creativity or recognize the value in paying you enough to do a task that has value to them while also giving you time and space to work on the things which are valuable to you.
You would think this would be the case, but I have only encountered this at one company. I was a professional web developer / designer who also learned to become a "full stack" engineer over the course of 20 years. it started out great and kept me satiated creatively for a long time but ultimately i think it lead to more trouble than it was worth (a career i mean).
The number of companies that have taken advantage of me in various ways is appalling. I decided I wanted to stop working 10 years ago but I still had debt to pay off and a number of other poor life choices that had me weighted down. I knew I wanted to make games but I also had never programmed any games (other than some qbasic stuff when i was a kid) so I quit my job and started contracting and learned c# and Unity3D and tinkered with games in my spare time.
I've also learned C++ and Unreal Engine and done a bit of just pure C++ game stuff but I haven't released anything official yet.
My current plan is to release a few well polished small games that I've been working on to multiple platforms and see what happens.
> I love to make art. I write with no expectation
This is exactly how i feel about the games. I have lost loads of money thanks to this and in reality it may never pan out financially, but at least I will get some creative projects out the door and feel satisfied that I didn't waste my entire skill set assigning scrum points to story cards, or working 18 hours a day for some other person's startup fever dream.
People make things for all sorts of combinations of various amounts of money, love, and art.
The idea that motivation must be purely extrinsic or purely intrinsic is false and toxic. It demeans paid work and discourages people from seeking meaning in their jobs.
You're certainly welcome to your perspective. You can also choose to apply it to other people. But that doesn't magically make it their perspective or motivation.
Saying, "I don't like mint chocolate chip ice cream" does not spontaneously cause sales of it to plummet across the world.
...you're on Hacker News. A significant portion of this website is just people talking about Open Source Software, something that consistently produces case studies about people making things for love or for art or for passion instead of just for money.
Plenty of people make things for value that isn't purely financial.
> Otherwise they wouldn't copyright it.
This isn't how copyright works, at least in the US. Generalizing broadly, you own the copyright of whatever you create unless you've otherwise signed that away. It's automatic. You don't fill out a form to have copyright over a work.
Am I? I know that’s the name but it’s not really for hackers. It’s mainly for businesspeople who are very sensitive, don’t really know much of anything beyond their desk job or coding and don’t care much for the hacker ethos.
If I post like myself, really like myself, that is, extremely weird and sarcastic, I’ll get the Socrates/Voltaire/Diogenes treatment and be shown the door. I think people like to call themselves hackers, or pirates, or “code ninjas” —- it is escapism from the truth that they no longer do it for the love, it’s for the money, or they are doing it for the job, the prestige, the “do you know who I am?!” Effect.
Which I don’t care about cuz I’m a hacker. I didn’t get your fancy 4 year degree. I’ll write your code dude but I’m not going to fawn over wealth like it’s valuable because to me it isn’t.
I’ve seen many people get sensitive or bristly attitudes here, report the post, downvote, because they don’t have much to say or engage with.
They disagree, and that’s it.
I am “man you disagree with” and “bad man” because you disagree.
I'm not even going to bother with the first two paragraphs here - you're mostly just going on about how you don't like the people on HN and don't think they're real hackers and then you're deploying a massive and wide ad hominem against HN's readers. Luckily, I don't really identify with them all that much either -- in fact, I actually have a lot of recurring issues with HN's readership, but I'm saving that for another time.
The simple truth here is this: I don't have a four year degree. I don't even write code for a living. I work in IT, in a role that you would probably best describe as just 'IT guy.' I don't make more than $60,000 a year in the role I'm currently in. I care about money to the extent that I need money to live, to feed my car gas, to feed myself food, and to feed my computer at home electricity.
You're getting the cold shoulder here because you don't seem to have the nuance to understand how people actually interact with and care about their work. I feel like we live in a nightmarish hellscape where a significant portion of work is driven by nothing but desire for profit, but this doesn't suddenly make me think that everyone involved in making things is only there because they get paid. On the other hand, you appear to think any person who sells anything is going through this whole process purely for money.
The replies to you have been perfectly amicable, and encourage discussion. YOU have been shutting that discussion down because people don't agree with you.
Well, I beg to differ. Firstly I believe you should be paid more but that is an aside.
I also don’t think that what I wrote is an ad-hominem. It’s the truth.
“ I feel like we live in a nightmarish hellscape where a significant portion of work is driven by nothing but desire for profit, but this doesn't suddenly make me think that everyone involved in making things is only there because they get paid.”
I feel this is true but I disagree with your second part of the statement because that’s all that motivates me to go to work, ever.
To me merely being forced to attend some building or talk to some people at a certain time is said nightmarish hellscape.
I further disagree with your framing at the end. I think that it’s a challenging discussion but I’m not shutting people down, I am responding to them with my thoughts and letting them respond in kind. If anything your framing has these elements, but if you disagree just say so. It’s really not a heinous crime to disagree with me. Many have done so.
You're responding with your thoughts in ways that could seem calculated to inspire ire and to offend. Most folks don't consider that good-faith discussion.
I don't think you're doing it on purpose. But maybe you'll find more constructive responses if you more deeply consider the emotional charge of how you choose to put words together.
I'd argue people make things for money AND love. It's just the money you need to survive, and the love is just nice and fulfilling-- so you can guess what people end up hyperfocusing on
Because if the thing I'm doing is, for instance, making artisan screwdrivers, I don't spend my whole day making money. I spend my whole day making screwdrivers. If I love making screwdrivers, then I love making screwdrivers.
Now that I have all these real nice screwdrivers lying around, I can sell them to other people who might want a really nice screwdriver. Not only did I get to do the thing I enjoyed doing: making screwdrivers, but I also made some money off of it. Some of that money can be used to cover cost of materials on the screwdriver I made, the rest of it can be used to enrich my personal life, or maybe grant me access to stronger tools to do the thing I enjoy doing.
Making something and selling something are two different tasks. I can love making things and still sell those things for a profit, and my love for making things can have absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I get money out of it. Where do you get the presumption that you can't possibly do something good that you like and still make money off of it?
At every job I’ve had there have been days where the alarm goes off and I’d rather stay in bed than go in that day. Even if there are other days I enjoyed the job, the money is the reason I go in on the days when I’d rather not.
I would like to say yes but the reality is no. If you would like to talk about it I don’t mind. I have decided that I’m going to engage people on a more limited basis because no one seems to want actually discuss the topic at hand.
See that’s actually a brilliant idea. Have a series of products, actors, musicians, and sign them all together onto similar platforms. I bet Amazon could do it.
You would only see these actors using these certain types of products and appearing in movies where the action or entertainment incorporates product.
Presenting The 90s, brought to you by Amazon. Beige computers, everyone has the same hairstyle, small town Americana!
I think most people are tasteless enough to really like this.
"Taste" is just a way to divide personal preferences into arbitrary acceptability categories so that some people can have an excuse to look down on people who don't share their preferences, while giving it a facade of legitimacy.
I’m going to respond to you directly and clearly. I dislike posts like this: they’re low effort and accusing someone of ill behavior because they have an opinion you don’t share is a cheap shot at best. I’m trying to be charitable here and I’m finding it unenjoyable because no one is apparently willing to have a serious discussion if we aren’t all constantly agreeing.
You really can’t imagine how disappointing it is and how little it makes me want to engage in the future.
I was not accusing you of ill behaviour. That's why I said "good." I thought you were making a subtle joke and it generated a lot of discussion which is what good trolls do. I was trying to be friendly because the alternative is worse.
It's pretty horrifying that someone really believes "people make things for money, not love or art." and frames it as "let’s be honest here," implying that to hold any other belief is lying to yourself. That's textbook expecting everyone to agree with you.
If you're not joking, then I've met someone who disregards my entire career and background as a lie. You really can’t imagine how disappointing it is and how little it makes me want to engage in the future.
Well said. On mobile at the moment, but will edit on my pc later to fix formatting if I remember.
I'll be up front - I do disagree with your take, at least partially. I quite like the screwdriver analogy used elsewhere in the comments.
I love working with computers. I have for years.
Recently, I turned that into a job. I enjoy my job, though I wouldn't say I love it. However, it does allow me 5o practice and learn, so that I can improve my skills when I do perform a labor-of-love project.
If I were to make a labor of love project, and then someone were to pay me to support it, why would that project atop being a labor of love? There would be extra workload that would not (billing, other business cruft, etc), but I think the core of it would be.
Similarly for art/music - if I producea song because I like writing music, and people are willing to pay for a high quality download, would it stop being a labor of love at that point?
Curious to hear your thoughts on these edge cases.
Feel free to disagree again:
I think you’re either being unclear with your definition of enjoyment and love, or you are perhaps confused between the two.
Which isn’t to say you aren’t having positive feelings at your job, I think that’s possible and in general ideal.
Enjoyment out of spending more time the way you want to as opposed to the way others have dictated it be spent is very natural, I believe. But I have to draw the distinction between love and enjoyment.
Love (to me) is the expression of an idea from the soul, and the willingness to nurture this idea from the perspective of nature and harmony. There is a harmony in creating order (code, poetry, music), and there is a harmony in creating a roughness around which order and harmony form. (Clouds, fractals, abstract ideas, natural patterns) to experience this as the self with the world and with others in the world is how I believe love exists and comes to be.
When you’re paid for this process it diminishes love with the element of time, and space. You have to do it by so and so time, or there will be a material consequence. (Even if the time is very far away)
I don’t think that your labor of love becomes undone, but it’s something else. It’s enjoying the fruits of your labor, and that is not the same as laboring for love. Not to me at least.
I even would say you can enjoy making things others love. But for you yourself, it’s not possible.
And for me, in practical experience, I don’t get many who love what I do, and I don’t really enjoy the climate around me full of people doing nothing but stacking up money for no purpose.
I suppose my real gripe here is that I wish things were good or meaningful.
But not as education. It’s just an expensive stamp of approval one must receive to work with certain institutions. You pay the institutions for the stamp, fill out worksheets for children and write papers for no one for 4 years and then bravo! You did it!
You didn’t do anything!
Now it’s time to learn the actual job. But this process is time-tested. The only fault is the parents lying to the kids attending that they’ll learn something. They won’t. But they’ll start understanding how to show up (without their parents waking them up) and do tasks (without their parents making them) which is really what college is these days.
It became the default because going to college was the way to show you were a “high status” person. The people with “high status” will constantly “rethink” anything that challenges it.
Personally this article comes off as classist and that disgusts me.
Could you use both to good effect? Waterfall to make a plan, schedule, and budget. Then basically disregard all that and execute using Agile and see how you fare. Of course there would be a reckoning as you would end up building the system they want rather than what was spec'd out.
You could. You might even say it's difficult to make any project estimate without your plan being waterfall. Planning and execution are deliberately two very different things, and convincing the customer - or the steering committee of that - is key to a good product.
These are all just heuristics that help people manage the fundamentally unmanageable: the unpredictable future. Everyone does a little bit of everything when working. A big company will waterfall year long strategies with the individual parts agile’d. Individuals will waterfall their daily tasks while working on an agile sprint.
You should really consider things from a “what can humans perceive” standpoint. There are things you can do with ML and eye saccades that you will literally never see because of perceptual delay. If I can push a saccadic event below 50ms you will never notice it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccade
That’s one example.