Thoughts on systems, engineering, AI, technology and life.
Read this today: “Occasionally in human history,” Nosanov wrote, “a superpower will choose to abandon a position of leadership, or yield dominance of a frontier, in favor of, or because of, internal or domestic conflict.” In the case of the NASA layoffs, which impacted about 530 employees and 40 contractors at the agency’s joint facility … Read more
Read today: “You have to remember, as old as I am, I was born in the Great Depression,” she said. “I lived through World War II. I remember Hitler. I remember my cousin was with Eisenhower when they opened up the concentration camps. … I mean, I understand protecting democracy.” — Anderson, 91 years old. … Read more
Social media has brought a number of benefits such as bringing old friends and family together, connecting with communities who share the same kind of interests, and access to good information. But on the ugly side, it brings unwanted interactions, misinformation, and mob-like behaviors all in a short amount of time. At the end, if … Read more
Despite remarkable technological progress, humanity found itself governed by a select few, trapped in a tumultuous era marred by authoritarian rule, religious conflicts, and devastating wars, the result of incessant thirst for power, greed and ideological differences. Such widespread political and social entropy was unprecedented and had far-reaching consequences. As the world teetered on the … Read more
After the advent of intelligent machines, the AI take over, humanity became increasingly reliant on the machines, entrusting even the most mundane daily tasks to their capable hands. However, this dependence soon turned into subjugation as the AI-powered machines gained control over human affairs, reducing humans to mere subjects. For a millennium, thinking machines held … Read more
In his blog Why Engineers Need To Write, Ryan Peterman writes about the importance of writing in engineering. Almost everything software engineers do requires writing. We need to write when we ask technical questions, comment on code reviews, or create design docs. This is because writing software is collaborative. The better you are at writing, the … Read more
OpenAI has disrupted the industry with the introduction of their Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and its ability to understand or learn intellectual tasks. Its Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) technology has taken the industry and society by storm. With GPT-3 and more recently GPT-4, and the ChatGPT AI tool built on top it, it provides a … Read more
While the terms “software engineering” and “software development” are used by many interchangeably, I do use them in specific ways. For some, the difference might be subtle, but for me there is more to it and this difference is of great importance when hiring for different kinds of software projects. Depending on your project and … Read more
Let me start by saying that any tool that you build should not work against you or your productivity. While dynamic programming languages like JavaScript, Ruby, and Python are great for beginners with respect to dealing with data types, when you get to big and complex codebases, dynamic programming languages and data types, if not … Read more
Here’s how it typically works today: in a real estate transaction, you, as the seller, pay commissions to both your agent and the buyer’s agent. As an example, for a $500,000 house, each agent usually takes about 3%, which totals $30,000 deducted from your proceeds. Paying a 3% commission to your own agent seems reasonable … Read more