5 ms·

Of course it's awesome to work on those problems. The point I was trying to make is that in this case the company has to choose between innovating for the long

by diego 14y ago

Of course it's awesome to work on those problems. The point I was trying to make is that in this case the company has to choose between innovating for the long term, and solving urgent problems that mean lots of $ in the short term. Internal venture projects tend to be put on the back burner when your best engineers could save 50M by optimizing the hell out of your backend.

tptacek 14y ago
I took that point; it's just the way you wrote it: derisively (sorry, that's just the most appropriate word; I'm not harumphing at you).
- diego 14y ago
  No worries, you make a fair point and I take no offense :)
  - tptacek 14y ago
    HOLY IT'S A HACKER NEWS MIRACLE SOMEONE TELL PAUL! :)
lukejduncan 14y ago
I'm continually reminded of Neal Stephensons remark "I saw the best minds of my generation... writing spam filters." He talks a lot lately about how we've stopped trying to solve the really hard problems and instead are continually trying to sell digital "sugar water." *Source: https://plus.google.com/116416314233992548280/posts/NxCMjiQXTZY https://plus.google.com/116416314233992548280/posts/NxCMjiQX...)
- Florin_Andrei 14y ago
  Allow me to quote myself: In the '60s, the best and the brightest were being lured by NASA, to put a man on the Moon. 50 years later, the best and the brightest are being lured by the Silicon Valley, to sell ads on social media. Biggest anticlimax ever.
  - Retric 14y ago
    That might sound bad, but selling adds on social media is actually more useful for society as a hole and takes a lower percent of our GDP than the moon missions. As to cool tech, we are actually discovering earth sized planets orbiting other stars, that's IMO far more interesting that having people play golf on the moon and a lot harder. We are also getting ever closer to building things at the atomic scale. As well as consumer robots be they roomba's or self driving cars. Not to mention stuff that's useful in space and at home. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PVeff(rev120404).jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PVeff(rev120404).jpg
- dougabug 14y ago
  Truly defeating spam in all its guises (SEO, commercials, daily offers, junk mail) is a pretty difficult problem. How do you recognize cleverly concealed data? Spammers constantly adapt to spam filters and new/pristine communications channels which catch on precisely because they are relatively spam free. Of course, spam filters also evolve, this kind of runaway adversarial co-evolution is what leads to systems which can effectively lie/manipulate perception, or detect such.
  - zacharycohn 14y ago
    By "difficult" he doesn't mean "technically non-trivial." He means world hunger, building spaceships, developing new sources of clean energy, etc. I'd rather have spaceships AND spam than no spaceships and no spam.
    - dougabug 14y ago
      From Google: dif·fi·cult/ˈdifiˌkəlt/ Adjective: 1. Needing much effort or skill to accomplish, deal with, or understand. 2. Characterized by or causing hardships or problems. I don't see lack of spaceships causing hardship, so that's really more of a definition #1 type of thing. Society built spaceships in the 60's, contrast that against the effectiveness of a spam filtering system built with hardware, software, algorithms and statistical inference techniques available in the 1960's. While I appreciate and admire the work put into into accomplishing space fight, the existence of manned spaceships really doesn't contribute much to my existence, whereas spam sucks away a bit of my life, every day.
      - lukejduncan 14y ago
        OK how about I rephrase: I meant "OMG-big-deal-game-changing problems." Difficult is just a proxy for that. To Stephensons point, which he makes in the video in the link, he really means dreaming up and solving big problems. The example he gave was building the worlds tallest building. I'm paraphrasing him here: <paraphrase> Typically accomplishing the goal of building the worlds tallest building is measured only in contrast to the current record holder. So when people aim to set this record, it's only incrementally bigger. If you actually do the research you'll find that it's possible to build a building 20x taller than the tallest existing building. Why aren't we thinking on that scale?</paraphrase>
- iosvpn 14y ago
  Wait a second. Isn't Neil working on a realistic sword fighting video game? Kind of hypocritical, don't you think?
  - beambot 14y ago
    Don't forget his employment at Intellectual Ventures -- which is largely regarded as a patent troll.
    - lukejduncan 14y ago
      Do you have a reference for the IV link? EDIT: Should have googled it myself. For reference http://web.mac.com/nealstephenson/Neal_Stephensons_Site/Intellectual_Ventures.html http://web.mac.com/nealstephenson/Neal_Stephensons_Site/Inte...
  - Apocryphon 14y ago
    Making a realistic sword fighting game would be quite the feat for the advancement of human creativity and virtual entertainment.
    - Ralith 14y ago
      Not exactly spaceships, fusion, and feeding Africa, though.

by diego 14y ago

tptacek 14y ago

I took that point; it's just the way you wrote it: derisively (sorry, that's just the most appropriate word; I'm not harumphing at you).

diego 14y ago
No worries, you make a fair point and I take no offense :)
- tptacek 14y ago
  HOLY IT'S A HACKER NEWS MIRACLE SOMEONE TELL PAUL! :)

lukejduncan 14y ago

I'm continually reminded of Neal Stephensons remark "I saw the best minds of my generation... writing spam filters." He talks a lot lately about how we've stopped trying to solve the really hard problems and instead are continually trying to sell digital "sugar water." *Source: https://plus.google.com/116416314233992548280/posts/NxCMjiQXTZY https://plus.google.com/116416314233992548280/posts/NxCMjiQX...)

Florin_Andrei 14y ago
Allow me to quote myself: In the '60s, the best and the brightest were being lured by NASA, to put a man on the Moon. 50 years later, the best and the brightest are being lured by the Silicon Valley, to sell ads on social media. Biggest anticlimax ever.
- Retric 14y ago
  That might sound bad, but selling adds on social media is actually more useful for society as a hole and takes a lower percent of our GDP than the moon missions. As to cool tech, we are actually discovering earth sized planets orbiting other stars, that's IMO far more interesting that having people play golf on the moon and a lot harder. We are also getting ever closer to building things at the atomic scale. As well as consumer robots be they roomba's or self driving cars. Not to mention stuff that's useful in space and at home. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PVeff(rev120404).jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PVeff(rev120404).jpg
dougabug 14y ago
Truly defeating spam in all its guises (SEO, commercials, daily offers, junk mail) is a pretty difficult problem. How do you recognize cleverly concealed data? Spammers constantly adapt to spam filters and new/pristine communications channels which catch on precisely because they are relatively spam free. Of course, spam filters also evolve, this kind of runaway adversarial co-evolution is what leads to systems which can effectively lie/manipulate perception, or detect such.
- zacharycohn 14y ago
  By "difficult" he doesn't mean "technically non-trivial." He means world hunger, building spaceships, developing new sources of clean energy, etc. I'd rather have spaceships AND spam than no spaceships and no spam.
  - dougabug 14y ago
    From Google: dif·fi·cult/ˈdifiˌkəlt/ Adjective: 1. Needing much effort or skill to accomplish, deal with, or understand. 2. Characterized by or causing hardships or problems. I don't see lack of spaceships causing hardship, so that's really more of a definition #1 type of thing. Society built spaceships in the 60's, contrast that against the effectiveness of a spam filtering system built with hardware, software, algorithms and statistical inference techniques available in the 1960's. While I appreciate and admire the work put into into accomplishing space fight, the existence of manned spaceships really doesn't contribute much to my existence, whereas spam sucks away a bit of my life, every day.
    - lukejduncan 14y ago
      OK how about I rephrase: I meant "OMG-big-deal-game-changing problems." Difficult is just a proxy for that. To Stephensons point, which he makes in the video in the link, he really means dreaming up and solving big problems. The example he gave was building the worlds tallest building. I'm paraphrasing him here: <paraphrase> Typically accomplishing the goal of building the worlds tallest building is measured only in contrast to the current record holder. So when people aim to set this record, it's only incrementally bigger. If you actually do the research you'll find that it's possible to build a building 20x taller than the tallest existing building. Why aren't we thinking on that scale?</paraphrase>
iosvpn 14y ago
Wait a second. Isn't Neil working on a realistic sword fighting video game? Kind of hypocritical, don't you think?
- beambot 14y ago
  Don't forget his employment at Intellectual Ventures -- which is largely regarded as a patent troll.
  - lukejduncan 14y ago
    Do you have a reference for the IV link? EDIT: Should have googled it myself. For reference http://web.mac.com/nealstephenson/Neal_Stephensons_Site/Intellectual_Ventures.html http://web.mac.com/nealstephenson/Neal_Stephensons_Site/Inte...
- Apocryphon 14y ago
  Making a realistic sword fighting game would be quite the feat for the advancement of human creativity and virtual entertainment.
  - Ralith 14y ago
    Not exactly spaceships, fusion, and feeding Africa, though.