[HN Gopher] Allocating resources where they solve the most impor...
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Allocating resources where they solve the most important problems
Author : perfunctory
Score : 44 points
Date : 2022-07-30 13:12 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (terraformindustries.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (terraformindustries.com)
| carvking wrote:
| Maybe not directly related to the article but worth noting.
|
| https://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/sites/default/files/cc08...
| [deleted]
| thisiswrongggg wrote:
| I love their website. And I'm 100% serious about this.
| theptip wrote:
| It definitely backs up the claim that they are allocating
| resources where they will have the most impact.
| tobeeng wrote:
| mostly irrelevant comment, writing to the HN advice column:
|
| > Are you mechanically intuitive? Do you want to help solve
| climate change? Do you like working on big hardware projects? ...
| Send a page of evidence of execution ability ... This could be a
| resume enumerating prestigious schools and high GPAs, but it
| could also be a summary of an awesome project you built that
| showcases your world-saving skills
|
| I really like this approach.
|
| I'd like to work somewhere like this, working on engineering real
| physical things
|
| I however have no relevant (electrical/mechanical/etc) skills, no
| evidence of execution ability, and no diplomas from prestigious
| schools.
|
| I got an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering 5 years
| ago because I think that electrical engineering is cool and
| wanted to learn how to make stuff, but somehow managed to get the
| degree without really building anything or learning how to build
| anything (this is partially because of the program, but largely
| because of me). I didn't get a job working as an hardware
| engineer, and ended up in software. I'm pretty good at my job,
| but I do not like software, and wish that I had tried harder to
| get a job in hardware or tried to go to grad school.
|
| Does anyone have any experiences developing non-software
| engineering skills while working as a software engineer, or
| transitioning from software to some other engineering? How can I
| develop electrical / mechanical engineering skills?
|
| one approach I've considered is to try to go to grad school now,
| but every program I've seen requires letters of recommendation
| from professors, and I did not have any meaningful relationship
| with any of my undergrad professors and doubt that any would
| remember that I was in their classes.
|
| I guess the other option is to try to build skills by working on
| side projects while still keeping my day job. Is it possible to
| become proficient this way? (enough to be employable compared to
| people with skills developed at prestigious schools)
|
| in short, I botched my engineering undergrad pretty badly
| (despite graduating with a 4.0) and went down the chute to
| software. does anyone have advice on how to fix this, develop the
| skills I want to have, and get into the career I want to be in?
| jsiva wrote:
| If you can afford to take a lower salary, you could try getting
| a position as research technician in an engineering lab. No
| guarantee that you'll develop the skills you want, but at least
| it would solve the problem of professor recommendation.
| teddyh wrote:
| "If what you are doing is not important, and if you don't think
| it is going to lead to something important, why are you working
| on it?"
|
| -- Richard Hamming
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3msMuwqp-o&list=PLctkxgWNSR...
| dahfizz wrote:
| Because it pays your bills...?
| lotw_dot_site wrote:
| One reason I started working on "Linux on the Web" is that I
| wanted to work within a paradigm (web development) that has
| strong connections with current practices but that also can
| allow me to iterate in directions that are more related to the
| nuts and bolts of our shared physical reality.
|
| One thing that nobody ever talks about are the more hardware-
| centric possibilities of the web platform such as WebUSB, but I
| would absolutely love to start playing around with it in order
| to allow for an interface of real world objects with the LOTW
| system -> https://github.com/linuxontheweb/LOTW
| tobeeng wrote:
| i guess this probably should be a separate ask hn
|
| I'll leave it for now, but if others think it doesn't belong
| please flag it and I'll delete it.
| clairity wrote:
| > "Why does our website look like this? ... Our website embodies
| our cultural commitment to allocating resources where they solve
| the most important problems."
|
| so looking at the source, the html is invalid (no title, for
| example), it eschews the lowly <p> tag for multiple <br> tags,
| the chemical structures are practically unmaintainable, monospace
| is not very readable for paragraphs of text, and it extensively
| misuses a deprecated element, <tt>, for the monospace font. seems
| less an example of ingenuity, and more hubris. these things could
| be fixed in less than an hour, but apparently that's wasted time
| (they do better with their blog, since that comes by default with
| wordpress).
|
| with that said, the goal is ambitious and noble, but it harkens
| back to alchemists trying to make gold from lesser elements,
| something that seems tantalizingly achievable but is it really?
| i'll give them that there is a ton of free energy hitting the
| earth every day, and part of the overall progress of humanity
| will be better harnessing that energy going forward, instead of
| burning through the finite, previously-transformed solar energy
| that is buried oil & gas.
| TrueSlacker0 wrote:
| Or they are not web experts and put just the amount of time
| needed to get the information across. So they could get back to
| value adding work.
| clairity wrote:
| that would be fine if they hadn't called attention to it, but
| they decided to take _extraneous time_ to make it a point of
| identity, time they could have put into making the site
| minimally correct (and a little more accessible). whenever
| someone tells you of their goodness, rather than just letting
| their actions speak for themselves, it 's reasonable to
| question their underlying motives.
| nmilo wrote:
| Wrong, the HTML is completely valid, in the sense that a
| browser renders it. All text is valid HTML; that's the whole
| point of lax parsing. It might not be valid XML, but if it
| works, why care?
| zasdffaa wrote:
| > but if it works, why care?
|
| Let me rephrase: "but if it seems to work, why care?".
| Welcome to the new world of crap built upon crap.
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