often the difference between apps that gain traction and those that do not, is simply marketing execution. the app may be fine but how do you cut through the noise and reach the users that have the problem the app solves? as a developer, i too wish i knew the answer. one thing is sure: it’s a lot of work.
Holger Czukay is what happens when you combine Stockhausen and that amazing mustache. him Liebezeit Karoli and Schmidt were so far out there they drove not one but two singers crazy (take that, Roger Waters). there was a band Mooney Suzuki named after them although their chief achievement was that one of the members later joined The Strokes (Nikolai Fraiture)
i just listened to some Steve Reich last week. since the Guards game was rain delayed alongside whatever the hell happened ith Fable i might have to interpolate a Tago Mago / Ege Bamyasi / Future Days triple frontier with the WC on this fine Sunday
oh boy, lots. i made a trainer that coaches you in nondual philosophy by quoting from the Upaniṣad; a Vedic Aspectarian that calculates your chart and analyses your transits; a better I Ching program that utilizes a time variable to throw the hexagrams; and then there’s our research software. none of this would have been possible without AI.
yes, our work with applying logical models of nondual systems like Advaita Vedānta, Daoism, Dzogchen as remedies for hallucination, sycophancy, adversarial instability and false continuity in AI systems is pretty unique and obscure.
doing LOTS of nothing can also be a huge power move. i was in software development, technical writing contracting in Silicon Valley back in the 80s. i stepped away to do something completely different for 40 years. curiosity in AI brought me back. the background acquired from my exploration of an apparently unrelated field enabled me to develop some very advanced software concepts relevant to the problems with AI, and implement them in working code.
i’ve been through all of this, and it turned out fine. seriously people don’t hold a drug bust against you, if you can do the job. i’ve lived on the road, camped in Golden Gate Park, attended several Rainbow Gatherings, etc. after spending years in India as a monk, i couldn’t find a place in american society. i bootstrapped a new identity that let me live as a teacher and developer; but i had to move to Śrī Laṅkā to do it.
> seriously people don’t hold a drug bust against you, if you can do the job.
Seriously, they seriously do. There's always someone as qualified as you applying for whatever job. Why would anyone choose someone with a record over someone without, all else being equal? It's a liability that can turn into a headache, so most employers will choose the person without the record.
My war story from dot-com times is being asked by a (v well known and then horribly imploded) Bay Area start-up what about its hiring form would need to change for the UK (if I was to run the UK office)... So under the "bad things you've done" section I said to change the exclusion from "minor drug stuff" to "fixed-penalty motoring offences"...
drug use will definitely be a problem, esp. if it was within the last couple of years.
you're ~35 and admit to smoking a buncha weed and maybe some other stuff in your college frat 10+ years ago? not much of a discussion topic, esp. if you've had a steady job, house, family, etc. since then. doesn't have to be short, you could have been called Mikey Pipes for all 4 years of school... just that it was a phase, and it's been long gone.
smoke weed and pop some lsd 1.5 year ago? that could be a problem, esp. if you're still living the same life essentially as then.
> smoke weed and pop some lsd 1.5 year ago? that could be a problem, esp. if you're still living the same life essentially as then.
Given the huge numbers of bay area tech people at Burningman, its clearly a bit more nuanced than that. Partying with Zuck or Sergey and Larry would be a very positive career move I suspect.
I accidentally discovered this while working on a project with Claude Code. Instead of contacting support, I just asked Claude what was going on, and it gave me the solution. In fact, it implemented the solution for me. So, it really is a skill and product knowledge issue, not some deep conspiracy.
A necessary part of this semantic ontological layer would be an ontological model of the human being based on consciousness. The prevailing materialistic/behaviouristic model only describes human behaviour, missing the internal states in which that behaviour arises. While consciousness cannot be measured, everyone knows empirically that it exists. After all, if you were not conscious, you would not be reading this. So consciousness and its associated phenomena are part of the ground or substrate of all other phenomena. Therefore, it must be part of any comprehensive ontology.
after COVID i experienced macular degeneration—first in the left eye, later in the right. unfortunately, I was in a rural area of India at the time, and there was no good ophthalmologist available. So the macular degeneration was diagnosed as cataracts; which were also there, but in a nascent stage and not yet the cause of vision problems. So I got a cataract procedure done on the left eye, and it basically changed nothing.
Later I moved to Sri Lanka, where there are good eye hospitals in the local area. There I got a proper diagnosis and was discouraged from a second cataract procedure. I am controlling the macular degeneration by high doses of ocular vitamins. As far as glasses, I also found progressive lenses pretty useless, so I have two pairs: one for distance and one for computer work.
reply