cfr2023

I heard David Letterman say within the past decade that on the days he did not feel the show was very good, he couldn't bring himself to even leave the building until it was dark outside, out of shame.

Meanwhile, at home, I would practically be shaking with excitement waiting for the show to start, I so appreciated it.

This tale somewhat suggests that people who perceive themselves as incompetent and inauthentic might spend more of their time striving at work, which could raise the bar, maintain a high standard and eventually breed something resembling confidence.

Or it could just continuously undermine their natural confidence and sense of self-worth and debase them such that they are easy to overwork and manipulate. It can also just feed into fears that invalidate the satisfaction of any jobs well done, leading to burn out and feelings of futility.

People who are overly confident can behave brashly and do damage, while automatically imposing costs on others, in the form of the time it takes to crack through their false beliefs or the duplication of effort it takes to walk back their mistakes.

So, this is kind of a nothing post, basically a lament. It's not clear whether suffers of Impostor Syndrome or Dunning-Kruger type symptoms have an easier path to a more moderate position, but each one seems likely to be rampant in just about any workplace.

The stupidity of this post keeps me coming back to see if I can get more humorous broken logic from you.

Because a rigorous operational definition of “progress” is not provided in this brief post, you assume it is missing, just to heckle someone making the uncontroversial claim that there will always be people on both sides of initiatives intended to foster progress in a given area. A hilarious thing to be triggered by.

How would “achieving an organization’s mission statement within budget” or “improving working conditions for knowledge workers by creating more accessible tools” or “using fewer labor hours on repetitive tasks” or “creating custom tools tailored to specific tasks and using less electricity”.

But maybe any of those non-technical goals can all be achieved using the same old tech, and it’s people complaining about their feelings of disconnection from ancient telecom vestiges that are really impeding progress. Maybe the it is the masses that don’t get it, and it is the select few that truly understand things that get to define progress, while insisting that the power is kept in their hands, and that the work is done in their preferred paradigms.

Or maybe I am projecting all of this onto you to return the favor lol

I will add that you are entirely projecting your goals and values onto this project in a way that makes absolutely no sense.

The post literally ends ends with:

"But most importantly, have fun!"

You think a bunch of people who are on record as setting out to have fun are "limiting themselves" by not inventing the future of networking.

In doing so, you've invented the future bad posting.

Yes, I am proud to do the public service of helping troubled people see they are making senseless arguments about what other people do for fun.

What are you, the hobby police?

An insightful post indeed.

I was acutely aware of it, shooting projects on horrible looking mini DV and expensive film stock.

No question they spurred progress, I'd just envisioned that they would continue to carry the torch with all of their piss and vinegar.

Now Black Magic Design produces ~$2000 cameras that produce consistently better images than RED to this day.

Very fair points. I'm just nit picking about RED's instigation and influence being more valuable to camera industry than the cameras they delivered and the price points they delivered them at.

All good points, though following these acts of instigation for the industry, their competitors overtook them in the path to their goal.

A fair consideration indeed but a very relativistic use of terminology. $17,500 is not $200,000 that's for sure, but it's also not $5000 or $2500 or $100 (not that I expect $100 cine cameras).

My only point is that their hearts were in the right place, but they may have ultimately done their best work as instigators.

As well, despite my appreciation for their company, I never liked the images from their cameras.

I started following the RED story before those folks ever released a camera, and I liked their spirit and mission.

Some time passed and ultimately it was Black Magic Design that accomplished what RED said they wanted to do.

If you say you want to make high end cinema technology, or even just high quality imagery, accessible to the average person, a $17,500 price tag for just the camera body shows that you might have strange ideas about what constitutes an average person.

I read it all right but it is illogical ranting. You’re cool with people tinkering with hardware but any software work is out of line?

Writing software is a use for computer hardware, and people with minds broader than yours do it for pure enjoyment and exploration. The attitude expressed in your post is self-limiting.

Not sure of the tone of this post, does the idea of a bunch of enthusiasts having fun with old computer hardware actually upset you? If so, do you feel similarly about hobbyists that tinker with things like old cars, old clocks, old musical instruments...

Seriously though, if it is your world view that a consensus definition is needed for an initiative to be considered truly progressive, has the world made any progress at all in any domain?

Fossil fuels are widely implicated in climate change, opponents want to see them phased out, but I doubt they would deny that their use has ushered progress for humanity.

Your reply suggests you might be feeling hurt that someone has picked on your favorite tech stack or that you're getting bullied at work by people who see you as closed minded. They might be on to something.

>You don't get to say for/anti progress when there isn't a consensus definition of progress.

You seem to think that a firm consensus definition is needed for something to be considered progress, which exposes and advertises that your opinion in the domain is highly combative and dysfunctional.