cyberdrunk

A fine read indeed. This quote in particular resonated:

"Many who have ''plied their book diligently," and know all about some one branch or another of accepted lore, come out of the study with an ancient and owl-like demeanour, and prove dry, stockish, and dyspeptic in all the better and brighter parts of life. Many make a large fortune, who remain underbred and pathetically stupid to the last."

Successful people are very often full of shit - since perception is hugely important in any human endeavor, the people who have attained success must have mastered bullshitting (incl. faking confidence) along the way. Then, like any other life skill, they pass it onto their children. I see this mechanism in my father and in myself.

> This is what happened with the United States hundreds of years ago.

United States started with a bloody revolution in order to secede from Britain.

To get some territory for your country, you'd either need a revolution in an existing country or perhaps create an artificial island somewhere in international waters (or a base in space). I don't see any other options.

> Others would take the USPS as proof that a strongman president can switch such services on and off at a whim, for political reasons.

When was it done?

The State owns USPS and it's not so bad. Before phones were introduced, it was the main channel of communication.

> There's not much knowledge about "what it was like to work for Sun 15 years ago."

Based on these stories, the tech companies from 1990s and before seemed much more fun than career-focused environments of FAANGs today...

> Staying for years around an area that gets "only a month" of excessive PM2.5 particles and smoke is unwise and you will soon become someone with an existing respiratory condition.

I live in a city which has a serious smog problem in the winter and colder autumn and spring months. Yet most people don't have respiratory conditions.

In general, all environmental problems that people create stem from using technology - i.e. without technology (starting with the most basic ones, e.g. mastering fire), we are harmless enough to not be able to do any damage. So far, the more technologies we've developed, the more damage we've done to the environment. I can't see this trend reversing.

> I can do as a CS engineer to help solve the big problems of our time, such as climate change

So far, technology has only created environmental problems. I don't think environmental problems created by technology can be solved with technology without creating another problems.

In Poland, the rule is that basically if you and sibilings can afford to pay for the nursing home of your parent, there is no state assistance. The state only kicks in if the family is too poor to cover the costs. The rationale behind it being probably that caring for parents is the responsibility of family, not state.

Propaganda is just old-school name for PR. All large organizations do PR (or propaganda).

It's just someone's prediction. Could be true, could be false. Maybe the singularity will happen in 10 years, maybe in 10000 years, or maybe it's actually impossible for us humans to accomplish.

> We happened to be born 99% of the way from the beginning of humankind to the end of death, but we just barely missed it.

Ekhm, citation needed?

Presumably you could also do a lot of embedded software work that solves similar problems as controls?

I wonder if it's possible to take a cheap Android phone and turn it into a desktop? I.e. connect keyboard, mouse, external monitor, install Linux with X?