It seems to me that technical workers thrive working from home because they can objectively filter information and take decisive actions based on it without all the "people skills" clutter that can absorb time and effort. It also applies a salve to fast-paced life in tech by removing the need to commute, and lets us integrate our personal lives so much better during our extended workdays that creep ever inward into our "personal time". Executives, however, are different creatures. Their "people skills" abilities are lauded and often valued highly for their abilities to strike deals and influence people. In the work-from-home culture, though, they feel diminished... and just maybe we are seeing their true value as leaders... and it doesn't match up to the 344x they make more than their workers. (https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.epi.org%2Fpublication%2Fceo-pay-in-2022%2F)

Jensen and nVidia might be heading into some dangerous territory. The AI hyper-bubble has people pouring money into the "latest tech thing" frenzy -- with people trying to "beat the trend" and get in before AI really hits its stride. The problem is that their valuation has gone up 201.31% this year, and at some point, people are going to be over-leveraged in this stock. If the bubble bursts, nVidia is going to suffer and Wall Street traders have long memories -- deserved or not -- and nVidia stock might founder for a long time.

I like that Rose Zhang and her classmates are having such a hard time in the CS 106A class. They are getting an education... just not the one they expected. After the class, these non-CS students aren't likely to appreciate the topic, but they should have an appreciation for programmers after getting a tiny taste of it. It seems to me like there is too much "everyone can program" attitude in our culture, which gives non-programmers the idea that creating software is a nerdy skill you can easily pick up in your spare time, demeaning the rigorous discipline that it really is. Appreciate your software developers, folks! What they do is NOT easy, and their skill sets and creativity aren't commonplace.

Now you can carry your own mobile botnet of thousands of nodes right in your bloodstream. Launch DDoS attacks while enjoying a latte at your favorite coffee shop using 5G.

You'll be thankful for these viruses when the martians come with their indestructible, shielded tripod machines.

My family and I went into the city to see some of the Super Bowl 50 festivities going on and couldn't miss the overabundance of security. Even when we walked away from Moscone Center toward Union Square, about a mile away from the main festivities on the Embarcadero, there was a very visible presence of police officers paired up on the street corners -- quite unusual for San Francisco. It wasn't their presence alone that was strange, but they all seemed abnormally intense... even nervous. My son walked up to a pair of officers holding vigil on one of the street corners and asked them why they were there, so far from the main Super Bowl City "fan village", and one tersely replied: "We don't want another Paris." Yikes. My kids, all three teenagers, didn't miss the bluntness of the remark. It kinda cooled the mood on our evening out. The kids became a little quiet and I caught myself keeping an eye on the people around us. Signs and Wonders...

It seems that people have forgotten the autism/thiomersal hysteria of a few years back -- just in time to deliver a generation of unvaccinated kiddos into our schools. Unfortunately, the "thiomersal-autism-link" was promoted loudly by people like the well-meaning, but misinformed Jenny McCarthy as panicked parents sought answers for the "autism outbreak". Autsim is heavily over-represented in families that have engineers as family members. See this article from Scientific American (paywall, sorry): http://www.scientificamerican.... The referenced UK survey showed that families with engineers in them can have between 2.5 to 8.6 *times* the statistical occurrence of autism in their children. Even though the whole thiomersal-autism link has been debunked, in the intervening time a lot of people have sadly opted out of vaccinating their kids -- better "safe-than-sorry" seemed the prevailing wisdom -- until science can make a ruling on it, right? After all, when was the last time a kid came down with measles? ...This against the backdrop of seeing kids with a life-long devastating condition like autism -- nearly every family I know in Silicon Valley knows one or more families that are stricken with it. I personally know over half a dozen, including my own son. Unfortunately, the success of vaccinations seems to have been blunted everyone's memory of why we did it in the first place. As parents, all of us try to make the best decisions based on the most current studies/data available, but the tragedy is that current prevailing wisdom failed us on this one. --Ace

...and love the bomb. We cannot have a killer robot gap! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybSzoLCCX-Y Seriously... I wonder if this is how these discussions go in the Pentagon.

Hah! I appreciate the wisdom behind that statement. Companies that continue to think of their technical staff as an easily-replaced commodity eventually learn the error of their ways. The problem that I've seen lately is that if enough companies actually do this (treat engineering as a commodity) in a small community, an atmosphere is created where the top coders end up being high-priced hired guns that consult for a short period and generate all the "glory" code with the majority of good coders having to do all the finishing work (which is the majority of the work) -- and end up working for an ungrateful employer. A very sad state of affairs... one that I hope does not get broader adoption.

Why is everyone reacting like this is a new concept with vehicles? I bricked my '76 Plymouth Duster when it threw a piston rod through the sidewall of the engine one time. I nearly bricked a horse while walking him through a rocky-bottomed stream when he slipped. The motive force in any mode of transportation is susceptible to going down and effectively making you put wear on the soles of your shoes -- but the electric car will eventually be more reliable (far fewer moving parts and no need for hay/oats or brushing) and it will be far more ecologically sound (less need for oil derricks and belchy/gassy large animals). -- Ace