Weird point of trivia: in LA in 1985 or so I worked with a guy that grew up with Woz and Jobs. He was offered employeeship #1 at Apple but wanted to go to LA and "make it on his own" (idiot).
Anyway, he was a very straight laced guy and one lunch time went out to buy a dozen concert tickets. Kinda odd, so I asked. He sorta blushed. "They're for Woz. he has an odd hobby of scalping tickets".
If memory serves, at some point his wozzyness was popped for this in the 80s.
In the tropical fish world antibiotics are terribly abused. They do no good the way most aquarists use them, are cheap and never work frankly. Proper administration involves culturing the bug, seeiing if it's resistant to the drug you plan on using then feeding of injectig it. This is usually resevred for $15,000 koi or such. Not your 10 gallon tank with platies and neons.
Plus there's one bug Mycobacterium marinum that is zoonetic, that is, it corsses a species barrier (kinda rare, most pathogens are very host specific) - it can infect man. It's called "swimmers granuloma" if you catch it from a river (it's in pretty much all bodies of water) and "fishkeepers finger" if you get it from a fishtank. If a fish gets it it's called "Fish TB" as it's in the same genus as human tuberculosis. It's not easy to cure, it's a 6 month regimen of $400/mo antibiotics.
One guy in Germany died as a result of it, he ignored it. The last thing we want is this thing becoming anitobiotics resistant. So, we're switching to bacteriacides instead of antibiotics: copper sulfate, oregano oil, tea tree oil etc.
"I'm fifteen and I suffer from a lot of age discrimination when looking for work."
You just need to change your techniques.
In 1986 or so there was a PC on Greg Laskins sofa in LA called gryphon.com (we used to get mail saying "how you get a mythical animal domain I thought the guys at Berkeley got them all) that ran uucp mail and news. Brian thought a couple of is were amusing and suggested to NASA/JPL that connectivity in Los Angeles was suboptimal and that they should give us a feed, which they did. Brian was a part of the "backbone cabal" and people tended to do whatever he suggested.
A fellow called Bill Wisner showed up on gryphon. And wrote like he was a 45 year old net.lawyer or something. I knew everybody else on gryphon and asked greg, who owned it who this guy was.
The story went: he was a kid from Idaho who was bore stiff and used to spend all his time on the computer. He hacked into MIT and their response was to give him the root password and pay him to be an admin. In a year or two he'd become one of the most respected admins on the network.
He was 15 when I met him.
So while it's probably not a good idea in todays political climate to do what wee willy wisner did the point remains that at 15 you're not gonna get anywhere with an interview. But, if you do something and by this I really mean create something, impressive you almost certainly will get somewhere.
At the end of the day people are more interested in what problems you've solved or can solve than how old you are.
"Actually, I'm 25 and don't live in the US, so the laws don't affect me one way or another. I live in the UK, where it's legal to drink when you are 5, and buy alcohol when you are 18. In 1996 (the most recent data I could find, but it's more recent than yours) we had 6.1 road deaths per 100,000 people, 1.5 per 10,000 cars. In the same period, the USA had 15.8 per 100,000 people, 2 per 10,000 cars.[1]"
That's because petrol is $400 a cupfull or something in the UK and people are more careful to protect their investment in the precious fluid.
I found the original quote: "The Internet is about consensus, not truth. Never mistake truth for consensus."
And another favorite:
"Digital doesn't see that IAHC has anything to do with Internet. They see it as being about corporate relationships and alliances. In other words, what matters is not what IAHC does or says, but rather what other companies see Digital as doing."
and
"Who would have thought that the ICANN zoo would be even more of a freak show than the US presidential election?"
And one that really scared me:
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 09:21:28 -0800 From: Brian Reid Subject: "ICANN mandate: Stability of the Internet"
Whenever a military dictator takes over a third world country, the reason always given for the coup d'etat is to "preserve the stability of my country." Check your history books. That's always what they say.
"During one of those last long nights working to deliver DOS 2.0 in early 1983, I am told that Paul Allen heard Gates and Ballmer discussing his health and talking about how to get his Microsoft shares back if Allen were to die.
Maybe that's just the sort of fiduciary discussion board members have to have, but it didn't go over well with Paul Allen, who never returned to Microsoft, and over the next eight years, made huge efforts to secure his wealth from the fate of Microsoft "
I did see that, but "Maybe that's just the sort of fiduciary discussion board members have to have" is pretty accurate.
Maybe it's just me, or maybe it's that Brian is a good friend of mine but I think what google did is worse. At least Paul GOT his money.
"if its the same guy who worked at DEC in palo alto many years ago, "
Yup, same guy. Same white hair I swear he was born with. Same house in Palo Alto. He hasn't changed a bit in the 20+ years I've known him, he's still the sharpest guy I know.
"sheesh. this is weird. and a bit upsetting, too. "
No kidding. Guy invents the search engine, gets hired by a company that merely improved it then gets dicked over because Sergei gets greedy about just how many millions are at stake. Congratulations Google, you're now in the Dilbert Zone.
Feynman figured out why the space shuttle blew up shortly before he died as an old man. Nobody else could figure it out. I don't buy old poeple have old ideas, look at all the old science fiction writers or Freeman Dyons wikipedia page.
Another reason you don't see a lot of older people in the IT world is they make enough money to escape it.
I'm not sure what your point it given you said you'd do what he's doing. Will it take a while? Sure. Are the stakes high? Now that Goog is $600/share, uh, yeah, they couldn't be much higher given he had pre-IPO options. A lot of them.
The guy invented the web search engine and is one of the top computer scientists of all time. There's zero chance he's not an asset to Google. If you actually knew the man you'd know this. Don't guess.
Don't be so sure he doesn't have people lining up to hire him. Just because he's trying to get X million he was screwed out of doesn't imply this. Right now he works for Vixie/ISC who I understand has been trying to hire him for ages.
It used to be a "fricken mess". It just got better.
"When Compaq (remember Compaq? IBM PC clones?) bought DEC, they phased out software research, because Compaq didn't do much software. "
The day Compaq shut down the NSL he was supposed to meet me in New York to talk to Ira Magaziner about the DNS mess. When he wasn't there we exchanged some email as to why. As he put it "Compaq didn't get enough money to be able to buy DEC by being innovative". While a great quote my favorite BKR quote is "Never mistake truth for consensus"
"I agree with some of the above posters. The guy was an idiot to leave his university job. You chase the dollar signs, you lose. "
Google persued him, to fix some personel problems they were having with women employees, which he did. Brian is very very very good with people. He was very quickly made director or vp of engineering or operations or something based on his glowing performance; TFA points out his only written review was "glowing".
He was only at Stanford a couple of years. He was the Director of the Network Systems Laboratory at DEC for over a decade.
He invented the firewall and lots of other things you probably use every day.
You may now humbly recant your unfounded "idiot" accusation.
"It seems that besides being a good engineer you have to be "culturally fit".
I kinda agree: a pessimistic or unsociable person could endanger the spirit and the enthusiasm of others. I would not like to work with a highly intelligent but depressive person, if his depression would affect my everyday mood. Not to mention if the guy is the PM.
On the other hand, I would be fucking upset for being fired because of not fitting into the company's social standards "
I know Brian very very well. He's one of the most positive poeple I know. You could probably sell his blood as an anti-depressant.
He was fired because Sergei didn't want to give him his stock options. They used the age thing as an excuse as it's harder to prove in court.
"As a geek, I like to be in favor of strong employment laws that give the government full audit power over every corporation's decision to fire any one whatsoever. However, I don't like when it gets used against good guys, like Google."
Brian was hired about a year before Google went public and beefed up the org chart (which helps for an IPO) because looks great on paper: invented the firewall, altavista, the PAIX, Scribe (which begat sgml which begat html) and quickly rose up the ranks to be director of engineering or vp of ops or something fairly high up. His only written review was glowing. Very very shorly before Google went public he was fired for "not fitting in with Google's youthful culture" thus saving Google from granting his significant stock options.
That's what it's really about: the money.
Even Gates and monkeyboy havn't done anything this capricious and arbitrary with employees as far as I can tell.
Net result: Google more evil that Microsoft, much as it pains me to say it.
Slashdot Mirror
When Brian Reid "left" google (he was director or vp of ops) he stopped using gmail for exactly this reason.
If you rely on the fact google doesn't read your mail you might be disappointed.
Weird point of trivia: in LA in 1985 or so I worked with a guy that grew up with Woz and Jobs. He was offered employeeship #1 at Apple but wanted to go to LA and "make it on his own" (idiot).
Anyway, he was a very straight laced guy and one lunch time went out to buy a dozen concert tickets. Kinda odd, so I asked. He sorta blushed. "They're for Woz. he has an odd hobby of scalping tickets".
If memory serves, at some point his wozzyness was popped for this in the 80s.
In the tropical fish world antibiotics are terribly abused. They do no good the way most aquarists use them, are cheap and never work frankly. Proper administration involves culturing the bug, seeiing if it's resistant to the drug you plan on using then feeding of injectig it. This is usually resevred for $15,000 koi or such. Not your 10 gallon tank with platies and neons.
Plus there's one bug Mycobacterium marinum that is zoonetic, that is, it corsses a species barrier (kinda rare, most pathogens are very host specific) - it can infect man. It's called "swimmers granuloma" if you catch it from a river (it's in pretty much all bodies of water) and "fishkeepers finger" if you get it from a fishtank. If a fish gets it it's called "Fish TB" as it's in the same genus as human tuberculosis. It's not easy to cure, it's a 6 month regimen of $400/mo antibiotics.
One guy in Germany died as a result of it, he ignored it. The last thing we want is this thing becoming anitobiotics resistant. So, we're switching to bacteriacides instead of antibiotics: copper sulfate, oregano oil, tea tree oil etc.
More here.
"Because everyone knows that the internet is, as the post says, a "series of maps". "
Until 1996 when the TCP/IP connected internet finally became larger than the UUCP network this was very very true.
No maps, no UUCP, no network.
I had no idea my grade 12 geography project would EVER come in handy but...
Cities tend to grow up around train (now highway) lines. For reasons I'd think would be obvious.
Toronto in the 50s was a perfect example. One line north south (Yonge) and east west (Bloor).
Thank you Mr. Cioran.
Ah, that's where the Burmese monks went to.
(They appear to have gone missing)
"I'm fifteen and I suffer from a lot of age discrimination when looking for work."
You just need to change your techniques.
In 1986 or so there was a PC on Greg Laskins sofa in LA called gryphon.com (we used to get mail saying "how you get a mythical animal domain I thought the guys at Berkeley got them all) that ran uucp mail and news. Brian thought a couple of is were amusing and suggested to NASA/JPL that connectivity in Los Angeles was suboptimal and that they should give us a feed, which they did. Brian was a part of the "backbone cabal" and people tended to do whatever he suggested.
A fellow called Bill Wisner showed up on gryphon. And wrote like he was a 45 year old net.lawyer or something. I knew everybody else on gryphon and asked greg, who owned it who this guy was.
The story went: he was a kid from Idaho who was bore stiff and used to spend all his time on the computer. He hacked into MIT and their response was to give him the root password and pay him to be an admin. In a year or two he'd become one of the most respected admins on the network.
He was 15 when I met him.
So while it's probably not a good idea in todays political climate to do what wee willy wisner did the point remains that at 15 you're not gonna get anywhere with an interview. But, if you do something and by this I really mean create something, impressive you almost certainly will get somewhere.
At the end of the day people are more interested in what problems you've solved or can solve than how old you are.
"Actually, I'm 25 and don't live in the US, so the laws don't affect me one way or another. I live in the UK, where it's legal to drink when you are 5, and buy alcohol when you are 18. In 1996 (the most recent data I could find, but it's more recent than yours) we had 6.1 road deaths per 100,000 people, 1.5 per 10,000 cars. In the same period, the USA had 15.8 per 100,000 people, 2 per 10,000 cars.[1]"
That's because petrol is $400 a cupfull or something in the UK and people are more careful to protect their investment in the precious fluid.
" There is no such thing As a programmer with 30 years of experience, solid or otherwise. "
I began using C/unix at Waterloo in 1976. I'd worked the year before wathing Dave Conroy write what is now called "gcc".
"While he may have been fired due to his age, he actually experienced a hostile work environment because of it. "
It's been an interesting day. Some people who used to work for him at the goog have written me.
They basically worshipped him and never understood why he was fired.
I can only conclude there's a couple of Dilberts running around Google.
I found the original quote: "The Internet is about consensus, not truth. Never mistake truth for consensus."
And another favorite:
"Digital doesn't see that IAHC has anything to do with Internet. They see it as being about corporate relationships and alliances. In other words, what matters is not what IAHC does or says, but rather what other companies see Digital as doing."
and
"Who would have thought that the ICANN zoo would be even more of a freak show than the US presidential election?"
And one that really scared me:
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 09:21:28 -0800
From: Brian Reid
Subject: "ICANN mandate: Stability of the Internet"
Whenever a military dictator takes over a third world country, the reason always given for the coup d'etat is to "preserve the stability of my country." Check your history books. That's always what they say.
This?
"During one of those last long nights working to deliver DOS 2.0 in early 1983, I am told that Paul Allen heard Gates and Ballmer discussing his health and talking about how to get his Microsoft shares back if Allen were to die.
Maybe that's just the sort of fiduciary discussion board members have to have, but it didn't go over well with Paul Allen, who never returned to Microsoft, and over the next eight years, made huge efforts to secure his wealth from the fate of Microsoft "
I did see that, but "Maybe that's just the sort of fiduciary discussion board members have to have" is pretty accurate.
Maybe it's just me, or maybe it's that Brian is a good friend of mine but I think what google did is worse. At least Paul GOT his money.
"if its the same guy who worked at DEC in palo alto many years ago, "
Yup, same guy. Same white hair I swear he was born with. Same house in Palo Alto. He hasn't changed a bit in the 20+ years I've known him, he's still the sharpest guy I know.
" sheesh. this is weird. and a bit upsetting, too. "
No kidding. Guy invents the search engine, gets hired by a company that merely improved it then gets dicked over because Sergei gets greedy about just how many millions are at stake. Congratulations Google, you're now in the Dilbert Zone.
"Old people = old ideas.
Old people = no innovation.
Old people = old ways. "
Feynman figured out why the space shuttle blew up shortly before he died as an old man. Nobody else could figure it out. I don't buy old poeple have old ideas, look at all the old science fiction writers or Freeman Dyons wikipedia page.
Another reason you don't see a lot of older people in the IT world is they make enough money to escape it.
I'm not sure what your point it given you said you'd do what he's doing. Will it take a while? Sure. Are the stakes high? Now that Goog is $600/share, uh, yeah, they couldn't be much higher given he had pre-IPO options. A lot of them.
The guy invented the web search engine and is one of the top computer scientists of all time. There's zero chance he's not an asset to Google. If you actually knew the man you'd know this. Don't guess.
Don't be so sure he doesn't have people lining up to hire him. Just because he's trying to get X million he was screwed out of doesn't imply this.
Right now he works for Vixie/ISC who I understand has been trying to hire him for ages.
It used to be a "fricken mess". It just got better.
"Junior people are a lot cheaper. They're also a lot easier to convince to work 80 hour/weeks. "
Yeah! WTF is up with that?
I started in the Caliifornia computer industry when I was 22 in 1979. At my job there I was told:
1) This is the most important project in the history of the company.
2) If this project fails, the company goes under
3) Only you can do it.
So I worked buttloads of (unpaid) extra hours. And I felt good about it.
In my next job I was told:
1) This is the most important project in the history of the company.
2) If this project fails, the company goes under
3) Only you can do it.
So I worked lots of extra (unpaid) hours. I saved the company. Woo hoo.
Then in my next job I was told:
1) This is the most important project in the history of the company.
2) If this project fails, the company goes under
3) Only you can do it.
So I worked lots of extra (unpaid) hours. Hmm...
In my next job guess what happened. I was told:
1) This is the most important project in the history of the company.
2) If this project fails, the company goes under
3) Only you can do it.
Again I worked lots of extra (unpaid) hours. Huh.
You aint gonna believe what happened in my next job. I was told:
1) This is the most important project in the history of the company.
2) If this project fails, the company goes under
3) Only you can do it.
So I worked lots of extra (unpaid) hours.In my next job I was told:
1) This is the most important project in the history of the company.
2) If this project fails, the company goes under
3) Only you can do it.
Oh hang on a minute here. I may be slow but I'm starting to see a pattern here...
"Let's see, we'll run out free of allocatable IPv4-blocks in a few years (think 2 or 3) "
Uh-huh. I've been hearing that for 10 years now.
" Why do you think there are so many overweight/obese people in this country? "
Fructose and starches?
Just a guess.
"Look into what Gates and monkeyboy tried to do to Paul Allen when he was out for cancer treatment."
I can't find anything obvious. URL?
" When Compaq (remember Compaq? IBM PC clones?) bought DEC, they phased out software research, because Compaq didn't do much software. "
The day Compaq shut down the NSL he was supposed to meet me in New York to talk to Ira Magaziner about the DNS mess. When he wasn't there we exchanged some email as to why. As he put it "Compaq didn't get enough money to be able to buy DEC by being innovative". While a great quote my favorite BKR quote is "Never mistake truth for consensus"
Could be worse. I'm precardial and worked at a place where computers were programmed using patch panels. The "upgrade" used punched cards.
And I'm 7 years younger than Brian.
"I agree with some of the above posters. The guy was an idiot to leave his university job. You chase the dollar signs, you lose. "
Google persued him, to fix some personel problems they were having with women employees, which he did. Brian is very very very good with people. He was very quickly made director or vp of engineering or operations or something based on his glowing performance; TFA points out his only written review was "glowing".
He was only at Stanford a couple of years. He was the Director of the Network Systems Laboratory at DEC for over a decade.
He invented the firewall and lots of other things you probably use every day.
You may now humbly recant your unfounded "idiot" accusation.
"It seems that besides being a good engineer you have to be "culturally fit".
I kinda agree: a pessimistic or unsociable person could endanger the spirit and the enthusiasm of others. I would not like to work with a highly intelligent but depressive person, if his depression would affect my everyday mood. Not to mention if the guy is the PM.
On the other hand, I would be fucking upset for being fired because of not fitting into the company's social standards "
I know Brian very very well. He's one of the most positive poeple I know. You could probably sell his blood as an anti-depressant.
He was fired because Sergei didn't want to give him his stock options. They used the age thing as an excuse as it's harder to prove in court.
"As a geek, I like to be in favor of strong employment laws that give the government full audit power over every corporation's decision to fire any one whatsoever. However, I don't like when it gets used against good guys, like Google."
Brian was hired about a year before Google went public and beefed up the org chart (which helps for an IPO) because looks great on paper: invented the firewall, altavista, the PAIX, Scribe (which begat sgml which begat html) and quickly rose up the ranks to be director of engineering or vp of ops or something fairly high up. His only written review was glowing. Very very shorly before Google went public he was fired for "not fitting in with Google's youthful culture" thus saving Google from granting his significant stock options.
That's what it's really about: the money.
Even Gates and monkeyboy havn't done anything this capricious and arbitrary with employees as far as I can tell.
Net result: Google more evil that Microsoft, much as it pains me to say it.
Suck on that, fanboy.