Articles: 304

Words: 345,779

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

How to Debug Any Problem
The ability to quickly and effectively find and resolve bugs in new and established systems is one of the most valuable engineering skills that you can develop. Since this skill enables the rapid…
8 min read | 2.3K claps
Mentioned: CSS Weekly
Silicon Valley Is Not a Fad
A 20-year veteran of Silicon Valley outlines the region’s history of technological innovation, and dispels its recent reputation as a shallow, lucrative party for tech bros.
FEATURED ON MEDIUM
8 min read | 2.3K claps
Medium curated under BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY
Mentioned: Medium's Facebook page
On Hacker News
The Truth About The Old iPhone Slowdown Fiasco
For a few weeks now, I have wanted to write an article about the slow-down of old iPhones. This desire started when I was having online conversations about it. In those conversations, many people did…
3 min read | 2.2K claps
Deadlines Are Killing Us, And Almost Everything Else I Know About Leadership
This morning, I spoke with a good friend who lives in France. He started a business with his wife to develop a web-based, software-as-a-service product. As the business began to grow, his belief in…
22 min read | 1.9K claps
Medium curated under LEADERSHIP PSYCHOLOGY WORK
Mentioned: 10 Things
On Hacker News
A Chinese Unicorn (Unintentionally) Shoots Down Medium’s Read Ratio
This started on Saturday January 6, 2018. I was looking at my Medium stats when I noticed that the reads-per-view ratio on one of my stories, entitled I Almost Died. This Is What I learned, was…
6 min read | 1.2K claps
Why I Don’t Believe in Consciousness
I’ve lost friends over this because a denial of consciousness undermines a final refuge of the arrogance of selfhood: universal consciousness. But even most normal people are strongly insistent that…
6 min read | 768 claps
Chosen by Medium's curators for further distribution
Mentioned: Mind Matters
Your bank is training you to have your identity stolen
A number appears on my phone that I don’t recognize, and, just this one time, I pick up, and I hear, “Hello, my name is June. I’m calling from the fraud department of …
7 min read | 503 claps
Republished: The Next Web
Why the Internet Must Be Regulated
This article explains, in-a-nutshell, why it’s actually anti-capitalist to not regulate internet services providers (ISPs). In free-market capitalism, monopoly must be addressed and regulated.
6 min read | 502 claps
You Can Become Whatever You Choose
A couple of days ago, I was presenting a research poster at a machine learning conference called ScaledML. Large groups of people were gathering around my poster while I delivered ad-hoc summaries of…
6 min read | 502 claps
Medium curated under WORK
The Insanity of Driving
Recently, I was driving back to the South Bay from San Francisco when I got caught in some stop-and-go traffic, which is a common experience in the Bay Area. I was on the 101, a freeway (motorway in…
7 min read | 322 claps
On Hacker News
Will Machines Ever Be Conscious?
This topic is of particular interest to me because I’m an engineer working in the field of artificial intelligence, I have a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, and I have a lot of experience with…
7 min read | 179 claps
Why The Terminator Doesn’t Bitch About Money, and Why You Shouldn’t Either
Money is an amazing thing. It’s a powerful thing. Money represents a massive opportunity given to us by society. Money is the distillation of all the efficiencies we get from human collaboration on a…
11 min read | 165 claps
My First Public Tech Talk: What I’m Learning in Preparation
A while back I wrote an article titled What Standup Comedy Has Taught Me About Public Speaking and Life. That article provides a pretty comprehensive coverage of everything I know about public…
7 min read | 162 claps
Medium curated under WORK
This Is Not Your Dad’s Org Chart
I was sitting in the reclining leather chair in my therapist’s office receiving support with some struggles I’ve been having at work. I told her that even though we tell the story that the company…
5 min read | 118 claps
A Plausible Path to a Push-Button AI Apocalypse
Before we get into the horrors of artificially intelligent dystopias, I want to reassure you that I’m an AI optimist. I, for one, welcome our benevolent yet super-intelligent robot overlords, our…
12 min read | 57 claps
Spiritual Instruction Manual for Skynet
Everyone is all up-in-arms about general superintelligence. “Will it be good, or will it be bad?” Some folks believe that this superintelligence will be a reflection of its creators: if we are…
16 min read | 52 claps
Is Reality, as We Know It, a Simulation?
It seems to be fashionable right now to ponder whether we are living in a simulation. Tech moguls have been reported to do it in hot tubs. I’m doing it at 6 am in an Airbnb in Marin County. Before…
5 min read | 6 claps
Remembering My Childhood Computers
Readers have asked me how I became a software engineer. As I started to write about that, I realized that the first thing I really want tell you about is the computers I had as a kid. I was lucky…
6 min read | 2 claps