
Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure - perardi
https://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2019/02/seeking-the-productive-life-some-details-of-my-personal-infrastructure/
======
chubot
Some pretty cool things:

\- He's a CEO who dogfoods his own software! Not only that, he seems to be one
of its most prolific users. That's amazing.

Having worked for over a decade at Google, I sometimes wonder if the founders
still use the products. Larry Page used to always harp on latency (rightly),
and now Google products are slower than ever.

\- He's a remote CEO, and supports remote working! It sounds like the company
was ahead of the curve in this respect.

\- He's grown his company to 800 employees over 28 years, and it's still
relevant today. And I believe he never took funding. Also amazing! Most tech
companies that are 28 years old have gone through a ton of turmoil.

I've heard all the bad stories about Wolfram's personality. Combined with
NKOS, that made me think poorly of him.

But maybe has mellowed with old age. People forget how insufferable Bill Gates
was 20 years ago too. Gates really rehabilitated his image and maybe Wolfram
will too. Despite the ego, he's definitely contributed interesting things to
society. And I hope that I'm as excited by my work as he is when getting to
that age.

~~~
kevinventullo
To be honest, the conference call linked lower in the thread has increased my
skepticism for remote work. Another commenter pointed out how much smoother
everything would have gone if everyone had been in the same room.

~~~
juskrey
I love such comments. The guy has a multimillion dollar private business which
is at the same time his hobby and a dream, and does it in the way he likes.
And someone comes and says his meetings can be more efficient..

~~~
jessriedel
But commenters are taking evidence of how this guy runs his business as
evidence that that method is effective. Shouldn't there be comments pointing
out if this isn't effective?

~~~
ianai
Not really. It will always be easy to look at something from the outside and
point out all the ways it should or can’t work or could work better. The
systems and people involved are usually much more complicated.

The world also owes itself more compassion. “Thousand foot” criticism lacks
compassion.

~~~
jessriedel
You're describing a policy of not making frank assessment of the efficacy of
business practices.

~~~
fnordsensei
That’s a bit far. From my perspective, the point is that looking at
inefficiencies in isolation is as bad as looking at benefits in isolation.

Making a frank assessment about the efficiency of meetings is probably of
limited value in and of itself in abstractly assessing the overall equation of
trade-offs in running a distributed vs collocated business. Even more so when
concretely assessing this particular company.

~~~
jessriedel
There's an asymmetry between the strong negative reaction to criticism but not
to praise, even though criticism is more likely to offer substantive points.
This suggests to me that people are mostly offended at the _arrogance_ of the
commenter rather than working about the risk that we could all become mistaken
through reading overconfident criticism.

~~~
ianai
Every bully I remember tried to mask their bullying as “helpful” or positive
in some way.

~~~
jessriedel
Every dictator promised to make the nation better. This is not a good reason
to reject politicians trying to make the nation better.

------
techgipper
Funny, I do this with my digital trash can:

When I was consulting at Bell Labs in the early 1980s I saw that a friend of
mine had two garbage cans in his office. When I asked him why, he explained
that one was for genuine garbage and the other was a buffer into which he
would throw documents that he thought he’d probably never want again. He’d let
the buffer garbage can fill up, and once it was full, he’d throw away the
lower documents in it, since from the fact that he hadn’t fished them out, he
figured he’d probably never miss them if they were thrown away permanently.

~~~
petercooper
I do this but don't throw the documents away. Instead I put the "buffer" into
longer term storage (read: jammed into a box in my shed that can at least be
searched even if it takes ages).

It turns out that, for me, there _are_ quite a lot of things you suddenly need
a year or more later that felt unimportant at the time.. insurance documents,
warranties, car related documents that are useful when selling the car,
documents relating to house improvements. These should probably be filed
better on day one, but this is life :-D

~~~
js2
Scan, OCR and shred. I have a scan pile and a shred pile. I collect documents
in front of my scanner. Once a month I'll shred the previous month's documents
in the shred pile, scan the current documents, and put them in the shred pile
to be shredded next month.

I do this because sometimes it's easier just having the hard-copy around, but
if I haven't used it in a month, it's rare I still need the hard-copy.

~~~
graeme
Do you name them, or just put them en masse by date? And what ocr software do
you use?

~~~
js2
Initially they are just named with the date they are scanned. Once a quarter
or so I'll organize the ones I care about and the rest stay in an
"unorganized" folder.

I use DEVONthink Pro Office which embeds Abbyy for OCR, along with a Fuji
SnapScan.

~~~
SomeHacker44
I use JS1’s exact process, software and hardware. That is just too eerie. I
however only shred once I have a full banker’s box, which I take to a
commercial shredder for a big toss for $100, once or twice a year.

~~~
ericd
Why a commercial shredder rather than a $100 crosscut (Amazon Basics makes
some pretty good ones)? I actually find the shredder pretty fun to use.

~~~
jdietrich
Most inexpensive shredders have a very low duty cycle, so they'll cut out or
overheat if you shred continuously for more than a couple of minutes. That's
fine if you shred a couple of documents at a time, but it's infuriating if you
have a big box of documents that need to be shredded. Heavy-duty shredders
capable of continuous use are bulky and heavy, which is a significant issue if
you live in a small apartment.

~~~
kkarakk
just burn em in a trashcan

~~~
smileypete
I use a cylinder of wire mesh on something heatproof, in the garden.

Better than a cheap shredder by miles, and some nice heat that makes it
pleasant in wintertime. :)

~~~
igravious
Domestic burning of household waste is illegal where I live, I would have
thought it would be illegal most places in the Western world by now. Burn
paper = CO2; shred paper = more paper.

------
hellofunk
I personally wonder what has the modern world come to, that an individual
cannot take a leisurely walk without distraction, and thus feels like they
must be working on a computer while getting in some basic movement for their
body.

~~~
alexpetralia
It's a world that increasingly values cognitive output over physical output.
Doesn't seem that dystopian to me.

~~~
nabnob
I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.

------
sytelus
A lot of people don’t know absolutely massive amount of functionality that is
stuffed in to Mathematica. It does everything from symbolic math to astronomy
to economics to deep learning to biology to ... If Wolfram had figured out how
to make his software free while still having sustained business, he would
undoubtedly be the hero of the tech/nerd/geek world, perhaps shoulder to
shoulder with Jobs or Linus or Gates - at least for the tech crowd.

~~~
ken
It was free with every NeXT workstation!

This right here, I believe, is the biggest problem facing software today. How
do you pay for it? End-users expect software to cost $0, yet it takes a lot of
time and effort to build anything.

The most successful software projects and companies I see today are those
which figured out innovative business models: advertising, hardware, free for
open source / paid for business, make it all open source and get a job
maintaining it.

There's no one correct answer. For any business model you pick for your
software today, half the world will be upset with you. I wish Mathematica was
more affordable, but I can't fault someone for creating a sustainable
business. As Joel Spolsky said, good software takes 10 years (at least!), and
most software dies long before it gets 10 years of development, so we never
even get the chance to see if it could have been good.

~~~
sytelus
Business models are the most significant innovations for any business. Google
or Maps or Gmail is jaw-droppingly expensive software but its sustainably
free.

There might be way for software like Mathematica. For example, having
marketplace that sells professional plugins like aerodynamics simulation for
aircrafts or autonomous trading library etc. You can also have special
classroom edition that charges nominal amounts or the enterprise edition that
has cloud and IT support. The large chunk of platform can potentially be free
and open source.

------
vortico
How cow, this guy is the world's most organized person. I operate in the exact
opposite way. The more disorganized, temporary, inconvenient, and cluttered my
workspace is, the more I can ignore the outside world and focus on the
abstract problem at hand.

~~~
noir_lord
Funny how people are so different.

My desk has to have exactly, 1 keyboard, 1 mouse, 1 A4 5mm graph paper pad and
that's it.

I used to struggle to work on a slightly cluttered desk but these days it has
to be basically empty.

In terms of paperwork, it goes behind me on shelves sorted by "Important, will
need soon, Important, will need later, Not important" everything else goes in
the bin.

Periodically I rip the pads apart and put them through the bypass scanner on
the MFP in the main office and store the resulting PDF's.

First time my partner saw my office at work she was positively shocked because
at home (other than my work space) I'm a messy, "leave it where I had it last"
type.

~~~
graeme
How do you process the files in the three shelves?

~~~
noir_lord
I pile stuff up neatly left to right and periodically (usually last hour on
friday when brain is done, go through it and either move or bin it).

The goal isn't to have everything meticulously organised (that becomes a task
that takes more time than you save, it's yak shaving for me at least) but to
be able to find it quickly (few minutes) if I need to and crucially out of my
sight line, at my desk it's completely out of view.

------
laser
The implicit sharing of his sleep schedule through his email times over the
past 25 years makes me feel better about myself.

[https://blog.stephenwolfram.com/data/uploads/2012/03/outgoin...](https://blog.stephenwolfram.com/data/uploads/2012/03/outgoing-
mail-diurnal-image.png)

~~~
marviel
What happened in 2002?

EDIT: oh, NKS.
[https://www.google.com/search?q=when+was+wolfram+nks+release...](https://www.google.com/search?q=when+was+wolfram+nks+released&oq=when+was+wolfram+nks+released)

~~~
fosco
The article says

>The big empty spaces are when I’m asleep, and, yes, as I’ve changed
projects—e.g. finishing A New Kind of Science in 2002—my sleep habits have
changed; I’m also now trying an experiment of going to sleep earlier

~~~
6nf
Earlier being 2am

~~~
fosco
I did not see in the article, but I wonder if all of those times are in the
same timezone and if those times are based on UTC or his actual timezone, I
did not see data on that but could have missed it.

~~~
desdiv
It's his actual timezone - EST (Concord, Massachusetts).

>The first thing one sees from this plot is that, yes, I’ve been busy. And for
more than 20 years, I’ve been sending emails throughout my waking day, albeit
with a little dip around dinner time. The big gap each day comes from when I
was asleep. And for the last decade, the plot shows I’ve been pretty
consistent, going to sleep around 3am ET, and getting up around 11am (yes, I’m
something of a night owl). (The stripe in summer 2009 is a trip to Europe.)

[https://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2012/03/the-personal-
analyti...](https://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2012/03/the-personal-analytics-of-
my-life)

------
duado
It is always great to see what an utterly incorrigible dweeb (and I use that
term affectionately) does with power and money. I just fucking love that
instead of a Learjet he has basically a large ecosystem of software built
specifically for his personal needs.

~~~
jurassicfoxy
I agree. This was one of the most motivating articles I've read in a while.
This is a man who unabashedly goes 100 % all in to whatever he wants, fully
admits it's nutty, and looks like he's having the time of his life.

------
biztos
Here's a guy I think of as very successful, and very smart, and yet he seems
extremely tethered to his computers.

Meetings while walking, and assuming nobody notices? Questioning the
practicality of time spent outside? That's kind of... really... sad.

~~~
adenverd
I think most of us would be sad or depressed if our lives were like his. But
it seems like he has intentionally conformed the rest of his life to the
things that matter most to him (his work, company, personal productivity)
rather than what you or I think of as happiness or a good life. I certainly
wouldn't want to be him, but if he's living how he wants to live, who am I to
judge.

I might be a little biased though, WolframAlpha got me through countless hours
of college homework assignments.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I guess it really depends. I think I'd loved this lifestyle - always doing
work that contributes directly to humanity's scientific output _and_ having
time to follow your own intellectual pursuits? Sign me in.

------
henning
I think there's great value in walking with no distractions and it is
definitely still very productive if it lets you focus and gather your
thoughts. Many great thinkers in history (Immanuel Kant, Charles Darwin, Carl
Jung, doubtless many others) had walking as important part of their routine.
But, there's no accounting for taste, and whatever works for you is all that
really matters.

------
SllX
That was an intense read. I’m not sure I actually learned much of value beyond
how awesome it might be to have an entire IT department at your beck and call,
but certainly his _File System_ has helped solidify some of my germinating
ideas on how to reshelve my own file system with which I am lately
dissatisfied.

------
ranie93
Through the article I found he livestreams many of his meetings on Twitch!

This is particularly candid moment I happen to find:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGjvFyRk_4I&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGjvFyRk_4I&feature=youtu.be&list=PLxn-
kpJHbPx14mHrB5BlhImVOWo5Geg6f&t=271)

edit: I wasn't aware of the negative opinions regarding his ego, but from
listening to this meeting I can say they aren't unsubstantiated!

~~~
avinium
First, it's awesome that these are live-streamed and publicised.

Second, I didn't hear anything unreasonable in that meeting. SW has a
reputation for ego, but honestly this particular extract just sounds like
frustration with buggy/messy documentation. I mean, the fact that the CEO is
personally going through documentation is telling in itself.

~~~
chrisseaton
I don't know why you're bending over backwards to excuse it.

It's toxic. He's being nasty. He could say everything he does without the
snapping, blowing up at questions, dramatic sighs, 'oh boy's. It's all so
incredibly passively aggressive.

And that's actually the worst bit! It's hard to call him out when he's not
explicitly calling them 'idiots' or something. It's like it's some kind of
plausible deniability of being horrible to people.

But I don't know these people and maybe they're all fine with it. And Wolfram
is paying the bills so it's his style if he wants.

~~~
biot
Rather than admit that the red, undocumented third parameter was a mistake
they seemed to make all sorts of rationalizations for why it’s wrong (“It’s
new”, “I thought it was fixed”, etc.) rather than just saying “You’re right,
that’s a bug. We’re fixing it.” Why were the employees waffling around the
fact that it actually is a problem? Calling them out on their justifications
and excuses isn’t being toxic or nasty, it’s called being a professional who
takes pride in the work they put out to the public.

~~~
CarelessSmirch
Either it's a flaw in the engineers (lack of social skills to admit a mistake
accurately) or in the working climate (fear of unreasonable repercussion make
the engineers defer disclosure of failure). I'm undecided. Eitherway it seemed
surprisingly inefficient way of communicating.

------
seltzered_
Fwiw: in 2010 Stephen Wolfram did an interview about his setup:
[https://usesthis.com/interviews/stephen.wolfram/](https://usesthis.com/interviews/stephen.wolfram/)

------
KingMachiavelli
I always find it interesting to see what personal productivity improvements
highly successful people _do not_ implement. Considering that the typical
productivity speel for technology & progaming tasks is tiling window managers
(minimize mouse movement), mechanical/ergodox/split keyboards (ideal hand
width and orientation), possibly linux or OSX w/ homebrew to automate tasks
using scripts. It's interesting to see how relatively rare these setups are
among CEO's (in tech) and how 'normal' the setups of successful people really
are.

There are several factors I see that are or have been impeding implementation
of such setups. Firstly, many of the most common tiling WMs have only existed
since the 2000s resulting while the current, mature segment of highly
successful individuals likely started with the tools available in the 80s &
90s and by then both Windows and Mac OS were using desktop metaphor (floating)
environments.

The use of floating windows (even with snapping, etc) increases use of the
mouse and decreases the relative benifit of highly specialized keyboards like
the ergodox. And a lot of membrane keyboards nowdays can /feel/ decent w/o
mechanical switches.

The choice of OS is likely whatever they have been using since the 90s with
some bias towards switching to OSX/MacOS and since it provides many linux-like
capabilities in terms of shells for scripting(albiet often horendiously out of
date).

Finally, likely the largest factor contributing to having relatively normal
setups is that the more involved tasks can be delegated to employees whom may
or may not have highly customized setups.

~~~
dkersten
Personally, I use tiling window managers and mechanical keyboards not to be
more efficient, but rather for 1) physical comfort and 2) personal taste.

By physical comfort, I mean that I rely on my hands too much to not take care
of them to avoid RSI and personal taste, well, I like not having to reach for
a mouse, being able to have what I need side by side with the press of a
button and just the minimalist look of tiling window managers.

Does it also make me more efficient or productive? Maybe, possibly, who knows!
It probably does, as it removes roadblocks from my workflow, but its not
something I pay a lot of attention to.

------
slm_HN
I can see why some people think this guy is a bit much (Wolfram-branded Pilot
Precise Grip pens, Wolfram Cloud, Wolfram Language) but this is a very
thorough and interesting article. He even admits the embarrassing stuff: Apple
Mac Pro.

~~~
jeffhuys
Why is that embarrassing? I think they're pretty and pretty good.

------
jclay
I really like the personal homepage idea. Reminds me of the iGoogle days.

Anyone know any products / tools to create a simple one consisting of
essentially an organized collection of links? I guess any static site
generator could work, but would be nice to have an out of the box theme and
can show RSS Feeds.

~~~
steerpike
You might like Netvibes. I've been using it for over a decade and it's still
fantastic. [https://www.netvibes.com/](https://www.netvibes.com/)

~~~
TeMPOraL
Wow, I'd love _something_ like this, but that would incorporate my social
media into background stream of super-compacted, mostly-text events. Think of
being on a Slack channel (in Compact mode), where the only things that are
posted are messages from your Facebook timeline, e-mail, HN stories, replies
to your HN comments, new IM threads etc. Also, you could pin stuff you care
about, and with one click/keyboard press, everything else gets cleared.

Alas, I don't think Facebook in particular allows for such deep integration
with one's feed - because yes, that would essentially replace me the facebook
website/app.

------
mark_l_watson
I just don’t know about hiking with a laptop. Down time is also productive
time. That said, it is interesting how he organizes the digital assets of his
life.

A little off topic: I subscribed to use the Wolfram Language a couple of years
ago and really liked the integrated documentation, and the capabilities built
in for just about everything. What was a turnoff was the very slow cycle time
between entering code to be evaluated and seeing results. I signed up for a
less expensive level of service (about $20/month) and that may have been the
problem. I would like the speed of, for example, Common Lisp repl development
with the power of the Wolfram Language.

~~~
5166cc9c39fa61
Rather than throwing even more money at Wolfram, it would be even better to
put up a fund (maybe a crowdsourced campaign) to buy the rights to Macsyma and
PDEase to release them under the GPL.

~~~
mark_l_watson
Except the Wolfram Language provides access to vast information about the
world.

I worked with the Knowledge Graph at Google and Wolfram Language seems like an
easy to use personal version of that.

I would be happy to pay for it, forever, if it were more responsive.

~~~
5166cc9c39fa61
> Except the Wolfram Language provides access to vast information about the
> world.

Which is mostly pulled in from public data sources, such as the CIA World
Factbook, US census and economic data, US Geological Survey data, Wikipedia,
OpenStreetMap, etc. Knowledge Graph was based on Freebase, which in 2016
transferred its database to the Wikidata project
([https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page)).
So once again, instead of throwing more undeserved money at Wolfram for
appropriating other people's work, the better alternative is to work on
integrations of Wikidata into Common Lisp, SciPy, Org mode, etc. and
contribute to Wikidata itself.

~~~
mark_l_watson
You have a good point!

Something to consider starting. A quicklisp library that caches wikidata, etc.
and provides a uniform interface.

------
gregorymichael
Wow. This mans brain operates differently than mine (in a wonderful sense).

------
afterburner
Most interesting to me here is his "walking outside" work setup (fairly
simple, as he says, like you're selling popcorn). Because apparently walking
outside reduced his resting heart rate more than just relying on a treadmill.

~~~
graeme
One could imagine any number of reasons: air quality, sunshine, a calming
effect from seeing nature or variety in peripheral vision, difference in
terrain providing stimuli, strength benefits of carrying the apparatus (it
sounds like he often carried stuff even before working outside)

The benefits of the outdoors are pretty widely reported. And it doesn't sound
like he went outside much of his own inclination.

------
g-harel
I recently finished a project which looks a lot like that browser homepage!

[https://targetblank.org](https://targetblank.org)

------
NelsonMinar
I'm struck by how his Metasearcher is somewhat similar to Gelernter's
Lifestreams concept. I've taken for granted for 20+ years that would
eventually be coming and it hasn't yet. Some Google products are a little like
it: Photos, Gmail. I like that Wolfram has his own.

~~~
imhoguy
Reminds me Perkeep also. [https://perkeep.org](https://perkeep.org)

------
jumelles
Is Wolfram Notebooks the new Lotus Notes? Does their "Knowledgebase" compete
with Bloomberg - is there live information?

~~~
techgipper
Yeah there's live information sourced from all over the place...kind of like
Wolfram Alpha in a notebook

[https://www.wolframalpha.com/knowledgebase/](https://www.wolframalpha.com/knowledgebase/)

------
danw1979
I couldn't take tips on personal infrastructure from someone whose monitors
aren't perfectly aligned.

------
numlocked
“One, for example, initiates the process for me doing an unscheduled
livestream: it messages our 24/7 system monitoring team so they can take my
feed, broadcast it, and monitor responses.”

Must be nice!

------
jwmoz
I had to stop reading. It's such an obsession with working and technology.

~~~
brootstrap
haha. if i was walking outside and ran into wolfram like this, i'd fucking
bookdrop his stupid ass laptop and watch him cry and freakout. I work in town
with wolfram HQ, have had relationships with folks who work very closely with
wolfram. As you could imagine he is a fucking nut case haha.

------
a2tech
I applaud his work ethic, but can you imagine how many people it takes to
support this work style? Programmers building custom interfaces, around the
clock monitoring people for his streaming whims (mentioned in the article),
system admin's keeping his home cloud running, his personal dev cloud at the
office, and the syncing between them. It seems pretty personnel intense

~~~
imhoguy
This is his empire he has build from scratch and is ultraeffective for years.

Now compare it to how much work is involved to support politicians work style
and what is the efficiency of that system.

------
nodesocket
There is something that makes me a little sad inside that running on the
treadmill while being on the computer and working is even a possibility. It's
like in the movie WALL-E where people are shuffled around on lazy-boy like
chairs while eating ice cream. It just feels wrong. There is much to be
appreciated with being with your thoughts, music, and running.

------
dennisgorelik
Stephen Wolfram created his remote organization in spite of Richard Feynman
advise:

~~~~~~~~~

[http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/06/you-dont-understand-
ord...](http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/06/you-dont-understand-ordinary-
people.html)

You say you want to create your own environment - but you will not be doing
that: you will create (perhaps!) an environment that you might like to work in
- but you will not be working in this environment - you will be administering
it - and the administration environment is not what you seek - is it? You
won't enjoy administrating people because you won’t succeed in it.

You don’t understand "ordinary people." To you they are "stupid fools" \- so
you will not tolerate them or treat their foibles with tolerance or patience -
but will drive yourself wild (or they will drive you wild) trying to deal with
them in an effective way.

~~~~~~~~~

------
Zedmor
Funny but he seems to be old enough to realize that success in life and career
is about people, not machines.

------
urda
That envelope idea based on need (Hotel, Conference, Car, etC), that's a
pretty slick idea.

~~~
peterwwillis
I have a few of those for different uses: mini toiletry bag, extra toiletry
bag, mini electronics bag, extra electronics bag, travel laptop bag, world
adapter bag. I use zip locks or water-resistant roll-top bags to compress
better in a 25L "personal item/carry-on" bag.

My camping gear is organized the same way: cold weather gear bag, cookery bag,
bug spray/sunscreen/soap bag, medical bag, utility tool bag, hydration
bladder, tent bag, sleeping bag, burning man costume bag, burning man crafting
bag, mini cocktail kit, ...

------
galfarragem
This tidbit is delicious:

 _Perhaps all that data I’ve collected on myself will one day let one
basically just built a “bot of me”._

In the end all we want is freedom. I suspect that productivity optimization is
our unconscious search of a (social) way of getting free.

------
sg0
I just realized upon reading this that I might have car sickness too (and that
it's a real thing). It's worse if I sit at the back, usually its a concoction
of strange feelings, mild nausea, weird pangs of pain...

------
Ftuuky
I wish I was 10% as organized as Wolfram.

~~~
jmnicolas
He probably wishes he was 10% as human as you ;-)

------
antarcticablue
The way he organizes things is almost like an experimentation and reflection
process. Boring activities can be fun if a bit structure/design is added!

------
vikaskyadav
That's great! But I think life should have some uncertainty and a little
entropy. It is the little chaoses that make life interesting.

------
kraf
> in my pocket I have a pen, together with a piece of paper folded three times
> (so it’s about the size of a credit card)

I'm really loving this idea

~~~
larrywright
Index cards also work well for this.

------
tbyehl
That rack photo belongs in /r/cablegore

------
ericsoderstrom
Any idea what the "roll-around mouse" thing is that he mentions? The only
Google results for that phrase are cat toys

~~~
oh_sigh
Old-school non-optical mouse

~~~
foxhop
Did you know even the old-school computer mouse uses light to work?

The new school just don't have a mechanical component of a ball and two
rollers which spin two separate "gears" which blocks light and then math to
figure out the horizontal change + vertical change.

I found that pretty neat when I learned. (I'm old enough to remember the pains
of using a gunked up ball mouse.)

~~~
watmough
For old-school meaning about '85 or so, 'optical mouse' meant a mouse on a
special gridded pad that worked optically.

See this:
[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sun_optical_mouse.jp...](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sun_optical_mouse.jpg)

That's not a regular mouse pad, it's a special red/blue/silver grid detected
by a laser in the mouse.

~~~
mailslot
You could rotate the mouse pad and the mouse wouldn’t track. Very prankable.

Edit: At least on a Sun workstation

~~~
watmough
I have fond memories of those things.

------
anentropic
I can't un-see that Comic Sans clock

------
collinmanderson
> On my personal homepage there are some links that do fairly complex things.
> One, for example, initiates the process for me doing an unscheduled
> livestream: it messages our 24/7 system monitoring team so they can take my
> feed, broadcast it, and monitor responses.

------
nevi-me
Stephen mentions that his mouse is on the left because he's left-handed. I'm
left-handed, and I don't think I've ever seen someone put the mouse on the
left.

How much difference would it make to accuracy, or does the other hand
eventually learn to compensate?

~~~
ardy42
> I'm left-handed, and I don't think I've ever seen someone put the mouse on
> the left.

I'm left-handed. I mouse left-handed at work and right-handed at home. I used
to mouse exclusively right-handed, but I started developing wrist-aches and
realized I could prevent them by not using one wrist so disproportionately.

> How much difference would it make to accuracy, or does the other hand
> eventually learn to compensate?

Zero. I got used to using my left hand very quickly, in no more than a day or
two.

~~~
thestepafter
Do you use a left handed mouse or the same mouse you would use for your right
hand? Also, which mouse are you using?

~~~
ardy42
I use generic ambidextrous mice, but flip the left/right buttons so my index
finder is always main-click and my middle finger is right-click.

------
code4tee
I’ve always admired Wolfram. As he said in the article he could have made his
company much bigger but he has a great thing going and gets to do what he
loves most every day. Do really cool stuff, mostly stay out of the rat race
and make a few bucks.

------
melling
“Twenty years ago I imagined doing it with an augmented reality display and a
one-handed (chorded) keyboard.”

The idea of being more productive away from my desk has always been appealing.

I hope he explores this further. This would be an improvement to the computer
strapped to you.

------
kiddico
Sorry if this is off topic, but does anyone know what model/brand of the
satphone pictured in the hardware/daily gear section?

Alternatively if anyone here knows that market I'd appreciate some guidance in
terms of what brands to look at.

~~~
roryokane
If you scroll all the way to the bottom, you can see a Product Details box
where Wolfram lists the specific products he currently uses. According to
that, the satphone is an Iridium 9555
([https://www.amazon.com/Iridium-9555-Satellite-Kit-
Packaging/...](https://www.amazon.com/Iridium-9555-Satellite-Kit-
Packaging/dp/B00IJHGSIO)).

------
vonseel
What the heck... this guy just wrote more words on his personal infra than I
have probably written in my lifetime.

In all seriousness, everything said in the top ranked comment by chubot -
ditto here. The article was too long for me to finish, though.

------
momofarm
bring a satphone when go outside?

I thought at least 90% of inhabitable place has some GSM signal?

~~~
carlob
I once visited the US SW with a T-Mobile phone and I think I've seen it
connect to some network twice in ten days.

------
bravura
"And—partly out of caution about having a radio transmitter next to my head
all day—my headset is wired,"

What is the current medical consensus on how dangerous wireless headsets,
bluetooth headsets, cell phones, etc are?

~~~
tzs
Of the known ways for electromagnetic radiation to harm cells (directly
breaking chemical bonds when a molecule is hit by a photon, and heat damage
from the energy absorbed), we are pretty sure that wireless headsets and cell
phones are safe.

The frequencies they use don't involve photons that can break bonds, and they
don't have enough energy for heat damage.

The open question is whether or not there are either unknown ways it can harm
cells. An unknown direct harm method is probably unlikely. There have been
enough studies that we would have spotted it.

An unknown _indirect_ harm, though, is harder to rule out. An indirect harm
would be something like it can't _cause_ cancer, but if a cell goes cancerous
for some other reason the electromagnetic radiation interferes with the body's
mechanisms for detecting and fixing or killing the cancer cell.

Keep in mind that even if these things do increase risk, either by some
unknown direct mechanism, or by an unknown indirect mechanism, we can say that
the risk increase is low. You probably do dozens of other things a day with
similar or more risk that you could avoid.

Bottom line: if you want to have a wireless device next to your head all day
for convenience or out of work necessity, no one can really say you are being
foolish or cavalier toward you health. But if you decide to minimize such
device usage, no one can really say you are worried over nothing.

------
dennisgorelik
> I do basically no videoconferencing. Screensharing is great, and critical.
> But typically I find video distracting.

In our remote work we also do not use video, but use screensharing and audio a
lot.

------
Karrot_Kream
Is there a good open source database of people and things like the pBase
Wolfram mentions in this article? I've been thinking of hosting an instance of
Monica myself.

------
Rainymood
Only 1 mention of pBase in this thread so far, I really liked this idea of
having a database of people, I'm wondering if someone has solved this problem
already?

~~~
jrh206
Also: [https://sivers.org/dbt](https://sivers.org/dbt)

------
MacroChip
Having a satellite phone is very interesting! I wonder what motivated that. Is
he traveling to extremely rural (presumably international) locations?

------
purplezooey
I see he doesn't live in California. $.25/kWH power bill would make that
basement rack very tough to justify ;)

------
aerovistae
I'm kind of outraged that he has a solution in hand to carsickness in the form
of strange glasses _and didn 't prove a link to the product._

Does anyone know what those are? I would kill to be able to read in the car.

edit: seems to be these
[https://www.boardingglasses.com/?action=home&lang=EN](https://www.boardingglasses.com/?action=home&lang=EN)

~~~
areyousure
There is a link to nearly every item mentioned in the post in a section called
"Product details". The glasses you mention are the last item under "On the
move".

~~~
thomasjudge
Toothbrush, even

------
microcolonel
I love how he just sprinkles in the Iridium satellite phone and the Comic Sans
MS and makes no mention.

------
gwatstime
My main takeaway from this was: owns a billion dollar company and can't afford
AirPods

------
ElComradio
This should be entitled “A Treatise on Why My Personal Infrastructure is
Amazing”

~~~
carlob
A new kind of personal infrastructure?

------
vbuwivbiu
you don't need a computer to code while walking, do it in your head and type
it in when you get back

------
shatnersbassoon
Obligatory mention that he spent 10 years writing a 1000+ page book of
nonsense called A New Kind of Science that was basically about how great he is
and how everyone else is an idiot:
[http://bactra.org/reviews/wolfram/](http://bactra.org/reviews/wolfram/) It's
not just about productivity, people...

------
booleandilemma
What’s HN’s opinion of Stephen Wolfram?

Is he legit?

Is the tome _A New Kind of Science_ worth reading?

~~~
rsync
He is the creator of Mathematica:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfram_Mathematica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfram_Mathematica)

I would consider that legitimacy.

~~~
lenticular
Mathematica is literally the worst PL I've ever used, especially since you
effectively have to use their built-in editor that doesn't even have multiple
undo. Of course, it is the least-worst symbolic system out there currently.
But, it's not like lisp wouldn't have developed similar capabilities if
Mathematica didn't come around.

~~~
mehrdadn
I mean, I wouldn't make a website with it, but for computational/mathematical
code I'd choose Mathematica and its editor over a Lisp language any day, even
if it's just for the syntax (though it most certainly is not). Some of us
actually find it easier to understand and write math when it looks like math
and not just a wall of parentheses or ASCII art.

~~~
lispm
That's why basically all Lisp systems in that area (Macsyma, Maxima, Axiom,
REDUCE, ...) provide non-lisp syntax programming.

------
denart2203
But, the big question on everyone’s minds: “When is v12.0 coming out, and what
all will be in it?” I could swear folks said [tentatively] it was supposed to
come out mid-to-late last year, or maybe now early this year? Anything more
definitive yet? I keep checking back for updates, but not sure I’ve ever seen
a definitive release date mentioned yet? Well, whenever it finally drops, I’m
sure it’ll be great and I’ll pick up and upgrade from v9.0 (been waiting a
while for the money & impetus to upgrade to the latest version).

~~~
daniellerommel
You can get sneak-peeks on Stephen's twitch livestreams (he's been doing
design reviews live for a while now, including a lot of the v12
functionality). twitch.tv/stephen_wolfram (also on Wolfram's youtube channel
for archives). He tweeted Monday about burning down bugs for v12, if you
follow the extrapolation, a good guess would be release of v12 in late March
to early April (assuming there are no killer bugs left)

------
adwhit
Wolfram talking about Wolfram for 14,000 words. The most Wolfram thing
imaginable. Wolfram!

~~~
Jerry2
Reminded me of this classic:

>A group of friends and I used to do dramatic readings of the About the Author
text from the Mathematica Book, which begins thusly:

>About the Author

>Stephen Wolfram is the creator of Mathematica and is widely regarded as the
most important innovator in scientific and technical computing today.

>The guy wrote that himself.

>Wait, while searching for that, I see he updated it slightly in later
versions:

>About the Author

>Stephen Wolfram is the creator of Mathematica, and a well-known scientist. He
is widely regarded as the most important innovator in technical computing
today, as well as one of the world's most original research scientists.

>I guess the original didn't fully express the boundless expanse of his
awesomeness.

> _" Does anyone want to bet as to which will gain self-awareness first:
> Wolfram Alpha or Wolfram, Stephen?"_

[http://chrishecker.com/Kurt_G%C3%B6del_is_Laughing_His_Ass_O...](http://chrishecker.com/Kurt_G%C3%B6del_is_Laughing_His_Ass_Off_Right_Now)

~~~
prepend
He may have the data to make the argument. I suppose if anyone wanted to
measure such things which really shouldn’t be measured, I bet Wolfram has a
compelling case.

------
BucketSort
Say what you want about Wolfram, he's a brilliant guy. Brilliant people often
have strange quirks and egos, but that's just a part of being them. Also, this
account has only posted links about Wolfram. Is it him or an assistant?

~~~
jhall1468
Linus Torvalds is quirky and has an ego. Steven Wolfram is one of the most
arrogant people I've ever read. It comes through in virtually every aspect of
his writing.

It's understood that people who are exceptional smart aren't always socially
pleasant, but Wolfram is trying to raise that bar by quite a bit.

~~~
BucketSort
Could he be autistic or something? Usually people would know how they would be
perceived if they were well socialized. In any case, it doesn't bother me. He
thinks his work is of the utmost importance and wants to be in the annals of
mathematics alongside Newton, Einstein, etc. He won't be, but let him have his
fun. He's at least doing interesting things, unlike these unbearable
celebrities that are incredibly dull, but everyone fawns over. I hereby
transfer the right of ego from the mainstream celebs to the scientists.

~~~
lazyjones
Relevant: [http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/06/you-dont-understand-
ord...](http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/06/you-dont-understand-ordinary-
people.html)

;-)

By the way, he is in the annals of particle physics...

~~~
incognition
Awesome letter, thank you. Feynman was a genius in more than one way. In a
way, all great teachers have the ability to see into us.

------
duado
Why doesn’t someone this wealthy have a “body man” to carry around all this
shit for him?

------
drefanzor
This is the best thing I've read in a long, long time. Mr. Wolfram, how does
it feel to be a god? :D

------
nels0n
To add to comments. This story Is delusional for people knowing wolfram
company. It is known that company has not performed well for a good while ...
I guess this hackernews featured story is trying to reverse trends. If that
was a strategy, people should start looking for new gigs. It is also notorious
that his micromanaging style hasn’t appealed to many employees.

