Waste_2_of_n

title: Waste (2 of n) date: Thu Aug 6 21:05:14 PDT 2009 tags: secondthoughts

Tuesday I wrote (and yesterday I posted):

It's a nice machine, if a bit large for my tastes and a bit cheap-looking. But for the price I can't complain.

which segues nicely into my recent feelings of guilt about my choice of profession. This was prompted by two things:

• Tim O'Reilly's mention of Fake Steve Jobs post entitled "I'm really thinking maybe I shouldn't have yelled at that Chinese guy so much" which is a righteous, needed kick in the ass. You should read it.

• Meeting with a vendor about a possible purchase of a bunch of blades for a small cluster. When I asked him about the possibility of upgrading in a couple years, he shook his head and waved his hand dismissively, saying, "In two years it's toxic waste anyway." This was from a vendor whose website trumpets the fact that their blade chassis still fits almost every blade they've ever made. But he's right.

Right now it seems to me that in a very important sense, the best thing you can say about what I do for a living is that, in geological time scales, it really doesn't matter.

I don't know what the answer is. I'm not entirely sure what the question is. But with the new laptop, and mine back (it had been doing double-duty for the two of us), this is the first chance I've had in a while to spend my commute writing. I missed it.