--- /dev/null
+---
+postid: 064
+title: Things that interest me; things that don't interest me
+date: September 12, 2017
+author: Lucian Mogoșanu
+tags: asphalt
+---
+
+Like any person aspiring to [humanity][humanity], I have interests --
+not in the "oh, I like picking flowers and listening to grasshoppers"
+sense, although those kinds of interests aren't any less important than
+my professional interests related to computing, which are the subject of
+this article; and certainly not in the "oh, I like web programming, but
+in the back-end, and with Java and Go" sense. If you're reading this,
+there's a chance that you're looking at the prospect of hiring me or
+doing business with me in some other manner. In this case, you'll find
+that I'm very picky, and pointedly (I know I'm repeating myself) not in
+the "I like only PHP and MySQL" sense, but in a sense that may prove to
+be considerably more irritating to you.
+
+I have described my philosophy on computer engineering on more than one
+occasion[^1], so if you've read this blog before, then you should be
+acquainted with it. Assuming however that you're not, read on.
+
+Let us enumerate the **negatives** first: I believe that the field of
+computing -- including the branch of mathematics known as computer
+science and the branch of engineering known as
+computer/[software engineering][software-engineering-iii] -- has gone
+horribly wrong. The human race has amassed a somewhat limited amount of
+knowledge in the last few millenia; yet the size of computer systems
+keeps growing and, moreover, academic papers keep getting published on
+various related subjects. This means only that the level of noise in the
+areas of computer industry and science is continuously increasing, not
+even accounting for the fact that information and knowledge are in
+general not equivalent. This is the thesis, and it's not really up for
+debate.
+
+This having been said, I am not interested in adding to the pile of
+nonsense; firstly because the market already contains very capable
+people doing this; and secondly because I firmly believe that this
+approach won't improve the understanding of current issues, quite the
+contrary in fact. I might be interested in taking away from the pile,
+much like searching through trash may in principle yield useful items,
+but adding anything is not on my to-do list.
+
+Moreover, I am not interested in contributing to the current
+[academic hogwash][academic-hogwash] machinery. I believe written
+communication to be very important, yet most academic writing is done
+for all the wrong purposes, i.e. publishing targets, and not from any
+clearly distinguishable causes. The solution to this problem is simple:
+I have a personal blog that will remain public for the foreseeable
+future, and I otherwise don't see much value in feeding publishing
+businesses.
+
+As for the **positives**: I firmly believe that engineering -- including
+programming, building electronic circuits or what have you -- as an
+intellectual activity consists firstly of reading, understanding and
+taking apart that which does not adhere to proper specification, and
+only then specifying and implementing in a very precise manner. In any
+case, any sane result of implementation can itself only be a product to
+be read, understood, verified and fit-in-head.
+
+Thus I am interested primarily in understanding and acting from that
+understanding, and pointedly not towards imagined things. I am
+interested in building technology inasmuch as it can be proven
+[unambiguously useful][tools]; and I am interested in building scholarly
+items that build upon the classics and that future generations can use
+to build upon. I am interested in teaching these items to others; and
+more, some of which delve into the esoteric, but that you will have to
+find out by asking.
+
+Things that may deter me from making business with you: mainly your
+ideological inclinations. That is, "agile" "team"work forms without
+substance, [marketing][marketing] buzzwords and
+[politically correct][political-correctness] attempts at
+brainwashing. Also, your lack of a trustable [GPG key][pgp]. Things that
+in principle encourage me to make business with you: mainly your money,
+which make the substance of any business relation more so than
+"excitement", "fulfillment" and any other concocted nonsense. There is
+of course much more to it than that, but this "more to it" is built in
+time, which decides my skin in your game based on how sane your business
+is -- primarily "sane", not "exciting", nor "changing the world", etc.
+
+Skills that I have which you might find valuable: I can communicate in
+probably any programming language you know, but I don't think this is
+very relevant. I am a systems guy, thus you will rather want me poking
+at implementations and specs, reading, understanding and reverse
+engineering computer systems. If we're to work together, you will very
+likely gain a lot from my disagreeing with you, regardless of whether
+I'm wrong or not, and trying to reach "consensus" will most likely lead
+you nowhere (in general).
+
+This about sums up my professional interests and non-interests for the
+next ten years or so. What now?
+
+[^1]: I.e. most articles on [technical][tech] topics, highlights
+ including [the myth of "software engineering"][software-engineering]
+ series, the post about [the usefulness of tools][tools], the one on
+ [formal "verification"][reversing-lists], the ones about
+ [trust][trust] and [security][security], and others.
+
+ You probably haven't read any of the items mentioned above and it's
+ likely that you are too busy to do so. Sadly, this says more of your
+ intellectual maturity (or lack thereof) than my inclination towards
+ throwing words on a paper. But who am I to judge.
+
+ Anyway, you could at least bother to look at my [CV][about].
+
+[humanity]: /posts/y01/032-your-worth-to-humanity.html
+[tech]: /tags/tech.html
+[software-engineering]: /posts/y02/03c-the-myth-of-software-engineering.html
+[tools]: /posts/y03/052-on-the-unambiguous-usefulness-of-tools.html
+[reversing-lists]: /posts/y03/057-reversing-lists.html
+[trust]: /posts/y03/059-the-problem-of-trust.html
+[security]: /posts/y02/04a-on-security.html
+[about]: http://lucian.mogosanu.ro/about
+[software-engineering-iii]: /posts/y03/04e-the-myth-of-software-engineering-iii.html
+[academic-hogwash]: /posts/y02/045-academic-hogwash.html
+[marketing]: /posts/y02/043-on-the-failure-of-marketing.html
+[political-correctness]: /posts/y01/02e-on-the-inherent-harmfulness-of-political-correctness.html
+[pgp]: http://lucian.mogosanu.ro/about/pgp.html
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