15677 days left to retirement

Well today is week 6, thus day 30 at UEA.  And I gotta say that I’m a bit bored by the whole thing.  Thus far I haven’t really done anything that I would consider to be work. Yes, I’ve built a website and a file server but I’m glad to see that a solid science degree leads to me passing the time by working on IT.  Probably much to the annoyance of JC as I’ve probably done enough IT stuff to make him seriously jealous; as his supposed IT job is seems to be nothing more than a glorified printer tray refiller and mouse connector.  But heyho I guess you gotta start somewhere.  I just wish that I was doing something a little more productive, that said I’m very much grateful that I’ve actually got something going on and that I’m being paid even if it is to do very little.  This morning on the news some more predictions have been released saying that even though the recession is technically over unemployment is set to double…again

Anyway, enough of such depressing things.  Lady E was down on the weekend which means that the weekend was largely spent on the sofa with the occasional trip out for food or to the cinema.  But it does mean that I have now watched season 1 of Life on Mars, cos let’s face it, what else are you going to do on a Saturday.  And the Italian Grand Prix nicely rounded up Sunday, even if Mr Hamilton was a complete fool and pushing himself too hard for no particular reason.

Although if you want a good giggle we have a new series of Jack Osbourne’s Adrenaline Junkies.  This season sees Jack going out with the family.  WHO DOESN’T WANT TO SEE OZZY BUNGIE OUT OF A HELICOPTER?


This page previously appeared on morganbye.net[^1][^2][^3]

[^1:] http://morganbye.net/15677-days-left-to-retirement [^2:] http://morganbye.net/2009/09/15677-days-left-to-retirement) [^3:] http://morganbye.net/blog/?p=31

What distinguishes you from other developers?

I've built data pipelines across 3 continents at petabyte scales, for over 15 years. But the data doesn't matter if we don't solve the human problems first - an AI solution that nobody uses is worthless.

Are the robots going to kill us all?

Not any time soon. At least not in the way that you've got imagined thanks to the Terminator movies. Sure somebody with a DARPA grant is always going to strap a knife/gun/flamethrower on the side of a robot - but just like in Dr.Who - right now, that robot will struggle to even get out of the room, let alone up some stairs.

But AI is going to steal my job, right?

A year ago, the whole world was convinced that AI was going to steal their job. Now, the reality is that most people are thinking 'I wish this POC at work would go a bit faster to scan these PDFs'.

When am I going to get my self-driving car?

Humans are complicated. If we invented driving today - there's NO WAY IN HELL we'd let humans do it. They get distracted. They text their friends. They drink. They make mistakes. But the reality is, all of our streets, cities (and even legal systems) have been built around these limitations. It would be surprisingly easy to build self-driving cars if there were no humans on the road. But today no one wants to take liability. If a self-driving company kills someone, who's responsible? The manufacturer? The insurance company? The software developer?