Ghosts of Xmas past

It has been some time since my last blog post, but this is more a reflection of my philosophies than inabilities. It has been a very many years since I started blogging and it has largely been my belief that I’ve only ever blogged when I’ve had something to say. Not necessarily important to all audiences, or for that matter any audience outside of m head. And I’m sure that if I ever bothered to read through some past posts it would be surely cringe-worthy.

But lately, as the grips of genuine adulthood take their hold, I find myself with little to write about. As time goes by, more and more the days blur into one, with each individual day being exactly the same. Get up, go to work, disaster management with an emphasis on putting out fires faster than they start, go home. Sleep. Rinse. Wash. Repeat.

Do not confuse this with a complaint. I love what I do. I am good at my job, and that in turn brings me great joy from my work. And while, yes, I’ve known for some time that there is little else in my life, at least I can wrap myself up in my work.

This Xmas however, I’ve met up and chatted to many ghosts of my much younger self. And admittedly the only ones that I’ve met up with are childless and by-and-large unmarried, but adulthood has brought with it a lack of anything. Apathy. Melancholy. A general acceptance that all they have is all that they are going to have. From now until the foreseeable future - perhaps even as far as retirement.

Persons that have previously been to me beacons of drive and ambition, the sort that were going to change or run the planet, have all but fizzled away into shadows of their former selves. And so long as they are happy then I wish them the best, but I hate to see people use anything less than their potential. And so it is with sadness for the collective potential of society I wish them the best.

The most many could offer were tails of seeing an Olympic event or getting the time and funds for perhaps an holiday.

Again, this is not meant to be a criticism. It just seems to be an awakening. And sure, I knew it was going to happen. People were always going to grow old. They were always going to find someone, marry and likely entertain the notion of children. It was always going to happen. I was just simply not aware that it would happen to so many, so fast, collectively.

I guess its simply a sign of the times. I am getting old and I myself am nothing but wrapped up into the world of adulthood. It was naive of me to expect that my old friends would be doing anything but the same as I. But such is the way of naivety, the more interesting question is that of: am I trying to still grasp my youth through others?

Boot note: I have consciously taken to using Xmas. Though I recognise that I have Christian morals from having been raised in a largely Christian society, being agnostic (which extends as far as Christ) and recognising the multicultural world we live in I refer to the period as Xmas whilst Christians can still retain their claim to Christmas.


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

[^1:] http://morganbye.net/ghosts-of-xmas-past [^2:] http://morganbye.net/2012/12/ghosts-of-xmas-past) [^3:] http://morganbye.net/uncategorized/2012/12/ghosts-of-xmas-past/

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EasyRefiner

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?