@HalvarFlake@mastodon.social avatar

HalvarFlake

@HalvarFlake@mastodon.social

I do math. And was once asked by R. Morris Sr. : "For whom?"

Accidental two-time founder. Mathematician by education. Infosec luminary (has-been?).

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HalvarFlake, to random
@HalvarFlake@mastodon.social avatar

Reading my social media posts from spring to summer 2021, when Prodfiler was about to be launched and immediately post-launch:

Man, I was so enthused about the product and the tech.

I still consider having reluctantly agreed to selling it to be the worst decision of my life.

I hope I don't add too many worse ones ;).

HalvarFlake, to random
@HalvarFlake@mastodon.social avatar

Joel Eriksson wrote a python script to make GPT 3.5 play chess against Stockfish at ELO 1700.

That's pretty impressive.
https://github.com/clevcode/skynet-dev

HalvarFlake, to random
@HalvarFlake@mastodon.social avatar

One thing I have learnt over the last years is that - while I am technically pretty solid - I am surprisingly good at product. It's a strange thing to realize as a pretty technical mathematician.

This thread describes what I consider "common-sense product design", because ...
... it turns out that common sense is not all that common.

Ok, so you want to design a good product. Here are the steps:

  1. Create a target demographic / user and buyer persona. This comes absolutely first.
HalvarFlake,
@HalvarFlake@mastodon.social avatar
  1. Identify a few people that match this description. Get to know them.
  2. Listen to them, and try to elicit things that make their lives bad, and their incentive structures. Let. Them. Talk.
  3. Think about what they complained about, and how you could make their lives better. Come up with a hypothesis.
  4. Talk with them about your hypothesis.
  5. Try to convince the group of at least 3-4 different players of your target demographic to have biweekly or monthly meetings with you.
HalvarFlake,
@HalvarFlake@mastodon.social avatar
  1. Your PM and your TL now meet with these folks, and then huddle thereafter to build an interactive mockup of the product you want to build.
  2. The mockup can be a "product-of-dreams", e.g. the product that you'd like to have, even if there are a few details that you do not precisely know how to solve yet. The TL needs to have some confidence they are solvable in finite time/resources though.
HalvarFlake,
@HalvarFlake@mastodon.social avatar

  1. Run the interactive mockup past your 3-4 potential users. Watch how they react. Do they like it? What do they like? Does it solve their problem?

  2. If at least 3 potential users say "this is awesome if you can build it", you may begin the process of implementation.

  3. When you have to make technical trade-offs that compromise the original mock-up, go back to your potential users / design partners, and check with them if the compromise still makes sense to them.

HalvarFlake,
@HalvarFlake@mastodon.social avatar

Now go and execute and then delight users. It is that simple, but it ...
... requires:

  • Listening.
  • Empathy in the sense of "understanding what problem someone is facing".
  • Some insight into organisational incentives on the user side.
  • Some creativity in designing the solution.

This isn't rocket science though.
Make sure your PM and your TL are in constant contact with actual users solving actual problems.

HalvarFlake, to random
@HalvarFlake@mastodon.social avatar

n an interesting discussion I was reminded that the fictional religious framework from the world of darkness RPGs which divides the world into primordial forces of creation (Wyld), order/preservation (Weaver), and destruction (Wyrm) is a surprisingly useful model for many things.

qwertyoruiop, to random
@qwertyoruiop@nso.group avatar

On the other hand, I really feel like what NSO is doing is poisoning the well of offensive security. Mistakes happen even if you try to do your best at avoiding misuse, and NSO has a target on its back, sure, but misuse after misuse after misuse all the while burning capability after capability is not sustainable, both technically and politically, and is ever increasingly impacting legitimate use cases for these items which is a net negative for everyone involved and society as a whole

HalvarFlake,
@HalvarFlake@mastodon.social avatar

@qwertyoruiop almost as if they aren't very good at their job.

HalvarFlake,
@HalvarFlake@mastodon.social avatar

@qwertyoruiop they tied those hands themselves though.

HalvarFlake, to random
@HalvarFlake@mastodon.social avatar

There are a surprising number of things in life that you need to either commit to with all your night, or leave them entirely alone.

HalvarFlake, to random
@HalvarFlake@mastodon.social avatar

Eternal September would be pretty good if it was eternal September in southwest France.

lcamtuf, to random

deleted_by_author

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    HalvarFlake,
    @HalvarFlake@mastodon.social avatar

    @lcamtuf YIOPBY

    HalvarFlake, to random
    @HalvarFlake@mastodon.social avatar

    This is the funniest thing I've seen in weeks.

    HalvarFlake, to random
    @HalvarFlake@mastodon.social avatar

    TFW I've written clever blog posts to get on HN and a random toot makes it.

    isotopp, to random German
    @isotopp@chaos.social avatar

    deleted_by_author

    •
    HalvarFlake,
    @HalvarFlake@mastodon.social avatar

    @isotopp also shows how efficient fat is as energy storage...

    HalvarFlake, to random
    @HalvarFlake@mastodon.social avatar

    Downloading a YouTube video should be just as covered by "fair use" as recording a song from the radio onto cassette was.

    Unfortunately, courts tend to continuously weaken society in the grand bargain between society and copyright holders.

    https://torrentfreak.com/youtube-dl-site-goes-offline-as-hosting-provider-enforces-court-ordered-ban-230809/

    HalvarFlake, to random
    @HalvarFlake@mastodon.social avatar

    Video & transcript of my infoq talk

    https://www.infoq.com/presentations/factors-code-performance/

    HalvarFlake, to random
    @HalvarFlake@mastodon.social avatar

    "Of that total, $6 million went to Ms. Ellison, compared with $587 million for Mr. Singh" -- kinda wild that the gender pay gap is even worse in crypto-fraud-land than in the normal world.

    HalvarFlake, to random
    @HalvarFlake@mastodon.social avatar

    A 2.3bn loan collateralized by Nvidia GPUs.

    What a time to be alive.

    https://www.reuters.com/technology/coreweave-raises-23-billion-debt-collateralized-by-nvidia-chips-2023-08-03/

    HalvarFlake, to random
    @HalvarFlake@mastodon.social avatar

    I just uploaded a 30 page pdf to a service that prints it and sends it as registered mail to a party that'll likely scan it and then process it.

    It's pretty awesome how digital technology makes society more efficient and reduces resource consumption.

    HalvarFlake, to random
    @HalvarFlake@mastodon.social avatar

    I just used ChatGPT for something useful for the first time, and I am somewhat amazed that it can write reasonable regular expressions.

    HalvarFlake, to random
    @HalvarFlake@mastodon.social avatar

    "Updating your priors" is a fancy way to say "I changed my mind, but I'd like to sound mathy because I have the self-image of being rational - and difficulty accepting that I am a fearful angry hungry horny monkey with sophisticated sticks."

    HalvarFlake, to random
    @HalvarFlake@mastodon.social avatar

    "Private equity fund managers are borrowing against asset portfolios to return cash to investors as they struggle to exit investments, adding another layer of debt to the loans financing their corporate buyouts."

    PE funds are starting to look a bit Ponzi-ish?

    HalvarFlake, to random
    @HalvarFlake@mastodon.social avatar

    I have been accused of madness before, but a tool to automatically analyze complex bash pipelines and then auto-parallelizes them to run on large machine clusters would really be quite useful.

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