> Why should I care about efficiency of the underlying process.

Because, as you just said yourself…

> The ultimate resource is human time and effort.

This is a disconnect I don’t think most people appreciate. Developers seem to operate as if Moore’s law will continue forever, that components are infinite, that cloud resources appear and disappear at the snap of their fingers, and that optimization is pointless in an era of excess.

Meanwhile, the actual engineers are building out new data centers to support these fancy prediction machines, supply chains are exploiting labor abroad for the raw materials necessary to power these guessing boxes, and we’re tearing our hair out at developers casually demanding dozens of CPU cores or terabytes of memory for their newest product specifically because they did no optimizations.

Actual humans – millions of them, in and outside of technology fields – are working in concert to support the least optimized software product in human history, just so you can squander water, energy, and land to run inference on a farm of GPUs to output a static website that Microsoft Word could generate in 2003 on a Pentium 4.

Jesus christ I am sick of this nonsensical argument that because something is cheap, it is somehow optimized and/or superior.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44311411

the moon is a thumbprint on a dirty window
the disciples line up outside the bingo
under a neon sign that says ‘hope’
that flashes pink and indigo
character collector, cheerio
you’re not quite a motherfucker
but you’re a mother lovemaker
and we’re not impressed by your boat shoes or your high+vis windbreaker
you can shave your own throat, i’m saving my skin
i don’t know what costume drama you think you’re starring in
i can see right through your cocktail shaker
move along and don’t tell your friends
i’m living to my means by no ends
no story here, closed eyes and no fear
swan diving into thе void for a ten+bag and a half+inched bread bakеr

i’m just trying to get us to the sea, we planned a holiday years ago
i don’t think we’ll last another summer indoors
we’ve been through a lot, you know, but we haven’t seen anything together
we don’t wanna be here forever, we hope to leave before we’re old
the days are getting shorter and the nights are always cold
and the wind whistles bad news through the flapping of the flagpoles

everyday’s a balancing act, tired of living on the branch
trying to find truth and defy fact, like we’re only born to pay bills and dig holes
but that’s the way it is i’m told, i hope to leave before we’re old
the days are getting short and i can’t be alone, let alone be bold
all the eyes are on me and their voices scatter like roaches
they wear their ignorance’s broaches with long and heartless sleeves
i’ve had enough, we’ve got to go
i won’t be k!lled offscreen in the snow
i want to do something before we’re below
standing on the overpass, this is where we bellow
and breathe smoke ‘til it hangs like a painted cloud over england
even though we’ve nothing to do, we’ve nothing to show
we’ve just got to go
we’ve just got to go
we’ve just got to go
we’ve just got to go

dig
dig on down
till you come out of the sky back around
dig, son
dig the ground
you’re gonna bury this motherf+cking town
and everyone that put you down
grit and spite will do you right
if you could make it through the night
so, dig
dig on down
down, down
dig
dig on down
till you come out of the sky back around
dig, son
dig the ground
you’re gonna bury this motherf+cking town
and everyone that put you down
grit and spite will do you right
if you could make it through the night
so, dig
dig on down
down, down

dig
dig on down
till you come out of the sky back around
dig, son
dig the ground
you’re gonna bury this motherf+cking town
and everyone that put you down
grit and spite will do you right
if you could make it through the night
so, dig
dig on down
down, down