Fabrice is amazing. The amount of stuff this guy has built is utterly incredible.
If I built any one of the things he's built (ffmpeg, qemu, tinyc) I would never stop bragging about it. Instead, he just keeps hacking on other cool stuff.
Fabrice is amazing. The amount of stuff this guy has built is utterly incredible.
If I built any one of the things he's built (ffmpeg, qemu, tinyc) I would never stop bragging about it. Instead, he just keeps hacking on other cool stuff.
Yeah why don't we learn what he wants and just give it to him, in return he'll properly rewrite all the broken shit we have. Phones, operating systems, desktop environments, countries, appstores, etc.
I can imagine he wouldn't be interested in any of that. The joy of hacking only emerges when there are no external demands. That's why work sucks and you need to pay people to work for your demands.
Yup. I can't even enjoy hacking if the taskmaster is MYSELF
Yes! I'm looking for ways to trick myself or otherwise convince myself to make progress on any of the bazillion totally awesome ideas I keep accumulating. Or one of the many projects I start and abandon midway
Sounds like you need an Alex Horne.
This is literally a brilliant idea. This guy needs a Macarthur grant now. Even if he rewrites half of all the broken shit we have, (and takes all of 20 years to do it) the world will be a better place. Except for _ which will always be a ___ hole.
There's enough money on HN (the demographics) that some wealthy benefactors in a WhatsApp group could just donate it to him. No excuses, get behind ICs.
Of course, back in Renaissance days it was the ICs/artists job to court benefactors -- though sometimes they did approach unsolicited.
Maybe he already has patronage but he doesn't want to flash it around...
Redmond.
This guy should have had a Macarthur grant a decade ago.
The list of brilliant stuff he has done is longer than my arm, and I have long arms.
Just writing a comment here to support this idea as much as I can on HN.
I also upvoted all the comments mentioning that he should have a grant. In my opinion, he really should have.
As I understand, he was born in France, so probably a French national. According to Wiki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacArthur_Fellows_Program), he needs to be a citizen or resident of the US to qualify. Bummer. Better idea: Get some crypto-bros to donate 5-10B USD in Bitcoin into a foundation so we can create the international version.
> in return he'll properly rewrite all the broken shit we have
Probably that's exactly what he doesn't want.
Wait, countries?
A lot of countries picked the low hanging fruit but the trees are very tall.
When making an application one should look from the user perspective.
Say you want to start a business. You edit the profile page, check the entrepreneur box, it goes into a kind of supper pursuit mode with menus folding out, you fill out the company name, >>click<< the button to generate a bank number, a tax number, a registration number, a phone number, a domain name, hosting, etc If you sell something it goes into the bank account and sales tax or vat is subtracted. You press the add employee button, pick a standard contract and fill out the hours per week. Salaries will come out of your government bank account with income tax subtracted automatically. The generated website lists your products and services and is aggregated into a complete country-wide db with everything in it and a glorious search interface. Investors can log in on the website automatically. Upload the business plan if you have one so that AI can give you free money.
Real estate listings pop up, the right machines to buy, office equipment, potential employees...
An agenda is generated with a list of people the AI thinks you should be talking to. Check the box to plan the appointments.
Add music, sound effects and animations to everything as if we are 5 years old.
I love this guy. Half of the world's android development has been made easier due to his courtesy, and it's getting more (his qemu is ubiquitous)
100% agree, would like to meet that guy one day
Please - anyone - announce a talk he is going to give. I would listen to him. I just heard Vint Cerf speak on martian probe networking.
I know what I’m listening to when I wake up
I know for a fact that ppl are serious on hn when they post in their sleep without any fanfare whatsoever
Also the same person who wrote LZEXE, which might be familiar to people who used DOS.
I'd love to know how he chooses what to work on. I wonder if he just follows his interest?
Don't forget VLC! Probably his most well-known project.
I think you mean FFmpeg
i thought it's Jean Baptiste Kempf ?
You are right, I have my Frenchies mixed up.