@patio11:
Tarsnap is the world’s best secure online backup service. It’s run by Colin Percival, Security Officer Emeritus at FreeBSD, a truly gifted cryptographer and programmer. I use it extensively in my company, recommend it to clients doing Serious Business (TM) all the time, and love seeing it successful.
It’s because I am such a fan of Tarsnap and Colin that it frustrates me to death. Colin is not a great engineer who is bad at business and thus compromising the financial rewards he could get from running his software company. No, Colin is in fact a great engineer who is so bad at business that it actively is compromising his engineering objectives.
My neck hurts from violently agreeing with the entire article.
But there is more to this story. I know of engineers that don't take care of their health/fitness, dress well, or manage their social lives, and it actively hurts their engineering objectives.
So many engineers are their own worst enemies and they would be a magnitude more effective if they got over their own personal bullshit.
