Technical Infrastructure

There. That got your attention, didn't it?

Technical Infrastructure - so much glamour, so much pizazz. I literally work in a basement and I'm occasionally fed ramen, because this is what technical infrastructure guys do. I'm the chief technical officer of Johnson Manor and doer of all things technical in nature - like webmastering, and putting up the odd TV sometimes.

(What the heck is webmastering? Really?)

I'm a firm believer that there isn't a thing we could do that we couldn't completely arse up with a computer. For all problems my solution is to utterly overdo it with a computer. That means I have a lot of philosophy built up on how we should do things with computers, and how we mustn't do things with computers, and sometimes the answer is really is "don't use a computer". The thing that makes me good at them is knowing when not to use them.

And that's part of the fun of being the CTO of Johnson Manor - I can overbuild something and try to explain it to someone. If they glaze over then I'll know I've overcooked it. That means I did my job wrong. Important to know that. Why do they let me be the CTO and not my brother? The answer is, he doesn't care for it really. They let me call myself the CTO possibly because they trust me running around with screwdrivers. Is that wise? I'm not sure. I sometimes run around with my hair on fire too, but that's okay because that stuff gets my engine running, y'know. I'm weird like that.

I have a lot of philosophy about computers. I like to know what they're doing, and what the state of the art is. I like to know what the most powerful computer is, but I also like to know what the cheapest and most versatile computer is.

The Most Important Computer In The Entire World

Is probably an Amazon EC2 T4g.nano instance. Why? Because they're freakin' cheap to run and can do basically anything a computer should be expected to do. The best computer to own is not to own one at all - just let IT sort that garbage out.

This means you're committing to some things that you're probably not familiar with. For a start, you're not running on any Intel silicon. The Graviton CPU is designed by Amazon, the same people that deliver your bread and cheese. If that sounds a bit weird it's because it is.

Graviton is an ARM based architecture, which is the product of ARM holdings - a British company. Surprising huh? Most of the world runs on American parts and American designs but the actual design of the chips that really run the world right now is actually British.

But all of this is only going to matter if you're the one making the stuff for the computer. There's another person involved here that it's worth considering - the person using the computer. In that regard we're going to have to try again...

The Most Important Computer In The Entire World

Nobody cares!

And this is the core of the problem, and it's the solution. I used to be so concerned about having the best computer. I've built HUGE computers, I've worked on really freakin' expensive computers, and there's the big problem with that. The more expensive the computer is, the more careful you are. I don't want to be careful, I want to be productive.

This is the peril of having an opinion. The more we have opinions about something, the more we feel inclined to defend those opinions. We stage turf wars and fight about who is right. We start competitions to see who can be the biggest jerk. In the end a computer is not what it is - a computer is what it does. It computes. A computer that does nothing is of no use to anybody.

That doesn't mean computers don't matter. Of course they do! The key is that I don't care what it is as long as it can do the job I'm asking it to do. If it can't? Then it's not useful to me. This is all getting very Machiavellian now, and that's the right way to treat a computer.

So now you know that you're talking to someone that cares very much about not caring about computers, wouldn't it be interesting to see what they would build? Take a look around here and you'll see what I build. It's both very useful, and it's all very useless at the same time...

For questions, email the webmaster at webmaster@johnson-manor.com.

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