I was left out when FED was founded. Therefore I think the USD is a Ponzi scheme and I don't want any part in it.
No really, this actually applies to any modern national currency. Money is created as debt out of nothing, but in order to pay back the debt, you need to do some actual work. In other words, to keep the system running it leeches off your real investment.
It it hadn't been for Bitcoin, I probably wouldn't have learned half of what I know about traditional money/banking/finance.
Texting, (and e-mailing, and web surfing, and just letting your thoughts drift) is ok if the meeting is boring enough:-) At our place of work lots of people do this, even older ones, if the meeting's dullness justifies it... (and can be construed as a discrete way of letting the chairperson know..., hehe)
I see what you mean -- texting, email, web etc. are fundamentally discrete. Talking on the phone during a meeting used to be indiscrete, but these newfangled digital networks like GSM...
Also, if the information in question is particularly sensitive, you say "ssh", that way it's both discrete and discreet, just like Honest Bender's Dating Service.
I don't mean to imply that achieving optical interconnect (or optical transistor equivalents) will be easy, I'm just saying that it has promise to remove many of the current performance limits.
According to this thing I just Googled, "math" actually predates "maths". Before that, it was "math.", with a period to note that it was an abbreviation.
IMHO, "maths" makes sense when used as an abbreviation of mathematics, and "math" in cases like "math formula".
Personally, I find the "ths" sound difficult to wrap my tongue around.
Me too, I often confuse it with "mass", especially when said by native speakers. Foreign language students seem to care about the separate "th" and "s" sounds, even if the result is much less fluent. (Similarly, I think saying "sixth" as "sikth" sounds weird.)
"and a color inkjet with a solid flatbed scanner for copying music"
How do you copy music with a flatbed scanner?
Presumably, this refers to musical notation, aka sheet music. I've never really understood this usage though, it's confusing enough with different meanings already. In Finnish, the informal term for sheet music is basically like "notation", so it's clearly different from the sound waves in air (which, IMHO, is the core meaning of "music").
Consider how VHS beat Beta (aside from the "having Porn" aspect). Consider how many of Sony's other proprietary formats failed to take off because a cheaper, "technically inferior" alternative exists. DAT, MiniDisc, "Sony Dynamic Digital Sound", ATRAC, HiFD... the world is uncompromising.
IMHO, DAT would have been technically very nice for its time, but it was hampered by the copyright mafia's insistence on copy management.
Minidisc, likewise, would have been nice in many technical senses as a replacement for floppies for general data storage, though I guess its limitations were put in by Sony itself.
LyX for reports and paper writing, with some raw LaTeX sprinkled in. I have a short python script that can merge multiple documents so I don't have extremely long bulks of content.
\input{file.tex} is your friend, it's basically the latex equivalent of the include statement in many languages. It's particularly nice if you have a simulation, gnuplot etc. generating a splash of latex that you want to integrate in the full paper.
Common wisdom is that people with ADD and ADHD can't pay attention, but this isn't true. We pay attention to things we find rewarding (which generally does not include things that their teachers and parents want them to pay attention to).
The solution is helping people with ADD/ADHD find rewards where they might not have found them on their own.
Nice summary. I think the latter bit is particularly important -- it's possible to get interested in something you didn't use to find interesting.
I sometimes think I have some level of borderline ADH?D, as I have done well academically, but I find most real-life work unbearable. I have basically given up on an academic research career, since I don't work well in an office. At the moment I'm back at the university doing undergraduate studies, which is strangely enjoyable. Listening to a lecture is great fun, it's the perfect thing to focus on. (Meanwhile, some students are chatting etc. and missing the whole lecture, and they have to try and study the material later -- what a waste of time, especially if you have any kind of student life.)
In fact, I believe happiness is all about focus. The problem is that it's hard to focus if you're not interested. One reason we enjoy sex is because it is something you'll do with 100% focus, and you forget about everything else for a while. Obviously, it's not so enjoyable if your mind is wandering.
Meditation is, in a way, the ultimate way to enjoy a focused activity, but also one of the hardest, as there is little or no actual activity to get you into focus. However, it's possible to get into pretty much the same state via other, focused activities. Basically, if you get into a flow state, you can let go of the other activity and just enjoy the concentration itself.
So what does this have to do with working life? In my experience, there are very few jobs that encourage focused work. Even academic research has become this huge mess of constant social interactions, and a political quest for better positions and grants. I spent a few years as a science teacher, which turned out surprisingly nice for my philosophy; my job was to get people into an enjoyable state of focus for 1-2 hours at a time, and the preparations etc. outside lessons I could do when and where I felt like. OTOH, it is quite taxing as a heavy social activity, and it might be a while before I get back.
Oh, algebra is very much useful for programming. But not the "x+2=4, what is x?" kind but rather the modern algebra kind (I'm in a constant state of being awestruck by the American high school math terminology time and again.)
I think the terminology problem is the same everywhere, at least in Europe. For example, there's the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra that clearly relates to high-school algebra concepts, but in order to prove it you need either complex analysis or "higher" algebra. I like to call the latter abstract algebra, to highlight the fact that you're not necessarily dealing with "ordinary" numbers, but rather the abstract rules of computation. Also, I'm sure this is another case where language changes and we need to deal with it -- consider whether the ancient Arab mathematicians, from who we get terms like algorithm and algebra, would have foreseen all these modern expansions.
Slashdot Mirror
I was left out when FED was founded. Therefore I think the USD is a Ponzi scheme and I don't want any part in it.
No really, this actually applies to any modern national currency. Money is created as debt out of nothing, but in order to pay back the debt, you need to do some actual work. In other words, to keep the system running it leeches off your real investment.
It it hadn't been for Bitcoin, I probably wouldn't have learned half of what I know about traditional money/banking/finance.
Spoken like a true Braun-nosed underling, just following the orders.
Last time I checked, bitcoins don't have actual traces of cocaine, only figurative ones.
real men program so close to hardware
Pfft. Real Men are hardware.
I wrote that on my phone while doing 70 down the freeway. I wasn't driving but be glad there wasn't more grammar problems.
I see what you did there. I'm not giving the slightest smirk, but I acknowledge the humour.
msking calls shows you are paying attention to something other than
spelling.
Texting, (and e-mailing, and web surfing, and just letting your thoughts drift) is ok if the meeting is boring enough :-) At our place of work lots of people do this, even older ones, if the meeting's dullness justifies it... (and can be construed as a discrete way of letting the chairperson know..., hehe)
I see what you mean -- texting, email, web etc. are fundamentally discrete. Talking on the phone during a meeting used to be indiscrete, but these newfangled digital networks like GSM...
Also, if the information in question is particularly sensitive, you say "ssh", that way it's both discrete and discreet, just like Honest Bender's Dating Service.
I don't mean to imply that achieving optical interconnect (or optical transistor equivalents) will be easy, I'm just saying that it has promise to remove many of the current performance limits.
I see what you did there.
According to this thing I just Googled, "math" actually predates "maths". Before that, it was "math.", with a period to note that it was an abbreviation.
IMHO, "maths" makes sense when used as an abbreviation of mathematics, and "math" in cases like "math formula".
Personally, I find the "ths" sound difficult to wrap my tongue around.
Me too, I often confuse it with "mass", especially when said by native speakers. Foreign language students seem to care about the separate "th" and "s" sounds, even if the result is much less fluent. (Similarly, I think saying "sixth" as "sikth" sounds weird.)
Finland is a Hyppocracy.
"and a color inkjet with a solid flatbed scanner for copying music" How do you copy music with a flatbed scanner?
Presumably, this refers to musical notation, aka sheet music. I've never really understood this usage though, it's confusing enough with different meanings already. In Finnish, the informal term for sheet music is basically like "notation", so it's clearly different from the sound waves in air (which, IMHO, is the core meaning of "music").
Consider how VHS beat Beta (aside from the "having Porn" aspect). Consider how many of Sony's other proprietary formats failed to take off because a cheaper, "technically inferior" alternative exists. DAT, MiniDisc, "Sony Dynamic Digital Sound", ATRAC, HiFD... the world is uncompromising.
IMHO, DAT would have been technically very nice for its time, but it was hampered by the copyright mafia's insistence on copy management.
Minidisc, likewise, would have been nice in many technical senses as a replacement for floppies for general data storage, though I guess its limitations were put in by Sony itself.
LyX for reports and paper writing, with some raw LaTeX sprinkled in. I have a short python script that can merge multiple documents so I don't have extremely long bulks of content.
\input{file.tex} is your friend, it's basically the latex equivalent of the include statement in many languages. It's particularly nice if you have a simulation, gnuplot etc. generating a splash of latex that you want to integrate in the full paper.
Lorentz Pffft! I use fast Fourier transform
Thus putting the "fft" in "Pffft!". Personally, I prefer the Lorentz–Lorenz equation for these things.
Nope, as shown by girls on bridges and tall buildings.
will the pixels wait for the first post?
Bluetooth.... you saw me standing alone...
As a physics teacher, I think I see what the problem with the cords is...
This is why I generally skip every physics article on /..
In the future, we'll be using a CPU socket called USB 17. It has nothing to do with USB 1...16, but baby, it's USB!
Why don't they standardize the audio jacks? Very confusing with the American 1/8 inch thing while we in Europe have a 3,5mm version
I wish we could even standardise (sic) it across Europe. Some places use 3.5 mm and others use 3,5 mm.
If you like reveal codes, you will want to marry and have children with LaTeX.
Common wisdom is that people with ADD and ADHD can't pay attention, but this isn't true. We pay attention to things we find rewarding (which generally does not include things that their teachers and parents want them to pay attention to).
The solution is helping people with ADD/ADHD find rewards where they might not have found them on their own.
Nice summary. I think the latter bit is particularly important -- it's possible to get interested in something you didn't use to find interesting.
I sometimes think I have some level of borderline ADH?D, as I have done well academically, but I find most real-life work unbearable. I have basically given up on an academic research career, since I don't work well in an office. At the moment I'm back at the university doing undergraduate studies, which is strangely enjoyable. Listening to a lecture is great fun, it's the perfect thing to focus on. (Meanwhile, some students are chatting etc. and missing the whole lecture, and they have to try and study the material later -- what a waste of time, especially if you have any kind of student life.)
In fact, I believe happiness is all about focus. The problem is that it's hard to focus if you're not interested. One reason we enjoy sex is because it is something you'll do with 100% focus, and you forget about everything else for a while. Obviously, it's not so enjoyable if your mind is wandering.
Meditation is, in a way, the ultimate way to enjoy a focused activity, but also one of the hardest, as there is little or no actual activity to get you into focus. However, it's possible to get into pretty much the same state via other, focused activities. Basically, if you get into a flow state, you can let go of the other activity and just enjoy the concentration itself.
So what does this have to do with working life? In my experience, there are very few jobs that encourage focused work. Even academic research has become this huge mess of constant social interactions, and a political quest for better positions and grants. I spent a few years as a science teacher, which turned out surprisingly nice for my philosophy; my job was to get people into an enjoyable state of focus for 1-2 hours at a time, and the preparations etc. outside lessons I could do when and where I felt like. OTOH, it is quite taxing as a heavy social activity, and it might be a while before I get back.
ARMv9 is better than any of this.
My ARM goes to 11
Gotta hand it to you.
Oh, algebra is very much useful for programming. But not the "x+2=4, what is x?" kind but rather the modern algebra kind (I'm in a constant state of being awestruck by the American high school math terminology time and again.)
I think the terminology problem is the same everywhere, at least in Europe. For example, there's the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra that clearly relates to high-school algebra concepts, but in order to prove it you need either complex analysis or "higher" algebra. I like to call the latter abstract algebra, to highlight the fact that you're not necessarily dealing with "ordinary" numbers, but rather the abstract rules of computation. Also, I'm sure this is another case where language changes and we need to deal with it -- consider whether the ancient Arab mathematicians, from who we get terms like algorithm and algebra, would have foreseen all these modern expansions.