People always say that math students don't learn about applications of math.
This was never the case for me. When I learned trig ratios, I always understood some basic things that trig ratios could be used for. The teacher always introduced some applications, we always had a lot of word problems, and I could fill in the gaps myself.
Same for calculus. When I learned calculus, I always understood some things that calculus could be used for.
So I understood how those things could be applied to general, everyday sorts of problems. What was missing, though, was that I had nothing to which I could apply those techniques, besides homework.
Learning math (and reading STEM papers) has become easier for me since I now have actual problems to solve. Don't get me wrong: I'm not solving particularly challenging problems or using particularly advanced math. Nothing that tens of thousands of people haven't done before me. But I do need to understand the problems, solutions, and some of the context in order to successfully implement them. This provides a motivation that was always missing before.
I suspect this general narrative is true for a lot of people: that having an actual problem to solve is almost necessary to get a student to really learn the material, instead of just coasting along for a grade.
I don't see any evidence that this is a "facial recognition system."
It's likely hard to legislate against software that attempts to detect if there is a person, what their expression is, and guesses at their gender.
You could imagine that job being done by a person (just noting how many people stopped at the advertisement, and what their expression was). I don't think there's really a way to make that illegal.
I suppose I think it's something that people should be aware of, though.
I don't understand this attitude. Atom's look/feel/functionality/default keybinds are based on sublime text. Sublime text is a lot faster/more reliable. Atom has a large community building addons for it.
Take your pick. I used atom until I got annoyed by how it choked on large files and crashed semi-frequently.
> I also don't know how an ISP would get your actual internet history if the website uses HTTPS.
Your ISP can (and likely does) monitor your DNS queries, which (as far as I know) are not encrypted.
Personally I think the net neutrality stuff is a tad overblown. I'd vote for maintaining it, but I've never been particularly convinced by the whole "surveillance state/beyond-orwellian/ISP censoring your speech" arguments that get thrown around on HN, among other places.
I think the problems with ISPs are more practical: they overcharge, provide shitty service, have no incentive to upgrade their infrastructure, and clearly collude with one another. Therefore they need to be regulated.
> I don't think its any coincidence that TV and movies show the murderous and thieving side of piracy as to condition us to be appalled by them, in general.
Is this really true? There's a long history of sympathetic portrayals of drug culture, from Trainspotting (novel and movie) to A Scanner Darkly (novel and movie) to Jesus' Son (novel and movie) to Pineapple Express (mainstream movie), and a whole lot more.
the analogy I'd use is driving a car versus sitting in a passenger seat of a car. When I'm a passenger, I never remember the route we took. I retain almost no information about lefts and rights and landmarks. But if I'm driving, I really only have to drive to a place once to remember the way.
Your argument sounds a lot like "criminals will always find a way, no point in gun control." The thing is, that argument can be applied to all laws. Why even have laws? Criminals will always find a way.
Look, I agree that anonymity is important. I agree that the world is better if some things are kept absolutely private, from everyone, to whatever extent is possible. But let's not pretend that there aren't trade-offs.
If "love of money as a possession" is so rare, then how come so many people who have huge amounts of money don't spend it?
Anyway, the general point here is that as you acquire more dollars, the relative value (to you) of a dollar diminishes. That's all the parent post was saying.
It does seems somewhat bizarre to see someone so successful still behave so ruthlessly in order to make money. Of course, that's my snap judgement. Levandowski may not be motivated by money at all. Although I doubt he's motivated by weekend trips to Puerto Rico either.
> When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities into the position of the highest virtues. We shall be able to afford to dare to assess the money-motive at its true value. The love of money as a possession — as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life — will be recognised for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease.
I know plenty of men who lived through that era (and one man who was born 4 years after Feynman) who are not in the slightest bit sexist. Or are at least far too polite to show it.
Feynman was clearly a bit of a prick. It also appears that he behaved rudely toward women [0]. In my opinion, the fact that there were some (significant) negative aspects of his personality doesn't take anything away from what he accomplished, or from the (significant) positive aspects of his personality.
I know a lot of people who found The Road incredibly depressing. But I thought it was optimistic and the most moving thing I've ever read.
I haven't read Blood Meridian yet, but Child of God (another McCarthy novel) definitely lacks the optimism of The Road.
As for this article, I think that the subconscious fascinates almost everyone. The reason we have psychology (in my opinion, of course) is that it's apparent to almost all of us that there's something going on under there.
Everyone has anecdotes like the one mentioned in this article, where a solution to a problem appears in a dream or pops into someone's head immediately after waking.
Some pretty highly regarded economists in the past century have backed up the idea of a land value tax. Does that alone make it a great idea? No, but I think it makes the parent comment seem pretty silly.
I certainly have an opinion, but (like I said) it's not a strong one. I don't understand all the moving pieces and all the incentives involved here, but I'd be interested in seeing some more knowledgeable people talk about the LVT.
I agree that saying they "suffer from illusions" is silly. But the rest of your analysis here seems off.
There's no reason to lionize these people and act like "society rejected them." It's just (comparatively) easy to not work in the modern world, in first world countries, and these people didn't.
This was never the case for me. When I learned trig ratios, I always understood some basic things that trig ratios could be used for. The teacher always introduced some applications, we always had a lot of word problems, and I could fill in the gaps myself.
Same for calculus. When I learned calculus, I always understood some things that calculus could be used for.
So I understood how those things could be applied to general, everyday sorts of problems. What was missing, though, was that I had nothing to which I could apply those techniques, besides homework.
Learning math (and reading STEM papers) has become easier for me since I now have actual problems to solve. Don't get me wrong: I'm not solving particularly challenging problems or using particularly advanced math. Nothing that tens of thousands of people haven't done before me. But I do need to understand the problems, solutions, and some of the context in order to successfully implement them. This provides a motivation that was always missing before.
I suspect this general narrative is true for a lot of people: that having an actual problem to solve is almost necessary to get a student to really learn the material, instead of just coasting along for a grade.