Snowe · HackerTrans

8 yıl öncediscuss

I started on the Project Euler problems years ago, and like most naive coders I took the brute force route. After discovering the problems have a deeper mathematical basis I decided to start again and learn some math. Wikipedia illustrates with the first problem, the difference in elegance and efficiency knowing some math can make. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Euler

Snowe

8 yıl öncediscuss

I prefer EPUB for most ebooks, but maths books work far better in PDF because mathematical notation gets turned into image files in an EPUB and don't render nearly as nicely.

Snowe

8 yıl öncediscuss

Aside from a moral basis for disagreement, a great number of people do not seem to be able to argue logically, or even civilly. That's nothing new, but I think the ease with which people can get a dose of outrage or confirmation is taking it to another level. If people are being encouraged or even subtly taught to become emotionally aroused faster, logical thinking and mutual understanding becomes harder to reach. It seems to me, more important than ever, that critical thinking needs to be a good part of the education curriculum.

Snowe

8 yıl öncediscuss

I took up mountain biking more seriously two years ago when I was 44. I wondered about the same question you did last year and found similar answers. You're never too old.

Snowe

9 yıl öncediscuss

Ah, iron and copper... 2017 is the year I was completely addicted to Factorio. It's not assembly, though you can program things with logical combinators, it's more like complete systems engineering.

Snowe

9 yıl öncediscuss

Indeed. It brings space v time to the fore as you're "ricering" your solutions, and elegance v maximised kludge.

Snowe

9 yıl öncediscuss

Yep, I was running a beaglebone black doing basic network services from the USB port on my DSL router! Very handy.

Snowe

9 yıl öncediscuss

The fear is that capital will own all the means of production and services and what then of everyone else? Hope UBI is implement? Or perhaps become more self-sufficient? The hype around 3D printing seems to have died down. I guess a lot of grand visions weren't realised and a lot of cheap trinkets printed instead but it still contains an idea that should be nurtured: robotics and AI at the grass roots level. Don't let capital own all the means of sufficiency.

Snowe

9 yıl öncediscuss

"Meta" would be a good name.

Snowe

9 yıl öncediscuss

I stopped after 'Print the relative file paths, one path per line for all files that start with "access.log" in the current directory.' It didn't like my BSD find options.

Snowe

10 yıl öncediscuss

Sometimes it's a good thing. Often it gives me a few moments to pause and realise I really didn't need to read that article anyway.

Snowe

10 yıl öncediscuss

It will require a massive change of mindset. The hard question is how to achieve it in a fair way. There has always been a tension between the freedom of the individual and what's best for society and more broadly all humankind. I don't think people have to give everything up, but there will probably come a time when priorities will have to be re-evaluated and many people will have to live with less in the way of disposable gadgets, mindless entertainment, inefficient transport, over-sized houses etc.. Maybe education is the key, more mindful entertainment, less mindless...

Snowe

10 yıl öncediscuss

The best exercise, for myself, for the "RSI" (tendinosis most likely) in my right forearm is archery with recurve and longbow in particular, not so much with compound.

Any pain I have in it is halved, and it feels much looser and stretched out. And as a bonus my medium distance vision also gets a workout.

I bought a power tower for chinups and pullups earlier this year but unfortunately it contributed to aggravating both my elbows and forearm.

Snowe

10 yıl öncediscuss

To believe in objective morality you've departed from the realm of Empiricism.

One could argue that by appealing to the supernatural one has also departed from the realm of Empiricism.

Snowe

10 yıl öncediscuss

I think what you are trying to say, or what you want to believe, is that for morality to be objective it needs a coercive power behind it. I'm surprised no one has brought up law as an analogy.

There is seemingly no reason for many laws to exist other than the fact that historically it was what humans believed in the past to be right or wrong (eg. sodomy laws). Laws exist because most people agree to abide by them for the most part, because kings or parliament have codified them, and because they are enforced with coercive power. The reason morals exist is because people agreed with them, priests codified them and they are enforced with coercive power (not so much in modern secular society, but softer coercion such as shaming and shunning still exist).

Laws are a social contract enforced with coercive power, I don't see how morals are much different. If you're arguing against those who can't see the gap between Is and Ought, that is fine, but I suspect most people have accepted and moved on from there once they realise it, and yet they still behave in moral ways for the most part.

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