Debugreality

Great article, as I'm a bit of an old hat myself I'd like to add a few extra categories -

Knows how to handle not knowing or getting stuck - some people have a melt down or won't ask for help when they hit a wall or don't know when to push back (we had a vendor that gave us buggy code but kept claiming it wasn't until we pushed back through our management and forced them to let us see the code).

Can visualise the program - how much of a program someone can hold in their head is the only thing I've really seen make a programmer exceptional. It is rare and I've only met a couple of people that can hold a medium sized program in their head, the whole thing this ability lets them basically just vomit it all out into the editor without having to switch between functional and structural context and really does make for a big productivity bonus (maybe as much as 4x).

I've struggled so much with video games over the years. I have probably spent a significant percentage of my life playing a huge variation of games. By far the most destructive was MMORPG (Dofus) because it meets so many desires at once and can be engaging for so many years (reaching max level on this game was a multi year journey). Others can be finished or played enough to satisfy and allow me to come up for air, like a good book or TV series they all eventually finish no matter how engaged you might be for a short period.

I've also found different games appeal at different times, I think they each answer different desires and I can often guess what I'm lacking by the kind of game I want to play - achievement, confidence, socialising, artistic outlet, aggressive outlet etc..

Perhaps in this way we can use games to realise things that we are lacking in our life so to find more constructive outlets or better life balance - or perhaps games are a beneficial occasional outlet for things like aggression.

I noticed Musk tentatively mention nuclear - I think that's because it will be the only logical way to generate enough power to support a city in such an inhospitable climate. There is going to be a huge and ongoing energy need just to survive.

Unless we build a battery/solar panel factory there is no way solar is going to cut it.

I agree, I've been thinking about this issue myself quite a bit.

If decisions are recorded and perhaps represented in more simplistic terms then the process of choosing a proxy can be simply comparing a proxies past votes to ones own votes over a number of decisions and finding one or more matches - making choosing a proxy a simple multi choice process.

I have a side project that I use to solve this problem. It creates your own reference that is downloaded and searchable locally for instant results. https://www.cof8.com

There is also I think an issue with enough content for free. At some point there is enough free games in a genre or enough free information on a topic that only people very passionate about the genre or topic will be willing to pay.

I'd suggest the fault is more with the police than the hospital... If police drop someone off and assert she claims to own a BMW but does not, claims to have a bank job and does not, then the hospital would have to assume she is delusional about those facts and make a diagnosis on that assumption.

My first thought is there is a lot of material up there that is going to just burn up in the atmosphere at some point. Would be nice to collect it all together for some later use?

Maybe some kind of solar sail salvage drone could do it.

Steam punk, space stations cobbled together from bits of old rockets and satellites.

It's much easier to believe abstractly or understand the problem from afar.

In Australia we have a lot of advertising to highlight the dangers of disasters to try and counter this psychological phenomena.

I expect people will continue to try and work around the symptoms of global warming long before they start to work towards a real viable solution.

This one is really embarrassing. I started a new job for a small company as the only developer with the aim of creating a new site for them. So they gave me full access to their very small technology stack that included one Mssql server.

So one of the first things I wanted to do was setup a development db for which I exported the structure from their prod db. I then proceeded to change the name of the create database statement at the top to the new dev db I wanted and ran the script.

Unfortunately the prod db name was still pretended to every drop and create table command in the script so I had just replaced their whole prod db with an empty one.

Owning up to that was one of the most embarrassing moments of my career. It was such a rookie mistake I just wanted to die. Luckily they had daily backups so I only cost their 4 man business about half a day of work but... it was enough for me to be a much more careful developer from that day forward!

I watched this story on the news this morning when I woke up was rather ammusing - Breaking news "Kate and William plan to visit Australia in 5 months. And by the way Scientists discover how to reverse ageing."

Glad they have their priorities straight because you know Science is just that thing those geeks do...

I agree, virtual worlds, offshore workers, telepresence and many other new technologies are creating a new global culture that is already beginning to clash with the concepts of countries and governments.

Perhaps a starting point may be the rise of global political parties that can work together across multiple countries?

This is the approach I'm attempting to take with Cof8 - https://www.cof8.com/private

It's in beta at the moment but I've found tags and list work really well for super fast searching.

I found this site interesting for more information: http://www.openexoplanetcatalogue.com/system.html?id=KOI-351...

The star is about the same size as sol so it might be possible to live on some of the moons of the edge planet if we ever got there.

What I found most interesting about this was the the concept of success changed over time. Success seems to be deeply personal and is perhaps a reflection of a deeply personal fear.

In our society the fear of not having enough money seems to be very prevalent thus often success is tied directly to the concept of having enough money because it is a fear a lot of people share.

In this light perhaps the path to success is just a way of working through our fears.

The interesting question then becomes what does success look like to the person who no longer has any fears. Perhaps then success is motivated by compassion?

If you have travel insurance and most people do be sure to check if it covers rental cars as this is often a far cheaper option and already included so no point paying for insurance twice.

Very insightful for me the most interesting part was near the end where it outlines -

"The most significant journalists and whistleblowers in the world (that) are either political exiles, political prisoners, or the targets of criminal investigations by an overreaching security state."

Many of these I had heard of but many more I had not... It's a little chilling honestly.

It wouldn't have to be a full time task but could be inserted into a game to provide a change to the flow. For example putting together an iphone from pieces found in an old cardboard box while zombies are trying to break in the door you just locked. This is kind of like the use of in game advertising in that when done well it doesn't actually detract from the game but adds to it.

I created a kind of micro discussion/decision making system that didn't generate much interest from people I talked to and perhaps shares a flaw with this concept.

Basically if you look at what people use text for online it usually isn't anything serious, even these discussions don't have all that much gravity and HN is probably the most serious site I've seen.

Text also has less emotion and involvement attached and I think a lot of people won't connect with a text based system like this or won't feel comfortable contributing.

An idea for a way to feed peoples passions would be some kind of automatically generated video conference setup to split people into random think tank groups based on availability for each policy they indicate they want to be part of. Then perhaps one person, presumable someone that indicates they feel comfortable writing could contribute on behalf of their group to the text based policy page.

Success is easy to sell as it is most often what someone believes they need. Perhaps it masks a flaw in their character.

The example in the article relates to money but success to a lonely man may be love. Perhaps success means only that which we most feel we need to be complete.

I'm most interested in pushing this technology forward so we can use it on the moon or on mars. I think the moon would be a much more attractive destination if they had a few nice big gardens growing up there...

Better luck next time guys. Unfortunately they don't always work out. Nice exit note.

Game development and game related development is pretty tough market to crack unfortunately.

Here is an interesting startup idea that may be a step towards a solution.

Setup an organization that gives a tick of approval similar to ISO quality standards but for NSA Free software. It would involve selling your logo to business that meet a defined list of processes and practices to harden their software against 3rd party spying and security flaws.

Then you can preform audits and sell your logo on a yearly basis to businesses around the globe.

Hi looks cool but might be too technical for most people.

Perhaps you can keep it much simpler and have a link to technical details at the bottom. Many people probably don't know what "Encrypt client side" or Expires in x actually means. To that end you might want a really simple 3 step explanation of how to use it.

Or maybe you could have an "Advanced" mode with these options.

Firebase looks awesome and would be great for something I'm working on. The first thing I did was check if it was based in America then decide not to use it.

They are synchronizing your data so it's all going through their servers.

I think it's a great idea, unfortunately I won't be using it.

Here is something I wrote on this previously -

Once upon a time I thought I was lazy. I'd sit in front of my computer at work with the intention of working but something inside me just wouldn't let me. It would make me feel so guilty and bad but no matter how hard I willed myself to work I just couldn't make it happen. This didn't happen all the time, sometimes I'd get caught up in my job and not have any problems. But it happened often enough that it was a constant weight on my shoulders.

It turned out to be more a lack of encouragement and work ethic from my childhood. It was a defense mechanism, it was a way of rebelling and trying to get attention. Unfortunately it didn't fit into my adult life at all!

Many of us have old defence mechanisms and some of the most destructive ones block our drive and inner motivation.

Maybe we got spoiled as a kid, never having to do any work for ourselves so never learning the satisfaction of a job well done. We associate work with something lower people do, maids, gardeners etc. But doing daily tasks can be one of the most rewarding parts of the day.

Since I can't seem to find any good links related to this I'll go into some more details on what worked for me.

Basically whenever I come across a block from something I learnt as a child I use visualisation to relive what I would have preferred to learn. We can all do this, go somewhere comfortable where you can relax and won't be disturbed as this might bring up some strong emotions.

Now imagine back to the time when your defence behaviour was forming, when you are little. Spend some time getting this idea clear in your mind. Feel little again. Now imagine another you as you are today with your current understanding of things meeting that younger you. Now what advise would you tell your younger self, imagine your younger self views you like a big brother or sister. Let the conversation flow naturally. Repeat until you can feel your unconscious attitudes begin to shift.

The reason this technique really helps us is because behaviours we learned as children arn't based on logic so simply understanding why you should be doing something better doesn't get to that unconscious belief. The unconscious needs to feel that emotional caring guidance to re-learn it's behaviours. Guidance from someone you trust implicitly. By doing this visualisation we are becoming our own parent in a way and that lets us re-learn these early lessons.

Having read a lot of the comments here there seems to be two main thoughts. That depression isn't something that can be beaten and that it can be beaten.

Personally I think both camps are right, in many of the cases where people have beaten depression I think there is a common element be it Cognitive Behavior Therapy or psychedelics these practices can change your brain. Meditation can also change your brain significantly and this is how I believe I have 'beaten' depression.

So no you can't beat depression without changing your brain and changing your brain can be a risky business and perhaps when you do change your brain you are no longer the you that was depressed...

Looks well thought out, might be easier to target local politics initially.

I've developed http://www.unbaa.com in an effort to increase equality. It's a simple tool for democratic decisions and is unfortunately on the back burner for now.

Happy to discuss concepts so feel free to drop me an email.

I was more referring to a democratic process like - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy

I agree that a loose "flat" organization is prone to serious problems :)