drcomputer

We need more AI working in the domain of computer security. Stuff that learns under specific guidelines to restrict computational behavior, given specifications of expected behavior.

I love implementing stuff like standardizations. Seriously, I love reading documentation that has lists of codes meant to concisely summarize specific frequently occurring events. I am the biggest nerd when it comes to pouring through documentation that was designed specifically with the intent to unify a common need that started off fractured.

In general though, it's just hard to know exactly when and where to implement what standardization. It's not just HTTP. The entire world of programming and computer science would be much more elegant with intelligent standardization, but it's literally a hard problem. The source of information is the hard problem. It is subject to change.

How can you standardize something that is consistently evolving, evolving to the point that it is expected that the functionality of the system is going to exceed all known expectations of it's operation and behavior? As developers, we are consistently striving to exceed our own boundaries, to do things better, more optimally, more safely, more legibly, more precisely, more correctly. Our expectations of ourselves is what screws us when we think about 'the big picture', because we apply the same model of reasoning to 'the big picture'.

Yes, we do not know what we do not know. However, we additionally do not know how to determine the difference between 'that which exists that we do not know' and 'that which does not exist that we do not know'. That is the core problem that lays underneath the lack of implementing standards, and it the reason people standardize things in the first place. Standardization prevents us from re-inventing the wheel. Standardization makes things safe. Standardization makes complex systems predictable even when information about adjacent systems are unknown. Standardization is a vehicle for implementing trust.

People get confused because there are too many words for the same thing - too many ways to describe the same things, too many languages to do the same thing, too many explanations meant to teach the same thing. Either we have to learn the hard way (by observing massive failure, or by experiencing it), or we have to hope we are implementing things the most correct way, and trust we will get there.

It's one way of thinking of what learning is. Some learning just is experience. Simplifying the experience, using the mind, can sometimes make the learning more complex than it needs be.

Choosing to make the distinction between the thought stream, the external world, and the observant self is one way to think. It is already on a layer of abstract conceptualization that is more complicated than it need be.

I just like letting go of the idea of what everyone else says learning, experiencing, and thinking is, and just let everything flow. That's when I feel most comfortable. When I let go of 'a way I think I should be' and I know instead 'I have always been the way I should be. It feels like a conscious jerk in thought when you remember to stop guiding yourself, and you just know you are already there.

There's also the awareness of the awareness : You can easily sneak into a conversation between a much older or more mature generation, to gain a different perspective on yourself. Where these conversations were relatively hidden in select circles in the past (the conversations concerning the nuances of socialization) they are commonplace now. Everyone is stuck in their own spiral of self analysis, and they are all aware that they are creating and maintaining this spiral of self analysis. In the past, we might not have been so hyper aware of the act of seeking positive affirmations and social acceptance, although humans as social animals might have instinctively/intuitively/naturally sought it out.

However, I am sure there is some philosopher 200 or 100 years ago that has noticed the same phenomena with a different generational shift of technological and emotive labeling.

I loved mathematics throughout school. I don't know about anyone else, but I can see quite clearly how mathematics has shaped the way I think and form concepts, ideas, and understandings of my perception of the world. I would say that mathematics is foundational to my perception, if there exists anything that serves as the base way I interpret information.

That said, I paint and I hated painting classes. I hated almost every art class I took. I paint okay, but painting is more about getting rid of negative emotions for me, than anything. I never really liked piano lessons either, I prefer to gain a small ability and spend years perfecting it with a combination of the few I've learned and perfected, into various impromptu permutations. I guess some people call this jazz, but all the stuff I've studied makes it sound like classical music does to me.

With math, I don't really care about creating it. I just want all of the math in my head, with the right understanding of it, because I think that makes me a better computer scientist and software developer. I don't know if that's irrational reasoning, but I know that understanding math correctly is hard, and writing code is easy.

I loved mathematics throughout school. I don't know about anyone else, but I can see quite clearly how mathematics has shaped the way I think and form concepts, ideas, and understandings of my perception of the world. I would say that mathematics is foundational to my perception, if there exists anything that serves as the base way I interpret information.

That said, I paint and I hated painting classes. I hated almost every art class I took. I paint okay, but painting is more about getting rid of negative emotions for me, than anything. I never really liked piano lessons either, I prefer to gain a small ability and spend years perfecting it with a combination of the few I've learned and perfected, into various impromptu permutations. I guess some people call this jazz, but all the stuff I've studied makes it sound like classical music does to me.

With math, I don't really care about creating it. I just want all of the math in my head, with the right understanding of it, because I think that makes me a better computer scientist and software developer. I don't know if that's irrational reasoning, but I know that understanding math correctly is hard, and writing code is easy.

I loved mathematics throughout school. I don't know about anyone else, but I can see quite clearly how mathematics has shaped the way I think and form concepts, ideas, and understandings of my perception of the world. I would say that mathematics is foundational to my perception, if there exists anything that serves as the base way I interpret information.

That said, I paint and I hated painting classes. I hated almost every art class I took. I paint okay, but painting is more about getting rid of negative emotions for me, than anything. I never really liked piano lessons either, I prefer to gain a small ability and spend years perfecting it with a combination of the few I've learned and perfected, into various impromptu permutations. I guess some people call this jazz, but all the stuff I've studied makes it sound like classical music does to me.

With math, I don't really care about creating it. I just want all of the math in my head, with the right understanding of it, because I think that makes me a better computer scientist and software developer. I don't know if that's irrational reasoning, but I know that understanding math correctly is hard, and writing buggy programs is easy.

But why. I would think the gnome is the perfect size to pick up exactly one flower pot (the next smallest) and would also be able to recall a dividing line (because the gnome is tiny and prefers traveling less).

They must have a very warped perspective of people.

I sometimes find it hard to differentiate between analysis and drowning in my own mind. I seem to purposefully pick problems that have no answers, and if I feel myself getting close to an answer, I make a mess of it. It's either fear of learning that I have lost the ability to succeed, or fear of actually succeeding. I never thought anything in the world could break me that much. I thought I would die before that happened. But it's all useless to think about, on the other hand. I feel like I'm searching for an 'it', without knowing what 'it' is - without using the world's point of views, perspectives, or ideas to define the value of 'it'. I do not know what will happen when I find it, or whether I will ever find it. Maybe I already have it, and I just don't know it.

That's always the problem, is how much and in what way can you dedicate yourself? And is it more a waste to spend idle time analyzing this than actually doing something? But is it the doing that creates the problems?

I don't have the energy for that. These situations are so complicated and they never seem to get resolved. As soon as peace comes someone sees that as opportunity to manipulate (or is the perception of that what causes it to happen?)

I'd rather just stare at math and code, seriously, even if it doesn't talk back like a person. At least it's not crazy.

I know. I might as well blame myself for breathing out air that is used by a tree that is used to build a house that houses the person who pushes the red button of destruction. It's like tunnel vision, following one path of articulation that follows the model of a logically sound abstraction. Things may be connected, but, causality with regards to the relations between mind to mind is very difficult to understand.

But you are right. I look to provide utility in areas where the net effect seems most likely to be positive. When I can't evaluate that entirely I just assume neutral or no effect, it sort of just dissipates over time, like a wave collapse function, assuming entropy, or some manner of mental equality among peers.

> 8.1

> A novice asked the Master: "I perceive that one computer company is much larger than all others. It towers above its competition like a giant among dwarfs. Any one of its divisions could comprise an entire business. Why is this so?"

> The Master replied, "Why do you ask such foolish questions? That company is large because it is large. If it only made hardware, nobody would buy it. If it only made software, nobody would use it. If it only maintained systems, people would treat it like a servant. But because it combines all of these things, people think it one of the gods! By not seeking to strive, it conquers without effort."

http://www.mit.edu/~xela/tao.html

I just sort of picture humanity as ants, building a little colony made of silicon and symbols. It's just nature, a natural outgrowth of our existence. It can manifest in any direction, and the direction it is supposed to go in is the one it does. It's more zen than happiness.

I've had job offers for programming drones. I was involved with computer security for a while, and I still have a strong interest in every computational and mathematical aspect of it. I have friends that work on those things. I like those friends. I write code. I write math. We all think. We all share abstract models, different ways of thinking. It's not just code that gets turned into code. It's thought, and everything else too. I hate feeling like my thoughts can be used to hurt people. I hate feeling like the act of choosing to exist can cause harm, but looking at it that way is like saying a tapestry is no longer a tapestry when one thread is pulled from it.

I still love math, and I still love computer science. I just don't want to use it the way the a lot of the world uses it, and I don't know how much thinking I have to do before I can create code that I am satisfied over being both intelligent and humane. It's absolutely ridiculous, sometimes. Sometimes I can just stare at a cursor blinking on an IDE and feel like I'm falling into a void of 'what ifs'. Other times it is like there is no difference between myself and the machine. And then I wonder whether I'm thinking enough, again, or am I letting calculation and logic get the best of me. Have I abstracted this problem too much, too far away from reality? Does anything I think matter at all? My life continues to improve, but suffering still exists, and I feel like it is almost taboo to talk about in this way. But what is the point of existing if you can't actually make real improvements?

Yea, the repetitive analysis usually stems from using the same model of which to analyze the data by. It's insufficient. That helps me turn it off, listen to other people, go about my life, learn new ways of thinking, connecting, interacting, helping, participating, and then I continue to re-evaluate myself, existence, and my place in it. I still can't shake the depression, though. Unless the entire world existed in a state of neutrality or bliss, I don't think I could. It's just an echo of sadness, something I have to distance myself from internally and examine scientifically, which allows me to remove it's control over me, and instead direct myself in ways I can improve the world, but, /shrug. I'm not perfect and I'm never going to exist perfectly and life is never going to be perfect, if perfect even could exist.

> It is entirely possible it is survivor bias on my part but I get the suspicion that a global sort of 'cyberwar' that has been rumbling along for years is heating up rapidly.

It might have been a freudian slip or some kind of intuition, but when I was describing my life plans to my family, I said something along the lines of "I don't want to manage people, I want to stay on the front lines with the code." Except I don't want it to be scary, because I can't take anymore of that in my life. So what I really mean is "deploy knowledge bases" and that I choose to work in education. So I continue to stand on a soapbox of 'ethical coding' and I continue to request the ability to separate the responsibility of the developer from the technological applications to warfare. I just want to code difficult stuff, with intense mathematics and abstractions, and solve hard problems. I don't want people using that to hurt other people, and people who don't code don't seem to get that.

People wonder why I get depressed, and to a lot of people it probably looks super dumb and selfish, and I've lost a lot of friends over the years over things I couldn't really explain. People say I over-analyze things and that I think too much. Maybe I do, maybe I don't think enough. It's pretty easy for me to have these opinions when my life is stable.

I think that depends on what you call 'meaning'. Is meaning an intuitive, instinctive representation of something?

What I mean is, for every word that exists, do those words trace back to a reality origin through a pattern of substitutions? Substitutions of symbol to reality are really just an associative relation. Substitutions between symbol to symbol are functionally operative the same way in which a substitution between reality and symbol works.

So then my question is, is language really anything more than remembering that the cherry came from the tree? Once the cherry is disconnected from the tree, we have two things - cherry and tree. But before we distinguish them as parts, we recognize them as a whole. When I walk away from the tree, taking with me, the cherry - what happens if I still use the tree in my mind to represent the concept of fruit? It's a choice function. Does it matter whether I remember these things using sounds, symbols, images, experiences, or feelings? Language is interpreted and expressed across and using all of these domains. A poem carries greater meaning than the words do individually, and that is because there is emotional association that maps to the selection of words. We don't really call 'emotion' language, nor do we call 'art/music/math' language, yet these things arguably can have a strong influence across how we 'know' what language represents.

This is a very lovely, thought-provoking graph, from the article:

http://truth-and-beauty.net/content/01-projects/10-remixing-...

Nah, I sort of agree. I graduated with almost 4.0 for my masters. There's so much more I am learning now - things everyone who didn't do well in school learned - humility, balance of life and work, ability to adapt without explicit rules, implicit socialization and direction, ability to self direct, ability to group direct, ability to lead, ability to learn things not traditionally used as metrics of intelligence. Education gave me a beautiful foundation of knowledge, the concept and form of theory and knowledge, and a strong love for it. It didn't teach me how to live, nor could it teach me how to think outside the bounds it defines.

There is a large mathematical foundation behind machine learning, that is not even taught to most computer science students. The concepts that built machine learning are often found in engineering and mathematics:

It's not easy to learn, especially if you are not strong in math, but if you want an intuitive understanding as to how machine learning works, I would recommend learning a combination of probability, linear algebra, and formal theories of computation (abstract machines):

This book was really what opened the gate of tying the content together:

http://www.amazon.com/First-Course-Probability-9th-Edition/d...

You should also be strong in discrete mathematics.

Yea. I have managed to develop confidence over the years. Despite the fact that I continue to obsess over hair, perfume, lots of makeup and fancy clothes, every time I go to code or work on something hard, I remember who I am. I'm the kid who spent hours pouring over numerical patterns and graphs after I learned about prime numbers. I'm the kid who grew up playing titles like "the logical zoombinis", " the incredible machine" and "treasure math storm". I had chemistry kits and microscopes, and I hacked my tamagotchis, neopets, and PC games with whatever I could figure out. These are the things that help me, when I stand in front of my wrote board, alone, trying to teach myself category theory while mashing together MVCs and relational databases in order to have a formalized way of reasoning no matter what systems I exist in. I at least have demonstrated to myself so far that set theory is useful for development.

This stuff just makes me feel like I might one day achieve my goal of being 'crazy genius'. I hate when I let culture make me feel like I don't even fit into that group of people, just because I don't look like them.

As a female developer / hacker / mathy techy computer science person (for 20 years) who has never been to one; my only impression of them is the commentary I see from people online talking about their controversy. Otherwise, they are like fog to me: I can comment neither positively nor negatively nor even neutrally on whether they genuinely add or detract from my experience or interests.

Lots of people seem to have opinions on these conventions, but to be seriously seriously honest, it is very rare I have been involved in any tech thing where, if you mandated that 90% of the participants must be male, that it would change the demographic. That is a satirical way of demonstrating that most technical, mathematical, engineering, and computer things are male dominated purely by their origin and lineage of development. It's like asking a 14 year old boy to go lingerie shopping. People react because it's not the norm. The reaction is neither good nor bad. I react to people too.

It's gotta be similar to the difference between esoteric art in a large museum, and esoteric art in a small gallery the size of a closet. Sometimes you get so far out in your studies that you can't even realize the people around you don't have the faintest clue of even how to get to your headspace, let alone understand it. There's esoteric languages that look different, but still follow some standardization of language, then there is esoteric that questions every standard convention through the realization of the absurd.

Art is derived from culture. Subconscious, no, that's old hat. Just think of art as 'reality' with substitutions consisting of a selected subset of permutations of commonly used contemporarily composed and defined symbols. It's all swappy metaphor. We exist in realty first. Art may enforce culture, but reality comes first. Otherwise, insanity, literally.

> most computer scientists / mathematicians, Dijkstra was overly fond of obscure, single-letter names, which nobody ever intuitively understand

If you use a word too common, it's too easy to confuse the definition of that word with the definition of its use in a different context. You must not understand the pain of reading two mathematical books and trying, with the utmost sincerity, to figure out whether the authors are actually using the words the same (such as set, relation, abstraction, object, even things like function). There's the distinct definition, and there is the contextual use, which can theoretically differ for everyone depending on the origin path of native language. You can never know if someone is altering the definition or discovering / describing something new, and they are using the wrong word. Discovering the perfect word for the concept you construct in code or math is an art.

The labels annoy me, unless they exist solely for the purpose of self description, with citation if necessary. Otherwise, it's so easy to project a label onto a portion of culture you've only seen a superficial glimpse of. You can imagine as you walk through New York, you are surrounded by hipsters, and they are everywhere - but that's not the same as knowing every individual person person. It's a distortion of terms and quantity. There is no reason to believe in these terms as accurate descriptors of reality - aside from maybe making less mathy sounds with your mouth to go along with predictive indicators of marketing trends.

> for the rest of us mortals

Why do you begin with the assumption that you aren't gifted? Does 'gifted' imply innate talent?

Real data can train your model of the world falsely :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statisti...