ebcode

Well sure it is. Those dependencies you're talking about (the transistor, keyboards, screens, etc -- the things that modern computing depend on) are just the current, and I would say arbitrary, implementation of the concept of "computing".

A lot of the real early work in computing was done by George Boole, before Shannon picked up where he left off. That kind of stuff (boolean algebra, information theory) will always be relevant... (to survival in ye enden times? maybe not) and it doesn't involve electricity.

Just as I imagine that the things that you learn as a speech therapist go way deeper than just helping kids with their lisps.

It's easy to get caught up in the current fads and stay on the surface (e.g. programming languages, or frameworks) of the computing field, and maybe what you're experiencing is a kind of existential dread about the meaning of the work you're doing. But I think if you stick with it and go deep, you'll find that "computing" is a fundamental aspect of the universe.

And if the lights do go out, then maybe everything you learned while "studying computers" will be of help in figuring out how to get them back on again... Or, better yet, help you to realize that you didn't actually need the lights in the first place.

Do you happen to know if any of this mysterious researcher's papers might be on the arxiv?

And have you looked into automated digitizing machines for your collection? The University of Tokyo seems to have a pretty good one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03ccxwNssmo :)

Seconded.

I usually just go here to look at the west coast: http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/TROP/trop-epac.html

It might be bad policy, but it's great marketing. Bezos is someone who could be easily despised by members of both parties in Washington, and making the name of the act a personal attack might help it gain votes.

Still, I don't think the legislation goes far enough. Instead of being taxed 100% on the government benefits that employees receive, it ought to be 110%. Otherwise I imagine that many of our mega-corporations would just pay the tax instead of the employee benefits. In that regard, it really is bad policy.

That just begs the question if they were really all that "well-educated".

Since nobody's mentioned them yet: Net guns.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_gun

Yep, it's this: https://www.dragonframe.com/product/dmc-16/

It's what controls all the steppers and some of the lights it looks like.

Werner Herzog's "Lo and Behold" is a gem of a documentary that details a bit of this. It is wide-ranging and sheds light on various impacts that the internet is having on our civilization.

I checked out some of your previous posts and see that you are really, earnestly struggling with your decision to get into programming.

I feel for you, and I'll try to give you some advice with my "professional programmer"(TM) hat on.

Um, first, I think it would be helpful for you to find a way to ease up on the pressure you're putting yourself under. Maybe that means getting a "good enough" job in the meantime, or just a "regular job" (minimum-wage style), so as to get some immediate cash flow going. If money isn't a stressor for you, maybe just take some down time. (That top comment is top for good reason).

The second bit of advice would be to just actually go do the interviews, whether or not you think you've prepared "enough". You're a fresh college grad, and no-one is going to expect you to have all the answers. Don't worry about fucking up, basically, because of course you're going to. The key is just persistence -- don't let the fucking up get you too down, because you've still got to go to that next interview -- and make sure you learn from your fuck-ups, so you don't keep fucking up in the same way.

I can't tell you how scared I was during some of my first interviews. Reaching out a sweaty hand because I was a bundle of nerves is just one terrible experience. But if I hadn't had that experience ... well, you get the point.

Maybe programming isn't for you, but maybe a job you don't love will pay the bills, and that's okay. Or maybe it's just that leetcode and CTCI aren't for you. I mean, some of this interview stuff is like "security theater" at the airport, only it's "interview theater" at the whiteboard. Ineffectual at best, but demoralizing and humiliating at worst.

Don't let the red-black trees fool you. There is real work to be done!

yeah, I'm curious if those other big companies will now move their repos off of GitHub because of this. I guess these two will be the ones to watch: https://github.com/google https://github.com/apple

>>This is the silliest thing I've read on HN in awhile.

It appears that what goes around does, in fact, come around.

We (in the US) live in a culture of white supremacy, where the state has a "monopoly on violence". So it makes sense that any non-white-male would have some kind of history, whether individually or as a member of a group, of violent oppression by a member, or members, of the dominant group.

It is unfortunate that the authors seem to be tip-toeing around white supremacy, and instead choose to invent a new term like "victimhood culture" to neatly label what is actually a wide-ranging and diverse counter-cultural movement.

Their stance could almost come across as sympathetic to this movement. Instead, they end with "And finally, it’s important to combat victimhood culture and to deal with the problems it creates ...".

To me this reeks of the same old white privilege and condescension that have led our society to this point. We desperately need to address the dominant culture and the problems it has created and continues to create, the latest of which appears to be this book.

Labeling the dominant culture a "dignity culture" is, at this moment in history, beyond the pale.

That's partly why Douglas Crockford wrote his JS book, JavaScript: The Good Parts, to try and eke out a subset of the language that was better than the whole. But "better" is always subjective, so I think we'll have to live with "worse is better" for a while longer, if not indefinitely.

What would you think of WebAssembly becoming the de-facto?

The title question is about courage, and I think that's what you're after. So I would say, yes, I do have the courage to abandon my high-paying job.

Your description of what you'd like to do sounds like an adventure, and if you're looking for someone here to tell you, "Yes, I started my own business --- it was awesome, and now I'm a ba-zillionaire!", well, I can't do that; but I can tell you that I too am chasing my dream like a fucking madman, and you should absolutely go for that thing you love with all your heart.

... the more conservative side of me thinks you'd do well to put in a good show/do some good work for your current employer, before setting off for the high seas. If not enough for the golden handcuffs, at least enough to part on friendly terms.

good luck to you!

I assume you've not gotten Elon's permission to use his likeness to sell your product... Sorry, but this gives your product a bad vibe.

hear, hear!

"World without end", and "Eternal Return" are two I know of.

Roger Penrose is in this camp and attempting to prove it. Although he does incorporate the big bang theory, which is a kind of a "beginning", I suppose. I would recommend his book, "Road to Reality".

You might gain more insight from ancient Hindu and Buddhist texts, but I can't recommend anything specific.

It is time. #deleteoracle

Having set up a mail server myself (as a newb), all I can tell you is that you've got a long road ahead of you if you go this route.

Of the many things that can go wrong, here are just two: 1. You can get a recycled IP address from your hosting provider that has already been added to various spam blacklists. 2. You can get the mail server program up and running, but be rejected by all the major (and some minor) email providers for not supplying the right email headers, and/or, not having the right DNS entries that they want you to have.

>>I think the best way to implement it quickly is to use a mail server

Unless your idea absolutely requires a mail server to function, I would recommend searching for another means of implementation, if only to save yourself the time and learning-curve of modern email systems.

On the other hand, I'm actually very glad that I took the time and energy to set up my own mail server, since it was an interesting, but frustrating, learning experience. But on the other other hand, it doesn't inspire a lot of confidence when I have to call a client and give them a different address because my mail server is borked.

Long story short, go with exim and dovecot. And be prepared for it to take you 4x-10x longer than you think it will.

Personally, I wouldn't say that was the whole point of it.

As far as I know (and that ain't much -- I'm not an expert), bitcoin's fundamental contribution was solving "The Byzantine Generals' Problem"[0] in a novel way by using its proof-of-work algorithm combined with the blockchain. This is how/why it works and has been adopted the world over.

Personally, I would say that the whole point of it was not to store censorship-resistant information, but to provide a store of value independent of the current system of state-controlled and/or -regulated fiat currency. The fact that it is also useful for storing censorship-resistant information is a side-effect of the developer adding that feature to the code.

[0]https://bitcointalk.org/oldSiteFiles/byzantine.html

This is bad. Like, really bad. That "feature" of bitcoin has added more complications to the network than it is worth, IMO. Either the law's gotta change, or miners are going to start being prosecuted.

... or, the bitcoin developers will just have to add a way of removing that data when a new block is mined, which I guess is what will eventually happen. What a mess.

"Never making it into production" sounds like the perfect outcome for this technology.

I do believe that China's unmanned lander is real. I don't believe that the US manned landings were real.

Here is more elaboration than I had planned:

I came to the conclusion that the landings were faked by my own reasoning. I grew up believing they were real, and only changed my mind in my 20s, after learning more about cosmic rays.

Cosmic Rays weren't even on the radar for the Apollo missions; US states had only just begun banning shoe-fitting fluoroscopes in the 60s.

That was the first inkling I had that something was suspect. Later I learned about Stanley Kubrick's alleged involvement in the documentary film, "Room 237".

Every other recorded major scientific advance has been followed by more observed results in the same area. Yet the official story is that astronauts drove around in moon buggies and played golf on the moon in the 1970s. We just haven't been back because ... there's no reason to go back? Is it not funny that there was a huge reason to get to the moon in the 60s and 70s, but once we got there that reason just vanished?

No, the official story is to me simply not plausible, whereas the alternative makes a ton of sense. The US had every intention of going, but the task itself was simply too difficult. Thankfully, existing trick camera technology, as evidenced in science fiction movies of the time, made the hoax appear entirely believable (to a gullible public).

The last straw for me was around 2010, when I read one of Buzz Aldrin's accounts of the moon landing in "The Week"[0], and I thought, "wait a minute, I've heard that story before", and sure enough, went and found approximately the exact same story of the "last-minute, running out of fuel, manual take-over moon landing" in a novel by Heinlein called "Rocket Ship Galileo"[1]. I would encourage anyone interested to compare the landing story told by Aldrin with the landing story told by Heinlein and judge for themselves whether or not the official story is what actually happened in reality[2], and not just a really great (and wonderfully written, I might add) piece of sci-fi.

[0] https://theweek.com/articles/503621/last-word-eagle-landedba... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Ship_Galileo [2] I also believe in an objective reality, where things either did or did not happen.

On the contrary, I reasoned myself into believing the moon landing was a hoax, and I have yet to be presented with acceptable evidence that contradicts my theory.

Obviously, I have stricter criteria for "evidence" than what the general public accepts, but I nevertheless consider myself a rational person with excellent reasoning behind my theory. And I am willing to consider fresh evidence, if such were presented to me.

Really good point. In this era of asymmetric warfare, it seems that the United States is now playing the part of the British during the Revolutionary War. If the enemies of the US can force it to overspend to maintain its positions, then every encounter will slowly wear away the US military's "staying power".

Of course I imagine that a lot of, if not most, citizens of the US would be happy to see their government abandon its current role of "World Police", and wind down our occupations in Asia --- especially if those occupations are transforming from "wars of aggression" into "wars of attrition".

Yeah, but who's to say that real cities aren't just cellular automata? They kind of look that way from space.

apparently they removed the "no" part

>even the most advanced technology can’t make someone hear voices or experience a different reality.

That's the advanced technology that we know of, anyway. Surely the aliens among us have more advanced technology that are capable of these kinds of things.

I say this only partly in jest, but it is downright amazing where your mind can go when you're trying to reconcile an "out-of-band" subjective experience with how you expect the world to normally function.

>So maybe more like hot springs.

And we now know that hot springs do support life: https://teara.govt.nz/en/life-in-hot-springs

So yeah, searching for microbes in Venus' upper atmosphere sounds like a great project for NASA.