hyperpallium

Motivation is natural for us animals, else we wouldn't survive.

  Fish gotta swim, Bird gotta fly
  Man gotta ask himself Why why why

Before taking a shower, or going for a walk, load up your mind with the problem.

The Top Idea in Your Mind http://www.paulgraham.com/top.html

Also, break it down into subtasks, and only do the first one.

There can be a lot more involved than I (consciously) noticed.

There can be a lot less... just the scary chance of it being much worse.

No worries, think your interpretation of just api calls is a good one, a bit like "tests as documentation". Could then have another tour for each module (api implementation). This approach would tend to confine the effect of changes (as in Parnas' On the Criteria To Be Used in Decomposing Systems into Modules https://www.win.tue.nl/~wstomv/edu/2ip30/references/criteria...)

Though multiplicity of tours is also complexity!

I meant a way to make up-to-date drafts: base it on an automatic execution trace, like from a debugger running the code.

You get this 100% up-to-date trace for free. It's crazy verbose, so apply filtering (e.g. to only key apis) to make it manageable. Then edit that draft manually. Like an annotated, abbreviated, step-into debugger.

My thinking is that this makes it easier to get an initial draft. But maybe that basic trace is easy and natural to do manually?

Also, I'm not sure how similar this "execution trace" would be to a tour based on explaining it... I suppose you could find out, by examining your best tours to see how closely they actually follow execution order (if at all). When I try to understand a codebase, I do trace calls manually, so there's probably some similarity.

Seems flawless for the important niche of specific commits.

I guess navigation uses VS Code to locate functions etc, so it's robust to superficial changes (like ctags for vim).

Keeping docs in sync is a hard problem!... \tangent: maybe a tour draft, of execution trace of a typical use, filtered to only key api calls?

Absolutely, IT has a general role everywhere. Dare I say on par with language, writing, printing press, etc.

Huge problem, interesting solution.

It takes time to derive the high-level from the codebase. I guess, your walk-throughs would be similar to how I'd explore it myself - without the mistakes.

EDIT it's documentation, so can get stale/out of sync as the codebase evolves (not a problem for PRs). Though high-level architecture/APIs rarely change.

BTW In github, I keep expecting the text next to files/dir to be a comment explaining the high-level (instead of the most recent commit message).

ZX81, from 1981, used 4 chips.

Thanks for your detailed reply. As I said, information has a role in everything, but I don't think these examples are especially about information, in the sense of an IT-worker.

1. Ethiopia's ruler needed someone credible to tell him.

2. Training a surgeon is about skill and knowledge, more than information.

3. How is opening a "College of Midwives" about information, except in the general sense that education involves information?

So, over time, MIT researchers decrease in quality, and it loses prestige to other institutions, perhaps overseas, perhaps China.

Instead, I think they will continue to try to evaluate genuine merit. SAT can be and is routinely gamed, through prep. You have to be truly outstanding to manage it alone.

Yes, information has a role everywhere, but the article only mentions a telegram and "nobody knows about these women". What did I miss?

I've often used it, but just checked and now it doesn't work.They have improved the UX, pray they do not improve it any further.

I don't want to have an account (because they want email), so it looks like this is the end of github for me.

EDIT: in android firefox, I found the "Request Desktop Site" works (on a code page) e.g. https://github.com/termux/termux-app There is also a desktop link in the footer, but it doesn't work.

WARNING: If I try the desktop link and then "Request Desktop Site", I get to https://github.com/site/mobile_preference (a 404). Starting fresh and just doing "Request Desktop Site" works.

General fears are hard to handle. Anxiety is an urgent energy, but without an actionable object. Do something specific and definite, that is actionable, to direct that energy, and regain a sense of agency.

I've been buying things that will be helpful during a lockdown (that I've been putting off from well before WWC: new phone etc), while the risk is still low.

People still work in countries with free medical care and education.

I think the effect on motivation is the central issue of UBI. There might need to be an adjustment. I know for myself, it can be helpful to be compelled to do something that I've been putting off. Sometimes, people don't feel they have a reason to act, but having to go to work can help. It prevents inactivity and isolation.

Perhaps a focus on mental health and intrinsic motivation will be the answer.

But I think most will naturally aim at higher goals than survival... as they do now.

It's scary enough without reinfection. Seems unlikely.

> the 30,000-letter genetic code of the virus changes by one letter every 15 days [from link]

But could be like the common cold and flu, with new strains each year - but more contagious and deadly. Even then, we could still have new vaccines each year, and better treatment methods.

Yes. Also, first home owner's grants increased prices. Reduced interest rates increased house prices. Perhaps the great covid-19 WFH experiment will (partially) undermine the housing geography monopoly.

Would socialist free housing, utilities, food, medical care, education might work better than UBI? What incentives would make capitalism provide them?

They don't follow basic advice (e.g. don't shake hands, touch your face, etc), they don't close down mass events, they don't close schools "because we're not at that stage yet". The time to close them is before we reach "that stage".

Number of cases is a trailing indicator, which also only covers those tested.

xargs parallelizes with -Pn

Worse, politicians (particularly Health ministers) have disporportionately high infection rates.

All the kids get it, infect their parents, and off it goes.

I expected immunity once you'd had it, but have heard of re-infection occurring (not from official sources).

BTW TFA doesn't mention the basic idea of backpacks, except by implication: they put the weight on your hips; the shoulders straps are just for alignment.

Ted Chiang's The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate (short story)

This is like an MVP, where you quickly find out if people actually want it; if they do, you get motivation. A step earlier is an actual prototype, where am inventor sees whether the idea works or not; if so, it's motivating.

Not sure how this applies to proof, which has to be perfect to work at all. Pehaps Tao's skeleton, then filling in the most crucial parts first, is exactly this.

He talks about how to begin a daunting task: linear order, easiest/most straightforward first, or a top-down "skeleton" first.

If it's daunting enough to be discouraging, consider doing tasks that quickly give you some sense of progress towards what like about it. To sustain your interest - your most precious resource.

This mightn't be most efficient, or give the best structure, but if it motivates you to do it, it will be far more efficient and better strucured than nothing!

> [paraphrasing] get some good idea along the way devote a minute to write down a “stub” for that (just enough to jog your memory when you return), so as not to break your concentration or momentum

This "stub" or aide-mémoire doesn't define the idea, just evokes it. So you better come back while that memory is still fresh, or you will not be able to work out what it was!

> made explosives and detonated them remotely in his back garden by means of a mobile phone signal.

Scary. But amount was similar to a firework, and he had done so several times before. And he's autistic.

> liable to prosecution unless they can show that it was “for a lawful object”

> can personal experimentation or own private education, absent some ulterior unlawful purpose, be regarded as a lawful object?

They still had to prove that that was his purpose - the onus is on the defence. i.e. reversing assumption of innocence.

The dissent, that the purpose of education is not a "purpose" is ridiculous.

Yet, I bet the legislators didn't intend such a broad defence, and we'll quickly see amending legislation confining it, given terrorism fears.

If Michelangelo did drafts and studies, why can't I?

Copying a functional spec - like for SQL - is fine. But copying implementation code is not (unless that's the only way it can be implemented).

Unethicalprotip: publish proprietary source to bait copying. Then sue.

TFA: Copyright law specifically excludes "systems" and "methods of operation" from copyright protection.

Sounds like a "clean room implementation" is needed, and that Google copied more than what was needed for inter-op.

If so, Google might lose the case, but the legal precedent would be you can copy apis but not implemention (unless that's the only way to implement them).