ideonexus

tldr; We've all become patrons of the arts through micro-transactions.

Ten years ago, I donated regularly to charities that would enable micro-funding for people living in third-world countries. A $10 donation would buy some chickens for a woman in South America, who could turn a profit on the eggs and eventually pay the loan back. I thought it was a fantastic idea.

Today, I find I'm funding everyone's projects. I pay a $2/month for a serialized zombie radio drama I listen to on my morning run. $4/month contributes to one of my favorite weekly science podcasts. $4/month to Amazon gets me unlimited streaming music on my Alexa. I think nothing of paying $3 for a phone app I might play once or twice before getting distracted by the next shining new thing.

Culturally, even without this micro-funding, we are swamped in culture. My DeviantArt feed overwhelms me with more amazing art than I have time to appreciate. The same is true of books, shows and films both professionally-made and independent. As a result we are drowning in culture, but dividing into micro-cultures as individual. Twenty years ago, everyone had the common cultural experiences of watching the same shows and movies. Today, we no longer can take those common-cultural references for granted. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, just an observation.

Seibel's observation that reading code is less like literature and more like science is dead on. No matter how readable the code is, when I'm confronted with 10,000 lines of it spread across numerous encapsulated functions, I must tackle it very differently from how I read prose. With a complex literary text, I can just read it in linear fashion with occasional segueing to look up words and concepts, with well-engineered code I must follow numerous cases into different flows of logic. These aren't the same at all.

I appreciate that he's trying to dispel the idea that we "read" code as we read for pleasure, I learn from code by experimenting with it. I open up the debugger and step through it, watch the variables change and see where it goes when I execute it. Most of all, I learn by changing that code and trying to build on it. I have enhanced my javascript skills immensely in recent years by cloning various projects on github and trying to expand on them or adopt them to my own purposes. I don't recommend opening up a code base and just reading it, actively engage it, break it, and enhance it.

Richard Dawkins constantly reiterates this point in his book The Selfish Gene, constantly reminding us that genes aren't actually "selfish" and don't actually have wants, but these anthropomorphisms are useful shortcuts for communicating the subject-matter.

Checked out odras's other github projects and found this Star Wars one really neat too:

http://ondras.github.io/star-wars/

Great work!

There's a Garrison Keillor quote I love that I think relates to programming as well, "A written work is never finished, it's simply taken away from you at some point."

I think the author's intent is a good one and it overcomes the "perfect is the enemy of the good" trap we can all fall into at times. As the technical lead on a multi-team project last year, I had to beg my developers to just check in anything at one meeting because they were terrified of having the other teams see their imperfect code. When I assured them their code couldn't be any worse than mine, which I had checked it several times and actually had rejected by the version manager, that they were able to laugh and agree to start committing their work to the repository.

Your code is going to get criticized no matter how much you polish and engineer it. If you can accept that, then I think you will find yourself free to be more productive.

I see these kinds of benefits in over-learning keyboards as well. The few classes I've taught to children and teenagers, you can see a dramatic difference between the students who are familiar with keyboards and those whose parents--I speculate--don't allow them screen time.

This extends into adulthood. The people I work with who have that well-practiced familiarity with keyboards and keyboard shortcuts--using them as if extensions of themselves--easily adapt to any new software interface. The adults who hunt around the screen with a mouse have a great deal of difficulty with change and are almost helpless when confronted with a new interface--even if the menu items are all in the same places as the last software.

It's a comfort and familiarity with the computer that allows the user to easily adapt to new things. It totally makes sense to me that working with an abacus would have similar benefits for making students comfortable with math.

Direct link to the NASA release:

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-releases-software-ca...

Software Catalog itself:

http://software.nasa.gov

Update: I'm having a lot of fun exploring the relationships between "nerd," "geek," "dork," etc. in this demo. : )

For anyone looking for a simple javascript explorable explanation of this you can quickly download and run in a browser, I just found the following GitHub Project.

Demo:

http://turbomaze.github.io/word2vecjson/

Code:

https://github.com/turbomaze/word2vecjson

The code looks pretty straightforward so I look forward to exploring this playground of a new and fascinating concept.

There's a parallel with the early film industry. In the early 1900s, when a film had completed its run at the theaters, no effort was made to preserve it. The amazing science fiction classic "Metropolis" was a famous example. We still don't quite have a complete copy of this groundbreaking visionary film, and until recent years (when missing scenes were discovered) DVD releases of the film had placeholders describing the action that was missing.

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

It sounds like we are doing a better job preserving our early video game history than we did preserving our early film history.

Thinking out-loud in terms of a corporation. The owners are the landlord for the corporation, but that corporation is it's own legal entity. Owners come and go, but that corporate entity remains and insulates the owners from many legal and financial repercussions of the company's actions. It's a similar thing with countries. I'm not personally held responsible for the actions of the United States or the Town in which I dwell, but I am one of the landlords for those entities.

I think the question here is whether there are advantages to making algorithms legal entities similar to our other communal legal entities. It's a radical idea, but so is UBI and some other suggestions for mitigating the obsolescence of many human being as a result of automation.

This is the most fascinating quote for me. If corporations and nations are entities capable of owning things, could we give such power to software/algorithms? How would that work?

As algorithms push humans out of the job market, wealth and power might become concentrated in the hands of the tiny elite that owns the all-powerful algorithms, creating unprecedented social and political inequality. Alternatively, the algorithms might themselves become the owners. Human law already recognizes intersubjective entities like corporations and nations as “legal persons.” Though Toyota or Argentina has neither a body nor a mind, they are subject to international laws, they can own land and money, and they can sue and be sued in court. We might soon grant similar status to algorithms. An algorithm could then own a transportation empire or a venture-capital fund without having to obey the wishes of any human master. Before dismissing the idea, remember that most of our planet is already legally owned by non-human intersubjective entities, namely nations and corporations. Indeed, 5,000 years ago much of Sumer was owned by imaginary gods such as Enki and Inanna. If gods can possess land and employ people, why not algorithms?

> In the US, a hospital would be stupid to make an app like this. Why would you want less foot amputations?

My Uncle died a few years ago when a tree fell on him while working in his back yard. While trying to stabilize him, a doctor put in a request to have a surgeon amputate his leg to prevent complications once he was stabilized. My uncle died that day, and a day later a surgeon and anesthesiologist came to amputate his leg. When he wasn't found in his hospital room, they went down to the morgue, amputated his leg there, and billed the insurance company for the procedure... including the cost of anesthetizing the dead man.

Ridiculous stories like this abound in the American system of healthcare.

I see many posts in this thread focused on liberal "intolerance" of conservative views; however, I see absolutely no tolerance of liberal viewpoints on the American right. I'm friends with equal numbers of people on the right and left, and they are equally outraged, intolerant, insulting, and immersed in their confirmation bias.

And you know what? Good for them. I heard a quote from a local Republican representative on the radio recently that really hit me. He was asked, how can we work together when the leader of the Republican party is so incredibly insulting and disrespectful to his opponents?

You know what he said? The American democracy is a combative political system. Don't work together with Trump, fight him. If you find him insulting, then take your outrage and channel it into fighting him. I will fight you and you will fight me. That's how we will resolve our differences.

Reading the history of American politics, it has always been this way. For decades I've watched liberals and conservatives use insults and ridicule, not to convince the other side, but to demoralize it. If you can make your opponents feel bad, they are less likely to vote. The ideal mean moves a little bit left and right over the years as each side has its ups and downs.

It's a terrible system, but that's how it works in real life. I think we should keep this reality in mind whenever we talk about the tone of politics in America.

Here's a counterpoint, the website "Professor Watchlist" where Conservatives can report their professors for being liberal:

http://professorwatchlist.org/

What is the point of such a website except to try and ruin people's careers and invite harassment of them? What about all the 4chan and reddit threads dedicated to finding and harassing outspoken liberals?

Another dimension to consider in this is to be careful in how we demonize the Anti-Evolution people from this time in history as well. I do believe that William Jennings Bryan of the Scopes Monkey Trial was a very ignorant man in many regards, but the textbook he was protesting was horrifying in for they way it promoted eugenics. I wrote about this here after listening to a presentation from an anthropologist on the subject, who argued that Bryan--a liberal Christian--was strongly motivated by his opposition to eugenics:

http://ideonexus.com/2007/12/02/the-complex-william-jennings...

In lessons learned from history, Jennings made the mistake of attacking the textbook on the validity of evolutionary theory instead of for the abhorrent promotion of eugenics. As a result, history remembers him as a buffoon rallying against a now-obvious scientific truth. I see a parallel today with many Climate Change denialists, who attack the science instead of attacking the policies being put forward using the science for support.

You're right. I got my tests confused.

I get the gist of what your comment must have been from the replies. It's a controversial idea, but one the medical community wrestles with all the time. Perhaps it was the way you communicated it, but I have heard many nurses and doctors ask, "At what point are heroic measures to save a life going too far?"

I think many people, myself included, see an MRI as a fairly benign, despite the radiation damage. If we are considering this in Darwinian terms, then pretty much any medical procedure is weakening the species. Fertilization procedures are birthing children who will one day also need fertilization procedures.

But then, aren't we all genetically weak at this point? Don't we all need technology to survive? Take away the tech, and I think 99% of us die in a month. It's true we are getting weaker, but we are locked in. Civilization is now a race between our weakening bloodlines and our ability to compensate for it with technology.

+1 for the DOM Inspector. I have found that kids LOVE pulling back the curtain on a website to see the wizard and play with the code. A fun activity is to have them go to a news site and have them edit the headlines and replace the images to silly things and take screenshots to share with their parents. What really impresses me with this exercise is how quickly some kids will figure out some intermediate hacks when they learn how easy it is to google the things they want to do.

Another suggestion that works for the same reason is to give kids code to play with. I've wasted 20 minutes of class time having kids write a three line "Hello World!" javascript program from scratch. All this did was irritate and bore the kids out of their minds as they struggled with syntax and hunt-and-peck typing.

Instead, when I give kids a great big block of javascript code that does something fun and animated, those kids will go wild with it. This is because changes to different variables can have big effects. They quickly learn to read the code and identify what different parts do. They break the code, and you show them how that's a good thing and how easy it is to revert it back so that it's working again. Code should be a playground. Give the kids a rich playground to run around in.

Similar to what the author has done, I wrote an open-source PHP application to manage "memes" I use in my writing. It's basically a bucket of ideas I've clipped from books, websites, etc (over 4,000 in the database now). I link the memes to their references, triple them into one-to-one relationships, and have "schemas" which are buckets of ideas I might use in articles and books I'm writing one day. I find it incredibly helpful in my personal use, but many people (understandably) find the interface a bit convoluted:

http://mxplx.com/

I have it on github, but if you like it, I would recommend rewriting it from scratch because I wrote this in the "Over-Engineering" phase of my career many years ago, over-using design patterns and abstracting away things to the point of making them incomprehensible. Also, I'm only maintaining it for my personal use now, but feel free to clone and make your own if you dare:

https://github.com/ideonexus/memexplex

Another great resource I would love to see made into something I could query for this is the public domain book "Fifteen Thousand Useful Phrases" by Grenville Kleiser.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18362

It has been my experience that my science posts get far fewer likes (and I assume fewer views) than the political posts my friends make.

I appreciate the methodology of this study, especially using science news posts as the comparison against conspiracy and troll posts. I make it a point to remain friends with people who post conspiracy theories online, but I've long ago given up trying to engage them in meaningful dialogue. I simply find myself spinning and spinning in their circular rationalizations.

Instead, I try to share posts from HN and science news sites. This means that I am setting the topic and the tone. It also makes my identity and culture as a nerd public. In my extremely diverse network of online friends, this means I am ever so gently prodding the overall culture in that direction.

I think in a war of ideas, we have to make sure our empirically-supported fact-based beliefs need to be put out there in order to compete. We are playing a long-game here to influence our culture, and I believe that the majority of people will see over the long term the benefits of empiricism and healthy skepticism compared to the chaos and emotionalism of the conspiracy theorists and dogmatists.

I flagged this post. Out of all the news that happened that day, this was an extremely isolated incident. It does not deserve attention or discussion, and anyone attempting to make it a a top story is motivated entirely by the hope of scoring political points. The author is right, this post is not for nerds.

I understand completely. I replied on another comment that the Pomodoro Technique has been extremely helpful in fighting off my most recent bout of burn-out:

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

I like it because I don't have to think about being productive for 8 hours straight. Instead, I tell myself, "I'll be productive and focused for the next 25 minutes." Then I take a break and try another 25 minutes. At the end of the day, I've found I've been productive for four to five hours (I had to work up to this), which is very respectable. Additionally, I'm much more productive for those 25 minutes than I have been for hours before starting the technique.

As with the other comment, I'm sorry you're experiencing this. And I want to reiterate that you are not alone and not even unusual. You have an important factor going for you in that you recognize you are burnt-out, and can therefore correct the issue. I know coders who have spent years in burn-out mode and their skills have suffered as they stopped learning and stopped growing. Having this dialogue greatly improves your prospects for overcoming this.

That is absolutely possible. I remember getting burnt out many times in my twenties. I think one thing that helps is to remember that burn-out is a temporary phenomenon. If it lasts for longer than a month (and I've experience this), then you need to proactively take steps to try and fight it.

I recently overcame a severe bout of burn-out using the Pomodoro Technique and an Android app on my phone to manage it:

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

What this did is help compartmentalize my time. If you can focus on your work when it's work time, then you can relax and free your mind when its free-play time. Remember, you don't need to be productive for eight hours straight, just a 25 minute sprint. Then take a break and try another 25 minutes when you are ready to focus again. Pretty soon you'll be getting a respectable 4 hours of productivity in a day and that's more than most people can claim.

Most importantly: keep fighting the burn-out. If you keep facing it as a problem and keep actively trying to find solutions to it, you will get better and more efficient and beating it back when it does arise. I'm really sorry you're experiencing it at the moment, but I sincerely hope you get past it quickly and grow adept at recognizing when it's starting to happen again. You are not alone or even unusual in experiencing this.

I knew about Darth Vader from Dan Brown's book, but not the ones you mention. Also, if you happen to be at the Washington Cathedral, check out the 'Space Window' stained glass window that contains a piece of moon rock:

https://www.nasa.gov/topics/history/features/spacewindowhist...

I second the exercise recommendation. I started going to bed an hour earlier so I could get up and jog before work each morning. A half-hour jog at whatever pace you can take will do wonders for your stress levels and overall mental health. As a father, getting the family to accommodate me going to bed earlier was difficult, but we were adjusted within a few weeks.

Secondly, you absolutely have to get your life back. 60-hour-work weeks are inhumane. Your job is taking 20 hours of time with your family away from you every single week. You will never get that time back and you will always regret having lost it.

I will always regret the lost weekends with my previous employer. Management never gave me better evaluations or bigger raises for that time I spent improving their bottom line. I could have spent that time making happy memories like I do now. My experience is that if you start holding firm to 40-hour weeks, management will adjust their expectations to be more realistic.

Remember, your kids are only kids once. You must stand up for your right to spend time with them.

One area that may be impacted by this strategy is bulk-downloading your photos. My wife set her phone to automatically backup all her photos to flickr. Thinking she could get them back at anytime, she started deleting them off her phone. After three months, I discovered she was doing this and begged her to also backup her files to an external hard drive.

Every year we sync all our family photos to have redundant backups. When she went to get the three months of backups from flickr she got "download error" after error. She sent me this link and hypothesized that the bulk-download feature is no longer working because of the need to now first decompress the files before transmitting them.

Luckily, she was able to get the 25 gigs of family photos down using a third-party application, but it's another reminder to never wholly trust the "cloud."

How to make it clear what this data represents is a semantic conundrum. If I take a "virtual" tour of New York City, I expect to see an actual geographically-accurate approximation of New York City, not buildings randomly generated based on the probabilities of buildings having various dimensions of those found in New York City strewn across a google map.

What do we call such a thing? After reading the author's paper, I think "synthetic" is most appropriate because we would be synthesizing a city like NYC, but not a virtual representation of NYC. In fact, I find the word "virtual" in this context somewhat misleading.

Until I looked at the actual data, I didn't realize this was synthetic either. The developer might want to make that clear in the header text. "Virtual Database" doesn't make this clear. I think "virtual database synthesizing the entire human population" might make it clearer.

That said. This is very impressive and has my imagination tingling with ways to apply it.