1,562 karma · joined December 7, 2010
They're both financially foolish, but I did not rack up credit card debt because of lavish purchases. It was just as ^ says.
No, we don't have varying views of what abstract thought is (let's drop the "difficult" cause it's irrelevant). Your view is simply wrong because even your "how would you build an inventory system" takes a tangible (inventory system) and asks you to come up with a programming (abstraction layer above 1s & 0s) solution.
Some examples of not abstract thinking:
* Memorizing (good one you nailed it; bad that you insinuate most engineers coast through 4 years only learning to do this)
* Observation
* Memory-recall
Some examples of abstract thinking:
* Math
* Imagining something
* Philosophizing something
What you're referring to is abstract problem solving, which involves two things specifically for engineers: math & imagination.
You didn't answer the question. Do you have a CS degree? I don't think you know what you speak of, and I would not go around telling people "most CS grads just coast thru never abstract thinking." Your fictional split of programming VS abstract thinking I already proved is false with my painting analogy.
So again -- do you have a CS degree? What was your experience like? And if you don't, well, maybe you shouldn't be talking.
When I turned 18, I got my first credit card. I asked my father "good idea?" and he said yea, good to build up credit. Ok then. A week later, my new card with a whopping limit of $750. Never having experienced not paying with cash I had, it gave me an odd thrill and I went out to eat with my friends and joked "It's like free money!" And despite knowing better, it certainly felt like free money because the numbers didn't change in my bank account. Sure I knew I'd have to pay it off, but whatever, I'd do that later.
Now, like all good citizens, I spent the first couple years always paying off the balance I owed. Nor was it long before credit card offers came to me and I said "hey good to build up credit" and signed up for them. My next big one had something like $1500 limit and I was 19. Soon enough, I was doing great -- my credit was high & debt low -- looks good for credit.
Well, soon enough I was in Boston going to college and working part-time. One day at work, I got another one of these offers and thought "why not?" This time was special though because it asked me what is your household income -- not my income. Well.. my parents didn't make much but we weren't poor either, so I added together the incomes and said my household income was $150k. I felt a bit mischevious putting it down -- was it the truth? What was going to happen? Would they check to see if I made that much?
No, instead, they were more to happy to oblige and gave me (a 20 y/o) a new credit card with $12,500 limit. Holy shit! I thought to myself, I have a LOT of free money! Over the course of the next 4 years in college, I would eat out whenever I pleased and generally kept my credit under control, but slowly & surely my credit usage was rising. Fast forward a few years after that, and I have a total credit line of about 30k -- all maxed out. Was I being outright financially foolish ordering $100 bottles of Chardonnay at the club? Not at all. Was I being financially negligent ordering whatever small thing came my way that I wanted? Yes -- because I could.
So then you find yourself in deep debt, and what do you do? You start paying the minimum off and then re-using that credit. Do you care so much about paying it off? No that seems like an eternity away, paying the minimum is easier. Do you know it's wrong? Of course. Do you care? Not as much as you should.
This my friends is how you lose at the credit card game and end up just paying fees to bank execs. It can be fun, but I do not recommend.
Now, if I had to offer my 2 cents why it works at Valve and not others -- games are deeply creative. You actually want your engineers to go off in their own little world and somehow capture the sparks that fly. It's nearly impossible to do this with some sprint model ("OK guys, creative thinking sprint! let's go!").
To re-iterate, the reason why it doesn't work with games is sprints are output-driven yet the creative output is not so easy to capture in this manner. Its origin is mysterious and subject to "ah ha!" moments whenever/wherever. This is why games must instead focus on process (hire the best, let them do whatever) and take a hit on strict output-driven management.
Yet, the big dogs have been pushing one game out after another. For example, WoW got bought by Activision and they couldn't get new expansions out soon enough. One of the most popular MMOs, Ultima Online, was bought by EA and they immediately started their expansion line of junk and ruined the game. This wears down on the overall brand of the game. Ultimately, output-driven management of games is a sure way to lose the creativity and balance necessary to create a gem.
Maybe so, but to play devil's advocate, it's Valve's entire business model.
Can an amatuer guitarist play as well as a classically-trained guitarist? Sure.
Is it the exception to the rule? Yes.
Can an amatuer guitarist learn to play a few songs really well, but have no grasp of composition? Sure.
Will the guitarist be as skilled in composition as the classical guitarist? No.
The time spent learning {x} is the great difference. A plain old guitarist can pull out some composition manuals and teach himself how to craft music better than the lazy classically-trained musician.
My 2 cents -- don't underestimate 4 years. Clean code is quickly whipped into you at your first job, but typically the CS student is thinking in their head "wow this is so easy" because they were trained in building shit like compilers for the last 4 years. The bootcamper does not have the same experience because it's not prudent to train an employment-seeking individual in the subtleties of compiler design. So, 9 times outta 10, the CS graduate is the stronger programmer at least until the bootcamper has had some years to catch up.
Huh? Even if you didn't want to learn to think abstractly, you would still be enrolled in courses like "Data Structures" that force you to. Did you get a CS degree?
You're also making the assertion that you can code successfully without learning abstract thought. That's like saying you can paint a picture without knowing how to use a brush. Quite literally, you can't program without keeping an abstract model in your head of one form or another. Things like OOP helps make these abstractions tangible, but it is nevertheless, just your own vision of how 1s & 0s gotta fly around.
I think it's bad form to assert most students who complete a 4 year degree don't ever think at an abstract level. It's rather ridiculous from my vantage point (again, it's 4 years), but maybe your experience is different.
Tolerance and gentleness are not absent in my message. However, it's bound to be misunderstood if it comes across as if I am tacitly attacking religions and promoting my own unique one (the connotation I would say proselytizing has behind it). I'm not because there's no point in this kind of behavior. Truth will always be true, and the journey toward it is going to be unique for each individual but the destination will always remain the same.
If you do know what I speak of, you will also have learned that ideas only increase by sharing and that learning necessarily involves teaching. You are potentially misrepresenting tolerance as acceptance; the two are not one in the same. There is only one truth, but that does not mean you accept falsehoods out of tolerance. It means you tolerate them in your perfect forgiveness, which does not judge. I have no idea how my message could be construed as not gentle, but tip-toeing around what it is you truly believe out of fear of offending others is not the definition of gentleness. God has ordained my mission and that was just something that came to me to write -- it probably took me 5m because I didn't have to do much thinking. I only wish the best for everyone and the +8 upvotes meant it clearly resonated with a few people. This is enough for now and certainly does not backfire on my purpose here.
More generally, it's easier to hate than love in this world. Why is that? What purpose does it serve? Why are thoughts utilized this way? Understanding this is like a key to which you will unlock the gate to your true happiness. Yet be sure not to slip to temptation and justify attack or hatred. The same thoughts that project hatred or attack upon others will be used against oneself as both sword & shield (you will attack yourself for [x] and also start to become defensive about [x]).
You are merely be defensive against the greater Truth, and your ego is smug in its defense. I walk the holy path that only healers walk -- what path do you take? Smug dismissals that offer nothing of value? What path is that a part of?
Yep meditation is yet another form of strengthening the resolution within yourself that you have power over your mind. Psychedelics show you this insofar as your effects are felt almost immediately -- this is why I said your thoughts can spiral up or down. Negative feelings must be taken responsibility for with one self and that is all. Even if you were burning at the stake, fear has no utility.
Fear is the ego's chief instrument in ensuring its command over your mind. Humans have not woken up yet to the deeper Life inside of them, and as a result feel victims, and as a result believe fear (and attack) is justified. Veiled in one action or another is the constant reminder that you will die, and it is this idol you serve when you are experiencing fear.
When one is completely silent in meditation, their identification is slowly dissolving from ego to Life. You are sinking into your mind and realizing more & more that your feelings come from your own valuations upon your projections. When this is recognized, the great game you play of devil & angel on each shoulder becomes meaningless and conflict (and thus fear) is dissolved with it. Yet to those who cling to their body for identification and purpose will have a sad life indeed for it is guaranteed to fail.
Now, if you really want to take it even further, I would explain that this world is not real but rather a dream of Hell that we have summoned after purposefully forgetting our creator ("biting the apple", "great fall") so we could be our creators in complete opposition to God. As a result, all fear is rooted in the fear of God and serves as witness that you are what you are not (you are life; you cannot be not life `A != !A`, but having infinite power you can will yourself to forget and live out a dream). Sleeping dreams are merely re-enactments of the great fall we took as one and you get to play out your egotistical desires & fears. In short, fear is never justified because of who you are and any value system with it as its underpinning is not to be trusted.
Without (1), you'll never get (2) and believe me, as someone who smokes everyday, (1) will come up from time to time when things aren't going well with your life. That's when you gotta smoke and mentally sort out what's going on.
Weed leaves you in a slightly-crippled state insofar as your self-defenses don't work as well. As a result, thoughts from the subconscious creep upwards to the conscious level. As much as it "hurts", it's good to be fully aware and honest with yourself.
I also have more advice for newcomer shroomers: one thought can spiral downward or upward. Try your best to stay optimistic and open to the experience. You will not understand everything that happens (and this is a good thing because it's how people walk away feeling like they learned something), but you need to stay open and firm in your conviction that you're ok. As soon as you tell yourself "I think I'm going to die", you will create your own personal hell.
People think "innocence" isn't a feeling -- it's a judgment. They're wrong. Mushrooms evoke a feeling of innocence that brings the typical user back to a childhood state of mind. And while children are pretty stupid (no fault of their own), their perception is typically void of petty judgments adults cling to (by fault of their own). In this newfound awareness, just like a kid, you feel that anything is possible and yearn for adventure. It's a wonderful experience and is what makes mushrooms my #1 recommended drug.
Trending implies humanity cares about it, which to the lowly average-joe means humanity cares about it, so s/he should too. This is the part that feels disingenuous on Facebook's part.
Of course even average-joe knows (though probably can't express) that everything around him just wants to consume his attention, so I'm also not overly concerned about it.
Take a step back and remember the internet was an invention too. How can we make a better internet or radicalize communication in another form? What is a browser anyway? Are screens the ideal medium? Also, it's a bit silly to ask "what's new?" out of a research center's vision statement.
> This is so vague I have no idea how you can attach any meaning to it.
Think about VR. Let's say they research how to make it super addicting to play in your own little fantasy. This ends up leading to "VR abuse" and kids stop talking to one another, etc... It is very important for them to understand how potential inventions will affect humanity if their goal is to improve humanity.
> So you're gathering a group of smart people together to do non-profit research in a few select fields with the goal of improving humanity?
Yes you summarized his aims. Those select fields are seen as having the most efficacy upon human improvement.
Since you admit to having no idea what any of it means, I would suggest you try to look beyond the words and not be so eager to extract tangible simple facts. This is a vision statement and it's abstract because forward-looking mental vision is abstract in nature.
Let me just say we should be spending a lot less money on war and a lot more money on welfare. Yet let me also say that the genesis of many ghettos was in a "war on poverty" that pushed for low-income housing. You're not being immoral by trying to evaluate each side and it certainly does not make me a rugged individualist.
Do you mean to tell me it is "popular opinion" that ascribes Man A as charismatic in this scenario?
Addendum: I've heard it said that when you're talking to Bill Clinton, he makes you feel like you're the center of the world.
And who's usually the most powerful in a tribe? The most charismatic.
Many voters will change positions, so if you're looking to apply tribal theory upon voter preference, that just takes into account the people who already had their minds mostly made up.
The swing votes is the deciding factor, and what are some attributes of swing voters? If they aren't die-hard republicans/democrats, they might be ambivalent or outright disinterested in politics. Who do you think would sway them? The fact-listing robot or the guy who says he's gonna change the world?
Was Bernie just saying what people want as well? Yes and no. Do you think a robot would win that listed off everything that the electorate "wants to hear"? Maybe. It depends on how much you trust the robot to get the job done, doesn't it? Well, the human is also trying to evaluate this potential leader and besides already being charmed by the charisma, the human also views charisma as an attribute of the strong and capable.
If this turns out to be the case, then people would reach for statically typed languages to augment & cut-down on tests.
Like everyone here is saying, the pendulum is moving toward statically typed. The next generation will probably be in higher kinded types as we continue to attempt to write more generic code that cuts down on number of lines, but still preserves type guarantees.
Finally, I don't think it's appropriate to regard `Option[T]` as some mystical type. It's just a regular old generic class that wraps something. Scala programmers (and I'm sure others) have been doing this with `Either[A,B]` & `Option[A]` for awhile, but Swift was really clever in building it into the language with the `?` & `!` operators.