dofly

In my experience, searching for any English/American (or Russian) name turns up at least a dozen people with the same first and last names. If a name is extra generic like John Smith, I don't even bother searching because the task is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Although, people with an Anglo name do usually have middle names :) Maybe everyone should take up a generic name to disappear on the internet?

> but I honestly don't know anyone whose favorite TV show is a Netflix original.

I remember a year or two ago Stranger Things was a massive super hit. I mean that's all reddit could talk about that year - it overshadowed almost every other show at the time.

Thanks. I was wondering about that. Do you know, by chance, what books or notes they might use?

Study math for real and get rid of H.Pylori. Would've been sweet.

I haven't read all the frames, but I do know about what the author is talking about in the first few frames. Usually, such attackers are very much extroverted and thrive on attention. The way I deal with them is to simply ignore them in every way. I make sure they realize I am avoiding them. Often wear facial expression of contempt around them. Etc. This behavior really gets to the core of such attackers, especially if they are female. After a while, they do change their attitude and demeanor, but you can't go back to being nice again just yet because these people will gladly relapse. They are roundly defeated when they start avoiding you. Just my experience.

I read the first two chapters of Algorithm Design by Jon Kleinberg and Éva Tardos. The prose is very clear and lucid, but it has one problem: it's incredibly long-winded. A good editor could probably lop off a good 1/4 of the book without loss of info. That would make the book spectacular.

Also, if anyone is interested, these lecture notes [0] (Algorithmic Math by Soicher & Vivaldi) below introduces algos from elementary number theory/abstract algebra.

[0] http://www.maths.qmul.ac.uk/~lsoicher/ambook.pdf

I think it all depends on incentives. If one goes to school with a sole purpose of learning something(employment, career track being non-issues), I'd imagine, they wouldn't care about the cheaters as they wouldn't be competing with the cheaters for jobs, promotions etc. This reminded me of a Russian pop star from the early 2000s who became a philosophy major at a major Russian university. Presumably, she didn't mind the cheaters as I doubt she was aiming at tenure track or something to that effect at the school. Although, I can't be sure :)

To me untangling abstractions is always more difficult then building them up from the given premises. In other words, I believe generalizing from a given example to any level of abstraction is a straightforward process, but descending from built-up heights of abstraction down to the level of examples is a bit more involved.

I think write-ups like this can preclude those of us (with vivid imagination) who can realistically self-educate from taking up math. Especially since there's much higher expectations and standards of quality placed on those who self-study.

Instead of talking about brutalities of pure math, I'd rather simply talk about (possibly artificial) levels. For example, if you can solve almost all problems in Axler's Linear Algebra and the comparable texts without breaking a sweat, then you're level 0. If you have no problem solving most problems in Baby Rudin (and comparable texts), then you're level 1. Similarly, you're level 2 if you can mop the floor with every single problem in, say, Lang's grad level Algebra book and so on. By this measuring stick, I am somewhere between level 0 and 1. Personally, I find road signs like this extremely motivating no matter how difficult the journey is.

But better of all, there are many books nowadays that break down any topic up to any level in much more digestible ways than many traditional classic texts from the past designed with the expectation that you'd be studying with some kind of mentor. That was before the Internet came along.

Here's a thought. People who have persistent "diet related" health problems who also tried every single known dietary avoidance strategy (often with little success) could also get tested for H.pylori.

Given the chance, I'd do PhD in math for the sole purpose of learning how to think straight and see the projects through start to end on my own. That's what PhD means to me anyway.