farrelle25
It was a great experience although I was helped by a tax refund that appeared in my bank a/c and had a small 'buy me a coffee' site for friends following the walk.
Like the French man you mentioned, I met two walkers who carried no money and seemed to be permanently on the road... there was a real sense of peace from them. I don't think I could do that though.
I did a 3-month walking pilgrimage in Belgium & France this summer. I had very little money and a tent and walked along quiet roads. Several people offered me a room for the night. (I was surprised, I don't know if I'd offer a stranger that) Many came out with food, snacks, fruit when they saw me resting near a church etc.
I used an app as well that allows camping in someone's garden ("Welcome to my Garden"). A few times I arrived to setup my tent and the owner had to leave for an appointment/event. They left me the keys to their house and told me to make myself at home until they returned(!)
That really hit home. I work in data analysis but in the early 2000s did a 4-month cycle in Australia and a 7-month walking pilgrimage in Europe. Since then, I've become addicted to walking for a few months every few years. Love the physical challenge of moving across the landscape. But 'suffer' when I return to abstract data work. Feels like a loss of purpose etc... thanks for that insight... Never thought of it in that way...
Yes if only he had the heart/insight to make that 180 U-turn. It’d bring him some peace at last.
Ah finally - I've had to scroll halfway down to find a key reason big software projects fail.
<rant>
I started programming in 1990 with PL/1 on IBM mainframes and for 35 years have dipped in and out of the software world. Every project I've seen fail was mainly down to people - egos, clashes, laziness, disinterest, inability to interact with end users, rudeness, lack of motivation, toxic team culture etc etc. It was rarely (never?) a major technical hurdle that scuppered a project. It was people and personalities, clashes and confusion.
</rant>
Of course the converse is also true - big software projects I've seen succeed were down to a few inspired leaders and/or engineers who set the tone. People with emotional intelligence, tact, clear vision, ability to really gather requirements and work with the end users. Leaders who treated their staff with dignity and respect. Of course, most of these projects were bland corporate business data ones... so not technically very challenging. But still big enough software projects.
Gez... don't know why I'm getting so emotional (!) But the hard-core sofware engineering world is all about people at the end of the day.
Apparently it's not popular among professional physicsts though John Bell investigated it a bit. Einstein had some unpublished notes in the 1920s about a "Gespensterfeld" (ghost field) that guided particles.
Born was influenced by this 'Ghost field' idea when he published his famous interpretation of the 'Wave Function' |Ψ|^2 as a probability rather than a physical field.
More info: Nonlocal and local ghost fields in quantum correlations. https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9502017
There are some books about walking putting illness into remission. A famous one is "The Salt Path" where someone with "corticobasal degeneration" brain disease was positively impacted by their walk. (Although the claims are in doubt now because the main author wasn't truthful about other aspects of their walk)
Anyway walking probably a real positive overall!
I'm Irish and think we have a similar culture of indirectness and politeness...
In the countryside anyway we're rarely very blunt... everything indirect...
"You'll have a cup of tea Mary?"
"Ah no.. sure I'm only after a drop"
"Ah go on... you will"
"Not at all, I'm grand"
"Go on, go on, go on you will" etc (as in Father Ted)
The Holy Fools were semi-religious figures who acted strangely or pretended to be mad to challenge social norms and express spiritual truths.
They were common in Russia at one time and called: "yuródivyy"
In the West, some examples would be Francis of Assisi and Benedict Joseph Labre.
edit: In the USA I'd nearly call Johnny Appleseed one of the 'Holy Fools' and even Chris McCandless (Into the Wild)
Yes this is soul destroying - the psychological effects are brutal. Not having any little place as a 'base'.
I was homeless in Europe for a few weeks and it really crushes someone. I can see why so many rough sleepers take alcohol / drugs. Just to numb everything. I used to drink a few cans every night before trying to find a place to sleep.
Another crushing thing: as a commenter below said - on average people look down at you as if you were dirty etc. I found that so hard too.
I wish you the very best wherever you are ... really hope your situation will get better somehow please God...
(edit: oh just realised something - not implying the OP takes any substances or anything... just talking in general how I had to resort to alcohol in my situation)
Yes - second this. I found 'Whisper' great for that type of scenario as well.
A local monastery had about 200 audio talks (mp3). Whisper converted them all to text and GPT did a small 'smoothing' of the output to make it readable. It was about half a million words and only took a few hours.
The monks were delighted - they can distribute their talks in small pamplets / PDFs now and is extra income for the community.
Years ago as a student I did some audio transcription manually and something similar would have taken ages...
Although my parents use some archaic words:
"Pass me yon cup please." (Yon as in yonder = that cup)
"It's a bully old day." (bully = good, grand)
"That's a quare setup." (quare = strange)
"Oh aye... that's right." (aye* = yes) *common in Northern Ireland / Scotland too
We use "woe" a lot. (woe = misery)
Em... that's it really I suppose.
Currently paying €1,300 per month for a tiny studio. (I'm told I'm lucky) So hard to build up savings.
The average price for a home in Dublin is now €600,000 according to our central statistics office. Unbelievable.
(The average annual salary in Ireland is €50,000)
Maybe a child could put up with the incarceration if it wasn't for the bullying on top of that too. No escape.
Aside: In the 70s the Headmaster had a cane that was used occasionally but at least that died out later.
But on a more optimistic note, I think there's some 'alternative schools' becoming more popular in Ireland now, like 'Forest School Ireland' etc... sounds more healthy anyway!
Totally agree with that - I maintain a big txt file too.
Maybe this bash compendium is a bit similar:
"Newton developed 3 different versions of his calculus, apparently searching for the best approach; or maybe each version served a different purpose.
- 'Infinitesimals': largely a geometric approach, - 'Fluxions': a kinematic approach, - 'Prime and ultimate ratios': his most rigorous, "algebraic" approach.
The 3 methods weren't always kept apart when solving problems. See: DT Whiteside, Mathematical Papers Isaac Newton."
You might enjoy Tristan Needham's book on Visual Differential Geometry where he really dives into Newton's geometric approach.
Thanks for the other links... must go through them. Lots of gold there.
The author Seth Braver has two nice examples of reasoning with infinitesimals in the book intro - the first few chapters are available for free: https://www.bravernewmath.com/
Time will tell if the study will pay off. In later years of the Physics degree I ended up doing lots of algebraic manipulation without much understanding. Maybe because I had no intuitive 'feel' for the Calculus and it all felt like symbol manipulation ... As another commenter said, somehow infinitesimals allowed the giants like Newton & Lebnitz to work their way to some amazing results (especially about motion...)
Don't really understand why (he said something about unconstrained use of LEM allows discontinuous functions...)
Is there any link to Brouwer's Intuitionism where LEM is rejected too (?!)
Ah it's all an interesting can of worms...
"Full Frontal Calculus: An Infinitesimal Approach" by Seth Braver.
I like his readable style. His poetic intro finally gave me an intuition why infinitesimals might be useful, compared to the good old reals:
"Yet, by developing a "calculus of infinitesimals" (as it was known for two centuries), mathematicians got great insight into `real` functions, breaking through the static algebraic ice shelf to reach a flowing world of motion below, changing and evolving in time."
It's tagline: “Learn programming for fun and the future”
https://archive.org/details/inputmagazine
It had tutorials on BASIC ... and introduced the strange and mysterious world of machine code via PEEK and POKE (!)
It's slightly melancholic, the engineers are aging, the mission's heyday is long past... but there's something gripping about it...
"It's Quieter in the Twilight" (2022)
- according to four people familiar with the talks ...
- according to interviews with 19 people familiar with the relationship ...
- according to five people with knowledge of his comments.
- according to two people familiar with Microsoft’s plans.
- according to five people familiar with the relationship ...
- according to two people familiar with the call.
- according to seven people familiar with the discussions.
- six people with knowledge of the change said...
- according to two people familiar with the company’s plan.
- according to two people familiar with the meeting...
- according to three people familiar with the relationship.Then VB 4.0 started to get popular around 1996 and ruled the roost...
So many technologies... does anyone remember 'SUPRA' from that era! (think it was supposed to be a 4GL language/interface for mainframe databases)