kalonis

I have created Bartib a time tracker for the command line: https://github.com/nikolassv/bartib. I needed something to track my activities at work. All other solutions that I tried out where too complicated as they often targeted whole teams, included accounting options that I don't need or were just an usability nightmare.

When I created Bartib I tried too keep it as simple as possible which meant for me a CLI tool. Choosing a plain text file with a really simple structure meant I didn't need to implement all features right away but could always fall back to edit the file in vim.

I pretended to often that I had figured everything out and didn't need any help. Although this worked out ok, I would have surely learnt more if I had more often admitted that I was stuck and asked for some input.

This is his personal website with some of his caricatures: http://www.arnofunke.de/

They had both, but some new hire confused them.

A good read. In case anyone is wondering where they have hidden their rss feed, it's: https://plus.maths.org/content/rss.xml

This article sounds convincing but I don't find it really hard to refute these weak man arguments:

“I hate people who frivolously diagnose themselves with autism without knowing anything about the disorder. They should stop thinking they’re ‘so speshul’ and go see a competent doctor.” - "you're so right! That is why I did a lot of research before I diagnosed myself. I'd really like to see a doctor about it as soon as I can."

"I am a proud atheist and I don’t like religion. Think of the terrible things done by religion, like the actions of the Westboro Baptist Church. They try to disturb the funerals of heroes because they think God hates everybody. But this is horrible. Religious people can’t justify why they do things like this. That’s why I’m proud to be an atheist.” - "these people are totally nuts! I as a Christian can not understand how they can justify their actions. No way this is something real Christians would do."

And so on...

There is a subpage with examples from various shows: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Flanderization/LiveAc... It discusses each main character from friends (and Gunther of course) in regards to this.

The Jacobin - jacobinmag.com/ - for the socialist perspective and analysis.

That is not human nature. That is avarice. Your intuition that "everybody does it" does not make it right.

The sum they pay for the citizenship. Just look at some of the Caribbean islands. Selling citizenship can be quite lucrative.

No, it won't. It will incentivize governments to help rich people from all over the world avoid taxes.

> You sort of inherently act differently if you were bought up rich. Its hard to describe exactly but you tend to be more (blindly) self-confident and just behave a bit differently compared if you were brought up in a lower class family.

What you describe here is the concept of symbolic capital most famously examined by Pierre Bourdieu: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_capital

I really agree to all the points in the article. But I would add another one: Today it is so much easier to find someone online to speak to in your target language. There are many facebook groups (and certainly other ways) to find people interested in a language tandem via Jitsy/Zoom/Skype etc. Surely, it is nicer to meet someone in person in a café or bar, but it is much easier to meet online, especially when you are working a full time job and have to integrate these meetings in an already tight schedule.

Judging generative art on how complicated the code is that it is generated by misses the point. For the "art" aspect the code is just a tool. It can get quite complicated but it does not have to. Other aspects as "controlled randomness" are far more important.

Concerning the "I could have done that in an hour" objection: Most photos are taken in less than 1/250 seconds but no one would use this as an argument against the artistic status of a picture.

This essay by Tyler Hobbs contains some thoughts on generative that I found insightful concerning the relationship of art and code: https://tylerxhobbs.com/essays/2019/code-goes-in-art-comes-o...

Just watching someone doing the real thing is one of the most prominent strategies to avoid doing the real thing.

It is not enough to watch someone very skilled do the real thing. You have to imitate them: Reading a lot of great novels will not make you a better writer. Instead write a story in the style of any writer you admire and you will learn a lot while still doing the real thing. The same is true for almost any art you want learn.

I am really looking forward to read the blog post "design software like it is 20s" where someone found my commits from this year and (hopefully) comes to the same conclusion.

In my experience this is not only true for memorizing theoretical knowledge but for physical skills too. For example, if you learn the piano simply playing pieces you know won't make you a better piano player. To get better practicing really has to be difficult. This can be achieved either by learning new pieces or by making the pieces you know more difficult to play (e.g. play them faster, try to play them in a different style etc.)

There are no adults in the room (https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/2019/08/12/there-are-no-a...)

During my career I was always looking for some senior developer to guide me in my work. I was hoping someone has figured everything out and could tell me whether my solutions where good or bad. It frustrated me that most of them did not really have a clue and could not help me. I blamed it to my company which would not invest the money to hire really good senior developers and switched employers. I hoped to find better learning opportunities there (which I thought meant better guiding). But it was the same everywhere: The people who I thought had everything figured out seemed to be just as clueless as me.

It took me some time to realize this is the norm. There is no one who has the perfect understanding of everything. There is a lot of uncertainty to any solution you try out. Accepting the uncertainty and acting accordingly is the true meaning of "seniority".

(I am so glad the title is not "Userdir URLs considered harmful".)

Could we sink the trees in the ocean? The water would prevent them both from rotting and burning.

As I used Anki to learn a lot of math and computer science related topics one of the most valuable features has been its integration of latex and the possibility to type formulars.

The thing I missed the most about anki was any possibility to edit and manage my cards in plaintext files. I would have really liked to type my cards with a real texteditor like Vim instead of the integrated gtk text input field.

I use anki for around seven years now and it has proven to be the best learning technique for me so far.

When I went to university I still believed that understanding is everything and learning will happen en passant. I read many books, pondered long about them, and forgot everything a month later.

Five years ago I started studying again (computer science) and as anki has already been usefull in learning programming for me I used it extensively during my studies. Instead of taken notes on paper I just marked important facts while reading and made anki cards for them afterward. Sometimes these where simple atomic facts like "What is the definition of XYZ?", sometimes they demanded a longer answer "How does x yield y?". It took me about 20 to 30 minutes each day to reherse my cards (while commuting to work) and learning has never been that easy.

I soon realized that understanding a fact or each step of a proof the first time you read it is not as important as often stated. Understanding often only came with learning because anki forced me to think about these facts daily. That was much more effective than pondering hard about them once.

I made a deck for each course the day it started and archived it after the exam. But not only did this help me during the exam I also forgot far less of what I have learned afterwards. Overall I would say that learning with flashcards took only about a fifth of the time it would have taken with other learning techniques that have a stronger focus on understanding (mind-maps, active reading &c.)

Many of the comments relate this adage to situations where the rules explicitly prohibit some behaviour. I always assumed it is meant for situations where the rules are not settled yet or unclear. If I ask in such a situation for permission someone may forbid it. If I do it anyway I brake not only a rule but show that I do not accept my superiors authority. It would have been better to act in uncertainty about the rules. The result of my actions could vindicate my behaviour and help clarify the rules for the future. In the few situations were I offend someone I could still plead to ignorance.

Another tip for finding business ideas: be good at ms excel and offer people with a non technical background your help with their existing spreadsheets. As far as I see it seven out of ten spreadsheets contain at least one idea for a simple saas product. Those spreadsheets have often been tailored to fulfill exactly the needs of a certain industry but the people who created them know they are far from perfect and are often willing to pay for a more convenient solution.